Design Wall Monday, Sept. 28, 2015

I've started another in what will probably be a series of modern type baby quilts. It's what our daughter has requested for their nursery. Rather than having her pick specific patterns and then fabrics to go with them, I'm working with the colours and theme that she wants and then she can pick her favourites. It's hard for non-quitters to see the vision of what the pattern and the fabrics will look like once together. So, rather than asking, I'm just doing them. One great thing about these modern quilts that have tons of background in them, is they sew up really quickly. I'm so used to doing small pieces and complex designs that this quick and easy thing is fun with almost instant gratification.

I just have three more coloured pieces to place into their surroundings and then can sew the whole thing together. It just might be the proverbial quilt-in-a-day. Actually, no it won't. There are borders to cut and assemble, and I don't think I'll manage to get those done today. So maybe it will be a quilt-in-two-days thing. This quilt, I should mention, is from the Quiltmaker magazine Jan/Feb 2014. It's called "Black Tie Affair", designed by Margie Ullery. The original quilt in the magazine was done all in blacks and whites, with just a smidge of grey. She has a website called ribboncandyquilts.com.
I'm going to link this up to Judy's Design Wall Monday

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Stash and Stitching report, week 39

We were away for the weekend, visiting Avery for another camping sleepover. I had such a good time, I did very little stitching, and took only one picture. The rest of the time was spent playing and watching and laughing. And I have come to a momentous decision....... very little on earth feels better than holding a little boy's hand!  Although holding a newborn baby would be right up there, too. Anyway, that's slightly off topic.
What little bit of stitching that got done, was in the car on the way home. This rosette is ready for its stars. It's one of the last 5 or six that I have to do, depending on whether I do any extras.

Now, lets see, how can I say this in a way I haven't said before......... not much stash out, more stash added in..... how's that? But it's all for a good cause, the baby, as yet unknown whether boy or girl, due for our daughter in January.  She's doing a themed nursery decoration based on the saying "I love you to the moon and back". So there are stars and moons, to go with the grey/yellow/purple colours she wants. I have a couple more patterns picked out, so the numbers should change a bit, soon.


Used this week:                        .2 yards
Used this year:                      62.6 yards
Added this week:                       4 yards
Added this year:                 98.75 yards
Net stash added:                  35.15 yards

I'm linking up to Judy's Fabric Report, Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, and Angie's WIPs Be Gone

On my Needles.

I'm continuing to work on the Pamuya shawl. It's actually to the casting off stage. We're heading out in the trailer for the weekend, going to see our grandson Avery. There should be lots of car time knitting which just might be enough to get this done. It's really hard to tell what the final shawl will look like. It needs a good soak and some heavy duty blocking first.

I've been doing a lot of customer quilting this week, and a lot of stitching on La Passacaglia. No pictures to share of either of those, at the moment. We should be home on Sunday in time for a hand stitching post then.
I'm linking this post up to Judy's On the Needles

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Stash and stitching report, week 38

I seem to be averaging every other week on these posts lately. My hand stitching has slowed down a bit, as I begin to work more on machine projects. There's a commercial on TV here days showing a woman cloning herself so that she can get all kinds of things done all at the same time. I would love to be able to do machine sewing and hand sewing and knitting all at the same time. Sadly, not possible. But I am still leaving Sundays for my hand stitching. I have completed 3/4 of La Passacaglia. Here's a close up of the section I've just finished.   
 I just have the rosettes that go around the top right section left to do, unless I decide to do a few extras to fill in some spaces.  
With that in mind, I've done up a couple of the centre stars needed for the new rosettes. There is at least one more kicking around here that is finished, but it seems to have temporarily gone missing.
As far as the stash report goes, there has, of course, been stash added. No self respecting Grandma-to-be could possibly avoid ordering new fabrics for new baby quilts for a new baby. At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I did use some of that recently ordered stash to make up one baby quilt already. It's a pattern called Ribbon Waltz, found here.

