WIP: #leadlightquilt

So I’m testing a quilt pattern called Leadlight for Morgan at Cedar Makerie…

This was the first block I tested – which is only one of two alternating blocks – and I’ve changed the look a little bit…

I am loving how this is coming together… I just need to start making the second block that will finish off the star points and make the whole lead window look come together. I’m just aiming for a baby size version of this, but it looks so good I kind of want to expand it out to a larger size to keep it for myself!

I’m using all Libs Elliot fabric – the colour prints are all from her newest line Greatest Hits Vol. 1, and the white background print is from Tattooed North. So pretty!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday with The Needle and Thread Network.

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Talk to Me Tuesday: 13 August 2019

So for those who don’t know, I periodically make videos where I talk about the things I’m working on or the things that I’ve finished. I share these videos with a group of ladies (mostly from the US, though we’ve had people in Australia and still have people who post intermittently from South Africa and England) at Talk to Me Tuesday. A lot of us are quilters and some do crochet or knitting or various other crafts and it’s a nice way to share things – even if it is a bit unnerving putting my face (and perpetual “but, um, anyway”) out into the world. This has been a really off year for me for posting and it’s been around 2 months between videos (usually I manage closer to one a month, maybe every other week), but here’s my newest, in which I show a couple finishes (not yet posted here!) and a couple things that I’m working on.

• The Comfort Quilt pattern can be found in Amy Ellis‘s book Modern Heritage Quilts
• The Bad Girl quilt pattern can be found here
• Heart Log Cabin block
• Hipster Cat by Shwin and Shwin
• Patchwork quilt following Melissa Marginet’s QAL pattern, with quilting from her book Walking Foot Quilting Designs

WIP: SS Bluebird Patchwork

Pattern Info: Melissa Marginet’s 6×6 charm pack patchwork quilt with borders [Link to original Walking Foot quiltalong]

Size: Baby quilt, about 36.5″ x 36.5″

Recipient: A friend who is having a baby very soon

Ideas about the Project: A charm pack of SS Bluebird from the OG Cotton + Steel – laid out in an ombré from light to dark, with 2 dark borders and 2 light borders hopefully from SS Bluebird fabrics with the extra 4 charms as cornerstones. Planning to quilt with a pattern from Melissa Marginet’s Walking Foot Quilting Designs book (available on her website). It’ll be quilted with a beautiful blue Aurifil thread #2780.

Project Stage: I’m done everything but trimming and binding.

General Thoughts: I’d have liked to have done a quilt with some kind of dog fabric because my friend who is having a baby this summer is super into her dogs. But I don’t know of any good dog themed fabric that’s out right now. Also,.. I already had the SS Bluebird charm pack. Just need to buy backing and borders.

The quilting is a pattern called Bevel – it’s not finished here but it’s kind of an idea of what it looks like in the centre of the quilt. I’ve done something a little different in the borders… and I’m not so happy with them. I didn’t give myself lines to follow and just eye-balled the points I needed to hit and it’s all a bit… hit and miss. I’m hoping that when it’s washed it’ll blend down a little better.

Except for the red block, I did the whole layout in an ombré with the lightest at the top left and the darkest in the bottom right. I pieced everything directional in a particular way except somehow managed to get that ship upside down. Oops.

Finish-Along Q1 2019

So it’s me again… after a long break. Something about the new year makes me want to try blogging again, even though I often find it inexplicably too hard. (It takes toooooooooo long etc.) And then simultaneously I find myself annoyed that I can’t put more information into my Instagram posts without overloading the format. (I mean, IG is NOT built for blog length posts.)

Anyway, another thing about the new year is how it makes you want to get on top of things, makes you want to tackle problems head on. So naturally I’m doing a few finish-my-projects type challenges. One of them is All People Quilt‘s APQ Resolutions challenge, in which you make a numbered list of 12 projects you want to make headway on and then each month they give you a number, which is the project you then try to tackle. The other is the Finish-A-Long, which is hosted by a number of bloggers. I have intermittently participated in both in the past, but nearly always forget to actually link up with my finishes (when I have them…), but hey! No harm in trying again!

