Amazon Star Part 2 Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! It's hard to believe that summer will be here soon! We are in my most miserable time of year right now. It's pine pollen season here. The yellow pollen is EVERYWHERE! I park my car under a tree and it was just covered this morning when I went to the grocery store. I have to drive for a little while with all of the windows closed to shed most of the pollen, then I have to use the wipers to clear the rest of the windshield. If you start with the wipers, you get a bunch of the yellow pollen where the wipers end and it won't fly off on its own. I trimmed Grace's toe nails this morning and she still has some pollen on her back from having to lay on her back on the porch. She was completely yellow when I was done and the pollen is waxy so I couldn't brush it off with my hands. I also had a window open in the kitchen yesterday and every surface is covered in a light coating of yellow pollen even though there was no wind. Crazy stuff! And I'm allergic so I've been coughing and sneezing and fighting a headache and itchy eyes. Luckily this only lasts a couple of weeks and I'll be in Kansas City for a week. I'm hoping for a quick season so all of the pollen is dropped before I get back! Then I'll just have to do the clean-up. It's a pain, but it's beautiful enough up here to make up for it!

This week I concentrated on my Amazon Star quilt designed by Judy Niemeyer. I was able to finish part 2 of the instructions. Part 2 consisted of making 8 of these units:

Amazon Star - Part 2 Unit

Amazon Star - All Part 2 Units

These units took a lot long to make than I expected because I had to first understand the directions and make the units. Then there was a lot of time removing the papers. I used glue on the pieces when sewing because I was having trouble with the fabric shifting, and then I had some trouble releasing the paper from the fabric.

Amazon Star - Paper and Glue Remnants on Back

I removed as much of the paper as I could, but I couldn't get it all. While I'd rather have everything clean on the back, it's not worth putting in too much effort on this since the glue will dissolve in the wash and any paper that doesn't disappear will just sit in the batting. After making the units, they were attached to the part 1 units:

Amazon Star - Completed Units

I also gat a start on part 3 of the instructions:

Amazon Star - Part 3 Units Started

The part 3 units are 4x4 Lone Star units. They will go between the part 2 star points, with some other units in between. As the dark fabric in the next units are added to the quilt, I think the light star points from part 2 will really start to glow. 

Nancy

Jungle Magnolia Month 3 Finished

 Hi all -

We've continued to see a lot of rain here. Boy, is it green! And I have a lot of beautiful wild flowers in the yard! The weather is just now starting to move into our normal June cycle of dry, clear mornings with some thread of rain and thunderstorms in the afternoons. I love that mix!

I'm excited that I'm staying up-to-date on my Jungle Magnolia BOM (Block of the Month) designed by Judy Niemeyer. I don't usually keep up with things like this, so I'm pretty happy with myself right now. To finish it, this week I finished putting together the D units:

Jungle Magnolia - D1 Units

Jungle Magnolia - D2 Units

Then I had to attach the D units to the other finished units:

Jungle Magnolia

You can really see the quilt coming together! We had our monthly BOM small group meeting today so I finished the prep work for next month's units and started on the prep work for the following month. Since I have the entire pattern, I can do the prep work (which consists of cutting apart all of the paper foundations and the unit templates, which come on large sheets of newsprint) early so I can get right to piecing when the fabric arrives each month. There's a lot of prep work for Judy Niemeyer patterns!

I found it a little confusing starting up again on Jungle Magnolia after the time off between fabric packets, so I decided to go ahead and buy the fabric for my Amazon Star quilt also designed by Judy Niemeyer and get started on that one.  I started by purchasing the fabric:

Amazon Star - Purchased Fabric

The pattern calls for 17 different fabrics. Since this isn't a perfect world (why not???), the store didn't have colors that matched exactly what I was looking for. Luckily, they had a table where I could set the bolts out as I tried to figure out which fabrics would work for each color. I then had to load those in the shopping cart carefully to keep the order intact and then had to make the clerk cut the fabric in order and keep the stacks in order. I like to prewash my fabrics, so I bought a little extra of each one to account for shrinkage. When I got home, I took the fabrics out of the bag in order and wrote the fabric number in the corner on each piece with a Sharpie. I could then wash the fabrics without having to worry about the order. I could also have clipped a little square from each fabric and pasted them to the sheet in the pattern that is designed for this, but some of these fabrics are pretty similar so using the Sharpie ensured that no mistakes were made. When the fabrics came out of the dryer, I carefully folded each piece and put a numbered clip on each so I could keep everything organized.

