Sweet Surprise

Two quilting buddies from Seattle, Ann and Jennifer, drove up to visit yesterday. They had a tour of the house, patiently smiled at my scraggly garden, and put up with a very barky puppy. Just before they left, Ann mysteriously went to the car and came back with this wonderful surprise - a friendship quilt from the group that I belonged to for about 18 years:

It has a hanging sleeve with a slat included for hanging in my new (under construction) studio. The theme was "garden", and I absolutely love it! The block at top center is my old house in Seattle, which was also the logo for my quilting business. I tried to brush Jennifer off as she filmed me looking at it as I was making an ugly cry face. I was blown away by the sweetness of the group to make this for me. Thank you so much ladies!

A Finish and a Start

Quarter Logs, 57” x 45”

Quarter Logs is quilted, with a diagonal line going in one direction. I eye-balled all the lines, some are a bit wonky, and they match the piecing.  I tried out my new laser light, since there is no quilting guide on my old Juki, but found it wouldn’t stay in position. Next time I’ll try painter’s tape to attach the flexible tube to the underside of the machine so it doesn’t move around so much. I was suspicious that the price on it kept going down, but should be able to get some use out of it. Binding is a royal blue solid.

Components for Rose's Quilt, focus fabric in front

New project in progress is Rose’s quilt, seen on her blog https://somethingrosemade14.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-dreami-specks-strips-and.html


Thinking there were a lot of rescued jelly roll strips that all went together, I tracked down the box but many were peach, and the focus fabric did not have any peach, so instead pulled yellow/blues/greens/whites and they should be an interesting mix. A lot of quilts start with one idea and go somewhere else! The blocks come out 20” x 4” finished. 


I’ve started hand piecing hexagons into flowers for applique. Haven’t decided if I’ll use diamonds as the base block (as on https://www.stitchedincolor.com The Kingfisher 
stitch-along) or squares, as in APNQ magazine. The glue technique is not a winner, even with the special glue sticks. I’ll next try the basting technique that stays on the back side and doesn’t go through the papers (first big EPP project I did was queen-sized, all templates cut from magazine inserts, all basted through the paper…never again!)


Knitting is back on track, have had a sweater in progress for many months. It’s the Lightweight Raglan Pullover  by Purl Soho. Between an interesting pleated hem technique that didn’t work with the texture of the yarn, short-rows on the curved hems, and then short-rows on the back, it kept getting put aside. Oh and then there was the move in the middle. Have bookmarked a video on Kitchener stitch for the underarms, then just some ends to weave in and give it a quick blocking. The yarn is a Valley Yarns 8/2 mercerized cotton – there’s a strand of something other than cotton that gives it a nice tweedy look but was a bugger to un-knit in places. After this is finished I hope to knock out a few charity hats and scarves.


I stitched up three cowls using the black & white knit fabric from the shirt finished in January, all to be donated. One is long to double-wrap, the others single. It was nice to use up almost all the remaining fabric. They’re sewn in a tube, with just a small bit of hand sewing to close.

Two Small Finishes

Two small quilts have been finished this week:  Rail Fence with flannel centers, quilted with straight line angles through each strip.

Rail Fence, Flannel Center Strips 50" x 40.5"

Half Squares, quilted with the lycra stitch, a curving zig-zag. Some of the fabrics have a lace print and this stitch gives a soft look.

Half Squares 48.5" x 39"

Kira Quilt and Virtual Sew-in

I finished assembling the Kira quilt top on Thursday. I’m happy with the finished result, though cutting and piecing was a bit of a struggle. The hand-dyed fat quarters used were not all 18" x 22", and mistakes were made during cutting. I had down-sized the quilt block to be able to use FQs, thinking I could cut four 9” squares to start, as the pattern calls for 10” squares (and also gives the option of cutting from yardage.) I’m glad that I measured the FQs after ironing, but when stacking them for cutting didn’t double-check that they had straight edges.

It felt like an episode of WHEN QUILTING ATTACKS! – a shout out to one of the segments of The Knitmore Girls Podcast. It is really encouraging to know that even seasoned knitters have problems—and how they overcome them. The same holds true for quilting – it’s not quite like pointing out the flaws in a quilt, just acknowledging that it isn’t always smooth going, and there are ways to work through challenges.

