Leaf Applique Backing Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Fall is definitely in the air. It hasn't been cold, but we've had some wind the last couple of days that has blown the leaves off the aspens and feels like a harbinger for snow. The NWS has some snow in the forecast next week, so we'll see if that pans out. Guess I need to make an appointment to get my snow tires put on!

This week I made the binding and backing for my leaf applique quilt. I had a couple of leaf applique blocks left over from the top, so I put those in the backing along with some leftover purple squares. I also had leftover green squares, but I put them aside for my 9-patch leader/ender project because I was running short on green squares and these were the right size.

Leaf Applique Quilt - Backing

Leaf Applique Quilt - Backing

I used the solid border fabric for the binding. I didn't want the binding to stand out against that border. I forgot to share the border fabric in my previous post. I wanted to share it because it is a fabric that is only available in one of our local quilt shops and it represents our area.

Leaf Applique Quilt - Border Fabric

I love this fabric and was glad I found it in my stash! It has bears, deer, hummingbirds, pine trees and pinecones. All things that we see in our neighborhood! And, of course, I love the colors!

While working on the backing, I also made a few more of the leader/ender blocks for my potato chip quilt.

Potato Chip Leader/Ender Blocks

I'm running out of the light-colored bricks, so I spent some time this week cutting my scraps. The scraps were starting to pile up with all of the tops and backs I've been finishing lately!

Scrap Cutting

I cut a bunch of bricks for my potato chip quilt, including a pile of lights. I also cut a bunch of green and light squares for my 9-patch leader/ender blocks. I was almost out of the green squares so really needed those! Then I just cut the remainders into 2.5" and 1.5" squares. I'm starting to build up quite a lot of the 1.5" squares so am starting to think about what to make with them. Maybe an Irish Chain quilt? We'll see....

We also had our English Paper Piecing (EPP) group meeting this week. I continued to work on my La Passacaglis quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein.

La Passacaglis

This is the start of my third large rosette. I still have some more star units to add to my second large rosette, but the large rosette is more difficult to travel with so I decided to start on the third rosette. I love how the blocks looke when you fussy-cut the fabric! How cute are those bees!

Finally, I started my second Scarfscape designed by Laura Nelkin. I made a Scarfscape last year when it was the N-Club project. A friend of mine really liked it so I gave it to her, but I wanted another one for myself. The N-Club patterns are exclusive for a year, then Laura releases them to the public and puts together kits with different colors of yarn. These kits became available on my birthday this year and I decided to treat myself to four of them -- one for each sister and two for myself. I got started on the first one this week.

Scarfscape

Scarfscape starts with a long bias strip with beaded ribbing on each end. I'm about 2/3 finished with this strip. Then you pick up stitches along one of the long sides and knit a beaded lace border. With the public release of the pattern, Laura added a second lace border so I'm planning to use that one for this version of the scarf. I wanted to use the kit rather than using yarn from my stash because this yarn is just so luxurious. It's Pato from Bilum Hand Dyed Yarns. It's an incredibly soft, strong and lightweight camel/silk combination that feels lovely against the skin. And, although I don't really like the look of the beaded ribbing, I like how the weight of the beads in the ribbing helps the scarf stay in place. So, you can see why I treated myself to so many of these kits!

Nancy

Leaf Applique Quilt Top Finished

Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We're having beautiful weather here. The temperatures are pleasant and the aspen are in full color. Could life be any better?

This week I pulled out my leaf applique quilt UFO (unfinished object). I had all of the leaf applique blocks finished, so had to finish the Irish Chain alternate blocks, put them together and add borders. This quilt is based on the Indian Summer pattern from Sew Be It. I can't find this pattern anywhere online, but here is what it looks like:

Indian Summer Pattern

I used the leaf applique blocks from the pattern, but change the alternating blocks and borders and I increased the size. Here is what I came up with:

Leaf Applique Quilt

I used ElectricQuilt8 (EQ8) to help me pick my colors and design the blocks and borders. I didn't have the leaf applique block in EQ8 and didn't want to take the time to figure out how to put it in the app, so I used an embroidery image that they had in the software as a substitute. Here's what the quilt looked like in the app:

Leaf Applique Quilt - EQ8

I really love being able to easily audition changes using the app! Now I have another quilt to add to my to-be quilted pile.....

While finishing this quilt top, I kept adding more leader/ender blocks to my pile.

Leader/Ender Potato Chip Blocks

I'm getting closer and closer to finishing these blocks! I need to dig through my scraps and cut some more light bricks since I'm starting to get low on those. I'll do some of that this week.

