Frixion Pens

Progress is continuing on quilting my UFO and I hope to have it finished before the end of the month. YAH!

grid machine quilting

I ditched the painters tape since I was stitching too fast and sewed the tape to the quilt a couple of times! I then decided to mark all the lines with the Frixion pens.
I received quite a few comments and emails about the concerns regarding the use of these pens. There seem to be horror stories that have become part of quilting folklore about quilts that were ruined by these pens. It's an interesting dilemma for quilters since almost every quilt store has a display of these pens by their cash registers.

What are the concerns about Frixion pens?

1) they leave a white (ghost) mark on the fabric:

No marks 

If I'm machine quilting on a line, and covering the line with thread, it doesn't matter if there is a white line under that thread. I am also hand quilting a large quilt right now and am using frixion pens to mark the quilting design. I accidentally picked up a real ink pen to mark one block. That matters because it is definitely not going to come out! I'm not worried because it's a quilt for my family's use, not a masterpiece or an heirloom quilt. 

2) marks will reappear in the cold:

hot iron to remove pen lines

It is definitely cold here in the winter, so the marks may reappear if I take the quilt to keep warm at the Santa Clause parade. I'm okay with the cold reappearance since the marks will again disappear with heat applied (either a hot iron or a tumble in the drier).

Many quilters have written reviews about Frixion pens over the years : Lee at Freshly Pieced, Lori's blog Humble Quilts posted results of her pen testing part one here and part two here, and the Connecting Threads blog has an interesting article here. 

In summary... 

Frixion pen

I've been using Frixion for a few years and haven't yet had a problem with the pens or the marks.  However, if I ever get it in my head to make an heirloom quilt that might be submitted to a fancy quilt show, I might not use the frixion pens. But for the majority of my quilts that are going to be used on beds in warm houses and washed until they fall apart, I think it'll be fine to use Frixion.

Quilt Canada 2016 is Coming!

Quilt Canada

Have you registered to attend Quilt Canada yet? It is being held June 15 -18 in Toronto, Ontario. I am so excited that it is only about an hour drive for me, so I can go to events and classes every day and sleep at home.

Adding to my excitement is that I am teaching a hand beading class! There are a ton of long arm classes and machine quilting classes on the list of classes, but only 2 hand stitching classes, which are unfortunately both scheduled for the same day. If you want to take a class from me to learn "Intuitive Hand Beading" it is scheduled for Saturday June 18th. I would love to meet you, so take the day off and come to Toronto to learn about hand work! Check out the class listing here.

One of the highlights for me will be attending a lecture by Jane Sassaman. 
It's called "Quilter's Nite Out"! Hope to see you there!

Making UFO Progress

Progress has resumed on my January UFO. I recovered from the border frustrations of last week, and gave myself lots of pats on the back for not tossing this project back into the darkness of the UFO closet. 
Then I prepared some bobbins to start the machine quilting. I must like this taupe colour of thread because I have a few spools of it. 


I decided to try quilting a straight grid for this one. I was inspired by the beautiful effect of the grid quilting that Tanya did on her Merry Little Christmas quilt.  I have done a diagonal grid on mini quilts and on a tablerunner, but haven't yet tried it out on a large quilt. 

I began by using painters tape to put down some lines to stitch beside (using the 45 degree lines on the rulers). But the tape didn't stick very well, so then I started marking some lines with a frixion pen. So far, so good!

Design Wall Monday

Progress is slow but sure with my Allietare blocks. I enjoyed an evening of sewing with some friends, and was able to make a lot of progress. Here they are on the design wall. There are only a few more blocks to finish and then I can start putting the quilt top together.








You can see in this photo that I was sewing these star blocks on Lucy - my long bed 301 Singer. She just sews like a dream with a perfect tension, and a lovely soft sound. It's such a thrill to sew on a 63 year old sewing machine that works beautifully.
To see more design wall posts, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's time for some Slow Sunday Stitching!

Take out your hand stitching project and enjoy some relaxation. Try not to think about your "to-do" list, or ruminate about your worries. Just take a stitching break, and focus on pulling thread through fabric, one stitch at a time. Breathe deeply and enjoy yourself.

Modern Quilting by Sherri Noel

If you have an interest in hand quilting, I found a fantastic blog post for you to enjoy. Sherri gave me permission to share her tutorial with the Slow Sunday Stitchers - click here to visit. I was so inspired by the lovely photos and bright colours of her project. Sherri shows step by step how she uses perle cotton for quilting a block sampler quilt. Yum!

I have been putting some stitches into my winter hand quilting project and making some good progress. Max has been visiting and when he "helps", progress is slower.  
I went to get some tea, and when I came back, this was the scene.

"Well Grandma, I really don't know who put that toy on your quilt, but I'm keeping a close eye on the situation. And any time you feel like playing with me instead of quilting, I'll be ready!"

