Wednesday progress....

Last week I showed a picture of the beginnings of the quilting on Grandmother’s Diamond Ring. It’s a pattern designed by Judy Martin, found in her The Creative Pattern Book. Well, it is now finished. Here she is. The roses look fabulous in all the white hexagons. The pieced areas all have continuous curves, as do the smaller filler white areas. It’s bound with a faux piped binding using a diagonally printed stripe, which enables the binding to be sewn on completely by machine. The roses in the borders don’t show up very well on the front. Here’s the backing where everything shows up so well. I’m really happy with this one.
The other major thing I’ve done is finishing all the piecing on the LFQG blog sampler, and it is now loaded onto the machine and the quilting is started. It needs to be done by this coming Monday, since we are leaving for a week’s vacation on Tuesday. I’m hoping I can make it. With that in mind, I’m going to link up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social and also to The Needle and Thread Network, then I’ll have something to eat and get back to work.

Design Wall Monday

I’m on a roll!! A blog post a day for three days in a row!! I wanted to show a picture of the guild blog sampler as it is so far. I had to recruit my husband to help hold it off the edge of the deck to get a full picture, rather than trying to hang it on the design wall where it won’t fit and where there are various machines and objects in the way. Not to mention an ironing board piles with stuff..... you get the idea.... too  much stuff, not enough space and not enough time spent organizing. There is a dark purple border, the same colour as the outside triangles left to go on, and this one counts as done. It looks so very much better in person than it does here.
I’ve loaded yet another of my own quilts onto the machine. Northern Tree Line is getting its turn at quilting. It’s almost halfway done. I didn’t put any borders on this piece, and the half square triangles go right out to the edge. It’s going to be a challenge to get it bound without losing triangle points. There will most likely be quite a few points cut off..... oh well.
I’m going to link this up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday. Then I think it’s going to a more binding evening .

Work in Progress......

I’m back at working at the London Friendship Quilters Guild blog sampler again. In the past week I’ve done up six blocks. There are only 2 left to go, then I can start sewing it together, hopefully at the guild’s sew-in day on Saturday.

These are actually quite fast to do. A little more than an hour for each one. It took me a bit longer since I was taking pictures of each step for writing the instructions. We started this quilt last September at the guild. The instructions for it can be found starting here for the fabric requirements and here for the beginning of the blocks. So far, this has all been made from stash. That is going to change when it comes to the borders. I might have to purchase at least two different fabrics, since I don’t have enough of the right colours in my stash. These current blocks that I just finished won’t actually appear on the guild blog until November and December. I’m working way ahead so that I know everything works and I can get the instructions written up, hopefully with no more errors.
I’m linking up to the Canadian Needles and Thread Network and also to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social.

Design Wall Monday

My poor design wall has a bad case of quilters A.D.D. I have way too many projects on the go, and way too many things that I want to get finished before the guild’s quilt show in October. I have them up on the wall to think about how to finish them and how to quilt them. The Friendship Stars are for the guild’s Comfort quilt program, for members who need a group hug. The current colours for the quilts are yellow and grey for one quilt, and red and aqua for another. There’s a sew-in day this Saturday, so I wanted to get some done before then. We’re hoping to have enough blocks to be able to put together a couple of quilts that day. Two of the red/aqua ones got muddled during construction, and required ripping. Seeing all this stuff on the wall probably threw my brain into twisting fits or something. After ripping, I put them back together and got them back up on the wall, only to find that I have them spinning the wrong way. They are supposed to be spinning left, not right.When I looked at some of the others, I got them the wrong way, too. Rats..... I’m not ripping them out, either.
So, after all that, I decided to take everything down and get back to work on the sampler quilt for the guild. I put up the 27 blocks that are done so far, and then made up one more. That leaves seven to go. I would love to have them done by Saturday, so I can take this and get the body of the quilt sewn together. Then I have to decide on borders. It’s getting late, and I’m going to link this up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday. Then I think I might partially shut my brain off from its spinning in circles the wrong way, and knit for a while.

Works in Progress....

Life here continues to go on at the speed of light. It seems like there simply are not enough hours in a day to do everything. I know for sure that I’m not the only one with this problem. I have been meaning to write up a blog post since last Friday. But every time I think of it, something else comes up, and before I know it, the day is finished, so I think to myself, I’ll do it tomorrow. and of course the same thing happens. Now this past weekend, there was a good reason for it. Our little grandson Avery was here for a visit. Except that he’s not so little any more. He is full of energy, that boy. This os the only good picture of him that I managed to catch. Of all the pictures I took, although there weren’t that many since  I was too busy enjoying having him around, they were all blurry because he was moving so fast. He left to go home Sunday afternoon. I was going to do up a Sunday stash and stitching report that day, and for the life of me, I can’t remember even what I did for the rest of the day. Oh right, now I remember, I spent quite a bit of it talking to friends on Facebook chat. Monday, I spent quietly stitching and trying to get my breath back after the weekend. I’d planned on doing the stash and stitching post that day...... didn’t happen. Tuesday I spent up in the sewing room, working on one of my own projects, interspersed with emails back and forth to APQS regarding the state of my long arm machine. Preliminary diagnosis is that it needs a new motor. I haven’t heard anything since Tuesday when they were planning on putting in the motor, so I’m wondering if they’ve come across the other weird things the machine was doing before I sent it in. I think this is the fourth week without it now, which means I am four weeks behind in all the customer quilts I have waiting here. If you are one of those, I profoundly apologize, but there is nothing I can do, at the moment. When I do get it back, the focus will be on getting all those quilts done.
This is the project I was working on Tuesday. It’s one of my own designs, done up in EQ7. It’s a variation of the Sister’s Choice block. I’ve decided that I’m naming it “Sisters Across the Miles” in honour of my friend Susan in Alberta. I’m seriously contemplating publishing some patterns. I have 5 or 6 that are my own designs that I could write up. The hows and whens are details yet to be figured out. Our son is a fabulous photographer who has offered to do up pictures of the quilts and his girl friend is a web designer. I’m not sure at the moment whether I’ll add them to this blog, or actually do up a website. These are excitingly scary thoughts. At the moment, the trick is going to be finding the time to get the patterns written up.
So, this take me up to yesterday which was also partially spent sewing in the studio, working on the sampler quilt that I’ve designed as a free project for the guild’s blog. The picture here is a bit washed out.I’m trying to stay as far ahead of the publishing dates as I can. It would really be great for this to be done in time for the quilt show in October so that everyone can see what their finished quilt can look like. The instructions for it, should you be interested, can be found on the London Friendship Quilters’ Guild blog. And of course, in amongst all this has been lots and lots of visits and hugs and snuggles with our precious grand daughter Abrielle. She is 4 months old today. How that went by so fast is totally beyond me. Here they are, our daughter Becca and grand daughter Abrielle. So now, after catching up here,  I am going to link up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social and then go get some more work done on that blog sampler.

Design Wall Monday, Feb. 29, 2016

I have two ongoing projects up on my wall right now. The first is the sampler quilt for the London Friendship Quilters’ Guild, which I designed as a project for the guild to do as a bi-monthly project. It started in September, and will continue on until December of this year. If you are interested, the information for it can be found here. It starts with the most recent block and then goes back. Scroll to the very beginning to find details, should you be interested.
Next is my Aunt Lucy’s Medallion, with the first two of the Westering Women blocks in it.                      
I think I’m going to rename it "Aunt Lucy Goes West”.












This last is obviously not on my wall, but on the machine. I’m about 2/3rds of the way finished quilting my Friendship’s Garden.                    It seemed appropriate to quilt a floral quilt with flowers.
I’m linking up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday.

What I’m working on....

I’m continuing to work on the sampler quilt for the London Friendship Quilters’ Guild Blog. It is now halfway finished, for me at least. These last three blocks take it into the summer now, I think. I just need to get them written up and then scheduled. I would like to have it done in time for the guild quilt show in October. That should be doable, depending on what I decide to do about borders. The blocks are 12 inches finished, so without borders it will be 60x84, which would be good enough for a twin bed, I suppose. But I think it needs borders of some sort to finish it.
The other thing I’m continuing to work on is Northern Tree Line. I’ve been using the pieces for this as leader/enders for the sampler blocks. I was planning on putting a few more together tonight until I discovered that I’d put some of the green wing triangles on wrong. There aren’t a lot of them wring, maybe 7 or 8, but it was enough to make me decide that it was enough for the day. It won’t take long to rip them reverse sew them, but it can wait until tomorrow. Another hour or so should see at least ten more of these blocks up on the wall. Maybe tomorrow. For now, I’m going to link up to Connie’s Linky Tuesday and the Canadian Needle and Thread Network. After that, it might be some Tv and knitting time.

Design wall Monday

There is absolutely nothing new on my design wall. Northern Tree Line and the LFQG Blog Sampler look exactly the same as they did several weeks ago. However, I do have one of my own quilts on the machine right now, and spent 3 or 4 hours today working on it. It’s a Great Granny Square that I pieced a few years ago, and then placed into the line up of my own quilts waiting their turn. I’m doing some very fun custom stuff on this one.
After working on this for most of the afternoon, I came down and made supper and then sat down to watch my favourite Christmas Movie. A Muppets’ Christmas Carol. Of all the version of this movie, and characters, it’s my favourite. I think Michael Caine did a great Scrooge. While watching that, I stitched on a few more fillers to La Passacaglia. Once I finish this, I think I’ll switch out to knitting.  I’m linking up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday.

Tuesday news

There hasn’t been a whole lot of quilty stuff done in the last few days. We had a wonderful visitor this past weekend, our grandson Avery. He is very well behaved, easily amused, plays well by himself and with others, and talks non-stop. And when he wasn’t talking, he was singing to himself and he has the typical four year old boy’s love of silly noises. I spent a lot of time smiling and laughing while he was here. There was a little bit of knitting time after he went to bed on Saturday. And then I did a blitz of knitting and stitching on Sunday after he left at about 3 in the afternoon.  Between the stitching and knitting and watching Call the Midwife on Netflix, I kept my mind occupied while Noel drove Avery the 3 1/2 hours to get him home and then another 3 /12 hours to come back again.
I did make a little bit of progress on my Northern Tree Line quilt on Friday. It’s going together quite easily, in between other things, since I’m using it as a leader/ender project. It’s amazing how many half square triangles can get sewn together while making sampler blocks. I got three more blocks done for the London Friendship Quilters’ Guild Blog Sampler. This now takes us up to the end of April. I got them written up and scheduled for their publishing dates today. It’s free and anyone interested can follow along. And that’s about all that’s been going on here.

Wednesday workings

I like alliterations, words beginning with the same letters in sentences are always such fun. Doesn’t take much to amuse me, does it? Monday's musings or how about Thursday thinking...  Anyway.....
I started writing this post on Monday, using my iPad and blogsy. For some reason I couldn’t get  the blogsy app in my iPad to load the pictures, and then someone came to drop off some quilts, and before I knew it the day was over and the post didn’t get written. Then, I meant to get back to it and write it yesterday, obviously unsuccessfully. So that takes me up to today just a few minutes ago and I decided that I would do it, only to be unable to find my camera that I used on Monday to take the pictures. I’ve looked in the most obvious places, and moved a few piles to look under things, without success. So I went back upstairs armed with my iPad to take the pictures, then came back downstairs to use the computer to write the post.
I’ve been working on my Northern Tree Line quilt a little bit at a time when I get a few minutes, using the pieces as leader/ender between other projects. I really really like the way this is looking! I’ve also been doing little bits on the sampler that I’m writing up for our guild’s blog. It’s free and anyone interested can go to the link at the London Friendship Quilters Guild and play along. I’m trying to get as far ahead on this as possible before our grand daughter arrives in January. The top row has been published, so far.
The main thing I’ve been working on though is customer quilts. This one was fun. It’s for a little boy who’s a baseball fan. The quilting design is called “Batter Up”. It has baseballs and bats and caps and gloves. The other thing I’ve been working on is learning a new technique for knitting called Double Knitting. It’s challenging and slow going, but I’m getting the hang of it. I’m hoping to have enough of the project done by Friday for an On the Needles report. In the meantime, I’ll publish this and get back to the knitting.

How did it get to be Tuesday already?

I missed Sunday’s stash and stitching report, but I have a good excuse, really I do. Our son Noel is going away for his birthday this coming weekend....... he turns 36 on Friday.... so we had him over for dinner on Sunday. I did a little bit of hand stitching on La Passacaglia but not enough to show a difference from the last picture I showed. I have one more small rosette to stitch in place around the bigger one, and then I can start adding the filler pieces around the edging. I’ll get a picture of it next week. I did however, get a quilt cut out on the weekend. That one that I showed here, the one that I was silly enough to ask whether I’d start cutting it or not...... well I did. I used the Go Cutter, and cut out the whole thing. Enough to make 100 eight inch blocks. Not only that, but I’ve sewn up eight of them already, only 92 to go.
 I have learned however, that I have to be very careful which way the triangle squares are facing before I sew the wing triangles on and I also have to be careful about which way the wing triangles are facing. Lets just say that there has been some ripping involved and I’m glad I didn’t sew a whole lot of them assembly line style. So far the large green corner squares aren’t showing up as true greens, but they will as more get added in. I found 58 greens in my stash, of all shades and values and tints, and I cut large and small triangles from all of them. I’m mostly just grabbing at random right now, trying not to have too many of the same ones too close together. But I suspect it won’t matter much once I really get going on this. They don’t really take all that long to do, providing I pay attention, and don’t have to rip any more.
My design wall has a bad case of quilter’s A.D.D. In addition to the blocks above, it also has 12 blocks from the LFQG Blog Sampler.
Once I get the instructions for the four I’ve recently finished written up, this will take us to about the end of February. And, as is visible in the left hand bottom corner of the above picture, the Disappearing Four Patch that I’m making for the soon to be grand daughter is also up on the wall. Somehow I don’t think it’s the design wall that has the bad case of quilter’s A.D.D. Oh, and those shorter posts that I was going to write more often, rather than long ones many days apart...... that doesn’t seem to be happening. Oh well......
For the record for this week, my stash numbers are:

Used last week:                    9 yards
Used this year:                    80.1 yards
Added last week:                   0 yards
Added this year:                 110.7 yards
Net stash added:                   30.6 yards

And now, I have to go find that to-do list so that I can remember what it is I have left to do. I think I need to start using the Notes or Lists features of my computer gadgets so that I don’t keep losing the lists. My gadgets all sync with each other, and while I often lose track of where my phone is, I don’t usually lose track of the tablet or the computer. So if I find the list, maybe I’ll transfer it to the computer. Sounds like a plan..........