A UFO Finish at last

At long last my neutral Jacob’s Ladder project is a finished quilt. Still a few threads to weave in or cut off. And the top of the label to hand sew. But those are the fiddly bits and hardly count.
Looking back to see now long this has been a work in progress, it really started when I purchased some beautiful Japanese yarn-dyed fabrics at a guild meeting. That would have been in February, 2015. That was the winter that I tried to take part in a quilt guild only to discover that I spent more time buying fabric at meetings than sewing.
They didn’t seem to have get-togethers where they just sewed on their own projects, instead had classes in Art quilts and stuff I wasn’t interested in plus days of charity sewing which ended up being on days I was working . 
But back to this bundle of fabric. I tracked down where it had come from,  https://www.kallistiquilts.com/. And was very pleased to see she is still selling this fabric bundle, although the price has gone up. Maybe I’ll splurge someday a buy some more.
I picked them up thinking of doing Swing Your Partner from Scraps and Shirttails.  However, after starting to cut the first few blocks, I realized I had made a significant error. The pattern called for fat quarters of 16 fabrics, I had something called a fat eighth.  Not enough fabric to get all the pieces for the block.  And now had a whole bunch of it cut into 2 inch and 3.5 inch strips and triangles.  I needed another pattern that would use those sizes and shapes.
They sat for almost a year before I found a use for them. The 8 inch Jacob’s Ladder block uses the same pieces only not as many. So I was able to repurpose what I already had cut and sewn. Did that. Not enough blocks for a decent size top. Project sat some more while I did other things. Then along came the Quilted Twins with their taupe bundle. And in no time at all, (well a couple of months since I see that I started posting about it in October), a finish.
Trying to use every bit of these Japanese fabrics, I even pieced together leftovers.





It’s going to be hard to part with this. But I can’t keep them all and I have a good home in mind for it. A close friend lost her father last year and I had promised to make a shirt quilt with her father’s shirts. However all he had left were the knit, golf- T’s that wouldn’t make anything remotely interesting.
So I’m going to present this to her instead. She has commented several times, on Facebook pictures of the progress, how much she likes this so I know it will be appreciated.
I get to feel good twice, once for the finish  and second for making a friend happy.  Totally warm and fuzzy.
Now to link up: Jo's UFO challenge

Monday Update Jan 29th

Another week gone and very little progress on the string project.
Most of my sewing time was spent on the two quilts I was quilting and binding. A great deal of time in the binding, or more precisely the choosing of fabric for the binding. Coupled with the calculations and rigmarole of making continuous bias binding.  I know everyone has pretty well switched to the doubled over non-bias strip method. And I was doing that for years, including hand-sewing down the back.  But I have a binding attachment that I feel I should be using and I have discovered that it works better with the bias binding rather than WOF strips. Thus I am working at improving my skill with both the cutting and the sewing of the bias strips.
So here’s one of the finished quilts, the Bricks and Stepping Stones from Bonnie’s free patterns. Which I've shown several times but this is it, done, finished, out of here. Label on, binding on, just needs a good wash and it's ready to go.

While I was doing all this, no string piecing got done.

And when I did try and squeezing in a few quick trips under the needle, I kept getting thread jams. Which probably means it is time to pull this machine out of the cabinet and get it cleaned.
Looking over at it now, I noticed a block that I did finish this week. However it wasn’t a string unit. It’s a totally new project, the Farmer’s Wife Quilt.  And I have three of them done.

So that’s it. Now to link up with Jo and see what’s going on over there.

Monday String Update

Well here it is Monday and time to link up with Jo and see what progress has been made on our string projects.
Very Little.
Like only two units done this week, plus some of the pieces I’m going to use as a border.
This is about the worst effort so far. And last week seemed to be just zipping along, full of enthusiasm. Until a head cold smacked right into me and knocked me into hibernation for a few days. Luckily it wasn’t anything worse and I did regain my energy level.
Which I channeled into finishing the quilting on the Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt

Bricks and Stepping Stones

and making binding for the Jacob’s Ladder. (which is the fabric rolled around the thread spool above the Spider units in the first picture)

Show Off

Oh and I had a brain storm idea about the border for Show Off, so I worked on that for a while. Becky’s pattern called for a piano key border which I had been putting off working on. (I’m quite good at procrastination).
Then while searching for the baby quilts the other week, I came across a strip of shirtings assembled for a bargello. The light bulb went off when it occured to me that I might get three strips of piano key border by subcutting it. ( Bonnie’s Scrappy Bargello pattern calls for 16 inch strips).  That left some more pieces to add on to make the side length but it gave me a quick head start. 
Of course this was only possible because I had forgotten the correct measurement for the border was supposed to be 5.5 inches. For some reason the five stuck in my brain and that’s what I cut. And that’s what I’m going with.
Now off to make binding for the Bricks.

