Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers, Week 3

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Things are good here. We continue to have beautiful, warm weather, but there is some snow in the forecast for this week. Here's hoping for significant precipitation! I'm going to town tomorrow to celebrate the birthday of a friend who had knee replacement surgery last Monday. I'll hit the grocery store on the way home to make sure I have everything I need if we do get a good snow.

Last week was week 3 of Angela Walters' Arcs, Curves & Points Quilt Along (QAL). For this week, we quilted the next two rounds in the panel. What she talked about this week was moving between different blocks while quilting to simplify movement through the quilt.

Arcs, Curves & Points - Week 3

Since I knew that I was going to do the block quilting in a path without traveling on the edges of the pieces, I started by doing the stitch-in-the-ditch (SID) quilting around the edges of the pieces. I started by using a curved ruler for the SID, but then I realized the the curves were subtle and I was also hitting the seam between the panel and the border, so I switched to using my walking foot for the SID and the results were so much better! The SID quilting also stabilized the quilt sandwich so I could easily do the ruler work without having to deal with any pins. Then I switched to my red thread and moved around the quilt, quilting the motifs alternating between the two blocks. Then I switched to a dark blue-purple thread to quickly fill in some of the area at the top of one of the blocks. Since I'm working on the small panel, this week I got to the part of the panel that is cut off by the border.

Arcs, Curves & Points - Week 3 at the Border

For this part of the quilting, I had to estimate how the motifs would be overlapped by the border. To help with this, I made marks in the border using an air-erasable pen that I used for lining up my rulers and then traveled along the border edge to get to the next place for my quilting line. Next week is the final week of the QAL. Angela will be talking about how to use rulers in the background. That should be fun!

As I mentioned above, a friend just had knee replacement surgery last week. One of our quilt guilds puts out a call for Caring Hearts blocks when a guild member is going through something where they might need a little lift. So I spent some time making blocks for my friend.

Caring Hearts Blocks

I tried to make the blocks as personal as possible. There are no guidelines in the instructions for colors, so I hope everyone makes colorful blocks! Strangely, the guild has you trim the blocks to 5"x5". I find that an odd size for quilt blocks, but they are nice and small and quick to make.

For the last several weeks I've been working on another project in the background. This is another potato chip quilt. I was getting overwhelmed by my scraps, so this is a scrappy version. I decided to make small blocks -- just the center and a single round.

Potato Chip Blocks

I'm cutting the bricks 2"x3.5", for a finished size of 1.5"x3". I really like the look of the smaller bricks, I can get bricks out of smaller scraps with this size, and I'll use up more fabric with the smaller bricks, so this size works really well for me. Also, I always cut my binding strips 2" wide, so I can easily get bricks out of my binding scraps. This is fun sewing for when I just need a distraction and it's a perfect project to use for leaders/enders. 

I've also been working on my knitting. I finished my Flowla Shawl designed by Laura Nelkin that I shared last week.

Flowla Shawl

It was nice to get this finished. The yarn is a beautiful cotton/linen mix, but it was really hard to knit with. It is made up of three loosely twisted strands. 

Flowla Shawl - Yarn Close-Up

It's beautiful and soft, but was very prone to splitting. But the finished shawl is beautiful and well worth the effort!

I also picked up another project that I had put away a long time ago. This one is the Open Minds shawl designed by Laura Nelkin as a mystery knit-along (MKAL). In a MKAL, you don't know what you are making when you begin. The pattern comes out in sections, called clues, and when you have finished all of the clues, you have a finished object. I started this with the group, but then got behind. I think I finished the first three clues with the group. Then I got behind while the rest of the clues came out. When I had all of the clues, I decided to skip ahead to clue 6, then came back to start clue 4. This week I was able to finish most of clue 4.

Open Minds

This is the type of project that is difficult for me. I love working on all of the different parts, but I don't find the final object esthetically pleasing. I'm not really into the hodge podge style. This one will end up being like a shawl with really long wings. I think it will end up being a nice scarf on colder days.

Finally, I did some work on my Lemme Cowl designed by Laura Nelkin.

Lemme Cowl

This is the companion to the red Lemme Hat that I finished a couple of weeks ago. This one has a yarn that is really easy to work with. I use it for my background project when I want some relaxing knitting.

Nancy