Jungle Magnolia Month 1 Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! I didn't do anything to celebrate, but Grace did get some pretty cute pictures taken at doggy daycare last week!

Easter Grace

Easter Grace

They take some pretty great pictures at daycare! We continue to move into spring in the Rockies. We had about a foot of much-needed snow over the weekend and today is bright and sunny and it's already 50 degrees out (at 10:30 am). Looks like we'll have rain and snow off and on for the rest of the week. I think things will start looking green after that!

I had some marathon sewing days this week and was able to finish the first month's units for my Jungle Magnolia BOM designed by Judy Niemeyer. We're working from the outside in so these are the units for the outside border.

Jungle Magnolia - H1 Units

Jungle Magnolia - H2 Units

Jungle Magnolia - H3 Units

Jungle Magnolia - H4 Units

Everything in this pattern is foundation paper pieced, including the checkerboard pieces.

Jungle Magnolia - Making Checkerboard Units

It was time-consuming, but the checkerboard is perfect. The narrow dark curved pieces are also paper pieced and this was a new technique for me. Judy has you sew basting stitches on the curved piece and on the base unit as match points. You then remove the paper from the curved piece and pin the pieces together at the match points. You glue the seams between the pins, and then you turn it over and sew on the line on the paper on the base unit. You hold the pieces up a little right in front of the presser foot while you're sewing to keep the bottom fabric from shifting. I tried doing this with the first couple of units, but I got tiny puckers in the seams at the roundest part of the curve. These were small enough that I could have left them in, but I knew they would bother me so I picked out those stitches and resewed them. For the rest of my curves, I followed the above steps but then also added pins to keep the bulk of the fabric from shifting before doing the sewing:

Jungle Magnolia - Pinning Fabric Bulk On Curves

This took a little extra time, but all of my curved seams turned out perfectly after that. When I finished the units and was trimming them up, I got a little crazy with the rotary cutter and started cutting on the wrong line of one of the units:

Jungle Magnolia - Bad Trimming

Oops!! At first I thought I would have to replace this piece. This would be difficult because there aren't any extra templates in the pattern so I would have had to use the template I had used before to cut a new piece. Since the template had already been glued to the previous piece and was ripped where the basting stitches had been made for matching the seams, this was going to be a bit of a pain. But then I realized that this was so small that I could just sew a small patch over the cut and most of it will end up in the seam allowances as the units are put together:

Jungle Magnolia - Repair

I'm really happy to have finished this part! We still haven't gotten the videos about cutting the fabric for the checkerboard or for any of the sewing, but the instructions in the pattern are good once you start to understand the different options and which one you are working on. The next fabric packet is supposed to ship at the end of this week. I look forward to moving on to the other units!!

Since I got my Jungle Magnolia units finished, I looked for another sewing project to work on this weekend. I've been thinking about making another tortilla warmer since the one I made doesn't fit the larger tortillas that I've been getting lately. Now seemed to be the perfect time!

Tortilla Warmer

Tortilla Warmer - Inside

I used the instructions from Bernina's We All Sew project blog. The important thing to remember when making one of these is that you have to make sure you use only cotton supplies since this will go in the microwave. This includes the batting, where you have to use a batting specifically designed for going into the microwave because regular cotton battings have a plastic scrim that holds the cotton in place. I also have a collection of premade bias tape that I thought I could use on the project, but then I checked the label and the bias tape was 50% polyester so I had to make my own bias tape. When I use the tortilla warmer, what I do is pour some water into the warmer and squish it a bit to get the water into the batting. Then I pour out any excess, put in the tortillas and microwave on high for 60 seconds. This warms up the tortillas without drying them out. I look forward to trying out my new one! I used some glue when sewing on the binding so I need to wash it before I can put it in the microwave.

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

Peach Sorbet Throw

I've made it to the halfway point in the body, so I'm on the downhill side now. This is my favorite crochet blanket so far.

I've also made some progress on my Fading Stripes shawl designed by Beata Jezek.

Fading Stripes Shawl

I'm almost to the halfway point on this one, too.