Amazon Star - Washed and Folded Fabrics

Amazon Star - Numbered Clips

I bought these clips years ago and they really are useful. I can write whatever on the tabs with a wet erase marker and then wipe them clean with a wet rag when I'm done. Now, as with Jungle Magnolia, it was time to prepare the pattern pieces. Did I mention there's a lot of prep work in a Judy Niemeyer pattern?? Luckily, this pattern is a lot less complicated than the Jungle Magnolia pattern! I was able to get the prep work done in just a couple of hours. First, I had to cut out the paper foundations and put them in the designated bags to keep thing organized:

Amazon Star - Foundation Papers

Then I had to cut out the cutting templates. After cutting out the templates, I clipped them to the appropriate fabric so I can easily find them when I need them.

Amazon Star - Cutting Templates with Associated Fabric

The pattern then has you do all of the fabric cutting at once, but I'm going to just cut the fabrics needed for each part as I do the piecing. I'm hoping this will allow me to audition the fabrics for each unit along the way to hopefully catch any colors that aren't working. I was able to piece the units for the first part of the quilt:

Amazon Star - First Units

These are the center units for the quilt. They are just laying next to each other as they aren't sewn together until later. I'm liking the colors so far!

I've also continue working on my Flying Beauties cross-stitch kit. You can now tell that I'm working on the first butterfly:

Flying Beauties

I love watching the picture come to life when doing cross-stitch! 

I also did some work on my Flower Pincushion designed by Sue Spargo:

Flower Pincushion

I'm now done with the embroidery. The next step is to applique a length of ribbon to the bottom piece and then I can put everything together. Then, of course, it'll be time to start a new project (or 2 or 3....)!

Finally, I started another crochet blanket. This one is the Kalme Throw designed by DeBrosse.

Kalme Throw

Kalme Throw - Stitch Pattern Close-Up

This is an even simpler blanket than my last one. It is just the same stitch repeated for 190 rows.! There's no border on this one so I can easily add extra rows if I have extra yarn and want a longer blanket.

Nancy

Jungle Magnolia Month 3 Started

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We continue to have a lot of rain up here. Everything is so green! I've been having fun buying flowering plants and putting them in pots on my deck. They are so cheerful! And so far they don't seem to be tasty-looking to the moose, so that's really good! I hope it stays that way, but if not, it was a fun experiment.

This week I received the month 3 fabric for the Jungle Magnolia BOM designed by Judy Niemeyer. I had a long wait to receive my package this month because the post office in Denver decided to send my package out west to Kremmling, CO instead of sending it to me. So what should have taken a day (I'm only an hour from the shop that sends it), ended up taking a week. I have a lot of trouble with the post office in Denver sending my packages all over the place before they come to me. Very frustrating! But I got my fabric on Friday and got started on it this weekend. This month's bundle included two "chapters" - E and D (the chapters are named from the inside out, but we are constructing the quilt from the outside in). I was able to finish the E units:

Jungle Magnolia - E1 Units

Jungle Magnolia - E2 Units

These units look the same, but they are slightly different and they are mirror images. I got these units attached to the previous units. Here is how a corner of the quilt looks so far:

Jungle Magnolia - Corner Units So Far

This quilt really is pretty spectacular! I also got a start on the D units:

Jungle Magnolia - D1 Unit Components

Jungle Magnolia - D1 Unit Components

I was hoping to have this month's units finished for this blog post, but all of the trimming, gluing and removing papers takes a lot more time than you would expect! But I'll be finished with this part soon enough.

While waiting for my Jungle Magnolia package, I was able to finish my Peach Sorbet Throw designed by Janine Myska.

Peach Sorbet Throw

It didn't take too long since I only had a couple more stripes to add and then the border.

Peach Sorbet Throw - Border

The border is thin, but it stabilizes the edges of the blanket and looks pretty.

I've also been wanting to do some cross stitch again. I looked through my stash of kits and pulled out the Flying Beauties kit. I did all of the prep work and got a small start on the stitching.

Flying Beauties

It doesn't look like much yet, but that yellow blotch will grow to be a beautiful butterfly's wing. I wanted to try using knitCompanion (the software I use for keeping track of my place in the pattern when knitting and crocheting) to keep track of my progress on this, but I couldn't get the chart to scan in square so I could set it up in the app. I was too lazy to learn how to clean up charts so I just went ahead and started working on it the old-fashioned way with the paper pattern. But I do want to learn how to do this so I'll have to spend some time on this sometime.