Because I only know which APQResolutions projects I’ll be working on in the month I will be working on it, it’s not very practical to combine those projects into the Finish-a-long projects…. unless I just load all 12 projects in each quarter and tackle them as they come up. So that’s what I’m going to do! These are mostly dreadful photos, but here are… well, 13 projects I hope to tackle in the next quarter (and the rest of the year).

1. Blue Nine Patch Quilt — Need to baste, quilt, and bind.
2. Blue Orange Big Block Quilt – Need to make the backing larger, then to baste, quilt and bind.
3. Carolyn Friedlander Patchwork Quilt – Need to quilt and bind.
4. Cat Baby Quilt – Need to baste, quilt, and bind.

5. Christmas Figs Starfish Quilt – Need to add borders and then baste, quilt, and bind.
6. Mermaid Baby Quilt – Need to baste, quilt, and bind.
7. Midnight Mystery – Need to baste, quilt, and bind.. (I might add borders to this one, haven’t decided.)
8. Moda Love Baby Quilt – Need to add borders and then baste, quilt, and bind.

9. Modern Block of the Month Baby Quilt – Need to baste, quilt, and bind.
10. Pink/Black Bear Claw Quilt – Need to make 3 more blocks, then baste, quilt, and bind.
11. Quarter Section Quilt – Need to finish piecing the top, then baste, quilt, and bind. 
12. St Louis Sixteen Patch Quilt – Need to baste, quilt, and bind.

Finally, 13. South East West Quilt – This is a pattern I’m testing for Schneider House Quilt Studio. I need to finish piecing the blocks, then to baste, quilt, and bind. 

My real goal this year is just to finish more and a lot of that is just tackling the quilting. I actually enjoy quilting, but it is time consuming and doesn’t leave me a lot of time for piecing (I need a second machine! and a second table! and space to put it in!), which I also enjoy. I also really despise basting, so I tend to put it off. But an unfinished quilt is not a quilt and if I want to call myself a quilter,… I should probably make some quilts. 

So to that end: my January project for APQResolutions is #3, the Carolyn Friedlander Random Patchwork. 

I pieced this top in 2016 and then never did anything with it, but it’s basted now and ready to be quilted. I just need to decide how exactly I’m going to quilt it. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing sort of… orange peel quilting in the white squares and then doing something more complex in the coloured squares. Or the opposite maybe. But I don’t know… I’m paralysed by indecision, sometimes. 

My other current project is #13 South East West. I am pattern testing for the designer and won’t be showing too many pictures of it while it’s in progress, but at the moment I’m getting my last few HSTs completed so that I can start piecing the blocks. I’m hoping to have the top done by Monday, but we will see how it goes! 

Linking up with Finish-A-Long Quarter 1 at Sarah Goer Quilts.

Talk to Me Tuesday

So I haven’t felt like making a post about any of my recent finishes – three so far this year! – or about any of the bee blocks I’ve been sewing up or anything of the things I’ve been working on, so I thought I’d post this video instead.

I periodically do Talk to Me Tuesday videos with a group of ladies around the world (but mostly in the US), which are basically us talking to each other about the crafty things we’ve been working on. You can find us here if you’re interested!  Anyway, this is my most recent video.

In other life news: I have a mystery elbow injury and spent a bunch of time at an elbow specialist’s office today learning that my elbow dysfunction – I can’t extend my left elbow all the way without extreme pain and even with all that pain I still can’t extend it all the way – does not function like any other elbow issue the doctor has seen and there are no apparent visible issues in any of the tests done so far. I have some elbow exercises to do for a while and then it’ll be back to see if there’s any change. Exciting stuff. On the plus side: it doesn’t affect my ability to do basically anything I love… like say sewing.

Plume Quilt Progress

I film videos about what crafts I’m working on about once a month or so to share with friends in the Talk to Me Tuesday community.  Usually I’m on camera showing things, but this week I filmed a lot about my Plume quilt, with all the focus on the quilting.

In the video I talk about the quilting that isn’t finished and trying to figure out how to finish it. I’ve decided to do straight line quilting every half inch, so I’ve got the inside part of the borders done and tomorrow will get the outside part of the borders quilted. After that it’ll be trimming and binding.

