Finished "A Newspaper"

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We had some colder weather last week and it tried to snow, but we never got more than a fraction of an inch. Today, we're having high winds and it looks like we're in for some really nice spring weather for the next week. Grace (my dog) and I will enjoy it!

I was excited to finish my quilt, "A Newspaper," this week. It had been sitting around almost finished for years and I had never found the time to finish it. I was spurred on to pick it up again when my quilt guild had a "New-To-Me Technique" challenge. I had set this quilt aside at the point where I was going to put on my first scalloped binding so this challenge was just the impetus I needed to pick this up again and finish it:

A Newspaper

A Newspaper - Back

After putting on the binding, I still had to do a bunch of quilting in the center of the quilt. I decided to just to stitch-in-the-ditch quilting so the quilting wouldn't fight with the vibrant piecing of this quilt. I called it "A Newspaper" because it's black and white and red all over. (That was my favorite riddle when I was a kid.) I really love the vibrant colors and the motion in this quilt! This was a really fun quilt to make. I picked a few common quilt blocks (nine patch, sawtooth star, log cabin, pinwheel, broken dishes) and I played with the fabrics in the units to create variety. For example, here are my sawtooth star blocks:

A Newspaper - Sawtooth Star Variation #1

A Newspaper - Sawtooth Star Variation #2

A Newspaper - Sawtooth Star Variation #3

A Newspaper - Sawtooth Star Variation #4

It was a lot of fun to see how the block changes with the changes in how the units are colored! Some had very high contrast like the first variation and some had very low contrast like the second variation. Once the blocks were made, I used foundation paper piecing to add the oddly shaped sashing. When doing the paper piecing, the pieced filled in the space for a single fabric on the paper. I hope that makes sense! I had to carefully place the pieced block on the paper and securely pin it in place to avoid cutting off the points. Of course, my piecing isn't great to begin with so there were points cut off before I even started that part, but it still turned out really good. I really love this quilt! The bold colors really sing to me and I love looking at all of my fun black and white fabrics. 

I was also able to finish an embroidery that I started during COVID. This is Bountiful Fruit designed by Alex Anderson. 

Bountiful Fruit

During COVID, Alex started doing live YouTube videos several times a week and we worked on different projects together. It really was fun and a welcome distraction during shut down! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this. My leading thought is to make a ByAnnie Project Bag with it.  The embroidery would be the part of the bag that shows through the vinyl. I think that would be fun.

Another thing I finished this week was my Desert Blossom Blanket designed by Rohn Strong.

Desert Blossom Blanket

It felt good to finish this one! It was a frustrating crochet because of all of the mistakes in the pattern, and I also ended up running out of the gray yarn before I finished the final border. I couldn't bear to rip out the border and redo it with another color, so I made a "design decision" and finished the border in the light orange color. You can see that in the right-hand part of the bottom border in the picture. I love the softness of the yarn and have enjoyed cuddling with the blanket now that it's done! I have another crochet blanket in my queue that I will probably start this week....

Finally, I started a new little cross stitch project. This project is a set of three sachets that I think will make nice stocking stuffers for my sisters next Christmas. The kit includes the cross stitch supplies as well as the lavender for filling the sachets. The cross stitch cloth came already partially sewn into the sachet shape:

Pansy Sachets - Cloth Original Shape

I tried to do the cross stitching with the sewing done, but I found it too difficult to get the needle into the correct stitch with everything in the way. So, I went ahead and removed the stitching and did the cross stitch flat. I finished the first sachet to make sure that I didn't cause any problems by doing that:

Pansy Sachets - First Sachet Finished

Everything worked well so I also started working on the second sachet:

Pansy Sachet - Second Sachet Progress

These are pretty quick to make so I should have all three finished by next week. I'm glad I'll have some pretty hand-made things to put in my sisters' stockings next Christmas!

Nancy

Animals in My Barn

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We're half way through March and no big snows at my house yet. We've had several minimal snows, but nothing worthwhile. March is generally our snowiest month, so hopefully something will come through soon. While it's nice to not have to shovel, we really need the big snows to reduce the fire danger.

When I went to a local quilt shop a couple of weeks ago, I came across a cute panel for making a soft book. It looked perfect for my great niece who is now 4 months old, so I picked it up. This weekend I knuckled down and put it together. It's called "Animals in My Barn."

