Wednesday, May 10, 2017

A class and a plan....

This was a really busy week for me with 5 appointments, work and a class on the weekend. I didn't get a whole lot of quilting done, but here is what I did when I had time (or the class).

The layout of the rest of the leaves on #freefallqal

I continued my work on #freefallqal sponsored by Sandra at mmm! quilts. Earlier in the week, I followed Yvonne's suggestion and tried to figure out the location of blocks before I piece the last 6 blocks for the quilt. I think this will work and I began piecing the first two. I got lost somewhere, and put it down until later today, when I should have more time and a clearer mind to see where I went wrong. I didn't piece it so it was the parts of the unit that were driving me nuts. I do believe in stopping when it isn't working out.

On Saturday, I took a class with Nancy Halpern. She is a local quilter who has been quilting for over 20 years. She has taught nationally and internationally and I was intrigued by her quilts. You can see a little more about her here. Below is a picture of a traditional Japanese Puzzle quilt.

A traditional Japanese Puzzle by Mabry Benson

Our task was to take an impressionist picture or a picture of our choosing and turn it into a Japanese puzzle quilt. You can see a bit of the picture on the bottom right of the picture below.

It is a complex process of cutting out the four pieces from one fabric and rejoining them with adjacent blocks.

Here is a piece of the Japanese Puzzle on Nancy's quilt

The actual patch that is sewn is outlined in the red lines.

I have no idea when I'll get back to this, but here is where I left it my quilt at the end of the day. I attempted to have the water going around the blocks. It is fun seeing how this might work! I have to admit halfway through the process I was unsure. I do hope that I can get back to it before long.

End of the day

Meanwhile, I will link to Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Be Social Wednesday!

Monday, May 1, 2017

2017 New Quilt Bloggers Introduction Post

Being a part of the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers has been a gift and today is the day I am one of the featured bloggers in the Blooming Quilters Hive. There are plenty of new quilt bloggers debuting today and you can check in at the Queen Bee's pages where you can meet other new bloggers and register for prizes:

A little bit about me:

My sewing career began early in life; my grandmother, Petronella, taught me how to sew so I could make doll clothes. The thimble in the picture below resembles her thimble, which I still have.

Soon, I wanted to know more and a neighbor taught me how to make dresses and, for many years, I made my own clothing. Eventually, I worked in a fabric store that sold clothing and designer fabric. The store was frequented by Amish women who lived in the area. Once in awhile, I would see their wonderful quilts. I am sure that this began my love affair with quilting.

Fast forward a few years...and I am in graduate school in Boston. There was a quilt store in Harvard Square and when I was out of grad school a few years later, I took a quilting class. I was hooked! Like many, I began learning by hand. Soon, I began making quilts by machine. I joined a guild and later worked at my local quilt store, Cambridge Quilts (almost 18 years!!).

I am fortunate that my quilting has spanned many years. My other crafts come and go but this has remained a constant. I have become an avid quilter and teacher. I enjoy learning new techniques and am always eager to find new projects that either challenge my design sense, encourage a new skill and then hopefully I can share the skill with someone else!

MY QUILTS:
First: My first quilt was all done by hand. It took 15 years. Someone convinced me to make those little starts in the lattice! I love this quilt and still use it on my bed. You can see that LESSON LEARNED: Fabrics see that the muslin has a bluish tint - the fabric bled!!! I was all my fabric and if I am not sure, I wash it again.

A Middle Quilt: This is a quilt I am really proud of - also mostly done by hand. The pattern was Les Fleur de Jardin by Lisa DeBee Schiller. I don't know if I will ever do another appliqué quilt this large, but I did love doing it. I met some good friends in the class that started this project. I joined my guild, Rising Star Quilters, as a result of this class! This may be as close to making a Baltimore Album as I ever get.

New Skills: I learned to feel confident about machine quilting on my new Bernina 440 QE by making this quilt. It was a mix of using a walking foot and free motion quilting and the pattern was called Quilt-As-You-Go Machine Trapunto by Keryn Emmerson. I am not expert at machine quilting but can do most of what I need on a domestic machine up to a twin size quilt.

Recent Finish: This quilt just plain makes me happy. I love the way it came together and that a wonderful baby received this quilt. I purchased the pattern, Fancy Forest by Elizabeth Hartman with no plan to make the baby quilt. I could not get the quilt out of my mind and then I thought about a baby that will love this quilt. Her parents both worked on my house in Maine (he the carpenter and she the landscaper). I was on a mission and it was done before she arrived. I have already made a second one with some changes and should be quilting it in the early summer (future post).

MY TIPS FOR QUILTING:

Here are a few tips I always try to impart to my students:

Quilt what you love and love what you quilt.
Keep moving ahead. If there is a mistake that will not stop your progress, let it go and return to it when further along. Fix it then. if you still need to, rather than getting hung up or putting the quilt away for a future date.
Challenge yourself to learn something new with each project.

SOME OF MY QUILTING GOALS FOR 2017:
This year I have set a few goals for my quilting. Blogging helps to challenge me to pay attention to these goals.

2017 APQ UFO resolution which challenges you to complete one project a month. You can see my list here for this year and a slideshow and list of what I finished last year here.
To use EQ7 to design a few quilts which will use fabrics that were collected for a quilt, but I don't have a particular pattern in mind.
Make a Modern quilt, entirely my own design.
Continue to reduce my stash.

So tell me, what is are your quilting goals this year?