Nancy

Some More Bags

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! We've been having rainy weather here. It's been raining and foggy off and on for a couple of days now and it looks like it is supposed to continue throughout the week. Unusual for us, but very welcome! We also had a visitor in the yard this morning. We had a beautiful bull moose munching away when we got up. I had to keep Grace in the house until he left, but he only stayed about an hour. I was lucky enough to look out the front door as he was walking by the house so I got to safely look at him from about 6 feet away. I just love living up here!!

I was able to make a few more of the Twice As Nice Pouches designed by Aneela Hoey. These are the little bags I'm making for the ladies in my English Paper Piecing (EPP) group. The first one I made was for myself. I've been wanting to make this bag for myself for a while and I'm in the EPP group, too, so it was the right time!

Twice As Nice Pouch - For Me

I also decided to make one of these for a friend of mine who has a birthday in early June. She's not in the EPP group, but she's a quilter and a knitter, too, so can always use a bag. I choose a fabric that depicts an underwater scene because she and her daughter just finished their entries for the 2025 Cherrywood Challenge. The theme this year is The Abyss.

Twice As Nice Pouch - For A Friend

The final bag I made is for my good friend who is in the EPP group. I gave her a Twice As Nice Pouch for her birthday in February so I wanted to make a different bag for her. I decided to make the Peek-a-Boo Bag designed by Terri Staats.

Peek-a-Boo Bag

I used a firefly fabric since she loves fireflies. I made one of these bags for myself years ago and I keep a small EPP project in it. I think it's really cute and hope she likes it, too!

Since I'm making these bags, it makes sense that I should also make some progress on my EPP project. So I did some more work on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein.

La Passacaglia - Rosette 2

After I finish this round, I just have one more round and the rosette will be complete. The next round is another star round (like the green and pink round after the black round), so it's a more complicated round. I'd decided to use solid fabrics for all of the star units in this quilt so I'll probably use a solid darker purple for that round. Then I'll find matching printed fabrics for the pentagons and diamonds in the round. Although this is "rosette 2" in the pattern, it will be my first finished rosette for the quilt. I started with rosette 2 because it is one of the larger rosettes. There are four large rosettes in the quilt. I'm planning to make them first because I think that'll give me a better idea of how everything is looking when picking out fabrics for the smaller rosettes. This rosette is now too big to fit in my project bag without folding it. I'm thinking that after I finish the rosette, I'll probably make a new project bag that is big enough to fit the rosette flat so that I can keep all of the units together nicely while I'm making them. Any excuse to make another bag, right!!

I've also been thinking about another quilt that I want to work on. My Jungle Magnolia BOM is getting me excited to work on another Judy Niemeyer quilt.  I purchased the Amazon Star pattern from my quilt guild's online auction a couple of years ago. Someone had the pattern in their stash and decided that they weren't going to make it, so they donated it to the guild and I picked it up in the auction. I had been scared to start it since the Judy Niemeyer patterns are so complicated, but now that I have some experience with them I realize that they really are easy once you figure them out. Since I'll need to purchase the fabric for this quilt, I installed PhotoShop on my computer and started playing around with fabric colors. The pattern includes a schematic page that you can use to audition colors, so I scanned the page and opened it in PhotoShop. Then I had to remember how PhotoShop worked (it's been several years since I've used it) and figure out how to do the things that I wanted to do. There was a lot of fumbling at first, but now that I have everything set up, I can just pick a color from the top of the image and change the color and it will change that color throughout the quilt image. Here are the colors that I deicded to use:

Amazon Star - Chosen Colors

There are several "repeated" colors. These will be fabrics with very similar color and value, but with different pattern to make the quilt sparkle. I'm planning to use all batiks. I'm visiting the family in Kansas City next month so I'm planning to make a trip to Missouri Star while I'm there to pick up my fabrics. If you're a sewer or quilter and have never been to Missouri Star, it's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area! It's basically a small town that is also a quilt shop. The entire main street is shops that are all parts of the store. There's a batiks shop, a baby fabrics shop, a Christmas fabric shop, and so, so much more! I'm always excited to go there (although my bank account isn't so happy about it....)!

Finally, I made some more progress on my Peach Sorbet Throw designed by Janine Myska.

Peach Sorbet Throw

I'm getting so close on this one! Just a couple more stripes and I'll be done with the body of the throw. Then I'll just have to add the border. It'll feel good to have a big finish!

Nancy

Lots of Twice As Nice Pouches

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well. We're still in the middle of spring, with hot days intermixed with colder ones. We had some light snow last week. It was fun because I woke to bear tracks in the snow on my front porch. Looks like he was just walking by, taking no notice of the door and there was no damage to the car or shed so it was all good. I always wonder what goes on in the yard at night!

