Dear Jane Quilt - Christmas 2016 Edition

Dear Jane Quilt - Christmas 2016 Edition 

Christmas is a good time to give you all a little present of a long overdue update on my Dear Jane quilt progress.  I am slowly posting the individual blocks on this blog, but it reached a point where I could start to put it together and sitting in front of the telly over the Christmas break is helping me move the whole project on.

Dear Jane Quilt - Christmas 2016 Edition 

All these blocks are actually together and it is great to start having just one big piece to haul around, rather than wobbly piles of 4.5" blocks.  Have I removed the papers yet?  I did remove one line of papers and that showed me that it was not going to be as onerous as the Nearly Insane paper removal (which took 7 whole days!), so it will get done in its own time.

Dear Jane Quilt - Christmas 2016 Edition  Electric Quilt

This is how it is looking as its virtual self, in my Electric Quilt software.  I still have a load of edge triangles, sashing and cornerstones to baste before I can even sew them together into the quilt, which slows me down at the moment.  No statistics either at the moment.  Do you notice one edge triangle not done yet?  That is Jane's Oak - it has proved troublesome ...  Otherwise I am SO pleased to see this quilt come together and I hope to give it a big push over the next week.

Dear Jane Quilt - Christmas 2016 Edition with Suzi the cat

Suzi the cat has taken a break from sitting on the Easy Street quilt to check out the Dear Jane progress, but not much sewing from her so far this Christmas season.

Wishing you a Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas - à la Dear Jane

Christmas Tree Skirt - Low Volume / Neutrals

Christmas Tree Skirt - Neutrals / Low Volume

Over the past few years I have been meaning to make a Christmas Tree skirt for the large tree that stands in our hall during the Christmas period. 


Christmas Tree Skirt Design

Back in December 2012, I had the forethought to take measurements of a suitable size before we packed it away in the attic and the 'design' stayed pinned to my notice board for a while.

Christmas Tree Skirt - Neutrals / Low Volume

In November 2013 I decided to make a start on it with the hope that it would be done in time for Christmas (2013).  Here you can see me chain piecing some quarter square triangles in neutral / Christmas fabrics.

Christmas Tree Skirt - Neutrals / Low Volume

I managed to get enough squares together to make the top, but it didn't quite make it for Christmas 2013.

Christmas Tree Skirt - Neutrals / Low Volume


Not to be beaten, between Christmas and New Year 2014 I took some time out to piece up a backing for the Christmas tree skirt.

Christmas Tree Skirt - Neutrals / Low Volume

Finally, I have got the Christmas Tree Skirt on the longarm quilting machine.  I used a pantograph called 'Let It Snow' by Patricia Ritter.  The quilting pattern features snowflakes so I decided to add some white fabric and applique those areas of the quilting.


Christmas Tree Skirt - Neutrals / Low Volume

The Christmas Tree skirt is off the frame, the skirt trimmed into a circle, the centre cut and a binding attached.  

Christmas Tree Skirt - Neutrals / Low Volume

Most importantly, it is under the tree for Christmas 2015!
 

Day 3 - Twelve Days of Sewing at Fabadashery

Celtic Solstice Quilt - Star Points

Day 3 was mainly focussed on getting up to speed with Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Quilt.  From previous experience she usually does the BIG REVEAL on New Year's Day, so I want to make sure everything is trimmed and ready to go for when that happens.  I also made the final touches to some presents, which I will show you in due course.


Part 5 Celtic Solstice Quilt - Spilt Square Triangles

At midday, Part 5 was released, so I spent the rest of the day making up the one hundred split triangle units required for this stage, and started to trim those as well.

No Nearly Insane cornerstones were done, but then I did get ahead of myself the day before, so everything is still on track.  It is amazing how much sewing can be done when work doesn't get in the way!

Suzi the cat under the Christmas tree

Suzi has taken to sitting under the Christmas tree whilst it has been up, and that is where I found her for todays photo.

Nearly Insane Quilt - Block 59

It was almost a month ago since I asked for all your opinions for the colour choice of Block 59. It is only now that I have finally got around to getting it together.  Thank you for your thoughts.  In the end I went with Joann, Carole and Tubakk, and have made No 4.