Animals in My Barn

It has several flaps to open to reveal some of the animals and the sounds they make:

Animals in My Barn - Pigs Flap

There are three finger puppets:

Animals in My Barn - Finger Puppets

And a horse and cow to play with:

Animals in My Barn - Cow

There are pockets to store the finger puppets, horse and cow:

Animals in My Barn - Pocket

I mostly followed the directions for the panel, but did line the pockets and finger puppets to make them more durable. 

I also finished my little Flowering Shrubs embroidery:

Flowering Shrubs

This was a lot of fun to make and I look forward to working on the other two scenes that came with it! Then I'll have to figure out how I want to use them!

I also made some more progress on my Ruffled Roses designed by Sue Garmin. This project will be put away for a while so I can work on my Jungle Magnolia BOM when that arrives, so I wanted to get to a good stopping point. I was able to put together all of the pieces for the four-patch border that I have been working on:

Ruffled Roses - Four Patch Borders

I can't add these borders to the quilt until I finish the preceding applique border, but here's how it's looking so far:

Ruffled Roses - Current Progress

I finished the four-patch border before finishing the applique border because I was working on this at our monthly BOM small group meeting and I didn't want to get to the meeting and find out that I didn't have all of the applique supplies I needed. So, I'll have to go back to the applique border and really concentrate on this after I work on the Jungle Magnolia quilt.

Finally, I've made a lot of progress on my Desert Blossom Blanket designed by Rohn Strong. 

Desert Blossom Blanket

I'm making good progress on this blanket and should have it finished by next week. There are only a few rounds left. Since I like to have things as centered as possible and every number in the last section of this pattern is wrong, I have to evaluate the stitch pattern and calculate where it should start on each side before I can begin each round. I have markers in each corner and in the center stitch on each side so I can check for mistakes in my math and in my stitching as early as possible to reduce the amount of ripping I have to do. I'm really enjoying the variety of stitches and the feel of the yarn while making this blanket!

Nancy

"My Sister" Wallhangings Finished

 Hi all -

Well, tax season is here. I spent a day this week getting my taxes figured out and mailed in. I wanted to get everything in while there are still people working at the IRS so I can hopefully get my refund some time soon! It's always a big relief to get that done!! We're also getting into college basketball tournament season. My team, the Kansas Jayhawks, are in the Big 12 and their tournament starts today while March Madness starts next week. I'm going to be watching a lot of basketball! The Jayhawks have been having an up and down season. They started the season ranked #1, but are now unranked for the first time in 4 years. 😥 Hopefully they'll be up for the rest of the month!! I won't bore you with too much basketball news here, but this means I'll probably be doing a lot of hand work in the next several weeks.

I'm happy to have a finish this week. Actually, it's two finishes! Of course, the projects were small, but I'll still take it! I finished the My Sister wallhangings for my sisters:

My Sister - Stash Fabric Version

My Sister - Kit Fabric Version (Drunk Orientation)

The quilting isn't great, but I still love how these turned out! I ended up using hanging triangles rather than hanging sleeves:

My Sister - Hanging Triangles

These are just triangles of fabric that are sewn into the binding, but open on the diagonal. I hang my wallhangings using thumbtacks (the old-fashioned flat head kind, not push pins). I can just slide a thumbtack under each triangle and then push them into the wall.  It's really easy to do and doesn't do much damage to the wall. If you want to use a nail in the wall, you can get a small wooden dowel from the hardware store and cut it to fit the width of the wallhanging and hang that on the nail. This is a lot easier than a hanging sleeve! Since I had already put the binding on the first wallhanging when I made this decision, I had to unsew the binding at the corners, slip in the triangles (I resewed over the stitching attaching the front of the binding to the quilt to make sure the triangles were strongly attached  to the quilt) and then resew the binding to the back.  But it all looks great and should be strong (not that strength is really needed in wallhangings this small, but I can't help myself....). I'll give these to my sisters the next time I visit.

Ii also spent more time working on my Desert Blossom Blanket designed by Rohn Strong. I'm now working on the border rounds:

Desert Blossom Blanket

There are 20 or so border rounds, so there's still a lot of stitching left. And it's a bit frustrating for me because the numbers in the pattern are off for all of the border rounds. In order to make the square, you increase two stitches in each corner on each round. If you didn't do this, you would get a box instead of a flat blanket. But the numbers in the pattern, while having you make the extra stitches in the instructions, only add 4 stitches to the total stitch count on each round. I'm hoping this will end up not being a big deal. It really depends on the stitches used in the round and whether they depend on having a certain multiple of stitches. Oh well, however it turns out it'll be soft and warm!