The background fabric is an Island Batik with 3” birds in different colors from several years ago. It will look a bit brighter with white batting behind it, rather than a dark blue curtain. While assembling the blocks, I did try to match a bit of color in the birds to the semi solids. The pattern does not have a lot of matching points, and has very clear cutting and pressing directions.

My West Seattle quilt group had scheduled a quilting retreat for this past weekend, and the unusual amount of snow caused it to be cancelled. We held a Virtual Retreat instead, sharing photos and projects in progress. It was fun to re-connect, as I wouldn't have been able to attend in person. I basted two small quilts, and quilted one (Rail Fence baby), photo to come after binding.

Four and Counting

While I’ve mentioned duet quilts – pairs of quilts, where the second is made from scraps from the first, I’ve now finished the fourth top from a set of fat quarters. It took me some time to remember the first project made from Jan Mullen’s “Dotz & Stripez” fabric, then realized it was a stars quilt that waited a few years after completion to find a home with one of my great-nephews:

Star Dance layout, twin, 2012

The second project is Boxes with a tiny black & white check as background/alternate. The fat quarters had had a set of 2 ½” strips cut off the stack, which guided my pattern choice:

Boxes top

 The third project is the Stacked quilt, with a dull blue woven background:

And now the fourth project is Quarter Logs with a variety of whites as background:

Simple is not always fast, but I wanted white in between the bright colors (harking back to the stars quilt.) This type of piecing with different scrap sizes let me use up a lot of white scraps, and there were enough long strips to border the two sides without white.

At some point in my hunter-gathering of fabric, I thought of a fat quarter set as ONE quilt. Well, if it’s 10 yards of fabric, unless I’m piecing backings, it goes a lot further than that.

The remaining pieces are going to go into the strings sorted by color. Project box empty!

Two Tops

Top 1: A half-improv quilt top: started with a group of almost-triangle shaped cream pieces and print skinny triangles leftover from cutting a one-piece wonder. The print triangles are all from a full width border print – grey on one edge, dark purple on the other with pink in the middle.

Pulled the purple, then pink, and then gray pieces to make pairs. Stitched and pressed, then figured out the largest common size, and trimmed to 3” x 5” rectangles. When sewn in pairs, this gave me a finished block size of 4.5” x 5”. The layout used 62 triangles (31 sets). Centers of stars finished at 5” and background squares 4.5”. Only 1 leftover cream piece.

The half-rectangle pairs sit in the sashing positions in EQ8; the star centers were 5" finished and the background pale lavender 4.5". The straight-of-grain squares helped minimize stretch with the bias edge cream triangles.

With a border cut 2.5”, the top came out to 46" x 37.5". There’s a piece of purple paisley for the backing and possibly the binding.

Half Rectangles Top

Top 2: A knit top. I've been re-learning how to sew garments with a serger, challenged somewhat by 1/4" seam allowances on the pattern. The last top was finished a couple of years ago. The one trick I learned is to baste seams with a straight stitch, and then serging is much more accurate. 

Knit Top

Project organization

Having a smaller work space for sewing is forcing me to stick to task on projects, organize the drawers, tubs and boxes, and re-group project ideas that can be combined with similar colors/sizes/goals. I’ve gone through the sewing room, the large closet, and the two cabinets still sitting in the garage and listed each box/bag or pile by description. There are many more projects than remembered! 

I’ve finished two sets of “duet” quilt tops – making one small quilt, then using the leftovers to make a second quilt. It really helps to use up fabrics already grouped by color. The first duet was this finished peach/cream quilt, Bowtwist pattern:

 

Bowtwist, 64" x 40"

The second top used up the overcuts of half-square triangles:  I saw a similar quilt layout online, and played in EQ with the medium/light values.  I like this top better than the Bowtwist.

The second duet is a small flannel blue and green quilt top and pieced flannel back, the second top is a rail fence with flannel centers, using a grey-blue as background.  Rail fence blocks with flannel in only the center rail is an easy way to reduce bulk, but still add some softness to a quilt. I made an earlier quilt with this design.

Duet #3 is in progress: a “Boxes” twin top has been finished, and a “stacked” scrappy twin quilt is planned with the scraps. This is the "Boxes" EQ coloring layout: