Some of This; Some of That

I've been making string blocks, starting a new EPP, finished up an applique block, made a charity block for Covered in Love, and began quilting my UFO and a charity quilt - phew. So only have .53 yds to add to the stash report.  But I bagged yardage and scraps from my Sweet Land of Liberty that I no longer want. Found homespuns are so loosely woven, I don't care to work with them again.  I weighed them and the bag weighs 4.63 lbs or 74.08 ounces.  A one pound of fabric (average) weighs 3.5 ounces, so I'm giving away 21.17 yards.  Woohoo!  My new YTD destashing now stands at 27.15 yards.  And there's a space in my stash cleared away of all that fabric. Maybe I'll take some fabric out of a drawer.

Now for how I did in January with my 2019 UFO challenge. I'm happy to report I got my Jan-Feb UFO for the year sandwiched, and I am quilting it. I'm about 3/4ths done. Next is a whole lot of stippling and it will take a while.  I hope to have it done by my deadline of the end of February.  I've allotted myself 2 months for each project this year.

The second goal for January was to make my BOM block for my applique quilt.  That is done.
I am finally over the half way point making the applique blocks for this quilt - 10 to go.

Let's see, what else?

Made a mug rug as a gift,

Crocheted a baby washcloth

Finished adding the latest donut to my Bliss quilt,

and salvaged fussy cut fabric into a baby quilt top for St. Anne's.

And as to stitching time:

15 minutes stitching days/week = 7/7 days

15 minutes stitching days/Jan = 30/31 days

15 minutes stitching days/Feb = 2/2 days

15 minutes stitching days/2019 = 32/33 days

Success Rate = 96.96%

That's it for last month.  How did you do?  Leave me a comment and I'll come by and see your progress.  I'm linking to Sunday Stash, 15 minutes to Stitch 2019, and Oh, Scrap. 

Blessings.

I Like Thursdays

Here's the big news for us:
It's raining in California - SoCal to be exact! Suppose to rain for part of today.

Thank you, God!

and I really like I'm back to the quilting part of a project:

Now I'm off to get ready for a very special luncheon - I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Be sure to drop by Lee Anna's I Like Thursdays for some happy likes from this past week.

Friday Finish

It's quilted.  My RSC block for January is actually 30" square. I'm donating it to the NICU ward at our county hospital.  I bound it with the blue in the center. It's already given to the charity coordinator of our guild. Alas, I forgot to take a photo of the bound and finished quilt.

For this preemie quilt I did freezer paper work, tape work, FMQ, used a walking foot, and a Hera marker. The thread was a blue So Fine #50 by Superior Threads.


This is my alternate to ruler work at times.  With my FMQ foot I stitched a triangle.  Then did straight lines inside the triangle - again with my FMQ foot.  I drew one straight line with the Hera marker to keep me aligned.  You can see it in the photo with tape.






Well, they're straighter than they would have been - lol.  Go here to see the posts where Karen of Faeries and Fibres showed us how to do these. I used the Hera marker to draw the lines on the white squares. I found that when trying to follow a Hera line one has to look ahead of the foot to see the line.

I'm linking to Finish it Up Friday, Let's Make Baby Quilts, Finished or Not Fridays, Free Motion Mavericks, Can I get a Whoop, Whoop? and Scrap Happy Saturday.  Enjoy them - I sure do.

Last week's winner of the fat quarter was Chris in Canada.  Congrats, Chris.  I'll be sending you an email.  This week it's another fat quarter for a linker or commentator. Link party button below. Would love to see or read about what you are working on.  Ends midnight, Thursday.

Quilted, Bound and Ready

Quilted  this was a "pulling out hair FMQ" as I was trying to FMQ around those squares and it was HARD.  They're better than my last attempt - what with all the ones I've done - but it isn't a cake walk yet.  I can go up or down okay, but turning corners or going right to left or left to right still causes me headaches.  I'll stall in the corners and get a build up in thread in the back which I don't like.  I guess I'll just have to keep practices - I know that helps because after doing 36 of them I could see I was better at it.

Bound

This is the more true color of the back.

Ready to gift

I'm  linking to Amanda Jean's Finish it Up Friday, Sarah's Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Myra's Finished Or Not Fridays , and Jennifer's Wednesday Wait Loss. Do go by and see all the lovely postings. Blessings.

Quilted, Bound and Shown.

Commission quilt is done.
       Quilted, bound, and shown to recipient:

It's a t-shirt quilt. That's why it was so hard to guess the quilting motif.  Some of these fronts of the garments have a lot of paint on them, so all I could do was go around the designs.

Measures 55" by 59". Quilted on my domestic Juki. Still have to clip some threads. My mom put the top together and then handed it over to me to quilt.  It's quite heavy, and was more so, when I had all the pins on it while I quilted.  It's for my DD - a student adviser at UC Riverside for the past 19 years.  Besides guiding 460+ students a year the above is what she has been up to at work on the side of course. 

On my Design Wall

is a mess.  Wanted to make another quilt as last week's, but it went awry.  I thought of making each block have a different solid.

