it’s February and some people’s thoughts turn to hearts

This is not the story of a finished quilt, so I hope Val will forgive me – but the Tuesday Archives link-up at Val’s Quilting  Studio looks like so much fun, I couldn’t help wanting to be a part of it.

I have to say, this soon-to-quilt-top is one of my favourite projects ever and I’ve blogged about it several times but it’s never had it’s own post.

In 2011, DD and I , with two month old Younger Grandson, made the hour and a half trek across Sydney for the inaugural meeting of what was to become the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild (now the Sydney Modern Quilt Group). We needed a hand-stitching project to keep us busy (well, DD had her hands full anyway) during the three hour meet-up. I had recently acquired an Accuquilt Go! Baby and had been keen to try it out.


I’m glad I learnt how to do fused appliqué in the few quilting classes I had taken at that point. I had also done embroidery in my past which, of course, included blanket stitch. Putting the two skills together, I was able to work on some of these:


Over the years, DD and I carried appliquéd hearts to meetings of the Caring Hearts Community Quilters and eventually I had thirty blocks done. But they were only 6” (yes, I was a new quilter and forgot to add seam allowance when cutting the squares) so I needed more blocks – or I needed to enlarge them somehow.

Inspiration came from two sources: a chance overhearing of a comment from someone in our quilting group  on the merits of appliqué and/or scrap quilts; the other from the Dresden wedding quilt made by Jess at A Quilty Habit.

I enlarged my blocks and  made them scrappy!


And I worked on the layout until I came up with this:


So, the obvious question is: if I love these blocks and this layout so much; why has the project stalled?  Well, firstly, we moved house! That slowed all projects down for several months! But, more importantly, I know I need to add white sashing between the blocks but I'm not sure how I want to quilt it (using a walking foot; FMQ is out of the question for now). I think I want to echo quilt around the hearts but dragging the whole quilt though my domestic machine (even though I have a 9” harp space) doesn't inspire me so I’m considering QAYG row-by-row (gasp!)

What would you do if you were a novice quilter with little FMQ ability?

more works in progress

Before I continue, thank you to all the people who left comments in my Sunday post about binding quilt – it seems we all use more or less the same method!

My year will not continue in this vein. Right now, many Australians are on their summer break. Schools are having their summer holidays/vacation. Nearly everything I am involved with is in recess until later in January. That means I have plenty of time to play in my sewing room if I feel so inclined.

Since my post last Wednesday about works in progress, these are the projects that have had some attention:

THE FOUR PATCH QUILT

I only had to finish sewing down the binding on this quilt. However, I had a lot of trouble with the fourth corner, even more than usual, so I had to unpick the binding and carefully sew it back on again. The fourth corner is now the best corner of the lot! I referred to my issues with mitred corners in my post on Sunday; this is a skill I really want to master this year, sooner rather than later. Here’s a photo of the finished quilt (not my work remember; I only added the binding -- I wouldn’t mind laying claim to it though! It’s a great pattern beautifully constructed; if a little too large for me to hold up for the photograph!).

TRIANGLE BRIGHTS AND FLOWERS

The only task left on this quilt was to hand-stitch the binding down. I completed this by the bright, fluoresent light of my sewing room around one o’clock one morning! This is another beautiful quilt (not made by me) but, again, too big for me to hold the width while being photographed!

 

K’s PROJECT

This was the project I showed in my post on Sunday. I was quite surprise and pleased to find that I could quilt almost the whole block in one continuous line – joy! It may not look like it but, with the exception of the two grey lines which were quilted in a different colour, this was how it was done. Quilting gloves and the extension table for my sewing machine made the job easier too!

Despite my joy at completing this project, I’ve decided that quilting in the ditch and dragging a twin-size bed topper through my wide-necked machine are not my favourite parts of the process!

QAYG

Between bouts of quilting, to alleviate the stiffness in my shoulders and neck, I tried to work on the QAYG blocks. I found and cut some batting and backing. I learnt, very quickly, that pre-cutting QAYG backs the finished size is a recipe for disaster! Of course, this makes sense given that we always make our backing larger than our quilt top before quilting and trim away the excess afterwards! So, after carefully cutting several backings to 9.5”, it took only two strips to realise that wasn’t going to work. Fortunately, I have a lot of fabric so making new backings, 10.5” this time, wasn’t a problem. I will save the 9.5” squares (they’re all the same fabric) for another project.

I made a mess of the first block made on the 10.5” backing by not using strips that were long enough! We live and learn and now I know two ways not to do it! Plus I have one orphan block for another project! I watched several videos about QAYG (hurrah for YouTube) and thought I could see my way forward with this project.