UFO Challenge Update

This week I can almost cross a two year UFO off my list. The neutral Jacob’s Ladder is quilted and awaits binding. It has been hanging on the basting wall for probably a month, while I was too busy with other things. However, I needed to get the Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt done as it is on a deadline. So Jacob had to come down, and rather than take it down unbasted, it got basted. And then it got quilted.

Now it just needs binding cut and applied. I started calculating for a continuous binding and even got the first cut of the fabric. I was so pleased to find a really good match for the border fabric in my solids, it is almost the same shade as the lettering, a really difficult greeny beige that goes with hardly anything.  The quilting in this one is  simple diagonal and straight lines with a heart loop in the border.
But I needed to keep quilting momentum going. So before I switched to the binding attachment,  I jumped in and basted the Bricks and started quilting. Almost finished today. Just one more row of the quilting in the body of the quilt then the border.
Not quite sure on the binding for this one, if I had something in mind, I’ve forgotten what it was. It is probably sitting in plain sight waiting for me in the sewing room. I’m feeling unwell tonight, not bad enough to say “sick”, just not myself. We have done really well at dodging all the illness going around this winter but had a very sociable weekend so might have picked up a bug. Thus, I am writing this up ahead of tomorrow's link up with Jo and putting myself to bed to rest.

String Challenge Update : 2018 WK3

Whoo hoo. It looks like I might just have enough to do all 35 blocks for the Spider Web top. I found a clip of the kites underneath some fabric when I tidied up my sewing area.
Just to be sure, I collected all the bits and pieces, sewn blocks, unsewn,  papered and unpapered,  in one pile and re-counted everything. 
Here’s the numbers:
  Blocks and units done 19.75  ( i can’t find a three quarters symbol but since it takes 4 units to a block this represents three units)
Kites cut: 10
Uncut fabric: 24.5 inches = 5 strips of 4.5 inches = 55 potential kites to come
65 potential units = 16.25 blocks
16.25 + 19.75 = 36 blocks
More than enough
They should teach quilting in math classes.

Ten more units done this week.

Making 5- 6 weeks more of this project. As it has no deadline or destination when complete, I am happy with this pace. And happy with it as a bedroom sewing project. That makes it easy to squeeze in a few stitches between other activities. Now to link up with Jo's String Challenge and see what everyone is up to this week.

UFO update

I had such good intentions. I went to the sewing room last night, got out my UFO project, established which clue I was on, got the pieces ready. Even put a few blocks together.  Thinking all the time that I would go down this morning and make some serious progress on this. Then I would link into Jo’s Country Junction
Didn’t happen. Day was totally hijacked by a request for a baby quilt. I knew I had some ready and some ready-to-quilt. So down I went and pull things out of bins, finding all the ones that could be ready within a week. Nine ! I found nine, two just waiting for a new home, five waiting for quilting and two needing borders.

After a photoshoot and some creative editing, I had a collage of them ready to email out. And soon I had a happy customer.
But that threw my day off. Instead of going back to the UFO in the basement (which now had fabric everywhere as I prepared to put borders on the last two in case that was their choice), I put the Bricks and Stepping Stones top together. And worked on the checkerboard for the Checkered Past top. 

I managed to get all the Bricks and Stepping Stones assembled and it is now ready for some borders.  As well, the blocks for the Checkered Past have all their sashing and are ready for a layout and webbing together
There is not room enough on my wall for all 20 blocks so will have to lay this out on the floor to get the right light/dark arrangement. Pretty happy with how’s it’s going so far.
 It is hard to see in the pictures but all those center blocks are shirt pockets.  And the majority are from my husband’s shirts. I have been taking a few at a time over the years. When I saw this pattern on the Quilted Twins website (Checkered Past )I knew it was perfect for them.  I augmented the selection with some others just for the colour and uniqueness of some pockets.  But mostly they are shirts he will recognize. I have been pushing to have it ready for his birthday. Except,I forgot about the sashing between these blocks. I just noticed it when I went to add in the link to the pattern. Oh, well, back to the cutting board. I was already going to omit the border once I increased the blocks from 16 to 20 but the sashing strips totally slipped my mind.
So no UFO today. But very productive.