Yesterday was our BOM/Mystery Quilt small group meeting with my quilt guild. This is a monthly meeting where some of us come together to work on our own BOM (Block Of the Month) or mystery quilts that we have in our stash. I've been working on my Ruffled Roses quilt designed by Sue Garmin. This was the 2011 BOM from The Quilt Show. I started it back then, but it got put aside as other priorities popped up. Currently, I've only been working on this quilt at our monthly meeting so the going has been slow, but any progress is welcome! This month I worked on the 4-patch border. I had already stitched the squares into pairs, so yesterday I got all of the pairs of squares stitched into 4-patches, I cut all of the setting triangles and I started stitching on a few of the triangles:

Ruffled Roses

It doesn't look like much, but I'm happy with the progress. There are 72 regular 4-patchesand 4 4-patches with the colors moved around (the ones in the upper right of the photo), so it did take a little time. I'll try to finish this border at home, but then this quilt will probably be put aside again as I start work on the Jungle Magnolia BOM that I mentioned last week. We get the first fabric set for that quilt at the end of this month.

Since I went to town for the BOM meeting, I also made some progress on my Flower Pincushion designed by Sue Spargo:

Flower Pincushion

This is my travel project so I make progress on it whenever I go to town for a meeting. I'm a little weird so on meeting days I go to town in the morning and don't come back until the meeting is over, even though most of the meetings are in the afternoon. I do this because I take my dog to daycare and it costs almost the same for a half day as it does for a full day and I want her to be able to play as much as possible. It's a 45 minute drive to town, so I drop her off, go out for breakfast, run any errands and then go to the library and do some hand stitching until time for the meeting. It's actually a nice day for me! And once a month I use that time to get a pedicure. 😎

Finally, I was wanting to work on something new at home so I looked through my collection of kits. I was thinking I wanted to do some cross-stitch, but then I came across this embroidery kit and I decided to work on it instead:

Flowering Shrubs

This is just a cheap kit that I got from Amazon, so I don't know who the designer is. But I'm really enjoying working on this! There are 2 more designs in the kit, so I have plenty to do!

Nancy

Started "My Sister" Wallhangings

 Hi all -

Boy has the weather been beautiful this past week! It's been warm with bright blue skies that can't be beat! But we get a reality check today. We're supposed to get 5-10 inches of snow starting this afternoon, with more snow coming later in the week. I'll miss the sun, but we always welcome the moisture!

I was cleaning out a cupboard last week and found some wallhanging patterns and kits that I had forgotten about. There are several from Sharon Schamber that I'm excited to work on and another by Frieda Anderson that will be fun. But I decided that I needed to make the My Sister kit designed by Bloomin' Minds. I had picked this up years ago to make for one of my sisters, then put it away and forgot about it. But I think that serendipity was at work because this wallhanging is more perfect now than it ever was. I decided to make one for each of my sisters. Here is my progress on the one using the fabrics in the kit:

My Sister - Kit Version

With the movie "Wicked "out now, this seems like the perfect gift! We grew up watching "The Wizard of Oz" together every year on TV and, after moving around our entire childhood, our family ended up landing in Kansas so it really fits us! For this version, I still need to quilt the green area and the outer border and add the binding and hanging sleeve. Here is the version using fabrics from my stash:

My Sister - Stash Version

This version just needs quilting in the green area and a hanging sleeve. Since I just needed to do some simple embroidery and some fusible applique, these have been pretty quick to make. The most tedious part was stitching the double blanket stitch around the applique pieces:

My Sister - Blanket Stitching

I used a double blanket stitch because I feel like it is the most secure way to stitch down fusible applique, except satin stitch which I've never been able to do nicely. I like the double blanket stitch better than the regular blanket stitch because it builds up more thread around the edge of the applique, which I think protects the edges of the applique from fraying better. I used So Fine thread, a thinner thread, because I have lots of colors and it's a bit thinner than some of my other threads so the build up isn't too thick. I'll let my sisters decide who gets which version of the wallhanging. I personally like the green fabric and the fabric used for the shoes better in my stash version and like the purple fabric and the outer border fabric better in the kit version. It'll be interesting to see what my sisters think!

I also spent some time this week working on my La Passacaglia EPP quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein. I finished the first rosette that I was working on last week:

La Passacaglia - Rosette 1

I pulled out the papers from the center and the black round since those are complete enclosed by the star round. I pressed the rosette, making sure that the seam allowances go in the desired directions and that everything is clean and flat. It really looks and feels wonderful!