I need to make new plans for the binding. It was supposed to be the same brown fabric as the flanges, but I hadn’t been able to find the binding fabric anywhere. I went looking today again after filming this video and I found some of it… and it’s only about 8.5-inches by width of fabric. Definitely not enough to bind the whole quilt. I was prepared to swear I had at least a half yard of that brown fabric, but I must have…. used it for something. I can’t think of what or why I would have done it, but it doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Frustrating. I have very, very little Plume fabric in my stash, so I have to decide now if I want to just use a solid brown (if I can find a match!) or if I want to use some other Tula Pink fabric in my stash or…. I don’t know. Something else entirely? Brown feels like the right finish, like a frame around the project. Why on earth would I have used my binding fabric for something else?!

Plume Quilt

So my January goal for both All People Quilt’s 2018 UFO resolution and One Monthly Goal hosted by Elm Street Quilts is a very old quilt top that’s been waiting for me to pull up my big girl pants and get it quilted.

I didn’t really have any half-way decent photos of it before (or even now.. most of my current shots have been taken at night in artificial light), but here’s one showing where I’m at this morning.

It’s pretty hard to tell in the picture, but this is a rectangular throw quilt and that yellow square nearish the top is actually the centre point on the quilt. I’ve finished about half the quilting in the centre patchwork portion and am going to run out of thread – Aurifil 6723 – before I get there. After that, I still have both borders to complete. So…. there’s a good chance I won’t finish this before the end of January,… but who cares!? I’m closer to finished than I’ve been in 7 or 8 years! I can’t complain.

All the fabrics in this quilt as from Tula Pink’s Plume line, which was maybe her last line for Moda. I loved it so much that even though I had practically no money at the time, I bought a layer cake and the yardage for borders and backing. I had sold a part of the backing material online but was lucky enough to still have enough fabric to do the backing without dipping into other Tula Pink lines.

So this is what most of the back looks like. The light isn’t great in this photo and it’s making it a bit yellow (I mean, it probably doesn’t look yellow to you, I just know there’s a yellow cast over this photo, which I can’t figure out how to fix in Flickr’s photo editor). You can also in this photo really see the quilting motif that I’m using in the centre portion of the quilt. (I’m planning to do proper feathers in the large outer border and I’ve got two different ideas for the yellow border, which I haven’t made any firm decisions about yet. I need more thread before I can worry too hard about it.)

So I’m basically using an all-over feather-like pattern to quilt in the centre portion. I learned this from a Craftsy class – Ultimate Free-motion Feathers – by Patsy Thompson. I’m really enjoying working on it – it’s a lovely flowing pattern that can tuck into any space you need it to go into and it makes a really beautiful texture over the quilt. My quilting is still somewhere in the learning stage, sometimes things come out beautiful and smooth and nearly perfect and then sometimes they are a bit stiff and awkward and too small, like the feather in the pic below.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at with that. If I get around to it, this weekend, I should also post about my January finish! (Yes, I actually finished something this month! Started and finished!) And then also about the five thousand quilt blocks I made this month. Something to look forward to…

APQ Quilty Resolutions 2018

Okay, so last year I only posted twice. Which is not great. I’d like to do more, but maybe I just need to only expect myself to do picture posts, and then it wouldn’t be so much work, which always seems to be the reason I don’t want to post. Hm.

Anyway, just like last year, All People Quilt is doing a UFO challenge designed to get people working on old and unfinished projects. And I’ve still got plenty of those. So many of those that I only actually finished 1 of last year (and I probably added another… 5 or so to the WIP/UFO list).

I’m actually just keeping the list from last year, but taking away the finished project and adding in one new one. Maybe this year I’ll knock two off the list? Haha.

ONE
All Solids Churn Dash Quilt

This project was begun as part of the Simply Solids Bee in… 2013 (?) and then again in the Stash Bee in 2014. I can’t remember how many blocks I have, either 30 or 42 and they’ll be pieced together like this, staggered with partial blocks on certain columns. I’ve got all my blocks, but need to piece them into a top, which then needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

TWO
Baby Moda Love Quilt

A baby quilt (or very large mini quilt?) using the Moda Love Charm Quilt pattern. It looks brown in this photo, but it’s actually a burgundy/maroon sort of background. I wanted to put a border on this – it’s only 32″ square – but wasn’t able to track down any of the prints that I thought would work best for a border (namely one of the burgundy/maroon-y ones), so it might just stay a small quilt. Needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

THREE
Blue Nine Patch Quilt

This was my first project ever and has been a UFO for over 10 years. The top is pieced (the blocks by hand, even!), just needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

FOUR
Blue-Orange Big Block Quilt
[No existing photo?!]

