English Paper Piecing

Sitting in a hotel room in Oklahoma stitching on my English paper pieced table runner. We're on our way to the Dallas area to visit DH's daughter, her husband and the grandpets (two Boston terriers and a Siamese cat).

December Already?

Grandmother's Choice #4 in progress

I've been having a great time working on a quilt to send away before Christmas: but have fallen behind on my blocks of the week/month. I did some handwork - this is my progress on the hand-pieced block #4 of Grandmother's Choice. Enjoying the process and precision of hand-piecing. Learned from Jinny Beyer's book and appearances on videos. She makes her large quilts totally by hand!

Home Again

Came home with the top pieced! Now to do the applique. There are a couple of projects that have priority before that can be done - eventually!

Fall Retreat

I'm here at Pilgrim Park for LLQA fall retreat. Working on Tree of Life designed by Edyta Sitar.

Fall is Here





Fall has arrived! Thursday was Beautiful - warm and sunny, the leaves are turning color. Friday was cool and rainy. Today (Sat.) was partly sunny and cool, with a brisk breeze. It was a pleasant day to watch DGD cheer at MU's football game, although it got quite chilly for the 4th quarter. A couple of projects I've worked on this week:

Finished the Pick Up Sticks quilt. The pattern was in a Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine last year; and the blocks are from a block swap of the quild's evening group.

 

Hand piecing block #4 of Grandmother's Choice: Votes for Women B.O.W.

 



September Free Motion Challenge



I took the free-motion quilting pledge on Sew Cal Gals blog to complete the monthly tutorial, practice, and finish a sample. I've missed a few months, but I was happy to get September's challenge finished. The teacher is Paula Reid; "Fancy Feathers" stencil was used - feathers are my favorite quilting pattern. Getting better at free-motion. My Bernina with BSR is currently awaiting a trip to the dealer for servicing and a checkup, so I used my Elna without the BSR. Turned out pretty good even so.

August 30

"

Quilting "Pick-Up-Sticks". Quilted straight lines in a grid through the blocks, and a cable in the borders with the walking foot. Used the pounce to mark the cable border with a stencil - a lot faster than a pencil or using golden paper. Marks were removed with the iron.

Another BOM?

YES! While reading a blog post from Barbara Brackman, saw her mention of this quilt using her Willam Morris fabric. Just had to have it! I ordered it from Common Threads shop of Waxahachie, TX. Got my first block in the mail and got right to work - appliqueing by machine with invisible thread (Edyta Sitar's method I learned in her class last year).

The block is finished!

Tuesday

Basting a kid's quilt for charity, the blocks were made by visitors to the DQG QuiltFest last March, guild members are putting them together, quilting and binding them - here is my contribution.

July 20 Blocks

Making Bull's Eye blocks to go with the string blocks that I made for Roll Roll Cotton Boll.

"Port and Starboard" block for Civil War History.

Block for "Hop To It" from Edyta Sitar's book.

More Dabbling

Small quilt made in class taught by Millie Sorrells on free motion quilting in May.

Block #3 Maple Leaf for Annie Smith's online class "Quilter's Palette". It's been a couple of years since I worked on this project.

Finished wool applique pin cushion from a kit I bought from Primitive Gatherings at the Cincinnati show in April.



Made the first block for "Pieces of Time" designed by Lori Smith. This is a BOM I ordered online in 2010.

More Hot Weather Sewing

I've been flitting among several projects lately - I got out two today that have been WIPs for a while:

Making a Hop To It block, the last time I made a block was in August of 2011! I'm doing these with fusible; Edyta Sitar says that is her favorite method. It is faster and if I have any hope of finishing this some day I need faster. The other Edyta Sitar pattern I'm doing (Applique Affair) is needle turn - that one is my  "slow quilting" project.

Not a good photo, but here is a Farmer's Wife block "Calico Puzzle".

I'm also making good progress on a Bulls Eye quilt that I started a few days ago. Photos and details on that later.

July 12

Putting borders on Pick Up Sticks, pattern is from Fons and Porter magazine. The blocks were from a guild swap earlier this year.

The last seam to put together the center of Happy Day.

A Finish!

Finished my Selvage Basket Weave quilt. The pattern is from Karen Griska's book. This was fun to do,

the selvages were mostly from my fabric collection, with only a few from the guild giveaway table. I still have enough left for another quilt!

Free Motion Quilting Class

Look Ma, no BSR! Saturday was a wonderful class on heirloom free motion quilting taught by Millie Sorrells. Learned so much, decided to try it without the stitch regulator. Need more practice getting stitches an even length, but was happy to see that I could do better than I thought I would. She is a great teacher, very helpful.

Civil War History Block #46 Sour Apple Tree

Thought I'd better get going on these blocks again, as Barbara Brackman is taking her Civil War block- of- the- week for 2011 blog down on July 1. She is publishing a book of this project which is due out at the end of the year.

