WIP Wednesday

I’m on a finishing roll!! I pulled out  my unfinished project of New York Beauty blocks. I discovered that I have 26 finished blocks, so I need to make 2 more. But in the meantime I laid them all out on the living room carpet and sewed together what I have so far.



These blocks date back to the year 2012. They were a combination of 2 different challenges. One was a challenge to sew up different New York Beauty blocks and the other was a colour challenge. Judy at Patchwork Times posted a picture every month and each month we were to make a project using the colours in the picture. So each month from January to June of the year 2012 I made New York Beauty blocks in the colours for the month. You can see a post with the picture for one of the colour challenges here. The story behind it is quite funny. I’ve chosen the last 2 blocks I’m going to do and have printed off the foundations for them. 
 I just have to find fabrics that will coordinate with what was done over 8 years ago. Then this one can go into the ever growing pile of quilts waiting their turn on the long arm. I’m linking up with the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday.

What I’m working on

I have finished the Leftovers Sampler. I took it upstairs into the front hallway to get pictures. It is the only space in the house large enough to be able to spread a quilt out for pictures. I had to do a bit of editing for the colours since it is such a grey and gloomy day out.



 After the top was finished I still had some orphan blocks left over, so I pieced them into the back. I have had the fabrics hanging around for a long time, so I grabbed all the Civil War type colours of fat quarters that were in my stash and pieced them into the back as well.



I’ve also been doing a temperature quilt that records in colours the high and low temperature of each day. January and February are done and sewn together.



My friend Susan who lives way out in Alberta sent me some quilt photos on Saturday. One of them was a photo of a New York Beauty quilt. It reminded me that I had started one of those years ago. According to this trusty blog the last time I had it out for photos was in June of 2012. This is what it looked like then. There were 22 blocks at that time.



I went digging for the blocks and discovered that I had added more blocks to it since this picture was taken. I counted 27 total. If I want to continue with the layout in this photo, which I really like, I’ll need one more block.

I’m linking up to Monday Making and Design Wall Monday.

WIP Wednesday

I’m continuing to work on the Leftovers Sampler. I now have the fourth row done and attached.



I’ve started on the 18 inch squares for the last row.


I have one more 18 inch square to do and some smaller filler blocks that will be 8 inches square and then some flying geese and this will be done. I am going to be intensely piecing the backing as well in order to use up more orphan blocks and also to empty out some of the fat quarters and yardage that I would like gone from the stash. What a lot of fun this has been and such a great stash buster.

I’m linking to the Needle and Thread Network’s WIP Wednesday

Design Wall Monday

I’m continuing to work on my Leftovers Sampler using up, in the process, all kinds of orphan blocks and projects and scraps and fat quarters and anything else I can get my hands on. I’ve completed another 18 inch block.



And have the beginnings of another.



This whole project has been designed and laid out using Electric Quilt 8 software. The overall look I’m going for is this quilt.



It is using up 6 inch, 10 inch and 12 inch blocks that were already made and sitting in various boxes.I’m making 18 inch and 20 inch blocks to fill in and add extra scale. Those large blocks have the added advantage of using up tons of scraps and fat quarters that have been hiding deep in the stash for many years. Some of the blocks in the computer mack up have been coloured to match and others haven’t. i’m having loads of fun doing this and may have become just slightly obsessed by the project. It may just get finished by the end of March.

I’m linking up to Monday Making, Design Wall Monday and Oh Scrap. And then I think I’ll finish that partially made block.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I finally chose the fabrics for the flower head for this section of Hold Onto Your Heart. I knew I wanted purples, but I couldn’t find the right purples in the fabrics I already had out. That meant I needed to go to my storage area under the stairs and dig out the purples box. Why is it that the colour I want is always the one on the bottom behind all the other boxes? (sigh) Anyhow, after I made a mess by pulling out the boxes, I found the colours I wanted and got busy making a flower head.



The background fabric for this project actually adds a whole other dimension. I love the teddy bear and the tea set sitting beside the flower.

I also finished my sweater this week.



I still need to weave in all the end bits, a job I’m not too terribly fond of. That’s it for my slow stitching this week. I’ll link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

WIP Wednesday

One of the bonuses of working on machine stitched quilts rather than hand stitched quilts is that there is progress to show faster. I’m working on a sampler using up old orphans and also some new blocks. I’ve gotten a second and third row done now and the rows are sewn together. I’m calling it my Leftovers Sampler.

I am really working outside my comfort zone here. I love all things balanced and symmetrical, and this quilt is neither of those. It is all different sizes and grids and because there is so much variety in it, I think it works.

I have finished the quilting on my Pioneer Log Cabin, a design by Judy Martin. It ticks all the boxes of balanced and symmetrical and I love it! It is quilted with all over Baptist Fans.



I exhausted all of the reds in my stash making this, so there will be an outing to a quilt shop to buy some red for binding.

Once I post this I’m going to start on the next row for my Leftovers Sampler. I’m linking up to the Canadian Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday.

What I’m working on....

For the last few years most of my sewing and quilting time has been taken up almost exclusively with hand pieced projects. While doing La Passacaglia I fell in love with the process of English Paper Piecing and it took over all my quilting time. But in the last few months my love of machine piecing has been renewed.
Back at the end of November I started working on a Log Cabin quilt designed by Judy Martin. It is in her book Extraordinary Log Cabins. Its name is Pioneer Log Cabin. The picture here shows it without the borders on yet. I was in such a hurry to get it loaded onto the long arm that I didn’t take pictures of it with the borders. And of course there is the problem of finding floor space big enough to take a picture of the whole thing. Once the quilting is done I’ll take it outside and spread it out on the snow for a glamour shot.



I loved the process of piecing this quilt so much that the entire quilt was pieced within the space of 2 months. It measures 96 x 96 inches. I’m quilting it with very simple and classic Baptist Fans which compliment the curves in the pricing quite well.

Last week I was doing some blog surfing and came across a block of the month from A Quilting Life. I thought it looked and sounded like a fun thing to do. It’s been ages and ages since I’ve done a block of the month. She is offering the blocks in three different sizes; 6 inch, 12 inch or 18 inch. Well that got me to thinking about all of the different blocks that have been started and abandoned over the years, some of which are 12 inch and others which are 12 inch. I went digging in the black hole in the back of the furnace room and found them - lots of them. So rather than follow along month by month with the Quilting Life BOM I’ve used it as a spring board to use up these odds and ends of blocks.  This is her January block, done in the 18 inch size along with a 12 inch and 2 6 inch blocks of my own.



Once I established that I liked the look and the concept I dove into my EQ8 computer program to find more blocks that would look good in the 18 inch format. By the end of Friday evening I had the first row done. The lighting isn’t the greatest in the next photo.



On Saturday I worked on a couple of other 18 inch blocks for the next row.



This project should go fairly quickly since I have a lot of the blocks already done.

I’m going to link up to  Monday Making and Design Wall Monday before getting back to more 18 inch blocks for this quilt. It is going to be so much fun to see this one grow.