This week I mostly worked on the Twice As Nice Pouches designed by Aneela Hoey. I was able to finish five more pouches for my English Paper Piecing (EPP) group. This one is for a lady who loves bright colors:

Twice As Nice Pouch #1

This one is for a lady who is also a knitwear designer:

Twice As Nice Pouch #2

This one is for a lady who has a cat:

Twice As Nice Pouch #3

This one is for a lady who works at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum and loves quilt history. She works with a lot of reproduction fabrics. I've never seen her work with 30's reproductions, but that was all I had in my stash so I hope she likes it:

Twice As Nice Pouch #4

This one is for a lady who went birdwatching in the morning before our last meeting. The red fabric actually has faint chickens on it:

Twice As Nice Pouch #5

That's everyone that was at last month's meeting except for my close friend who got one of these bags from me for her birthday earlier this year and myself. I have fabric cut out for making one of these for me and I'm going to dig through my pattern stash to find a different bag to make for my friend. There are some other people in the group who often don't show up for the meetings. I'll probaby make a couple more of these bags, just in case, and then look at the email confirmations before the next meeting to see if I have enough. I don't mind having a few of these bags for myself and I could also give them to my sisters. And I have another close friend who has a birthday coming up next month so there might be one of these in her future, too.

I also made some progress on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein. I'm really getting excited about finishing this first bit rosette, but I still have a long way to go even with just this one:

La Passacaglia

This rosette still has another round of pentagons and then another round of stars before it is finished. But there are "only" three of the large rosettes in the quilt, then I can work on the smaller ones which will feel pretty speedy after these large ones!

Finally, I continue to make progress on my Peach Sorbet Throw designed by Janine Myska:

Peach Sorbet Throw

I was able to finish several repeats this week:

Peach Sorbet Throw - Weekly Progress

I just have a little over five more pattern repeats to go! (A repeat consists of one white stripe and one colored stripe, so four rows of crochet.) So, at this rate, I should have the body of the blanket finished either next week or the one following. Then we'll see how the border goes.

Nancy

Low Motivation Week

 Hi all -

Well, this has been a low motivation week for me. Since I got caught up on Jungle Magnolia and now have to wait for the next fabric shipment, I found myself struggling to decide what I wanted to work on. Luckily, this was the week when all of my all of my quilt guild's monthly small groups met so I did get make some progress on my projects. We did end up getting some good snow last week so I ended up missing my Quilts of Valor (QOV) group meeting on Thursday. But I made it to the English Paper Piecing (EPP) meeting on Friday and the Block of the Month (BOM) meeting yesterday. It was really good to see everyone at both meetings!

At the EPP meeting, I made some progress on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein.

La Passacaglia - Rosette 2

There's a LONG way to go on this project! But I'm loving it more and more with each added round! At the meeting we talk about a lot of things. I was talking about the bags I like to make. When I got home, I had the urge to make a bag for each of the people in our group. I keep wavering on whether I want to do this because it's a lot of bags, but I did get started on some bags this weekend. I enjoyed making the Twice As Nice Pouch designed by Aneela Hoey for my friend for her birthday, so I decided to use this pattern. The first bag will probably be for the host of our group who loves the color green.

Twice As Nice Pouch

Twice As Nice Pouch - Inside

I probably need to continue this venture since I cut out a bunch of pieces of the vinyl, interfacing and fleece. But I would have to make something like 10 bags, so we'll see how it goes.....

Since I'm caught up on Jungle Magnolia designed by Judy Niemeyer, at the BOM meeting I decided to do some preparation for the upcoming months of the project. Although we receive the fabric in a packet each month, we already have the entire pattern, including all of the papers used each month. So I decided to start preparing the papers for future months at the meeting, which saved me from having to schlep my sewing machine to town. There's a lot of work just in the preparing of the papers, so I'm glad to get a start on this! Next month will be a really simple month for our colorway of the quilt. We will just be sewing 16 seams, making 8 each of two mirror-image units:

Jungle Magnolia - Chapter E Papers

(The other colorways will be piecing a checkerboard for the larger pieces next month.) After that, things will get more complicated! Here are the prepared papers for the next month:

Jungle Magnolia - Chapter D Papers

And I just got a small start on the next month's papers:

Jungle Magnolia - Beginning Chapter C Papers

I still have two and a half months of papers to prepare, so I will continue this task at our meeting next month. I'll be really happy to have these already ready when the fabric arrives!

I did continue to make progress on my Peach Sorbet Throw designed by Janine Myska. 