Today, I am feeling unexpectedly lethargic (despite a full night’s sleep) so have been pottering on this project. Unfortunately, it means I’ve learnt yet another way not to make it work! The pre-existing blocks are made in a particular way, with a 9.5” front and back and a piece of 9” wadding centred between! I started with a 10.5” back and made all my strips the same (diagonal) length as the ever-shrinking back (it’s being quilted remember) but the wadding moved and ended up less than a quarter of an inch from the edge of the front and back in some places and nearly an inch away from the edge in others! I thought securing it with pins while I sewed on the strips was enough but apparently not enough to stop it from shifting! Thank goodness for seam rippers! Any hints you can give would be greatly appreciated since it’s another three weeks before I see my teacher again!

CRUMBED CHURN DASH

To complete each churn dash block, I need four ‘side’ units and four ‘corner’ units. I am making the corner units with HST (as expected) but I’m making the ‘side’ units from one strip and two squares – it’s a little bit different and helps remind me that these are scrappy blocks after all! I was very excited to see the first Churn Dash block come together – this is my first ever churn dash block and I’m very pleased!

So far, I have made two complete blocks and have eight extra ‘corner’ units completed.

Other than that, I have also cleaned my machine – I try to remember to do it regularly, especially after working with batting: that always seems to make additional lint!

I’m not sure that there will be a “works in progress” post next week – I will be away for three and a half days: tomorrow, WM and I are joining several other couples from church for a long weekend away at Sanctuary Point on the south coast.

I’m linking this post with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced blog (hosted by Lee) when it goes live later today.

What about you?
What have you been working on this week?

Something Old, Something New – March 2014

How did you go with your goals in the shortest month of the year?

I thought I was on track but then WM and I went to visit an “open house” (we weren’t really expecting to buy) and we “fell in love”. The photo shows the western side of the house where all rooms have doors opening onto the “deck”. That first door (on the left) is the main bedroom, then moving towards the right: the door from the secondary living area, the window from same, the window from main living area, the door from same, and (just showing through the trees) another window from the main living area. What you can’t see through the trees is the door from the second bedroom. The view is across crown land into the national park. Those plants are on our property and in the bottom right corner you can get a glimpse of our swimming pool. My sewing table will be near the window of the secondary living area (or at least that’s what I have planned)
 
That, of course, meant that we had to put our house on the market. The real estate agents advised us to get rid of all the clutter and to keep the house like a show home – which we did, but it meant that sewing has not been an option because I make two much mess and have too much clutter around me! The photo shows my living room and piano as they’re rarely seen!

My goals were to bring my Country Houses quilt up to the point of binding and to learn how to foundation piece.

The quilt remains untouched.

The foundation piecing nearly didn’t happen either. I knew that we would be doing this technique in class when we resumed at the beginning of February. What I didn’t take into consideration was the procrastination of my class mates. The first week the teacher explained what we would be doing and showed us a bag made from four sample blocks. The second week she gave us pictures of the block layouts. We were to look at them and decide what we wanted to make by the third week. In the third week, we told the teacher which blocks and how many of each we wanted to make, so that she could bring the foundation papers necessary in the fourth week (which was last Monday).

Only two of the five students who were “playing along” came to class prepared to make the first block. The teacher gave a demonstration and then the two of us who were ready began to sew. Well, I would should say, I began to get ready to sew. First I had to select fabrics from my pink scraps (that was the colour of the month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge), then iron and cut them. Then my sewing machine played up and I had to unpick the “loops” created on the back of the fabrics where stitches should be. Then my bobbin thread ran out. Finally I got some sewing done but there’s not much to show for a three-hour class (the demonstration didn’t begin until the end of the first hour).

However, I also learned another new technique the week before that. Knowing that we wouldn’t be doing foundation piecing, I asked the teacher to show me how to piece curves (also pink for the same reason).

I’m linking this post with the ScrapHappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by Angela at SoScrappy blog.

For March, my “Something Old” plan is to get the Country Houses quilt moving forward and, because I’ve only had one lesson on each of these new techniques, my “Something New” will be to continue learning about Foundation Piecing.

What about you?
How did you go in February?
What are your plans for “Something Old, Something New” in March?

Link here with the URL of your blog post.
Don’t forget to pop into some of the other blogs and see what others are doing for this challenge.

Something Old, Something New – February edition

If you are visiting this challenge for the first time, welcome;
you can read more about the basic idea on this page
and/or you can click on the link to read the January edition.

Here we are in February. I don’t know about you but January just seemed to fly by. Summer holidays are over (although summer isn’t) – the kids are back in school and most of my activities start up again this week.

