UFO report M-2

That is two weeks until the mystery with Bonnie starts and how am I doing in clearing out old unfinished projects before starting a new one? Pretty darn good if I do say so myself.
I finished up the sashing on the Stars and got them all together.
So now it becomes a finished top waiting for some reason to quilt it, like a new baby.  Although I  would have a hard time parting with this project as the fabrics bring back so many memories.
In the same project box as the stars, were the string geese from waaaay back. I searched Bonnie’s blog to figure out how long ago.  The post where she first mentions them was December 2012.  Not sure that these were started at the same time she was working on them but within a year of it.  The pattern is no longer available as a free pattern on her site as she has tweeked it and it’s now in her new book coming out soon.  So I had to improvise on the sashing size between the rows of geese.
Still working on the side and top border. The sashing fabric was from the Quilted Twins, the detail of the picture isn’t fine enough to see the peach colour from the geese is picked up quite nicely. As soon as I saw this fabric I knew they would play nicely together. It's called Splish Splash and comes in lots of other colourways (https://www.quiltedtwins.com/new-fabric/template-swirling-marbling-blender-2ns4m-98789-6harc-zygyk-7gpgr)

And in between these two projects, I lashed together a third.
This one destined for our bed. It is named the Franken-quilt because three different projects were sewn together to make it big enough to cover us.
It has a centre Trip Around the World, skinny border, Scrappy Bargello strips for a fat border, and Scrappy Stars for corner stones.  One thing I wish now I had done differently would be to extend the skinny border to frame the stars. It sort of looks like they get lost in the bargello. This is on the basting wall right now with backing and batting waiting for me to go baste them together.  The weather here has taken a downward direction temperature wise and I would like to get this on the bed soon.
So quite busy week, although I’ll be playing catch-up on the housework for a day or two soon.  Soon, I promise, well maybe after I quilt Frankie.
Now to link up with Jo and see what she has done this week.  Jo's Country Junction

UFO report

Well, this is it, the final weeks before Bonnie’s Mystery Quilt starts. This means a clearing out of projects currently being worked on and cleanup in the sewing room.  Basically clearing the decks for action.
One project cleared up, the neutral/brown Jacob’s ladder. All blocks done, layout done, rows stacked and numbered ready to sew together.  I had the opportunity to just focus on sewing for two whole days and I did. Wasn’t sure just how many I was going to make, original plan was for 48 with a large border but I pushed to get beyond that and made it to 56 before I ran out of steam.  Here they are up on the basting wall on a flannel sheet as my design wall was too small to hold them all.
 Thinking a simple border but will let that thought percolate for a bit.  After all that neutralness, a shot of colour was needed. Especially as we are having numerous grey overcast days.


  So out came some crumb stars. I have two UFOs using crumb stars, the first was Star Splinter from Quiltmaker March/April '13  and the second, Scrappy Stars from Jo Kramer ( link at right on her page)

(the pictures loaded in reverse order, Scrappy is the first and then Splinter) 



Scrappy won out and Splinter is back in the project box for another time.
It was so engrossing, the next thing I knew it was 2 in the morning and all 9 blocks were done. I have more centres but the pattern calls for 9 so now comes the sashing.

And stopping here to link up with Jo's UFO challenge before I go back down to my cleaned up sewing room with my re-hung design wall  to cut some sashes.

UFO Update

Started to write this yesterday, but went down to the sewing room to take a picture and didn't come back to the computer all day.  Can't say I spent the whole day there, had to come up for pee breaks and cat nagging ( feed me, let me out, that sort of thing), but the majority of the time I was sewing.

And.. it was sewing a UFO. I've searched back through my posts and can't find where I've mentioned starting it. Although I see in a folder of pictures that it was already a UFO in 2015. It is the Jacob's Ladder done in neutrals/browns.
This started with a pack of fabric from a guild meeting back in the winter I was a member of the local guild.

When I pulled it out there were 19 blocks made, lots of cut fabric and even more uncut fabric. That was two days ago, now there are 30 blocks made.

The pattern I am working from calls for 48 blocks, I am not sure if I will get that far. But then again I have a bunch of fabric from the Quilted Twins that is blending in just perfectly and I might keep going. The shot of inspiration I got from Jo's neutral quilt and the infusion of new fabrics is just what this project needed to get it going again. Once again linking up with Jo and the UFO update, albeit a day late.

Mission Accomplished

I’m feeling pretty satisfied with myself these past few days.  Not only did I get my niece's quilt finished well before the wedding but I managed to finish quilting on another by Sunday. 
That one was a UFO of my sister-in-law’s mother who sadly passed rather quickly two years ago.  While she was lying in the hospital, knowing the end was near, she made a point of telling my sister-in-law that the two quilts she had started and not finished were to go to my sister-in-law’s daughters.   During one of our frequent visits to Nova Scotia my SIL asked me if I would finish them for her to give to her daughters.  That’s the back story, fast forward to two weeks ago, my SIL messages me to ask if the one for her daughter that has just gotten married could be ready for her to take back with them when they come for wedding.   Of course, I said.

I had gotten the quilt as far as a top, adding the borders was all that was required.  So sandwich and quilt, easy peasy , right?
If I had just done staight lines it would have been easy peasy. But I wanted to step things up a bit and in all my searching of log cabin quilting what stood out the most was the feathering.  So I determined to do feathers in the light half the rounds and stippling in the other half. Which extended the time quite a bit.

Didn't manage to get a pic of the feathers but here is one of the stipple

But I managed to deliver it to her on Sunday, before they left.  Even if it still had chalk marks on it and some thread to still clip.
At the same time I was rushing this through the machine, I was also teaching my daughter to quilt. She came for 12 days, managing to fit in both our Thanksgiving celebration and her cousin’s wedding. Within a day of her arriving, she started asking about how to put together a quilt she wanted to make. Well actually a weighted blanket, but I figured out a way to make it a quilt-as-you-go quilt.