Nancy

Started Sewing Jungle Magnolia

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! I always start with a little weather report because that's something we all have in common. We had a nice, warm week here but a front came in last night to drop the temperatures and give us a little snow. It was only about 6", but every bit helps!

This week I started the sewing on my Jungle Magnolia BOM (Block of the Month) designed by Judy Niemeyer. Last week I had done the rough cutting where we cut the needed strips from the fabric yardage. This week I took those strips and cut the needed pieces. 

Jungle Magnolia - Prepared Pieces

These are all of the pieces for Chapter H of the quilt instructions, except for the parts that I started sewing.

Jungle Magnolia - Beginning of Checkerboard Sewing

This quilt is designed to be constructed from the outside in. It'll be interesting to see how that works! There are several alternatives for some parts of the quilt. My version has a checkerboard in the border. These are the pieces that will be sewn into the checkerboard. We're still having problems with the video classes. They did post some more classes about cutting out the pieces, but the teacher mentioned having a video about cutting out the pieces for the checkerboard, but that still hasn't appeared and any questions about it got unanswered, as do my questions about when we will have the promised Q&A zoom session. I decided that I would just go ahead and follow the directions in the pattern and will watch the videos as they appear to look for any hints or shortcuts that I didn't figure out myself. It's really exciting to finally get started sewing on this project!

I also met with my English Paper Piecing group last week so I made a little progress on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein.

La Passacaglia

I'm still working on my first rosette, which will be Rosette #2 in the pattern. I just have four more pieces to baste to the papers and I will be ready to sew on the next two rounds of the rosette. Work is slow on this, but it's really fun to get back to it every once in a while!

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

Peach Sorbet Throw

I just love the colors!

I definitely don't need another project, but I had this set of yarn that's been staring at me for a while so I decided to use it. I had bought a mystery project a year and a half ago, but I ended up not liking the project so I still had the yarn sitting around. I decided that I really wanted to knit it up so I found a free pattern that would work for the yarn. This is the Fading Strips shawl designed by Beata Jezek.

Fading Stripes

This is a simple garter stitch shawl with narrow alternating stripes. The perfect vehicle for a skein of yarn and some minis. I'm using the minis from lightest to darkest. I've already used up the first nini, which was a light green. I'll knit until I run out of yarn. I think it'll be cute.

Nancy

First Jungle Magnolia Fabric Pack Received

 Hi all -

Spring continues to move in here. We had a cold, snowy week last week although we didn't get much snow on the ground. I'll continue to hope for more! This week promises to be warm and sunny. I will certainly enjoy it!

We got our first fabric pack for the Jungle Magnolia BOM designed by Judy Niemeyer.

Jungle Magnolia - Month 1 Fabric

The pack included all of the fabric for this month along with another little Judy Niemeyer pattern that we can use for learning the technique. I'm a jump in kinda gal so I put the little pattern aside and did the set up cutting for our BOM.

Jungle Magnolia - Fabric Prep

There is a video class that goes along with the BOM and we haven't gotten the first sewing video yet so I stopped here for now. The beginning of this BOM has been a bit frustrating. The first fabric pack was sent out a week late because some of the fabric was late getting to the shop. This I completely understand. When they announced that the fabric would be a bit late, they also said that the video would also be late. But since then, there has been no communication about when the video will become available. We were also supposed to have our first Q&A zoom session last Saturday according to the initial schedule, without a time specified. But that was presumably delayed also (although they never said that) and, again, there has been no word about when it will happen. So it's really hard to plan! I also noticed when I was doing the initial cutting that there was an error in the instructions included with the fabric. I posted a question about that on the BOM forum asking the store to verify that it was a mistake and that my fix was correct, but they have never responded to that. I'm getting afraid that this BOM is a bit too much for the shop, but I'm going to try to be patient. Hopefully they'll get it together for the rest of the project! I'll probably go ahead and start working on the sewing using the pattern instructions since I want to get moving on this.

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

Peach Sorbet Throw

I'm making good progress on this project! It's a nice, mindless project to do while watching TV in the evening.