Ugh - I didn't like it.  No cohesiveness as before with only one sash color.  So what to do?  I decided to take those blocks I'd made and change them a bit.

This I like.  Need to change out the other blocks to decide for sure.  Has this happened to you?  I see the use of making a color drawing first before one starts to make blocks.

I've finished quilting the blocks on that large commission quilt.  Here's another block:

Have you guessed what's on the other side yet?  The quilting was getting difficult because the quilt is so heavy.  I've never been one to use gloves, but my hands were getting a rough workout. Maybe I should go to the LQS and buy some.  Then I remembered. 

Not long ago, I bought a pair of gardening gloves at the 99 Cent store.  Gave them a try, and they worked! Made moving the quilt around much easier.  With all the blocks quilted on to the sashing.

The mailman delivered a wonderful package! Free Spirit was celebrating National Sewing Month (September) all month long with a big giveaway.  The top prize was a Janome machine.  While I didn't win the Grand Prize, I was one of three winners on day #11.  

Yes, 24 fat quarters of Amy Butler's new collection Soul Mate plus Coats+ thread to quilt what top I make.  I know just the top I want to make.  Ah, WIPs get farther down on the list. Linking up to Design Wall Monday, BOMs Away, and Monday Making.

What are you up to?  It was 98 degrees outside today, so it was a good day for being indoors and quilting.  Blessings,

Some of This, Some of That

First off the EPP papers giveaway is still active. See top, sidebar.  As to the stash:  Nothing came in - yeah.  Used bits of scraps for my applique block and hexies to the total of a 0.06 yd.  Another bit of scraps in leaders and enders hourglass blocks for another measly 0.04 yd.  Then I made a neonatal top using .62 yd.  and donated 2.13 yds of fabric to the guild. My YTD is now 12.93 yds destashed.  I'm going to have to be more ruthless as I go through piles of fabric and just "let go" of some of it. Sigh.  Do you have that problem?

I had made a goal of finishing off my hexie ring, doing a bit of FMQ quilting [curvy lines instead of straight] on that St. Anne's quilt and start on my next WIP (I refuse to call them UFOs -hehe) for 17 ---- for 2017 for last Sunday.  They turned out to be my week's goals. I did work on two of them and got a bit done. Here's the quilt in progress and one fourth of a scrap block:

As soon as I publish this I'm off to do some hexies and maybe get a motif in on my ancient one.  That should do it for this week's slow stitching.

What are you up to?  Are you doing some slow stitching today?  It's a beautiful clear, 80 degrees day outside.  The patio rocker is calling me to come out a sit a spell.  Hope you get to ply a needle today. 

Linking to Judy's Patchwork Times and some other linky parties in my tab above. Blessings,

FMQ-ing Another Baby Quilt

Quilting another baby quilt - not the flying saucer one as I have to assemble a batting for it - just a bit different.  It's just some 6 1/2" squares I got from the St. Anne's stash.  
I'm quilting it differently by using wavy lines along the sewing lines and stars minimally marked in the centers.  Going along fast.

I'm linking to Lizzie's FMQ Mavericks and hope you have something to show us, too. My giveway is still open; check the top of the sidebar for details.  Blessings,

WIPS Be Gone Week 32!

Can you believe it - there are only 20 weeks left in 2015! Wow.

I finished a preemie quilt made out of some of those triangles I cut off units in making an early B3 quilt. With some leftover fabric I came up with this:

It measures 30" square.  I quilted it with straight lines following the seams. I wanted this one to stay soft.  Now this one I quilted differently:

There are diamonds in the outermost squares but you can't see them unless you spot them on the back.  Most of it you can see I just spaced straight lines on the whitest fabric. In the light blue I did some freezer paper work.

I cut out the leaves on the freezer paper that I had traced from the master. I then cut out part of each leaf to make the design continuous. I used a frixion pen to transfer the pattern to the actual fabric, and pulled off the paper to use it in the next space. I used a baby blue Superior So Fine thread with an 80/12 titanium needle.   Here's a closeup:

This is a B3 quilt whose free pattern is on my right side bar.  Looks modern to me. Here's the back:

On the WIP front, I now have a quilt top made out of #7.  I hoped to have it sandwiched, but I've been working a lot on trying to get WIP #13 - my hexie baskets - ready to take with me to CO as my hand stitching project.  I leave Sunday.
WIP #7

What are you up to? Would love to see it, whether finished or WIP progress or an old post, or even about what is going on in your life - not necessarily quilty. Share your goodness. Linky below ends Monday, midnight.

An InLinkz Link-up

I'm linking to Amanda's Finish it Up Friday, Richards Link A Finish Friday, Sarah's Can I get a Whoop, Whoop?, Lizzie Lenard's FMQ Mavericks because I did finish something and did some FMQ, then Saturday with Pink Doxies and Monday with Lyn for BOMs Away. Bye for now. I'll try to post from CO when and if I can.