And I made a little more progress on my Rill Scarf designed by Miram L. Felton.

Rill Scarf

I know the progress on this project is slow and boring to watch, but I want to keep motivated to work on this. I'll probably put this aside for a little while because there's a knit-along gong on this month for some other projects I have in my queue so this would be a good time to make progress on those.

Nancy

Fall Colors

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We are jumping into fall here in the mountains of Colorado. The aspen have started changing colors and the days are getting shorter and cooler. I'll miss summer, but I'm definitely enjoying the change!

Aspen Colors in my Yard

This week was Quilt-A-Fair, a quilt show and vendor market put on my the Colorado Quilting Council. It's a fun little show with a lot of great stuff to buy. As you know, I don't need any quilting supplies, but I still found some great stuff and helped support the industry!

This week I put my nose to the grindstone and finished two quilt backs. First, I finished the backing for my Stars & Stripes Forever quilt.

Stars & Stripes Forever - Backing

Then I made the backing for my Lilah quilt.

Lilah - Backing

It's a lot of work to piece my backings like this and it's hard to find the energy to do this much work after the excitement of finishing the top, but it feels really good to use up the extra blocks and fabric! I'm not sure when I'll quilt these. I'm still waiting to get my Prickly Pear top basted by the longarmer. These will both sit in the queue of quilts that will go to her as she's ready. Now I'm looking at other old quilt tops I can finish. I have a bunch of new projects I want to start, but I feel like I don't want to get into the middle of a big project and then have to put that aside to see how I like the basting on Prickly Pear.

I'm also making a lot of progress on my leader/ender project while working on my backings. 

Potato Chip Leader/Ender Blocks

When working on the backings, I am often sewing one seam at a time and then re-evaluating, so I can make a lot of progress on leader/enders!

Finally, I'm continuing to slowly make my way through my Rill Scarf designed by Miriam L. Felton.

Rill Scarf

As usual, the marker with the yarn ball on it indicates where I started this week. I'm only about a third of the way done with this scarf, so progress is slow, but every little bit leads towards a finished scarf. And this one will be so light and airy!

Nancy

Lilah Quilt Top Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We are definitely in fall here. The days are cooler and we're having a lot of cloudy days with some thunderstorms. The mornings are getting so much darker! I know, it's way too early to complain about that, but that won't stop me! I guess I need to move south....

This was a fun week! I finished piecing my Lilah top designed by Yellow Cat Quilt Designs. I purchased this many years ago as a kit from Connecting Threads. 

Lilah

I really like how it turned out! I also got the binding prepared.

Lilah - Binding

I still need to prepare the backing from the leftover pieces. I'm trying to be better about getting all of the binding and backing prepared along with the quilt top so everything's ready when I get around to the quilting.

I've also been working on the backing for my Stars & Stripes Forever quilt from Judy Martin's book Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts.

Stars & Stripes Forever - Backing

This is a large backing (105"x105"), so it doesn't all fit on the design wall (the bottom section hangs off the edge on the left and the top right section hangs off the edge on the right). I just have to fill in the middle right section, then I can put the sections together and the backing will be done. Then I can put it away until I can get it basted. I'm still waiting for my Prickly Pear quilt to be basted by the longarmer. She's been really busy so hasn't had time to work on it. When I get that back, I'll start quilting that and see how that basting works for me. Then I can give her another quilt to baste. I have a lot of quilt tops, so I plan to keep giving her a new top to baste whenever she finishes one. So I'll probably be working on a lot of quilt backings for a while!

While working on these quilts, I made some more good progress on my Potato Chip Leader/Ender project. I was able to finish the blocks I started at the retreat last week and also make some new blocks.

Potato Chip Leader/Ender Blocks

I probably have about a third of the blocks I need for this quilt, so I'm making good progress!

I also took some time out to make a few more Quilts of Valor (QOV) blocks. Our guild is collecting blocks for their national block drive.

QOV Blocks

Our guild deadline was Thursday so I wanted to finish some more blocks while I still could.

Finally, I've also made some more progress on my Rill Scarf designed by Miriam L. Felton.

Rill Scarf

This is a background project so the progress is a bit slower on this one. But as the days get shorter, I should be doing more knitting so hopefully I'll show more progress in coming weeks. My sewing room gets a lot of great natural light, but the artificial lighting isn't great so I don't do much sewing once the sun goes down.

Nancy

Retreat Fun

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! I got to attend a very fun retreat with one of my quilt guilds this week. It was a daytime-only retreat, so I got to leave my stuff at the retreat center and go home in the evenings. The retreat committee did a wonderful job! The retreat was held at the new retreat center that I've mentioned before, Twisted Stitches in Superior, CO. There were 30 or so people at the retreat. They were all wonderful! When we got to the retreat, they gave us a cute little gift bag.

Retreat Gift Bag

There was also some chocolate in the gift bag, but that disappeared while I was there! We also had a chocolate fairy who would periodically make a circuit of the room with a basket of chocolate to keep us sewing strong. There was also a snack table that was overflowing with tasties in case we needed a larger burst of energy. Definitely, nobody went hungry! We also had a white elephant gift exchange with lots of fun gifts. I went away with a cute hand embroidery kit from Missouri Star.

White Elephant Embroidery Kit

The kit has thread, a hoop, a needle threader and needles, an instruction book and little wash-away peel-and-stick patterns that you put on your fabric stitch through. The motifs are the flowers and bugs you see on the tin. I've never used the peel-and-stick patterns before so this will be fun to try!

The big project I worked on at the retreat was the binding and backing for my Stars & Stripes Forever quilt top designed by Judy Martin (you can see that quilt top here). I like to make my quilt backs from scrap blocks and fabric left over from the front. For this quilt, I had a bunch of blocks left over from making my Star Spangled Banner quilt that I designed and donated to my mom's hospice years ago.

Star Spangled Banner

I was playing with the stitch and flip method when making this quilt. This method is usually used for sewing triangle corners on quilt blocks, but I was playing with using it to create chevrons. It was a lot of fun! Because of using this method, I ended up with a lot of half-square triangles that I saved in a bag for years. My quilt top is red, white and cream, but I decided to go ahead and use the red, white and blue leftovers in the back anyway. My binding will be blue, so the cream of the front won't really be seen at the same time as the white on the back. And it would be nice to get these blocks used up! I started by sewing the half-square triangles together into a bunch of pinwheel blocks. Then I put the blocks together into different configurations as the inspiration struck and added some borders to the new units. I just wanted to keep building things up so I could lay them out and sew them together into a backing. My backing needs to be about 105"x105", so I had a lot of space to fill! I got a bunch of units made at the retreat.

Stars & Stripes Forever - Backing Units

These units aren't displayed how they will end up in the backing, I just wanted to get a picture of all of them together to show what I have so far. The strip of pinwheels along the bottom is 105.25", so I can use that to gauge how far along I am. I have some smaller blocks that I will slip into the pieces that I build to put all of these together. I don't think it will take too long to finish this up.

While I was piecing the backing, I took the opportunity to make some progress on my Potato Chip leader/ender project. 

Potato Chip Leader/Enders - Retreat Progress

It's fun to see progress on this quilt while working on something else!

The last thing I worked on at the retreat was my Wild Women Don't Get the Blues quilt designed by Karen K. Stone. I had gotten tired of working on the quilt backing above, so on the final afternoon I put my sewing machine away and got out these blocks to do a little more hand embroidery.

Wild Women Don't Get the Blues

Hand embroidery is slow work, especially when you're also talking to the wonderful ladies around you, so I only got 1.5 blocks done. But progress is progress! Now I'm starting to think about whether I want to use the designs from the embroidery kit I got at the retreat on some of these blocks. I can't decide if I want to add organic designs or if I want to keep everything geometric on this quilt. I'll mull it over for a while. I'm sure I'll be happy no matter which way I go!

That's all that I did during the retreat, but I also did some crafting at home in the days before the retreat. Our guild is participating in the Quilts of Valor national block drive, so I made several blocks for that.

QOV Blocks

I'll try to get some more of these made this week before they are due at our guild meeting on Thursday.

Finally, I also made some more progress on my Rill Scarf designed by Miriam L. Felton. 

Rill Scarf

You can really see the ruffling that's developing on the edge of the scarf now!

Nancy

Stars & Stripes Forever Top Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Hard to believe Memorial Day is here. How did summer fly by so quickly? I'm looking forward to the cooler weather (although I hope the really cold weather will wait...) and the beautiful changing colors! Although it's been a very dry year so the colors probably won't last long so I'll have to make sure that I appreciate them while they're here.

I put my nose to the grindstone this week and finished piecing my Stars & Stripes Forever quilt top from Judy Martin's Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts book. I started by sewing together the center.

Stars & Stripes Forever - Center Assembled

Most of the blocks had been made, but I still needed the checkerboard blocks.

Stars & Stripes Forever - Checkerboard Blocks

Now I could start putting together the pieced border. There were a lot of pieces in this border! I tried to position all of the blocks and triangles so that the shades of red and blue were scattered around the quilt to keep the eye moving. It was hard because I was running out of space on my jerry rigged design wall!

Stars & Stripes Forever - Positioning the Pieced Border

I left the blue triangles for last because I didn't have room for them on the right side of the design wall. I did place the triangles for all of the borders except the right on the design wall before sewing together the pieced borders. For the right border, I saved a selection of the blue triangles and trusted that they would be scattered appropriately. I pieced the top, left and bottom borders then took the quilt center off of the design wall to position the pieces for the right border. That way I could keep things from falling off of the wall and getting mixed up. I had to be very careful to make sure that blocks didn't get rotated. The striped blocks were positioned so that the red stripes abutted the star blocks. The checkerboard blocks were positioned so that one of the blue squares pointed to the center of the quilt. (In the center, I had made sure that all of the checkerboards were positioned so that the long line of blue squares were vertical). I didn't want to have to fix one of the blocks afterwards!

Stars & Stripes Forever - Pieced Border Finished

Now I just had the final plain border to finish. I wanted to use a single fabric for the plain border, but didn't have enough of any one fabric so I had to buy fabric for the border. I knew that my closest quilt shop (a 45 minute drive) didn't have patriotic fabrics, so I looked on the internet. I checked out some of my usual, larger online shops, but only found one possibility and it was out of stock. So I searched on that fabric and found it at 3 Aunts Quilt Shop, along with a bunch of other patriotic fabrics. I ordered that fabric and another possibility and was very pleased with how quickly it came. I made the order, received the fabric, prewashed it and got the plain outer border attached all this week.

Stars & Stripes Forever - Finished Top

I love how it turned out! Looking at the finished top, I do think it would look better with star blocks in the outer corners rather than checkerboard blocks, but not enough to make it worth the effort of sewing the blocks (I'm really tired of flying gees blocks after making all of those stars) and then replacing them in the border. Especially since I know I'll like the checkerboard blocks better once I've added the binding which will frame them and make them a more cohesive part of the quilt. Now I need to work on the backing and binding. This is a large quilt (98"x98") and I like to make my backs out of the leftovers, so it will take a bit of work to  put the back together. I'm going to a quilt retreat at the end of next week, so I'll probably work on it there. When I make a quilt like this, I pull possible fabrics from my stash (and any new fabrics I pick up along the way) in a bin and pull from that while I work. I started this quilt top many years ago, so it'll be nice to get the backing and binding prepared so I can get the rest of the fabrics back into my stash for other projects! I have some ideas for the quilting, but it'll be a while before I get to that point.....

I've also been working on my Rill Scarf designed by Miriam L. Felton.  

Rill Scarf

This is a slow project because it is lace weight yarn and small needles. It's an interesting design with a lace strip along one side and ruffles on the other side created by knitting a bunch of short rows in each repeat. It's going to take quite a while to finish, but the final scarf will be luxurious! 

Nancy

Stars & Stripes Forever Resurrected

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Time sure is flying by! I can't believe it's already almost September! Things seem to be cooling off here. We've been having a lot of clouds and even a little rain. It sure feels good!

This week I resurrected an old project -- Stars & Strips Forever from Judy Martin's book Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts. This is another project that's been sitting around for years, waiting for me to have time to work on it. I started by putting together some of the blocks for the quilt.

Stars & Stripes Forever - Stripes Blocks

Stars & Stripes Forever - Star Blocks

The stripe blocks were quick and easy, but I spent most of the week on the star blocks. The trimming of the flying geese units took forever! Especially since I had to make 40 of these blocks! But I needed the star blocks for the middle of the quilt, so I had to power through. I had already made the large star blocks for the quilt center, so I started putting the center together. This quilt has a diagonal setting, so I put the large stars on the design wall and, when I was happy with the placement, I sewed them together in diagonal strips. Then I put the small star blocks on the design wall and sewed together pairs of them where I could. Finally, I cut the red triangles and put them on the design wall.

Stars & Strips Forever - Current Progress

My next step will be to sew all of these pieces together. Then I can start assembling the borders. This quilt has two borders - a pieced inner border and a plain outer border with pieced cornerstones. As usual, I'm loving it! I really love colors and fabrics so there are very few quilts that I'm not gushing about as I make them.

This week I was also able to finish my Kallara shawl designed by Ambah O'Brien.

Kallara

This shawl is long and skinny, so more like a scarf to me. It's a pretty basic shawl, but can be made fun by playing with the colors. My colors were very subtle.

Kallara - Close-Up

This will be a nice utility piece. It's entirely knit in garter stitch, so it's smushy and bouncy. It got a bit boring to knit since the pattern didn't change except for shaping stitches, so I was glad to get it finished.

Nancy