Today I'll be playing with Max, visiting your inspiring blog links, and enjoying some relaxing hand stitching. I love Sunday!
Link up your post below and share your hand work progress with us.

Scrappy Saturday

Blue month continues for the Rainbow Scrap Challengers. I have been sewing a few blocks using Bonnie's leader/ender technique as I have been working on other projects throughout the month. 

Here are two more double 9 patch blocks for Omigosh, and 6 more Alamo Stars. These are l-o-n-g term projects. 
I just know someone is going to ask me how many of these blocks I have now? I have 70 Omigosh blocks, and this many Alamo Stars...

How many is that?
I didn't count, but it's a lot!
I have been debating how to work on a layout for this quilt. No way am I going to lay out hundreds of 2" star blocks on a design wall to somehow organize into a coherent design! Today I am thinking it might be good to sew these blocks together into 9 patchs, so the design unit will be bigger to work with. Do you have any other ideas for me of how to create a quilt design from hundreds of small blocks?
To see more blue scrappy projects, hop over to SoScrappy.

UFO Report

Oh this UFO is kicking my butt! 
This is the third month that my Deckade the Halls quilt has been my primary focus, and the progress is so slow it is driving me crazy.
Why is this so hard?

I have put on hundreds of quilt borders over the years, and this one just wouldn't co-operate with me.
So I removed the ruffly border, re-measured the quilt top a hundred times because see that 2" piece to the right of the needle? That's how much I had to cut off the border piece! How could I have been so 'off' on that border size measurement?
Okay, so then I resewed the border. 
Now it was too small, and still didn't fit!
What the @#$%& is going on?!?
I unstitched it again, re-measured, decided it was in fact the correct size, re-pinned with triple the number of pins, and the border fit beautifully and went on with no problem.
Oh my goodness. Third time's a charm!
When I get over feeling stressed every time I look at this quilt, the next step is to re-pin baste the left side of the quilt, and finally start the quilting. 

Eye Candy

Did you participate in the Cozy Afternoon BOM last year? 

Cozy Afternoon combines two of my favourite things - scrappy piecing and hand embroidery. This is my pastel wallhanging version of Cozy Afternoon. 
Maybe you downloaded the patterns and haven't started your version yet. If you need some inspiration to get sewing your Cozy Afternoon, go check out the winners of the Cozy Afternoon contest that have been recently posted. There are so many creative and beautiful versions to enjoy!

First Start of the Year?

Oh dear.
A new project is coming on.
It's a Barbara Brackman historical project, and it's called Westering Women. 
I'm in. 
Was there ever a doubt about my ability to resist this one?!? Don't even mention that I haven't finished the Votes for Women quilt. In my own defence, I must mention that I did complete my Civil War quilt! 
I'm digging through my reproduction stash to see what colour ranges I'm missing. I have one week to sort myself out before the first block is posted.
Are you heading west with the rest of us quiltin' ladies?!?

Design Wall Monday

I am just sneaking in under the deadline for a Monday posting. Here is what is on my design wall today...six Allietare star mystery blocks are finished. That's about 1/5 th of the total number I need to sew.
Wow that's a lot of gold! But it will be split up when it's sewn together with all the grey in the alternate blocks, so I'm not worried about how it will all come together yet.
Just keep sewing. Just keep sewing.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's Slow Stitching Sunday! I will be stitching more slowly than usual today as I recover from a nasty cold. We all know about the amazing healing powers of hand stitching, so I am prescribing a double dose of it for myself. Fits of coughing and drinking tea will be interrupted as frequently as possible with some hand stitching. 

This is the next block in my star quilt that I am working on. The inside square-in-a-square filler design has been completed, and next I will be stitching lines 1/4" just inside each of the red triangles. The larger blue star triangles have already been quilted, so this block is more than half finished.




Yesterday I did a little bit of hand stitching while watching QuiltCam. I have been too busy to catch the first of two episodes of QuiltCam 2016, which is just not acceptable! This was my view - hoop on my lap, and the laptop just to the side. My lap isn't big enough for the computer and the quilting hoop! 

What are you hand stitching today? Join us at the link up below and share your progress with us.

Scrappy Saturday

At the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, January is the month for sewing up blue scraps.

This is my first Mad City Mama block. I am not sure what to do in the centre block, or what colour to use for the triangle pieces on the corners of the strip pieced blocks. I am thinking about using yellows which might look like stars.
It has been so enjoyable to sort, cut, and re-visit the scraps in the blue bin. 


I have no idea where the fun charm square (on the left) came from. I considered using it for the centre square but it took over the whole block. The blue strips on the right are from the trimmed backings of three different quilts from many years ago. They hold good memories and were cut up into the right size pieces to go into the blue block.
To see more scrappy blue projects, hop over to SoScrappy.

