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

Catsup & Mustard Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! As usual, we're good here. I spent a wonderful week with the family in Kansas City and just drove back on Wednesday. It was a long drive, but well worth it! We had a big storm yesterday evening. It's amazing how much rain can come down at once up here! I had several fast-moving rivers in my yard, but the ground also soaked up some water so that was great! We had one lightning strike very near the house which scared Grace (as well as myself), but she recovered quickly so I think she'll still be fine in storms.

I didn't work on any projects while I was in KC. My thumb was hurting pretty severely before I made the trip, so I rested it for the week. It made a huge difference! I had found a fabric to use for the binding of my Catsup & Mustard quilt in KC, so I prepared the binding and got it attached after I got home. I was really pleased with how well the fabric matched! I had just brought a couple of spools of thread with me to match the color so I wasn't sure how well that would work.

Catsup & Mustard - Binding Fabric

I like to use the sewing machine to sew the binding on the front of the quilt, then fold the binding over to the back and stitch it by hand. I was really glad I had rested my thumb because I was able to hand sew for a day and a half with little pain!

Catsup & Mustard - Finished Front

Catsup & Mustard - Finished Back

The colors are pretty true in the above pictures. The backing is a lot brighter than the front because that was the best match I could find at the time that I made the back. I was glad I found a much better match for the binding! Now I'm ready to enjoy using the quilt.....

The only other thing I did this week was drop off my Pickly Pear quilt, designed by Cosy Quilt Designs, at the longarmer. 

Prickly Pear

This is going to be my first quilt that will be basted by the longarmer. I told her to just do whatever she normally does for basting quilts for people, and then we can discuss whatever changes she and I need to make before she bastes the next one for me. I hope to have her baste all of my large quilts for me from now on. I'll still pin basted the smaller quilts on the floor at home, but I don't have floor space or the pain tolerance to baste the large ones at home anymore!

Nancy

Kaffe Circles Backing/Binding Prepared

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! I'm having a good time visiting family in Kansas City right now. It's been very hot and humid, but we're supposed to have a cooler stretch now. It's certainly a switch from the dry air at my house! I haven't been working on any of my projects while I'm here. I've been having a lot of pain at the base of my thumb, so I'm giving it a break. It feels a lot better already!

Before I left, I was able to prepare the backing and binding for my Kaffe Circles quilt. I usually incorporate my scraps into the backing of my quilts. This time, the only scraps I have are circles.

Kaffe Circles - Leftover Scraps

My first thought was to make a backing with a large piece of the solid and a couple of large pieces of Kaffe fabric, then scatter the circles on those. That would be a fun backing, but it would be a lot of work. I would probably have to applique the circles since it would be really hard to wrangle the larger pieces of fabric for inset circles. Especially since the leftover circles are smaller than the circles on the front. In the end, I decided to save the circles for another project and just use a single Kaffe fabric for the backing. I had a couple of fabrics in my stash with enough yardage to create the backing and I ended up choosing this blue pansy fabric.

Kaffe Circles - Backing Fabric

I really like this fabric (which is probably why I had so much yardage) and the little bits of background color that peek out between the flowers matches my solid fabric pretty well.

Kaffe Circles - Backing Background Color

Using the single fabric, I was able to get the backing prepared in just an hour or two. What a nice change from my usual backings! I also prepared the binding for this quilt.

Kaffe Circles - Binding

I'm trying to be better about preparing the backing and binding when I finish a quilt top so I don't have to store a pile of fabric scraps with the quilt while it waits to be quilted.

I was also able to make a little progress on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein. 

La Passacaglia

I started attaching the units for the final partial round of the second large rosette. I had hoped to get this rosette finished, but my thumb was hurting too much to get very far on this. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this up when I get back!

And I continue to plug away at my Winter Vespers from Bernat. 

Winter Vespers

I still have to hold a needle to work on this, but it's not as painful as hand sewing so I can make progress on this when I get home if my thumb acts up again. 

Finally, I visited a new-to-me quilt shop here in Kansas City. It's called KC Maker Studio & Fabrics. I wanted to look for binding fabric for my Catsup & Mustard quilt, which has colors that I was having difficulty matching. I had heard that this was a large quilt shop and I was not disappointed! It was huge! And it was beautifully organized. They had fabrics galore, patterns everywhere, a huge selection of bag making supplies and everything you could think of in a quilt shop. I had brought a couple of spools of thread that matched the colors in my quilt pretty well and used those to find several fabrics that I thought would work for the binding. I purchased two possibilities and have my fingres crossed that one will work for me. I will definitely be visiting this shop again!

Nancy

Kaffe Circles Quilt Top Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Things are good here. Although it continues to be hot and dry, we have luckily not had any fires close by. My heart goes out to all of the people who are dealing with the fires and with the flooding. It's certainly sobering when I look at my Watch Duty app and see all of the fires affecting the western states!