My second oldest UFO, this was in progress when I moved to Calgary almost 10 years ago. I might be wrong, but I think it’s basted and just waiting to be quilted. For all I know, the pins are rusted into place. I think I won’t like this one much when I fish it out from the closet again, but it’d be good to knock such a long-standing project off the list!

FIVE
Carolyn Friedlander Random Patchwork Quilt

A truly dreadful photo – I should pull this one out of storage just to get a better shot of it. Needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

SIX
Scrappy Log Cabin Charity Quilt

Okay, I haven’t got a decent photo of this, but I’ll upload one when I’ve got some decent light to do it in. This is a small baby size quilt, which will be donated to a children’s charity.

SEVEN
Dad’s Quarter Section Quilt

This one is further along than the picture implies – all the blocks are sewn, they just need to be pieced into rows and then a top and then to be basted and bound.

EIGHT
Doctor Who Quilt

I had big plans for the border on this quilt, so most of the quilt is pieced… just the side border needs to be finished. Maybe the answer will be to scale back the border idea,… but I like that border idea. I guess we’ll see what happens! Once the border is worked out, then it needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

NINE
Halloween Plus Quilt

I usually don’t go for holiday specific quilts, but this one is pretty subtle and in slightly unusual colours – rust, teal blue, deep purple. I don’t have a good photo of it, but the top is completed, it just needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

TEN
Midnight Mystery QAL Quilt

I really don’t like to finish quilts, do I? This is another, yet another, that just needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

ELEVEN
Mom’s Hexi Quilt (Confetti Go Lucky)

This one is getting to be a pretty long standing UFO of mine, and as it’s meant to be a gift, I’d really, really like to get it done! It’s partially quilted, but there’s still a long road to go (because I had the GENIUS idea of quilting it with quarter inch spacing around all the main units.. quarter inch!!). Quilting and binding is all that’s left.

TWELVE
Plume Quilt

I seem not to have a picture of this quilt top, which is about throw sized and has been laying around for several years. I wanted to try to quilt feathers on it, but was terrified of trying. I think I’m finally ready to just give the feathers a go, whether they turn out good or bad. So basting, quilting, and binding is all that’s left.

 

So that is where that is at! Twelve projects desperately in need of finishing! All People Quilt has already revealed their pick for January, so I suppose I can reveal that Number Twelve – the Plume quilt is my goal for January! This is one of my oldest quilt tops, something I put together in the first couple years after I moved to Calgary. (So.. it’s probably 8 or so years old. Well, I guess it would be whenever Tula Pink released the Plume line.)

I’ll also be participating in One Monthly Goal, hosted by Elm Street Quilts and I’m making this my January goal. Because I don’t need to make life harder on myself by having two goals!

APQResolutions 2017

So All People Quilt runs a yearly UFO challenge designed to get people working on old and unfinished projects. And I’ve got plenty of those.

I haven’t been updating in a while, so I’m hoping to get back to updating at least a few times a month and some of those posts will hopefully be about me working on (and finishing?!) some of my UFOs. This list contains just twelve (of many!) and each month APQ will choose a number and that number is the project I’ll attempt to finish in that month, so here’s my twelve…

ONE
All Solids Churn Dash Quilt

This project was begun as part of the Simply Solids Bee in… 2013 (?) and then again in the Stash Bee in 2014. I can’t remember how many blocks I have, either 30 or 42 and they’ll be pieced together like this, staggered with partial blocks on certain columns. I’ve got all my blocks, but need to piece them into a top, which then needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

TWO
Baby Moda Love Quilt

A baby quilt (or very large mini quilt?) using the Moda Love Charm Quilt pattern. It looks brown in this photo, but it’s actually a burgundy/maroon sort of background. I wanted to put a border on this – it’s only 32″ square – but wasn’t able to track down any of the prints that I thought would work best for a border (namely one of the burgundy/maroon-y ones), so it might just stay a small quilt. Needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

THREE
Blue Nine Patch Quilt

This was my first project ever and has been a UFO for over 10 years. The top is pieced (the blocks by hand, even!), just needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

FOUR
Blue-Orange Big Block Quilt
[No existing photo?!]