Monday String Update

My string project took centre stage this week. I really was energized by the sight of them all on the design wall.  And soon there were more.
And the question became, many would be enough? This is largely driven by the length of fabric remaining. Bonnie’s directions show a setting of 5 X 7 or 35 blocks.  I started doing calculation of remaining fabric, how many strips I could get, how many kites that gives and how many blocks that gives. And the number I came up with….33. This is because I took two strips of this fabric for the On Ringo Lake mystery when I decided to go with scrappy sashing.
Have decided to just go for it and make as many as I can.  And in the end if I need two more blocks, maybe I can piece some cut off bits into big enough pieces for kites. Thrown in amidst the rest of the scrappy, strings they might not be noticed.
In the meantime, I need to spend more time on the Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt. It actually has a deadline which is now less than a month away. Have almost finished attaching the Stones and Bricks together, just 9 left to go. Then comes the tricky bit, putting them in twos. Do I just do random, pull from a pile or try for some organization?
Really tempted to go with randomness
This could be a case of overthinking it if I try and impose some sort of order on these. Although since there are three of most bricks I was going to try and keep the duplicates in different areas maybe assemble in thirds.
Time to link up with Jo's String Update and spend some time looking at others progress. Procrastination is my motto.

Mystery Monday Link Up

What a great day it was yesterday. Well, yes it was extremely cold outside and probably even snowing but I didn’t have to go anywhere but my sewing machine. And, extra bonus, QuiltCam !
I was feeling so enthusiastic I even tried to send a picture of my sewing set up to Bonnie. However technology failed ( a much too tedious tale to tell).  So sharing it now

I was trying to get a whole bunch of blocks done so I could check the layout. Managed one and three quarters of a second.
Well, still tried the layout with what I have already done.
This is a knock-out. Totally stupendous. And complicated. Definitely need to pay attention to what goes where.

What I wanted to check most of all was the scrappy sashing. I wasn’t sure if changing from a constant in the blocks to scrappy in the sashing would work out. But also not sure if I have enough of the constant to do all the sashing and the blocks. Thought since I had a really long length of this fabric it would be sufficient however, it didn’t have the width. Instead of 42 inches or even 40, this was only 35.

A closer look with better colour, picture from my camera instead of my tablet. I think this will work.
 Now to just get all the pieces finished.  A whole lot of sashing left to sew.
Did get all the setting pieces cut, so I can put all the blue away. A few more brown HST and QST to cut so that is still out.  And so glad I bought the Folded Corners ruler, made this last step go fast.


So now just sewing ahead but first to link up with Bonnie.Mystery Monday Link Up

First Week of BOM challenge

YAH ! It’s here. The first week of the challenge and I feel ready to dive in.
First of all, I have to pick a pattern from the 18 left to make. To keep myself from over thinking this, I just open the case and grab one without looking at it. Going totally random here, and what do I get? Flying Geese ! As if I haven’t done a couple hundred of them over the past weeks of Bonnie’s Mystery. Booyah.   Even better, these are 2.5inch geese, yowser, they seem huge.

The next step is to choose the fabrics.  When I started this, I didn’t want to use the same red all the way through, so I have used two different ones already. And now that I’ve been ordering from Quilted Twins, I have even more choice. I picked up one of their bundles of red back in November.  Just head on over to the shelf, shove my hand in the stack of red and pull one out.  Keeping it random.
The white isn’t so random. The designer said she chose flying geese as a memory of fall in Southern Ontario when the geese flock to fly south.  So I pull a white/on white with small flowers that resemble the fall asters.
And off to the cutting table
A slight hiccup is encountered.

The centre block has the option of some embroidery, the years of the sesquicentennial. ( isn’t that a mouthful but faster than saying 150th birthday) . I trace the numbers with a chalk pencil and hunt up some embroidery supplies.


And that’s where all this progress came to a screeching halt. Three hours later, I surfaced to write this.  Finding the floss and needles didn’t take all that much time. It was sidetracking on cutting for other projects, patching a hole in hubby’s quilted shirt, straightening up shelves that were avalanching fabric all over. And  so on.  But I have the pieces ready to sew and I am now sitting close to a sewing machine. This could happen.
but first to link up with Jo, because this is her idea after all. Jo's BOM Challenge

String Update

I started to write this yesterday to link up with Jo and then realized that I had made very little progress on my string projects. So I held off until I could report something. Last night I had only 5 new kites/units/ 1/4 blocks, whatever they are called,finished. Today I have my weekly allotment of 11done and the 11 new pieces cut for the upcoming week.



Since I had over 40 of these units done, I decided to put some blocks together to make sure I liked the outcome.





Yes, yes I like it. The light in this room doesn't do this justice. Will have to take a better one in daylight.  With only 4 or 5 strips on each side of the kite, they go fast so it should be quick work to get a whole bunch more made.  The only thing slowing me down is all the other projects demanding some attention right now.

I started cutting and sewing on the bar mitzvah quilt and oh didn’t I mention? My hubby requested another present for a cousin.  The last time I gave the Orange Crush I had in the UFO pile, the time before that I did a Bricks and Stepping Stones. The Bricks and Stepping Stones is faster to do from a cold start ( uncut fabric) so that’s what I’m going with.  A dash over to Joanns provided some current novelty fabric and I have been slicing away at it. Only 30 more bricks to cut.  But first while I have a sitting down break from cutting, off to link up with Jo