La Passacaglia - Rosette 1 Back

I also steam press the papers after I take them out to flatten out any folding from when I was doing the stitching and to close up the holes from the thread basting a bit. I think this makes the papers easier to reuse if I need them. There should be enough papers in the kit to not have to reuse any, but you never know when you'll lose one or if I might want to make just a part of the quilt for some other purpose some time in the future.

I also did a little more work on my Flower Pincushion designed by Sue Spargo:

Flower Pincushion

I just keep plugging along on this one!

I also made some progress on my Desert Blossom Blanket designed by Rohn Strong:

Desert Blossom Blanket

This one has been a little bit frustrating because, like my previous crochet blanket from the same designer, there are errors in the pattern. I wasn't sure how to handle one of the errors so I contacted the designer and he replied with the answer almost immediately. He seems to be a really nice guy and I appreciate his quick help, but I probably won't make any more of his patterns unless they are really incredible because I'm anal about patterns being correct. I get really frustrated when I have to reverse engineer the instructions.

Finally, this isn't anything that I've actually done, but a friend and I are doing a BOM with our local quilt shop. We had to sign up and start paying last fall, but didn't get the instructions until this month.

Jungle Magnolia - Instructions

 The quilt shop did it this way because this is a very expensive quilt kit so the individual payments aren't as onerous spread out over the extra months. And the sewing is divided into just 6 months so we're paying like a regular full year BOM. The pattern is Jungle Magnolia designed by Quiltworx. The pattern is very thick and heavy! Each section of the pattern shows the quilt in a different colorway and the instructions include the fabric requirements for each one. The BOM includes video classes and zoom sessions for help with the pattern, which will be recorded so we can watch them any time. This is my first Quiltworx quilt, so the extra help will be much appreciated! Now we just have to wait until the end of March (shipping is on the 25th of each month) so we can start the sewing....

Nancy

Finished Summer Blossom Mandala Blanket

 Hi all -

It looks like the country is warming up this week. I'm certainly loving the beautiful sunshine and the longer days! Spring really is on the way!

This week I concentrated on finishing my Summer Blossom Mandala blanket designed by Rohn Strong:

Summer Blossom Mandala

It looks small, but it ends up being the perfect size for a throw when I use it on the couch. And when I wash it, I'll lay it out flat to dry and that will make it a bit larger. This blanket is a bit ornate for my esthetic, but it's a wonderful way for me to get better at crocheting and it's not boring to make. Here are some close-ups of the details:

Summer Blossom Mandala - Center Detail

Summer Blossom Mandala - Mid-Blanket Detail

Summer Blossom Mandala - Edge Detail

The yarn used for this blanket is an acrylic/wool blend that is really soft and seems like it will be warm. It was also really easy to work with.

Since I finished my Summer Blossom Mandala, I decided to start another fancy crochet blanket that I had in my queue. This one is the Desert Blossom Blanket, also designed by Rohn Strong:

Desert Blossom Blanket

This one uses a different yarn that is 100% acrylic. The yarn is fuzzy and soft and I think it will make a really nice blanket. So far it's been a bit difficult to work with because it seems to have more trouble with static. As I crochet, the static pulls the old ends that are hanging down to become tangled with the yarn I am crocheting with. But that's becoming easier as the piece gets bigger because the ends are getting further apart. And I like to pull the yarn from the center of the skein so I'm probably getting less static as the yarn in the skein center gets looser.

Finally, I've made some progress on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein. I've almost finished the outside ring of the first rosette:

La Passacaglia - Rosette 1 Outside Ring

I really like how the first rosette is looking:

La Passacaglia - Rosette 1

This is just the first rosette in a large quilt, but I really like how the colors are looking! There are several rosettes like this one throughout the quilt. My plan is to have several of the black rings scattered through the quilt to draw the attention across the quilt. There are also multiple rings of stars. I plan to use different solids for the star points in each of the rings. I think this will add some cohesion to a very busy quilt. And all of the fabrics will be from Tula Pink, so there will be variety but all of the colors will go together. I'm pretty excited about this quilt and hope to put more time into it, but I also have so many different projects that I'm excited about that I don't know if I'll achieve that. We'll see how it goes!

Nancy

Binding Finished on A Newspaper

 Hi all -

It's definitely winter this week! We've had snow off and on for the last couple of days and it's been snowing all day today. We're not expecting a big dump, but we're expecting some snow for the rest of the week so it could add up to some good moisture!