My second oldest UFO, this was in progress when I moved to Calgary almost 10 years ago. I might be wrong, but I think it’s basted and just waiting to be quilted. For all I know, the pins are rusted into place. I think I won’t like this one much when I fish it out from the closet again, but it’d be good to knock such a long-standing project off the list!

FIVE
Carolyn Friedlander Rando Patchwork Quilt

A truly dreadful photo – I should pull this one out of storage just to get a better shot of it. Needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

SIX
Charity Quilt-as-you-Go Quilt

This quilt doesn’t look like much in photos because I’ve got so little of it done – 1/6th of the rows – and couldn’t think of a good way to photograph a single column of a quilt. It will be donated to a charity that benefits my younger sister (who is disabled). It’s following a slightly modified Herringbone quilt pattern from Maureen Cracknell’s Craftsy class, Quick Quilt As You Go. I need to finish sewing up the columns of fabric, then piece them into a top, which then gets lightly quilting to hold it and the back together.

SEVEN
Dad’s Quarter Section Quilt

This one is further along than the picture implies – all the blocks are sewn, they just need to be pieced into rows and then a top and then to be basted and bound.

EIGHT
Doctor Who Quilt

I had big plans for the border on this quilt, so most of the quilt is pieced… just the side border needs to be finished. Maybe the answer will be to scale back the border idea,… but I like that border idea. I guess we’ll see what happens! Once the border is worked out, then it needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

NINE
Halloween Plus Quilt

I usually don’t go for holiday specific quilts, but this one is pretty subtle and in slightly unusual colours – rust, teal blue, deep purple. I don’t have a good photo of it, but the top is completed, it just needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

TEN
Midnight Mystery QAL Quilt

I really don’t like to finish quilts, do I? This is another, yet another, that just needs to be basted, quilted, and bound.

ELEVEN
Mom’s Hexi Quilt (Confetti Go Lucky)

This one is getting to be a pretty long standing UFO of mine, and as it’s meant to be a gift, I’d really, really like to get it done! It’s partially quilted, but there’s still a long road to go (because I had the GENIUS idea of quilting it with quarter inch spacing around all the main units.. quarter inch!!). Quilting and binding is all that’s left.

TWELVE
Plume Quilt

I seem not to have a picture of this quilt top, which is about throw sized and has been laying around for several years. I wanted to try to quilt feathers on it, but was terrified of trying. I think I’m finally ready to just give the feathers a go, whether they turn out good or bad. So basting, quilting, and binding is all that’s left.

So that is where that is at! Twelve projects desperately in need of finishing! All People Quilt has already revealed their pick for January, so I suppose I can reveal that Number Six – the Quilt as You Go Project is my goal for January! Just as well because it has a due date early in the year, if I’m going to donate it to my charity of choice!

I’ll also be participating in One Monthly Goal, hosted by Elm Street Quilts, and so that same project will be my goal for that linky as well!

OMG: One Monthly February Goal

It’s time for One Monthly Goal again…

Well, I haven’t talked about my January goal, but I did succeed in finishing it! I just need to take it outside and get some decent pictures. And then I need to baste and quilt it.

Here’s an Instagram shot of me comparing thread colours to the finished top!

But for now, a new goal:

A baby quilt for a friend whose baby is almost 6 months now! If I put it off too much longer, I’m going to have to make a toddler quilt instead and that’ll slow me down in a different way!

The plan is to take these Lizzy House fabrics from her Constellations line and add to them some white Kona cotton to…. make a wonky cross quilt. Maybe. Or a wonky hashtag quilt. Or maybe… I don’t know. Something. A quilt, anyway! I really need to make a plan!

I just want to get the top made this month and then maybe in March I’ll tackle actually quilting the thing. But just to get the top, that would be so much better than where I’m at right now! Let’s hope I can make a plan soon!