WIPs Be Gone Finish

When I saw Lorna's Elephant Parade's first block, I knew I had to make a baby quilt using it since my God Daughter in Law[who was expecting a baby] is from Thailand, and the elephant is the symbol of the nation.  I got busy finding the right fabrics from my stash. Then I had to wait til I knew if it was going to be a girl or boy before I picked something for the little elephant.  Then I realized that the block made an African elephant

and the Thai elephant is an Asian elephant. Off to do research - the Asian elephant has smaller ears and the female doesn't have tusks.  So I redid the mother elephant block and waited some more. It wasn't til the end of March that we learned there was a good chance it would be a girl. So I remade the baby elephant block.  I put the basic top together.  Now how was I going to incorporate more about Thailand in this quilt?  Here's what I did:

1. There is a lot of vegetation and jungle in Thailand, so I took the 1/2 yard of fabric left from the border, lined the back with fusible interfacing and cut out leaves to extend the motifs into the quilt.

They were ironed on and machine appliqued using invisible thread, a 60/8 needle and Bottom Line thread in the bottom. This took a while.  And Baby Saige arrived while I was doing that step.  Then I decided to quilt a temple into the sky left of the elephant -there are lots of temples in Thailand.  So going back on the NET, found some ruins, made a copy, hung it on a window and traced it onto that golden paper for quilters.

 I then pinned it in place on the quilt and started outlining it.

Then I decided to do some letter work and found "welcome" in Thai and did a bit of stencil thread work to write that on the quilt.

I wanted to place the baby's name also, but there just wasn't room. Above is just part of it.  It didn't show up very well, but Waen spotted it right away.  With all the rain Thailand gets in a year, straight lines in the borders seemed just right. More quilting - quilted the mother elephant and surrounding sky using FMQ and a bit of ruler work on her ear.

Actually the blue foliage around the feet was the hardest. So here is my Elephant baby quilt gifted today to Saige M. Welcome little one.  I'm only 3 months late.

What are you up to?  I'd love to see your progress - quilty or otherwise.  Linky below - ends Monday, midnight.

An InLinkz Link-up

I'm linking to Amanda's Finish it Friday, Richards Link A Finish Friday, Sarah's Can I get a Whoop, Whoop?and Lizzie's Free Motion Mavericks.  Bye for now.
                                                                                          Angie in SoCal

Some of This, Some of That

I made another B³ quilt  - I have to keep one month ahead of my guild members. That used up 1.5 yards. Then I made 6 blocks for a friend - that used up 1/3 yard. Then I donated 4 yards to next month's Corner Pay N Take at my guild for a grand total of 5.83 yards out of my stash. That brings my total YTD to 21.29 yards out.  Not bad for the end of Week 8.

For wip progress, I quilted my crane block:

Do you see the stitching at the outer 1/4" of the border.  I'm having the dickens of a time trying to decide how to add the piping as the piping I chose has a large edge to it and I can't place it right. I'm thinking of hand basting it in place using the line of stitching to guide me. Any suggestions??

Not sure you can see the quilting.  I top stitched the trees, around the inside of the cranes and the lines denoting the ground.

Here are the blocks I made and are now on my Design Wall:









I'm linking at Judy's Patchwork Times,  Esther's WOW,  and Lyn's BOMs Away.  Go check them out.

This N That Week 6

First, the Grow Your Blog giveaway is still on - ends February 14th.  Go here to enter to win the book. 

Second, my stash report is not much to crow about - used only .02 yards for another block for my friend: 

I saw this Twinkle Star at Angela's SoScrappy blog and fell in love with it.  I'm putting together a Christmas quilt and I wanted to find a star and this is it! This one is 6 inches square when finished.

I also now have a photo of those three blocks I made last week.  I was trying to use up two fat quarters and was able to get three blocks out of them.  

I did donate some fabric to my Guild - another 1.5 yards out, so my new YTD total is 15.48 yards. Not bad for week 6.

Hope she can use them:

These are on my design wall.  The quilt that was there is being quilted.  I've finished the grid and SITD work.  Now I will start the FMQ.

Let me show you how I hope to fill in some of those larger spaces:

I wanted to use as motifs some of the elements of the background material. So before I cut up the last of the fabric for the last border, I photocopied the length of fabric.  Then on the front side, I matched up partial flowers and stems to fill out with ghost quilting - Linda of Linda's Landscapes heard of this technique in a Martha Ginn article, example seen here.  After finding some spaces and the motifs I wanted to add, I traced them on freezer paper and cut them out.  Because I abhor taking out those itty-bitty pieces  when I stitch over it, I cut apart my motifs whenever I can so that I am stitching around the motif than through the FP.

Here's one I've cut out and you can see the cuts.  I have to keep the paper in tack so that the pieces stay together.  Here it is ironed onto the quilt top.

The one on the bottom left needs to be cut out. The one on the top left doesn't have to be completely ironed down as half the flower is there to guide me.  Hmmm. Looks like I need to continue that stem in the center top.  Photos are so helpful as we make quilting design decisions.

I'm linking over at Judy's Patchwork Times,  Esther's WOW, Lyn's BOMs Away, and Lizzie's Free Motion Mavericks.  Go check them out.

Blessings as you start your new week.