Block 59, Nearly Insane Quilt

Today, I have just started getting ready for Christmas.  The Christmas decorations have been taken down from the attic and the Christmas cards are finally in the pipeline.  I would love to be doing more blocks for this quilt.  I would love to be catching up with Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt, but at the moment there are other priorities.


Block 59, Nearly Insane Quilt

There are only 33 pieces in this block.  It was easy to make. Just not so easy to find the time.  Roll on the Christmas break.

NUMBER OF PIECES:  33
DIFFICULTY: 1/10
SMALLEST PIECE: Square, 11/16" (18m) x 11/16" (18mm)
LARGEST PIECE: Square,  1 13/8" (36m) x 1 13/8" (36m)
TECHNIQUE: English Paper Piecing (EPP)
FABRICS:
Cherry Sketch Basic Collection by Timeless Treasures #C8224
Ivory on Red Cameo Bud Yardage # 14764 Midwinter Reds by Minick and Simpson, Moda
Apple Red on Cream Sewing Guide Mama Said Sew by Sweetwater for Moda  #5490 11
Zig Zag Chevron Stripe Fabric in Cream Red 5498-31, Sweetwater Mama Said Sew, Moda
Calico

String Quilt Cat Mat - Easy Street Parking Lot!

Way back in January, I mentioned that I had plans to do a project with the scraps from my Easy Street Quilt, the online 2012 Mystery Quilt over at Quiltville.  However,  I woke up planning to do a machining project, and instead ended up with ALL my patchwork and quilting fabric out of my cupboard.  I had decided to reorganised my fabric stash. Several months down the line, I have revisited my original plans, and this week have produced a lovely new Cat Mat, which I am calling “The Easy Street - the Parking Lot”. 


String Quilt, Easy Street - The Parking Lot

In Bonnie K Hunter's book 'String Fling', she introduces her scrap user system, and a technique of using pages from an old telephone book as the foundation for stitching small scrap fabrics.  This was the technique I wanted to try out, but as my paper alternative, I had put aside the Christmas edition of the Radio Times, which by removing the centre staples has given me a double width of paper to stitch.  It has also highlighted to me how much of the Christmas period I spent on the Easy Street Quilt – I don’t  think I watched any TV!

2012 Christmas Edition Radio Times - String Foundation Piecing

I did do a rough design in my Electric Quilt software, but I haven’t followed it slavishly, and instead have used my usual technique of muddling through trying to get everything the right size.  My colour scheme for Easy Street Quilt was Purple, Red and Green, with a Tan background, and most of my leftover scraps are pretty small, so my paper strips are only 3” wide. 

Easy Street Quilt Scraps

Sewing the strips was easy on the machine, and I managed to get a production line going. I found it was better to remove the paper before tidying up the edges, as once cut, the stitching seam was not as strong to resist the ripping of the paper. 

String Foundation Piecing

As regular Followers will know, most of my work lately has focussed on hand stitching my Nearly Insane Quilt, so it seems like an age since I sat down at the machine (Note To Self: I really do need to set up a Leaders and Enders project, especially if Bonnie rolls out another Mystery Quilt at the end of the year!)  For the quarter square triangles, I tried to use the clever technique I used on my Broken Dishes Cat Mat, but my scrap pieces were too small and I had to cobble most of them together in a more ‘traditional’ method. 
Eventually, the quilt top came together, and was ready for quilting.  I had some scrap polyester wadding to use, and I still had plenty of the Kansas Troubles 'Bound to the Prairie' fabric which I used for the backing on my Irish Chain Quilt, which I have used for the backing. Up close it is a lovely little print, but from a distance it looks like a murky porridge – however, murky porridge is good for hiding any less refined stitching when machine quilting…

Quilt Sandwich being Machine Quilted

My actual Easy Street Quilt has yet to be quilted, and part of this project was to gain some strength experience of machine quilting to tackle this large project.  I was recently inspired by a little quilting video tutorial on the Green Fairy Quilts blog, by Judi Madsen, which although aimed at long arm quilting, highlighted to me the importance of marking your quilt, and planning the design head.  Also, I decided to abandon the worry of getting the tension right for free machine quilting, and stuck with using my straight stitch with the feed dogs up.   I went for a simple channels of stitching in the squares, rotating it by 90 degrees on each quarter. 