This weekend I decided to finish up a couple of projects that have been languishing. The first was my Verba Top designed by Victoria Chaplina. For this top, I just needed to pick up stitches around the neckline and the armholes and finish them off with an I-cord bind off. 

Verba Top

I was dreading doing this part because I'm not good at picking up stitches yet and this yarn is really hard to manipulate. The yarn is actually made of paper, cotton and silk. It has no stretch and does not slide smoothly against itself. The yarn is also flat with a thin string wound around it. Very weird! Bit I did it! I look forward to wearing this this summer! The yarn should make it really cool and it's very light. I think it'll be wonderfully soft after it's washed, but I'll wait on the washing until I wear it a couple of times, just in case....

Finally, I picked up my Festival of Stitches shawl designed by Lisa Hannes. I had finished the knitting on this shawl and just needed to sew in the ends, block it and add a tassel. I had set it aside and completely forgotten about it. I found it again this weekend while looking through projects and was able to finish it up.

Festival of Stitches

This is my first tassel and I'll have to see how I like it. If it gets in the way I'll just remove it, but I do think it's kind of fun.

Nancy

Second Posey Pocket Bag

 Hi all -

The weather was beautiful all last week, but we finally did get some snow Saturday evening. We got about 5" of much needed snow and we have small amounts of snow in the forecast for the next week. Cross your fingers that we get something meaningful! Grace loves running around in the snow!

This weekend I decided it was time to get the second Posey Pocket bag, designed by Crabapple Hill, made.

Posey Pocket

These bags were a kit that I bought from the online auction my quilt guild had. It was donated by the estate of a woman who was obviously very prolific! She had purchased the fabrics to make two of these bags, but hadn't started working on them yet. I had to figure out which fabrics to use for each bag and guess at her plans since she had three fabrics for each bag, but the pattern called for two fabrics. The fabric quantities didn't work for making the bags out of just two fabrics so I had to play around with the fabric. Then I didn't like how the pattern went together, so I had to also play with the instructions. My biggest change to the pattern was to replace a string tie closure with a magnetic snap closure. I made a few more refinements to the second bag, like stitching an extra seam down the inside pockets to make them smaller so they wouldn't droop.

Posey Pocket - Inside

I like the extra refinements I made for the second bag. I think the bag ended up being cute, but I won't make any more of these because I have other patterns that I like better.

I also got a little start on my Jungle Magnolia BOM designed by Judy Niemeyer (Quiltworx). We were scheduled to get our first fabric shipment last week, but that was delayed because some of the fabric was late getting to the shop. But they did give us instructions for preparing the pattern pieces, so I got that done.

Jungle Magnolia - Part H Pattern Preparation

There are a couple of parts included in our first month of the pattern, but I just prepared the pattern pieces for part H. I've never done a Quiltworx pattern before so I want to make sure that I understood the directions and that I don't need to make any changes for the way I work before preparing everything. We're supposed to get our first fabric shipment this week so hopefully I'll have something fun to show next week!

To get some more sewing machine time, I pulled out my pieced circles quilt and made a few more blocks:

Pieced Circles

I now have 15 blocks finished and plan to make 15 more to make a good sized quilt.This will be a really bright, fun quilt!

I've also been working on my cross-stitched pansy sachets. I got all of the cross-stitch finished on the second sachet:

Second Pansy Sachet

For the third sachet, I have the cross-stitching finished but still need to do the long stitched details:

Third Pansy Sachet

I should be able to finish these today and then I'll just save them for stocking stuffers for my sisters at Christmas.

Finally, I started a new crochet blanket. This one is the Peach Sorbet Throw designed by Janine Myska.

Peach Sorbet Throw

This one uses the same stitch pattern throughout, so it's easier and I don't have to deal with mistakes in the pattern. So relaxing! I think the stitch pattern is pretty.

Peach Sorbet Throw - Stitch Pattern Right Side

Peach Sorbet Throw - Stitch Pattern Wrong Side

I like the stitch pattern on both sides (and might even like the wrong side better), so this will make a fun reversible throw.

Nancy

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