I didn’t achieve as much as I hoped during January; the reading bug bit and I spent more time reading than crafting.

One thing I’m already appreciating about the Something Old, Something New challenge is that, because there are only two "set" projects a month, it’s completely doable yet keeps me moving forward.

So, firstly a review of January’s goals:

For the “old” part of the challenge, I aimed to complete a flimsy from 48 crumb blocks I had made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2011 and 2012. In January, I wrote a post about my process; here’s the flimsy:

I love it! It turned out much better than it looked like it was going to. Working with other people’s scraps (as I often do) can be a big challenge but this one came together really well.

For the “new” part of Something Old, Something New, I decided to learn how to do shadow (aka illusion) knitting. This is a relatively easy technique which can have spectacular results.

My first attempt was less than spectacular and getting a good photo was more of a challenge than the actual knitting.

Here is what looks like a striped piece of knitting:

and here is the checkerboard shadow/illusion

 Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

However, it became very obvious to me when I was about halfway through this piece that smaller needles than usual were required to obtain a good result; otherwise  the areas of stocking stitch (stockinette) are too obvious and break up the illusion in the pattern.

I used 8ply (DK) weight yarn on 4mm needles. Since I have a very loose tension, I need to use smaller needles than that to get gauge at any time – why that didn’t occur to me before starting this sample I don’t know! I’m not teaching this workshop until July, so I have learned something to be sure to tell my students and I still have several months to improve my own technique!

Now, onto February’s challenge:

By the ‘rules’ I set for myself (you can create guidelines that work for you), my “old” project has to be something I have not worked on in more than three months.

I began my Country Houses quilt in 2011 and worked on it through the year.  I originally intended it for a single (twin) bed but it’s much too big for that so I’ve been trying to make it fit my queen size bed (which is where it was photographed and you can see it’s way too long and too narrow -- two rows have since been removed). It occurred to me recently that I could just turn it into a wall hanging and hang it opposite the front door. Now I’m not sure what I want to do with it but I know I want to get it out of my UFO pile!

Therefore my “old” project will be to take Country Houses at least to binding stage!

My “new” challenge will begin in the class I attend at my LQS: we decided last year that we would be working on the technique of foundation (paper) piecing. Because I have not done any, I have nothing to show you of my own but I’d like to try this block designed by my friend, Cindy, at Tops to Treasures. The link is to Cindy’s tutorial for making this block.

So how about you?

Did you work on an old project in January and/or learn a new technique?

Do you have an old project you will be working on in February?

Will you be learning a new technique in your chosen craft or starting a new project?

Link here with the URL of your blog post so we can all visit and see how you went in January and what you have planned for February.

one way to join pre-quilted blocks

Experience has shown me that there is almost always more than one way to do anything.

What I am about to show you is the way that I am joining my pre-quilted Country Houses quilt blocks. This method does not have any "tramways" where the batting is sewn together under sashing. In fact ,there is no sashing to my quilt. Each block has its own border and I have joined the blocks without any additional fabric.

This method is probably not the most time-efficient. There is a great deal of hand-sewing involved. It's only tacking and slip-stitching, neither of which can be seen (unless one looks very closely) so that's okay with me!So here we go. I'll call this Kerrie's method because I learnt it from Kerrie at Down Patchwork Lane; and I don't know where she learnt it!

Step 1: Trim all your blocks to the same size.

Step 2: Take your first two blocks. Check which side joins with which side. Pin only the tops of the blocks together and machine stitch with a 3/8 inch seam. Be careful not to catch your backing or wadding in the seam.

Step 3: Press the seam open.

Step 4: Go to the cutting table. Cut the wadding on both blocks to the seam line. I am not brave; I draw a pencil line and cut along that!

Step 5: Loosely stitch the two pieces of wadding together at the seam. Don't pull too tight or you will distort your block and the quilt won't lie flat. Be sure to use a light coloured thread so it doesn't show through your top or backing.

Step 6: Lay one piece of backing flat across the back of the other block. You can trim off any excess fabric if you want to - but not too much! Make sure it's completely flat.

Step 7: Fold the other piece of backing at the seam line. Press. Pin.

Step 8: Slip stitch (as you do for sewing down your binding) with an appropriately coloured thread.

Repeat steps 2-8 joining blocks into rows and then joining rows together (two at a time; that is, join Rows 1 and 2, join Rows 3 and 4, etc. When the rows have been paired, you can then join the paired rows together - in my case I will join Rows 1 and 2, then I will join Rows 3, 4, and 5, and finally join the paired rows to the three rows).

Easy peasy - and no tram tracks!