UFO Woes

My UFO of the month has been mostly pin basted. But we have run into a problem. Can you see it?
A wavy border problem. 
Just on one side.
Ugh.
I have no idea how that happened, but obviously there are so many pleats that I won't be able to quilt them out. The whole time I was pin basting, I was debating what to do with this border. I decided to finish the basting up to the red sashing border. Then I will remove the outside border, re-measure, and reattach. Then I will re-baste that side of the quilt.
How did the month get to be half over so soon??!!

A little bit of progress

My first two Allietare Star blocks are together, and here they are with two of the Pisa blocks. I am so happy that I went with the scrappy greys and am getting excited to see how the quilt is going to look when the blocks are together and on pointe!

Design Wall Monday

I have been working diligently on my Allietare blocks. I am amazed that some finished quilt tops and even finished quilts have already been posted on the Quiltville blog!

Here are all of my "Echoes of Pisa" blocks on the design wall.

I am ready to start working on the Allietare Star blocks. All the components are ready and just need to be sewn together.
To see more design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's Sunday! 

RELAX

The day of rest, relaxation, recuperation, and renewal. 
Relaxation doesn't happen by reading about it, thinking about it, or hoping for it. 
It only happens by doing it!
And what better way to relax than to do some stitching. You will be amazed at how much time passes while you're "in the zone" of relaxing stitching.

I will be putting some stitches in my Life is Beautiful embroidery project today. This is the house block I am working on, and have just begun stitching the trees.  I have prepared a few more blocks to work on and am eager to get at them, but must finish the house first. 
We had such wonderful links to visit last week, and I hope you enjoyed the wide range of projects that were shared.

As part of the Slow Sunday Stitching community of readers I invite you to leave an encouraging comment to the bloggers who take the time to share with us each week. 
What are your hands stitching today? 

Scrappy Saturday

Do you have scrap problems like this one?

I have to get some of these large scrap bins under control and into finished quilts. 


And with that goal in mind, I am starting a new Rainbow Scrap Challenge project (well, I'm actually starting 2, but today I'm only admitting to 1!) 
I was inspired by Bonnie Hunter's class photos when she was teaching "Mad City Mama". It's a weird name for a quilt pattern, but it's a great scrap user pattern from her leader/ender book .


The colour of the month for the RSC is blue, and I have been cutting blue scraps into useable sizes for my first block.

Here is my first 25 patch block finished. Each month I plan to make one large block for this quilt, which includes four of the 25 patch blocks, four of the string blocks, and one centre block (which will not be a solid piece of fabric in my blocks).
To see what the other Rainbow Scrappers are making, hop over to SoScrappy.

Resistance

I am trying so hard to resist starting new projects. And I find it somehow gratifying to make note of the times I am able to resist -just say no!
This is the hard one to resist this week:
Sentimental Stitches is offering the pattern for an 1857 applique album quilt - click here for more information. It's free if you collect the patterns as they are released each month. I sure do hope some of you are starting this project so I can live vicariously through you!
And if you start this pattern, and your projects are amazing, will I still be able to resist?!?
  

UFO of the month

Here is the UFO closet as 2016 begins. Don't look down... there are boxes and bags of stuff that are an unorganized mess!
There are a lot of great quilts hanging here, just waiting to be finished. I went through the closet and re-evaluated each one to see if I still wanted to finish it, or if it needed to be adopted by another quilter to finish. I discovered that I still like all of these, so they are staying here until they get some stitching TLC. The project on the left is the most exciting for me at the moment, as I have started to sew together my spool blocks from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and hope it will become a quilt this year.

My UFO management is not the "out-of-control" problem it used to be because of three changes:
1) I am more careful about beginning new projects (since I realized that I won't have enough hours in my life to finish all the quilts I want to make!)
2) the new projects I tend to start these days involve more hand stitching and take much longer to become a quilt top, thus accumulated less UFO's, and
3) I have finished many quilts over the last few years.

In 2016 I will maintain my practice of attempting one UFO finish each month and will join with Heidi's OMG link up. This month's project will be the same attempt as the one from November and December of last year. Each month this quilt saw some progress, but not a finish.
One of the ways to motivate myself toward a finished quilt is to prepare the binding. I found the perfect fabric and got right to work cutting and sewing the binding.

And here is where this UFO begins the new year...in a pile with it's backing prepared, it's batting cut, and it's binding just waiting to be sewn on the edge.
The next step will be pin basting, and quilting. Which design should be quilted is the next decision to be made. Quilting/life is all about making the decisions!

2015 Finished Quilts

Sometimes you don't realize what you accomplish until you take the time to review your efforts. I was a bit disappointed to realize that I only finished 4 of the 12 quilts that were on my 2015 UFO list. However, when I reviewed my quilty adventures from the past year I was delighted and amazed to realize that overall I finished 20 quilts, only 4 of which were on the UFO list!  You can see all those blog postings here, but this is a summary list:

*5 miniature quilts (Tucker, Times Nine, Tiny Tumble, Wisdom of Friends, