Quilting Done

After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that I am finished quilting my Blocks in Boxes quilt. It is not quite as heavily quilted as most of my more recently quilts, but I think it works.



And I am finished with the quilting on my friend's quilt. I think it is a lovely. I quilted it a little more densely, I think (I hope)my quilting compliments the pieced work.



I especially think the light thread on the dark flying geese works well (and my photo does not do that justice). The light thread makes the geese pop. If my friend had not given me light thread, I probably would have started with dark thread, but I think this worked better.



Unfortunately by the time I got around to photographing this quilt the sun was moving further west.

My Friend's Quilt Top

Several months, honestly probably something like six months, ago a friend left a quilt top, along with batting, thread and backing at my house so that I could do the quilting. The top is very pretty and larger than anything I have ever quilted so I was terrified, afraid to tackle the big project and afraid that I would muff up my friend's quilt. I was definitely not too excited at the prospect (although I do rather enjoy the process of quilting). As my friend expects to give the finished quilt to her sister, this year, for Christmas, my opportunity to procrastinate is over.



Now that I have begun the process (and am over my first small failed attempt, I am relatively pleased with my progress, even though it is pretty slow progress.) The more I work the more fun it is although my hands actually got sore controlling the big roll of fabric.

Finished Quilting?

I think I may have finished quilting this test run I began quilting before I got on with quilting my friend's quilt top. I think it was the biggest piece I had worked on before I began quilting on Jody's quilt.

Anyhow, I think it is a little less densely quilted than usual, so I am contemplating adding a line of stitches though the biggest square.



Aside from the question of should I do a little more quilting, or not, I am relatively happy with this one, and I think I have the blocks to make a second similar quilt top, but that will be a task for the new year.

Quilting

For the last couple days it has been sunny or sunnyish so I have been a little bit sidetracked from my quilting. This afternoon, I even mowed the lawn, or mulched the few fallen leaves (and actually I guess it has been warm enough that the grass had grown a little since the last mowing). I think the growing season is now over and the leaves in my trees are actually turning green, so they will be falling over the next couple weeks.
While I have been side tracked I have not completely overlooked the quilting. I made some progress quilting this piece -- my biggest quilt to date. I have a slightly larger quilt I need to quilt for a friend waiting impatiently on the cutting table, so I had best get cracking.

Red and Gold

Newest Potholder Block

While working potholders made left overs from the challenge quilt I felt a sudden desire to make something new so I got out some of my Christmas fabric and this was the result. I think I am going to make a few more and a small wall hanging.

A Bright Spot in the Grey Days

This colourful oak leaf is a little reminder of a long ago time, about one week ago, when the leaves were still colourful. Since then the rains have really set in, and now all most all of the leaves that were bright and cheery, have gone shades of dull brown. I needed the colourful reminder because the change in the weather, the general nastiness of the rain, which luckily did retreat today, had me a bit depressed and despondent. And because I was (am?) feeling a little down because I fear the current version of my challenge quilt is seriously inferior to the previously photographed version. I think I have a plan to address some of the problem, which is at least a start. Over the course of the next week I will have a better idea if it is going to work.

Autumnal Oak Leaf

Multi-Tasking

Over the last couple of months I have been working simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, on three different quilt projects:
• a small log cabin quilt with blocks of about 2.25 inches square
• my guild's challenge quilt with blocks that are 8.5 inches square -- conveniently the block size I use for making potholders
and
• a theoretically twin sized quilt made of excessively colourful six inch snowball blocks

With three quilts underway there was a long period when I felt I wasn't making any progress on on any of them. It was kind of depressing. But gradually things are looking up. I think I now have the challenge quilt laid out. The challenge was to work in neutrals, browns and one other colour, the colour I was assigned is indigo. And a big challenge it has been for me working in blues and browns.

Here's the challenge quilt as I laid it out a while ago before I made the last of the blocks



After staring at it a lot over the course of a few days I decided to make first one and then several more substitutions and as a result I now have a bunch of blocks to use as potholders. Then it occurred to me that some of the castoff blocks were all blue and that I had told a friend I would make her some blue, cobalt blue, potholders.

Is it possible that I can use the same blues, in two projects and call them indigo in one and cobalt in the other?

The New Green Shawl

A couple of days ago when my cold had really gotten me down and I was absolutely not up to making quilting decisions -- decisions which seem to take oodles of brain power, I began a new shawl. (I am knitting it as participation in a group making them to donate to those in need.) I started a new one although, my previous shawl, which I have been working on practically forever, is still not finished. It still has lots of ends to sew in, which is incredibly annoying as I bought one of those pound balls of yarn specifically so I would not have to sew in ends. Despite all the ends I was going to buy another ball of the stuff, when I came upon a steal of a deal. I got 7 balls of Lion brand olive green wool ease yarn for something like 6 dollars. So far I am enjoying knitting with this yarn -- which has at least a little bit wool content.



I am a little uncertain about how wide a shawl should be. This one is about 18 inches wide with the ribs collapsed and about 20.5 inches wide as shown in the photograph. Although I am uncertain how wide it should be, since I've already started this thing three times, this is how wide this one is going to remain. I think it will work.



The stitch, Vertical Drop Stitch, is basically a 2x2 rib, except that every 6 rows in every other rib on one side you make an extra stitch in the middle and on the other rib you drop a stitch. At some point I will need to spend a little time making sure all the dropped stitches have really dropped -- unless I just plan on tossing it in the washer when it is done -- that should do the trick

Fall Colours

I have been ill again, but between naps, short walks and bouts of coughing I have been doing some quilting and knitting, and I will get back to making more craft posts by the end of this week. I swear I will.

Autumn is Here

The rains seem to be settling in and the leaves are changing colours, but the temperatures are still moderate, so it is not too bad yet. But I am seriously not fond of splitting wood in the rain.

Signalling II

Signaling I, Detail

Thurday List Day

Sigh, list day is here again, just one wee little week late.
I have been working everyday, mostly on the quilting and not on the garden because my back (or wherever the pain is) has been too irritating to allow me to work in the garden. As I have thought about this list throughout the last two weeks it has been much easier to focus on the failures and the things still undone. But here goes, I have:

• Completed Bright #3 - probably named Fractured Sunlight
• Sandwiched and pinned Bright #3 to its backing
• Completed quilting Bright #2, got the hanging sleeve sewn on and am now tackling the hand work of sewing on the binding and the hanging sleeve
• Completed quilting Bright #1 (I had been having a heck of a time hiding the rayon threads in the sandwich. They would break in the needle before I got them securely tucked in, which meant that I had to take out the quilting and do it all again. I bought some bees wax, and ran the ends through it before threading the needle, problem solved and thus I managed to get the ends hidden.)
• Chose the binding for a kaleidoscope in greens quilt, and got it 4/5ths sewn on.

Goals --
• Work on free motion quilting
• Take photographs
• Quilt Bright #3

Thursday List Day

Once again I have slipped into blogging oblivion. The good news is that I have been working, although I have not finished much. I've been thinking of a way to get myself on to a posting schedule and it occurred to me I could schedule a weekly "list" post. I am pretty good at making outrageous to do lists but this will be something a little different -- the list will be of accomplishments: projects finished, designed, begun, or whatever. I figured celebrating work done would be more uplifting than an ever increasing list of work to be done.
So here goes: I have

• Trimmed Ivy away from the sidewalk (with all the rain we have had this non-summer this has been a hard one to get to)
• Completed the 2nd "Bright" quilt top
• Almost completed the third
• Almost completed quilting the first "bright" quilt
• Begun giving a young person sewing lessons -- I think we are both relaxing into it
• Bound off a prayer shawl to give away (the ends still need to be sewn in)
• Worked a little on a kind of lace work scarf in mercerized cotton

I'll be posting some photos shortly.

Dogwood Blossoms

Brights

This is my newest quilt top. It is loosely based on something I saw in a magazine -- something not so bright, with larger blocks that ran vertically. I am about to lay this one out on the batting and I am currently working on its sibling. The next one has the same blocks but is a little more labour intensive. With some work and luck it will be ready in a couple days.

Clematis

Fractured Landscape

Finally this piece is finished and photographed. Each of the squares is about an inch and a quarter. The first of the half squares were pieces I trimmed off as I was making a bunch of flying geese. I simply cannot throw those little bits away. As I collected the bits and began laying them out, I made squares to order.

I have a large pile of these little squares in a wide selection of other colours -- (I make a lot of geese)lots of yellows and blues. Although I am looking forward to making another, I am going to procrastinate for a bit as this was labour intensive and slow going.

I do not know why I have been absent. Mostly I think it is becauseI have been a little less than pleased with my photos. In addition I had a beast of a cold, which lasted practically for ever, but that is behind me and I am continuing to work on the photography, and the quilting. I even have been doing some knitting.

This is my first log cabin quilt finally nearing completion. Each block is about 6 inches -- actually a little less I think, so it is a little less than 36 inches semi-square.

Spring is Progressing

More crocuses are blooming.

Spring

Spring, is arriving.

Gift Bags

These are the bags I made to hold and wrap my Christmas gifts.



I enjoyed making them and I like how they turned out, and once the bags were made wrapping presents went soooo fast, but they sure did take away from my quilting time.