Quilt Detail

I think for this little quilt, the quilting has worked well, and enhances the pattern nicely – just as it should be.   This cat mat is only about 20 inches square, but manoeuvring it on my domestic machine was not as easy as you would want it to be, which makes me think – how realistic is it going to be to get the full size Easy Street Quilt under it?  I think I need to sit down and work out a design, and be realistic about how long it is going to take.  One assumes that using a machine means it will be quick, but I think on this occasion, I need to put that assumption to one side.

To finish it off, I pieced together some binding from the scraps, machine stitching it on the back, and hand sewing it on the front. 

Suzi the Cat on the new Cat Mat

I am really pleased with how it has turned out, but think I have enough projects in this colour combination for now.  It did reduce the scraps, but there are still plenty more.

The good news is, the Quality Control Department has already signed it off.

Featuring Feline Friday and Crazy Mom Quilts!

A Quiet Evening with my Pies and Tarts Quilt

Final Stages of the Pies and Tarts Quilt

 

This evening I managed to get back to my English piecing project, my Pies and Tarts Quilt.
The top of this is almost complete, I just have to sew on the 36 half circles to the edge of the quilt.  I dithered over whether they would be necessary, but have decided to go for a more modern look edge to edge quilt.  I have manged about half of these this evening whilst watching the television, and I hope to get the top finished over the holiday period.
Having hosted several parties in the past few weeks, it feels good to be having a quiet Christmas.  I hope everyone has been good, and Santa comes tonight.

Merry Christmas!

Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Quilt - Part 5

I got a little behind last week with Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt, but today I feel as if I have pulled it back a bit.  Firstly, I caught up on the fabric cutting.  Last week we were assigned to cut squares in our final colour, which for me is PURPLE.  I was itching to work with another colour, but it just didn't happen last week, so it felt like a bit of a treat to dig into my stash and pull out the purples.

145 x 3 1/5" Purple Squares

I noticed that a lot of my fabrics have cherries on them, and I have mixed some more fruit into my quilt, with some juicy blackberries, courtesy of RJR Fabrics Farmer's Market (2008).  There is a cute print 'Crazy Daisies' by Buggy Barn for Henry Glass (Pattern 1394).  They are meant to be daisies, but I think they look more like to intergalactic stars, against this deep purple!  There is also another 'Ditzy Daisy' (1005) print, and a swirly black and purple 'Lava'  pattern (730), both by The Henley Studio for Makower, a few batiks, and a few odd scraps.  Once the purple was done, I cut the red squares, and green squares I needed for Part 5.  The red fabric on top of the pile is called 'Santas Got the Goods' by Diane Knott for Clothworks - I sure hope he has!



Red, Green and Purple Fabric cut ready for Part 5

The construction of this little block was quite simple - if you follow Bonnie's excellent instructions.  My first few attempts were not squaring up very accurately, but once I started to sew along the right side of the line, as Bonnie suggested, they were much better.  I have decided to keep the square in tact, mainly for greater accuracy further along the line, just trimming out the excess of the triangle.  On a previous quilt I was sewing a similar block, but I had to cut both excess triangles because I was using a light fabric and the dark pattern was showing through.

 



Up until now my colour scheme has been looking a bit too festive, which has been concerning me, but with the addition of the purple I think it has been brought back to a 365 days a year quilt.  Do you think I have got away with it?



All my cutting is up to date.  I still have to join up some of the Flying Geese from last week, and to complete the rest of this weeks block.  I also have A LOT of trimming to catch up with.  I am really pleased with my colours and can't wait to start piecing all these parts together.  It has been great fun playing with the pieces to create patterns, and seeing everyone elses ideas. Here is my 'guess' for the Mystery Quilt, using this weeks pieces. 