This week I pulled out my Kaffe Circles quilt top. This quilt is made with Kaffe Fassett fabrics along with a solid. I wanted to get this top finished because I'm using all different Kaffe fabrics in the blocks so I had piles of my Kaffe fabric around my sewing room so I could keep track of which fabrics had been used and which hadn't. I started this quilt top in a Linda Reinhert workshop at my quilt guild and have made a few blocks here and there since. I had some time this week, so I made the final push and finished the quilt top. The blocks in this quilt are made up of inset pieced circles.

Kaffe Circles - Sample Block

The instructor had us sewing the inset circles using only 8 pins evenly spaced around the circle, but I found that I needed 16 pins. I guess I'm a control freak! It dawned on me this week that it might be easier to use clips instead of pins when sewing the circles because the clips are easier to use and they hold the fabric together only at the seam line, which is the only place on the pieces that you are sewing where the pieces are the same size.

Kaffe Circles - Using Pins

Kaffe Circles - Using Clips Instead of Pins

I found that the problem with using clips is that you have to stop sewing and remove the clip in front of the clip, about 1/2" before the needle, because the foot can't go over the clip. With pins I could sew right up to the needle so the fabrics were held in place better. So I discarded this idea and went back to using pins. After sewing, I pressed all of the seams towards the solid fabric.

Kaffe Circles - Pressing Towards Solid Fabric

I did this because I wanted the solid circles to be in the foreground. It's subtle, but this does make a difference. I wanted the quilt to have 30 blocks and had already finished 17 blocks, so I had 13 blocks left to complete this week.

Kaffe Circles - New Blocks

The blocks were slow to complete (again, I'm a control freak), but once they were finished it was quick work to put them together into a quilt top!

Kaffe Circles

It's nice to have this top finished so I can put away my Kaffe fabrics! I still need to prepare the binding and start thinking about the backing.

I've also made some progress on my Sisters Nine Patch leader/ender project designed by Bonnie Hunter. I made a bunch of progress on these blocks week before last when working on the backing for my Prickly Pear quilt, but forgot to include that in my blog post. This week I couldn't use leaders/enders when piecing the circles, but was able to make a little more progress on the leader/ender project while sewing the circle blocks together.

Sisters Nine Patch - Progress

I now have 112 of the 169 blocks finished and have a start on the remaining 57 blocks. I need to cut some more green squares for this quilt and can use some of the leftovers from my Kaffe Circles fabrics.

In the evenings, I made some progress on my La Passacaglia quilt designed by Willyne Hammerstein. I'm almost finished with the second large rosette and I really wanted to get it finished. This week I was able to finish four of the units for the final round of the rosette.

La Passacaglia - Units

I only have one more of these units to put together, then I can add these to the rosette.

Finally, I also made some more progress on my Winter Vespers needlepoint kit from Bernat. 

Winter Vespers

I'm not sure what I'll do with this when it's finished, but I'm really enjoying working on it!

Before I go, I wanted to share a little tidbit. A couple of weeks ago when preparing fabric for the Susan Cleveland workshop, my iron got really dirty. I starched the fabric, which I don't usually do but it was part of the instructions for the workshop. I used my backup iron, just in case, and I was happy that I did because the iron was coated with cooked starch when I finished. It was terrible and I was glad I used a backup iron! I tried cleaning the iron with the old Faultless iron cleaner that I've had for years (decades??), but it had no effect on the starch. Sorry, I didn't think to get a picture of the dirty iron but it was terrible and I was afraid I wasn't going to get it off. I looked for some iron cleaners on Amazon to try and found Mr. Iron and got some to try. 

Mr. Iron

This stuff was amazing! I barely touched it to the hot iron and the starch just disappeared!

Clean Iron

I wanted to share this because it was so incredible!

Nancy

Prickly Pear Ready To Be Basted

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! It was a nice week here. The temperatures cooled down a bit and we had some rain. As you know, I love rain! We're back to a pretty hot and dry forecast, but I'll still cross my fingers for more moisture!

This week I concentrated on getting my Prickly Pear quilt, designed by Cozy Quilt Designs, ready to be basted. This is going to be the first quilt that I send to a longarmer to baste for me rather than pin basting it myself on the floor. At the beginning of the week I just had the finished quilt top and a pile of leftover scraps. I started by preparing the binding so I could use any leftover binding fabric in the backing. Then it was on to the backing. My backings take a while since I try to use as much of the leftover fabric as possible. Since this is a fairly large quilt (74"x102") and it was a kit, I also had to dig through my stash to find some other fabrics that could also be used. Here is what I ended up with:

Prickly Pear - Backing

It's a bit wild and chaotic, but it'll work. I stay stitched around the outside of the backing and the quilt top, measured out the batting (I have a large roll of batting) and folded it all up and put it in a bag. I've left a message for the longarmer and will wait for a reply. I told her there is no rush on this so it might be a while before I can start quilting this.

I did also make some progress this week on my Winter Vespers needlepoint designed by Bernat. 

Winter Vespers

I like how this is filling in! 

Sorry I don't have many pictures this week. The Prickly Pear backing really took a long time to put together! I'll hopefully have more interesting stuff next week...

Nancy