Used last 2 weeks:                         3.3 yards
Used this year:                             62.4 yards
Added last 2 weeks:                       8.5 yards
Added this year:                           94.75 yards
Net stash added:                           32.35 yards

I've already found another design I want to do, so there should be some more stash busted in the next week, or so. And in the meantime, I'm having a blast! And the best of all..... our grandson or granddaughter-to-come gave me a lovely kick hello this morning!!
As usual, I'm linking up to Judy's Fabric Report and Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. Then, it's back to more slow stitching to go with a lovely cup of tea.

What I'm up to....

Today and this evening find me up in the studio. I seem to be getting over the being creeped out up here after dark, which is a really good thing. This morning I started a new customer quilt. An absolutely gorgeous One Block Wonder.

Last evening, after taking an informal Facebook poll, asking whether I should work on La Passacaglia or start a baby quilt, the results came back unanimous for starting a baby quilt. So, I cut out a bunch of fabrics into the sizes needed.

And tonight I sewed them together into blocks, put them up on the wall, and rearranged until it looks balanced with a good distribution of colours. And I think now I'm done for the day.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sneak peak

It's been quiet on the blog lately. It seems to be the thing that is getting neglected when life is busy. I'm working on this quilt right now. It's scrappy in all different shades of blue. The owner wanted waves to bring out the thoughts of water. The piecing is large scale, so I made the scale of quilting large as well. Time to get back at it.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Texas Chain is Finished!!

This gives me such a happy feeling! I started this quilt in January as a New Year's present to myself. And it spent months, literally, hanging around on my design wall. It's one of those quilts that has to be arranged on the wall, and then taken and sewn in a definite order, or it will end up all messed up. Back about a month ago, when we got back from our last vacation trip, I finally got the determination to finish it. And anyone who knows me realizes that when I get determined, that's it. It could also be called stubborn..... ask my husband..... but determined sounds a lot better. (grin)
This quilt was designed by Judy Martin, one of my all time favourites, and is found in her  The Creative Pattern Book. The quilting design is taken directly from a diagram in her book. I saw it, loved it, and wanted to replicate it. The only thing was that it was diagonal cross hatching, ordinarily requiring a lot of time consuming ruler work, and I didn't want it to take that long. So instead of using a ruler, I did a wavy kind of cross hatching, sometimes called "organic".
For the finish, the binding, I used my favourite faux piped binding combined with a diagonally printed stripe. I love how it gives the look of a time consuming bias binding, without doing a time consuming bias binding. If I see a diagonal stripe somewhere in a design or colours I don't have, it comes home with me or gets delivered to me. It's kinda become one of my signatures for a quilt. Speaking of which, I completely forgot to put a label on this one, oops.......
I used a new to me type batting for this one, called Tuscany Wool, from Hobbs. I can't say that I really like the way it behaved while doing the quilting. It has resin added to the surface of the batt, supposed to stop bearding, but it made it act like a stiff polyester batt. The wrinkles from the packaging never fully relaxed, and the quilting came out like a thicker polyester batt. I can see that this batt would have definite advantages for doing quilting that needed a lot of loft, like some of the more modern quilts need.
However, after saying all that, the quilt, now that it is finished, is wonderfully light and airy. I put it on the bed last night, and it was really comfortable to sleep under. I haven't washed it yet, and the instructions say to use tepid water in the machine on a gentle cycle, and lay flat to dry. The gentle cycle I can do, lay flat to dry, on the other hand, is not going to happen, so I have no idea how it will behave in the dryer. I'll have to check my dryer for a gentle cycle, or maybe Matt and Becca's new dryer will have one. So the jury is still out as far as using wool batts. I'll have to work up the courage to put it in the washer and dryer before I know for sure.
I'm going to link up this finish to Crazy Mom Quilts. Then, since I am doing the blog for the London Friendship Quilters Guild this year, I need to go through the photos of last night's meeting, and see which ones are good for use. I was using the guild's camera, so it's not familiar to me for its functions. In case you are interested by the way, there is a free sampler quilt being run on that blog this year, just starting now.