Thanks for stopping by,

Monday, April 24, 2017

#FreeFallQAL Part 3

I finished this piece a bit ahead of schedule!!!!

It is fun to see this come together. I chain stitched a whole bunch of the segments together, which helped the assembly go much quicker. Here is one part of the chain! The first picture is of the pile on my desk, waiting to be sewn. The second is the chain of that pile hanging on the door in my study!

I thought that was pretty entertaining. On the whole, I have figured out that having a system of organization for this is making me much happier. Many patterns have pictures of the units, and while I don't really need them, I had to come to some easier way of putting this block together.

1. Mark and make the half square units.
2. Pin all the pieces that can be sewn next (one flying geese unit, 3 half square-rectangle units, one half square /square unit), so that the pin is on the side to be sewn (saves pieces getting turned and piecing on the wrong side).
3. Sew and Press
4. Pin next set of sections, sew and press.
5. Continue until the top and bottom half of the block is together
6. Sew the block together

So much happier putting this group together!!

Sunday, April 23, 2017

A finished table runner from scraps!

I finished this table runner (at least I think so) and I am so happy. It was from some leftover flying geese which I made for another quilt.

Like most of the time, I quilted this on my Bernina 440QE. I mostly used my walking foot but also my ruler foot for a very small piece. As I worked, I found it was easier to do each side of a "goose" rather than twist around each one. Here's a picture of the back.

I am finding more and more I love my "in the ditch" quilting foot. Its a new plate for my Bernina 440Q walking foot. Also, it made it easy to go around the edge of the quilt with stitches by moving the needle a few "dots" either left or right of center.

But I still wanted to do some ruler work on the inside of the stars. It was so much easier than marking it! I'm glad I did it. Speaking of marking, I wasn't sure about doing the shadow geese in the solid fabric, but I finally did it and am glad that I did. I think it help completes the table runner.

This pattern was adapted from "Elegant Runner" by Terry Albers in Fons & Porter's Easy Quilts, Fall 2012. I saved it knowing I had these flying geese to use up.

Another UFO finished for 2017!

Friday, April 14, 2017

#FreeFallQAL Link Up #2

I finished the first 8 blocks for my FreeFall QAL!

I love the way they are turning out. These are leftover scraps form at least one bed quilt and a few fat quarters that were stashed some time ago.

However, I was not paying attention...and here are a list of the errors of my ways:

made 2 sets of flying geese (only needed one),
didn't trim my half square triangles,
didn't trim the flying geese, and
don't try to put an off center block together with the two sets of flying geese (I did it, but much faster to take them apart.

Here is a picture of some of the trimming along the way.

Helpful hint#1:

When paper piecing, you can glue the first piece to the paper to keep it in place, easier than dealing with pins. For this project, I "chain-glued" - glued all the 8 points at one time.

Helpful hint #2:
When trimming squares you can trim on two sides at once, and if you have a turntable mat, this is a good time to use it!

Linking up with FreeFallQAL #2 at mmmquilts.com

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Spring Fling Update - a week later

This post is a little late but, I did want to share a little of what spring fling is like.

As usual, it seems like a lot of packing for spring fling. I brought an ironing board and iron to share, as well as, my sewing machine, clothing and projects. There's also an extra large bag of scraps from last year, which will eventually become a benefit quilt. Not the best picture, but here's what the back of my Rav4 looked like with just my stuff in it.

We arrived and the weather was gorgeous. It was nearly 50° and the sky was so blue. The sun, snow, shadows and sky were truly inspiring. I loved the shadow of the trees on Lake Winnipesaukee, in NH. The house is a modest - a camp called Geneva Point - but sleeps 20, 2 to a room with a bathroom in each room. The downstairs has two large rooms; one with a fireplace where we setup 10 tables, 2 people per table. We also have cutting and ironing stations around that room (and snacks too). The other room has tables we use for our dinners (catered/brought in for 2 nights) and projects where you might want a design wall or need to spread out. It is not luxurious, but, it has everything what we need for the weekend and some mighty good views - mountains nearby and the beautiful lake. Most years there is still some ice on the lake when we arrive. This year, we had a little snow (10" on Saturday).

I got a fair amount done. I worked hard on two quilts which are very nearly complete tops. I also worked a little on some Sew Together bags that were previously cut out for a class sample.

The first quilt I focused on was "Heading South", a pattern by Material Girl Quilts. I won this pattern a year or so ago, as I did some of the fat quarters. I merged them with a few other pieces I had left and voila, here is my version. I expect borders, but didn't do that during the weekend.

Displaying the quilt on the upstairs bannister.

The second quilt that I spent a lot of time on, I refer to as my "typewriter quilt". It has quite a few novelty fabrics (typewriters, glasses, old fashioned typewriter keys, and text messaging abbreviations. I am pretty excited about one piece of the the plan I have for the quilting. It too needs borders and here's how far I got mostly because I left a piece home - ARGHHH.

Testing out the newspaper border

Testing out a gray inner border, still waiting for
bubblegum pink fabric for the one row

Friday, April 7, 2017

Blooming quilters

As I mentioned on March 11th, I am a part of the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers group. We are led by Yvonne @quiltingjetgirl, Leanne @she can quilt, Beth @Cooking Up Quilts. We have been using Slack to share ideas about blogging and to learn tips and tricks. We have been split into 3 groups, each with a queen! Yvonne is our leader and the hive is calling themselves the Blooming Quilters!

We each get a turn to showcase our blog. Mine comes up the first week in May (better check the exact date) and I will be linking to my hivemates blogs in their weeks.