I spent most of last week putting the binding on my A Newspaper quilt. I expected it to be a challenge, but I didn't expect it to take a whole week! The sharp inner points were a challenge, but the biggest problem was the thread I used. Even with relaxing the thread by running my nail down it and adding Thread Magic, I as fighting tangles and knots all week! Of course, a smart quilting would just change to a different thread, but I'm very head strong and was determined to keep with my initial choice. I did finally get through it and the binding is now finished:

A Newspaper

A Newspaper - Back

The inner points aren't perfect, but I think they look pretty good:

A Newspaper - Front Close-up

A Newspaper - Back Close-Up

Another contributing difficulty to putting on the binding was that both the binding and the border are high quality batik fabrics. They're beautiful fabrics, but are a bit difficult to get the needle through. I used a thinner needle to make that a bit easier, but that's also harder on my hand. I've never learned to use a thimble so the needle tends to poke through the skin on my middle finger when pushing the needle through the fabric. I recently heard about Thimble Tape as an alternative to using a thimble. You are supposed to cut off about six inches of the tape and wrap it around your finger to form a thimble. That sounded perfect to me so I gave it a try. It didn't work for me at all! The tape is a gauze tape like what you might use to wrap a wound. The threads in the gauze are far apart and I found that the needle just poked through the holes between the threads of the gauze and did nothing to protect my finger. I was using a pretty small needle, but I can't imagine this tape would help with any size needle. I've got lots of the tape so I'll try it again sometime, but I'm not hopeful for this purchase. As far as A Newspaper is concerned, I now need to finish the quilting. It shouldn't take too long to finish, but I'll probably put it aside for a little while to work on some other things before going back to it. I jsut need to have it finished by the April meeting for my quilt guild so I can include it in the "new-to-me technique" challenge.

I also did some work on Spicy Chips (my potato chip quilt). I had the top finished last week, so this week I worked on the backing and the binding:

Spicy Chips - Top, Backing and Binding Finished

I wanted to get the binding and backing finished now so I could integrate the left over fabric back into my stash. I did the binding first so that I could get the longest pieced possible. This quilt was made from two half-yard sets of fabric, two colorways from a fabric collection. I had cut a bunch of "bricks" from all of the fabrics that I randomly pulled for making the blocks. So all of my fabrics, after cutting the bricks, were around 20"-30" wide. So I cut the binding strips from what was left, using the remaining fabric to piece the backing. I made the binding extra long because there are a lot of seams in the binding. When I put binding on a quilt, if I get to a corner and have a seam in the binding, I'll cut the binding to move the seam away from the corner. I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of binding for that. Finally, I wanted to make sure that I used up all of my leftover bricks in the backing so I started by sewing all of the bricks into strips and then added larger pieces of the leftover fabric:

Spicy Chips - Backing

The backing is a bit chaotic, but it'll work and now I can integrate the remaining fabric back into my stash. I'm not sure when I'll quilt this quilt, so I went ahead and stay stitched around the perimeter of the backing. I don't usually stay stitch my backings, but this one has a lot of seams and the stay stitching really does tame and protect the edges. And it really doesn't take very long to stay stitch around the perimeter of a quilt because it doesn't need to be precise so you can sew at the top speed of your sewing machine, which is kind of fun to do!

I also did a small amount of embroidery on my Flower Pincushion designed by Sue Spargo:

Flower Pincushion

It's not much, but it's amazing how quickly these projects get finished up with just a little plugging away! I thought I would share the bag I keep this project in since I like it so much! It's a "cosmetic travel tote" from Laurel Burch. I don't use any cosmetic, but this tote is perfect for small embroidery projects!

Laurel Burch Tote - Inside

Laurel Burch Tote - Outside

The tote is fairly small, but everything fits easily inside. I have the felt, pattern and all of the thread. I also have my general supplies -- needle roll, Sue Spargo book, scissors, needle threader, air-erasable marking pen, pins, reading glasses, etc. It's perfect for a project on the go! I have several of these totes and highly recommend them.

Finally, I finished a few more scallops on my Summer Blossom Mandala designed by Rohn Strong.

Summer Blossom Mandala

The scallops are fairly quick to crochet, but there are five color changes in each scallop so ten ends to weave in on each. But I'm now halfway done with the scallops, so the end is in sight. After the scallops are added, there will be a couple more rounds around the entire blanket and it will be finished!

Nancy