  Breaking it down into block size pieces made it easier for her to sew and to fill with the beads needed for the weight.
We got to spend some great time together over a sewing machine or two.
so now to link up with everyone over at Jo’s Country Junction
And see what you all are up to this week.

Almost finished

I have been delaying writing a post hoping to have my niece's wedding quilt to show off.  And it is almost done. Just one last side to sew down the binding on, a quick trip to the washer and it will be out on the clothes line. But, it was a beautiful day out today, so I popped it up on the line with the last bit still in the binding clips.

Isn’t that spectacular ? Jo and Kelli really knocked it out of the park with this pattern. ( Bohemian Rhapsody from Country Girl Modern ). I am already planning on doing another one. Just need to find the right fabrics.   And the back is almost as good.

The Polish fabric from the Quilted Twins is gorgeous.   I’m fairly pleased with the results. I have to make it “fairly” because of some errors but I have promised myself not to repeat them to anyone else.   I told you about one of them, the triangle corner that wasn’t there.  I did some un-sewing and put it in. Then on the next row of quilting I found a square turned the wrong way, and un-sewed and fixed that also.
While all this was going on I had a request for a baby quilt. With only two weeks notice. Yikes.  So out came some baby panels from my stash. Additional request, no pink.  Amazingly I managed to find two that met the requirements, quilted one up and offered it to her with the proviso that if this didn’t satisfy, there was another in the works. Of course she wanted the one not finished, so pedal to the floor and several hours later …. okay maybe two days later.  Here they are.

  She picked the Noah’s Ark, as it was a little bigger than the Alphabet.

Not sure whether to call these finished UFO’s as they hadn’t even been started. They were just potential projects and now one is a finished quilt all ready for another baby.
Now to link up with Jo’s  UFO Progress

Quilting at last

I didn’t get as much sewing done this past week as I wanted. We had some really nice weather and spent a lot of time outside doing  yard work. Some of it easy, like picking vegetable, some of it arduous. That would be clearing the weed trees and brush from the property lines. When we bought this place it had been allowed to get very overgrown. And what it is overgrown with is an invasive species of shrub called Buckthorn.  Here’s what Ontario Trees and Shrubs webpage has to say about it:
 Notes: Common Buckthorn is a very invasive alien plant, originally from Europe. It can grow up to about 20 feet tall. Please help to slow the spread of this plant by pulling it up whenever you see it. However, please be sure that you're pulling up the right plant, as it can resemble native Dogwoods. The thorns are wicked - watch out for them!
I can attest to the wickedness of the thorns. Tried to grab a pile of branches without my work gloves and got a 2 inch thorn in my finger. Ouch indeed.
After three days of chopping this stuff down, we still have lots of it out there but I was totally worn out. I called a halt and went back to sewing.
And here it is, Bohemian Rhapsody on the basting wall finally. I thought long and hard over the back. It was really difficult to bring myself to actually cut the Polish fabric I had ordered for this. It was just so lovely. And I didn’t want a plain ordinary back with these spectacular fabrics, it had to stand out. So this is what I came up with.
A lot of math when into it. Including adding extra to the side pieces so there is overage for the quilting process.
Perhaps I was patting myself to hard on my back because several hours into the quilting this is what I came across.
See that big blue triangle…it shouldn’t be a triangle. It should have a floral corner. I put the brakes on and decided to sleep on the decision. Do I try and add the floral piece that is missing? There is only one seam to undo since it an edge piece. And if you look in the big picture you can actually see it. If you follow the vertical centre line of the squares, the bottom right one.
While I think it over, I’m off the walk the yard looking for things that need to be put away from the rain coming today, like the box of potatoes I dug.
And a bonus of the lumberjack work, I actually got to see one of the elusive tree frogs that have been so annoying to listen to all summer. I hope you can see him here on his tree. ( and no, I didn’t cut his tree down). Now to connect up with Jo and her UFO progress update

A busy August

is finished and now that all the socializing is over with I can settle down to quilting. That was my thoughts as September started. And it has worked out, mostly.  I quilted a baby panel that has been kicking around in my stash for a long time. No picture as yet, still has to get the binding on.

I also got the Bohemian Rhapsody blocks together. Have had a hard time trying to get a good picture of it, my design wall isn’t big enough for it, my basting wall room had poor lighting. So I thought outside on the clothesline would be perfect to bring out the colours. A little too much wind, but hubby was kind enough to hold it down for me.

After this, we took off for a trip across the border to pick up fabric from my US mail box.  Some of which was destined to be the backing for this quilt.

Aren’t they great ? This is some of the Polish fabric that the fabric store half of the Quilted Twins brought back. I was bumbling around trying to think of what to use for a backing when Rachael put these up and the light bulb went off in my head. My niece is part Polish on her mother’s side, since this is a wedding gift for her, Polish fabrics would be perfect.

One of the other packages to pick up was the box of shirts from Jo.

Isn’t this great, a box just stuffed with goodies. Thanks so much Jo, I’m going to love using these. After so many quilts with my stash of shirts, I was starting to get tired of seeing them. In another attempt to use them up, I started a Spider Web quilt.

Surprisingly these use very little pieces. The longest strip is only 5’’, so it is going to take a while to work through my pile of shirts.

And the other packages? Well, while I was waiting for Jo’s box, I did order a few more packages of fabric from the Quilted Twins

With prices so good, I couldn’t resist.

Now to link up with Jo’s UFO Progress