Peach Sorbet Throw

I keep track of my weekly progress on this blanket by moving a stitch marker to my current position after taking each picture.

Peach Sorbet Throw - Weekly Progress

I'm getting closer and closer to finishing this project! I'm on repeat 27 of 36, so the end is in sight. Then I'll just have to add the border.

Finally, I have a couple more blocks for my inset circles quilt.

Inset Circles Blocks

This makes 17 of the 30 planned blocks finished.

I'm still deciding what I'll work on this week. I have the fabric picked out for the next Twice As Nice Pouch so that should be finished. And, hopefully, more of these. But I'd also like to make progress on the circles quilt so I can put away that ruler. And there's so many other things I want to do! I just know that I'm lucky to have so many things I can do!

Nancy

Jungle Magnolia Month 2 Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We're still in the midst of our erratic spring weather in the mountains! It's been beautiful for the last couple of days, but a change is coming in this afternoon and we're supposed to get up to 7" of snow tomorrow. Of course, I had an appointment to get my winter tires taken off of my car tomorrow, but that has been rescheduled now so no driving up the canyon in the snow with my summer tires. This snow is sorely needed so I'm hoping the rescheduled appointment will trigger another storm!

My top priority continues to be my Jungle Magnolia BOM designed by Judy Niemeyer. I was able to finish the Month 2 sewing. I already had the Month 2 units created last week and had started assembling them with the Month 1 units. So this week I finished the assembly step:

Jungle Magnolia - H4/G2 Units

Jungle Magnolia - H1/G1 Units

Our instructor had a great tip for sewing the H and G units together. When doing the assembly, you remove the papers from the pieces before assembling (the most tedious part of the process!!). But when the papers are removed, you lose the match points that are printed on the papers that are useful when sewing the curved seams. She suggested that we glue just those "corners" to the fabric to help with sewing the units together:

Jungle Magnolia - Curved Piece With Glued Smart Corner

Then you can see exactly where to sew the corner:

Jungle Magnolia - Smart Corner Sewn With Guide

Once the corner is sewn, you can remove the paper. I thought this was a great tip to pass along to others who might do Judy Niemeyer quilts! My personal tip to pass along is that a wooden cuticle stick is great to use when separating the paper from the fabric in places where you have used glue. They are also useful for tight places that aren't glued. Here are the units for one of the corners laid out so you can see how everything will come together:

Jungle Magnolia - Corner Units

Now the long wait for the next month's packet to arrive! Looking ahead in the pattern, it looks like next month will be pretty quick. After that, things will get interesting again!

I was also able to finish my Fading Strips shawl designed by Beata Jezek.

Fading Strips - Blocking

This was a fun and easy shawl to make. And the garter stitch pattern makes is squishy soft!

I also keep plugging along on my Peach Sorbet Throw designed by Janine Myska.

Peach Sorbet Throw

It's hard to see the progress on this blanket since I only seem to get a few rows finished each week, but it will still be done before I know it! I really do like how soft and cute this blanket is!

Finally, I was able to make a couple of quick projects that I needed to make before my next trip to visit my family. Last Christmas I made a couple of trivets for one of my sisters. I made them as a thank-you for always letting Grace (my dog) and I stay with her and for cooking a lot of wonderful meals for us. My other sister saw them and wanted some for herself so I made last weekend. First, there's the Hot Stuff Trivet. This trivet is quilted and has a silicon insert to protect the table from the hot dish:

Hot Stuff Trivet - Top

Hot Stuff Trivet - Back

You can buy the silicon insert with the pattern or you can get a refill of just the insert. Of course, I wasn't expecting to make another of these so I had thrown away the pattern and had to buy it again. This time I'm keeping it even though I don't expect to make another one of these! The other trivet is a simple rope trivet:

Rope Trivet

These are really easy to make and there are a bunch of books out there to tell you how. I happened to use Zigzag Rope Sewing Projects by Katherine Lile. For the fabric highlights, I used some of the fabric from the Hot Stuff Trivet and added some other matching scraps so that the two trivets go together. One tip I have when making rope trivets and bowls is to take the rope out of the original package and rewind it on something like this Christmas lights holder:

Rope Wound on Christmas Lights Holder

I found that when I used the rope directly from the package, I had trouble with the rope twisting and I had to fight with it a lot. If you unwind the rope from the original package and put it on the lights holder, you can relieve the twisting in the rope and it's easier to work with. At least, that's what it felt like to me. This was my first time using the rope from the lights holder so I don't know how I'll feel about it when I have more experience.

Nancy