Blue and White Broken Dishes Quilt Mug Rug

Everyone has been so busy getting quilted Christmas gifts together on their blogs, that now I finally have some time,to myself, I decided to make my first Mug Rug for a gift.



"I'd Rather Be Quilting" Mug Rug

I have purchased this 'I'd Rather Be Quilting' Mug from Stubbs Mugs, which is a lovely Fine Bone China, printed in blue, so the blue and white combination was the inspiration for the mug rug colour scheme.
I have used a nice Japanese blue and white fabric, with a little floral motif on it. I have had this for along time. Those lovely Japanese fabrics are so enticing, that they don't often need an excuse to come home with me.
I have used a Broken Dishes quilt pattern , made up of quarter-square triangle units, for the centre of the mug rug. I had a few 5" charm squares in cream, cut them into four and used them as the basis of the quickpiecing method outlined in the back of Katharine Guerrier's 'Scrap Quilt Sensation' book. They are quite little, so they were a bit fiddly.
This is now ready to wrap for a present swap rendez-vous this afternoon.
With that finished, I have just popped over to Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Blog to see that she has Part 5 ready for us.  With this large ongoing project, it was nice to have a 'quick win', and something to share on Finish It Up Friday.

Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Quilt - Part 4

Part 4 of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt has been out for a few days now, and it is only today that I have been able to dedicate a few hours to getting it completed. 

Easy Street Quilt - Flying Geese

This time round we need to cut Flying Geese blocks, using the same colour for the large 'goose' as we used for Part 2, but using theTurquoise (= RED) for the wings.  I am glad I wrote out my colour scheme clearly in  my post a few days ago, it has been a VERY useful reference, to ensure that I have been using the right colours. Luckily, for Part 2 of the Easy Street Quilt I had cut surplus Flying Geese, so most of that cutting had been done.  I am now confident using the Creative Grids  45 / 90 degree ruler for strips, and so the cutting out for this part has not been so daunting. 



Part 4 - Easy Street Mystery Quilt

Once the Flying Geese have been constructed, the next step has been to attach them to the other set of Flying Geese that we made, to make a square block.  I made a few to start off with to check I knew what I was doing, and now have the weekly production line in operation.


Suzi the Cat admires Part 4 of the Easy Street Quilt

When Part 4 was revealed on the Quiltville Blog, I was excited to see that we can now cut into our next colour, for me, this is PURPLE.   It has been a busy few days, so my usual slot for completing Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt, has been usurped by chores such as Christmas shopping and some extra work I have taken on leading up to Christmas. Also Suzi the Cat has not been in the mood for patchwork, whereas she is usually a great source of encouragement.  She is not very amused that I am using her chair as a 'design wall' either.

Christmas Countdown - Advent Calendar

"Country Christmas Advent Calendar", Makower UK

Whilst looking for scraps for the Easy Street Mystery Quilt, I came across this panel in my stash, #107 Country Christmas Advent Calendar by Makower UK.  I must have bought it at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate, several years ago, and several Advents have passed since then.  It has a pocket for each day, just big enough for a chocolate.  I am sure I have had it for 5 years or more. This is clearly a missed opportunity.  It must be AT LEAST 120 chocolates that I have gone without!  In an attempt to redress the balance, I thought I could get this ready for 1^st December, THIS year.

It is a neat little project. Everything you need is there, including the instructions. Once the pieces have been cut out, the hems need to be folded back, pressed and sewn. 

Stitching the pocket hems for the Advent Calendar

With red and green pockets, there wasn’t really an ideal thread colour to use, so I opted for a gold metallic (Isamet 0500), to add to the glitz of Christmas. 

Box pleats for the pockets of the Advent Calendar

The 24 pockets are in strips, so they need to be folded to create a box pleat, and then attached to the main fabric panel.  So far, there has been more pressing with the iron than stitching, but all the pockets are attached, ready for a quilt sandwich, and the decision of whether to hand or machine quilt.

There are still 11 days to get this completed, within in which time Bonnie Hunter’s Mystery Quilt will have started.  I notice it will be 24 days since Bonnie made the announcement, maybe next year I can use the calendar to count down to her Mystery Quilt, and refill it for 1^st December!