Getting Ready for Retreat

There's an LLQA retreat coming up, I've been thinking about what to take to work on. Today I got out "Happy Day" WIP (formerly Roll Roll Cotton Boll designed by Bonnie Hunter) and cut pieces for more blocks and sashing. Using Easy Angle ruler method to make the half square triangle units.

Decided to take "Hop To It" also. Hoping to whittle down the UFO list.

Selvage Basket Weave progress

I have basted Selvage Basket Weave and have been machine quilting it. Just doing straight lines in the ditch and through the blocks to keep the basket weave effect.

Guild Trip to Cincinnati

a bus trip to Cincinnati for International Quilt Fest. Sooo much fun with quilty friends. The quilts were stunning, the shopping was wonderful-vendors galore! My favorites were Primitive Gatherings, Back Door Quilts, Homespun Designs, Heaven on Earth and Sew Batik. My resolve to not buy any more kits went right out the window; it only took 20 minutes after the show opening to pick one up at the Primitive Gatherings booth. Oh my they had so many pretty things. Lots of wool applique. I also saw a demo by the gal at Amidon Quiltworks on Pearl Piera applique technique using starch, freezer paper, glue, etc. I bought the supplies and have been using the technique to prepare a block of the Spring kit by Lori Smith that I bought. It has small blocks 5 1/2 inches.

Wool kit I got from Primitive Gatherings and have started.

After I got the shopping out of my system, I spent time looking at the quilts - WOW, I'm always hit with emotion seeing all those beautiful quilts that hold all those quilter's life stories. Saw the Dear Jane with trapunto triangles, an Omigosh quilt, and the Last Supper with thousands of half inch squares. I've seen them in magazines or online and was happy to see them for real.

Quilt Show Report

I got the Friendship Medallion quilt done. It won second place in the large wallhanging category at Decatur Quilt Fest! The other two quilts I was aiming to finish for the show didn't get finished because I had to deal with a family emergency. Thankfully that turned out to have a happy ending.

I also entered Cottage Basket table runner which won first place in the "potpourri" category. Summer Solstice, Redwork Sunbonnet Sue and Witchy Poo were my other entries.

Countdown to Quilt Show

Our guild's quilt show is at the end of March, and there are three projects I hope to finish up for it. Above is the Friendship Medallion quilt that I am machine quilting; made from the half-square triangles I received from the exchange on The Quilt Show's website, after Edyta Sitar was on the show. I also want to finish the Rainbow Star wallhanging from the Jan Krentz class - it just needs to be quilted, labeled and bound. I ordered some black batting for it because I didn't want bearding on the black background. The third project on my March goal list is the selvage quilt. That just needs 4 more blocks and the borders.

February Free Motion Quilting Challenge

This month's lesson was by Diane Gaudynski. Here are my feathers. I love feathers!

I phone test

I'm trying the blogger app on my phone. This is a photo of the quilt Alyssa and I are making for her.

Resuming Civil War History blocks

I finished block #52 Christmas Star today.

Retreat Project

The first weekend in January some guild friends and I went to a retreat at Threads of Time in Danville. We had a great time! I started a project that I had bought at Quilters General Store in Rockford while I was on my way to a UU CMwD Women's Connection retreat in Kenosha, WI last October. The pattern is "Beasley" by Dawn Heese of Linen Closet Designs. I'm naming it "Mother's Gift" - the block pattern is the same as the quilt that was on my parents bed when I was growing up; and that title is one of my favorite songs by Shawna Carol. This is as far as I got at retreat.

Here is the finished top. (The photo cut off the bottom border.)

Free Motion Quilting Challenge January



Drawing design with pencil and paper



Stitching





Finished


I've signed the pledge for the Free Motion Quilting Challenge for 2012 on Sew Cal Gal's blog. I've watched the tutorial for January by Frances Moore and completed a practice sandwich. Most of my leaves are pretty - one of them is way wonky, I had a mind-body glitch apparently. A little more practice and I will try this on a quilt.

A New Year

One more finish for 2011!

Resuming my blogging as the new year begins - the secret project is finished and safely at its' destination before Christmas; (plus my camera was missing for a while, finally found it under the seat of the car!)

I finished the redwork Alphabet Sunbonnet Sue on the last day of the old year.(see above) I started embroidering the blocks in 2000 and finished that about 2005; the blocks were put away until I got them out earlier this year and put them together with sashing, machine quilted in the ditch and hand quilted in the blocks.

Jelly Ohs 1

And here is the finished secret project. My next youngest sister commisioned me to make a quilt for her to give to our youngest sister for Christmas. This is a jelly roll pattern designed by Joanna Figueroa she named Jelly-Ohs, (the block pattern is actually "Crown of Thorns".) I used some strips from the Shangra La collection jelly roll I've had for a while and added some strips of other fabric and the border is also Shangra La. It was fun to piece using Thangles for the hst.s, and I machine quilted it.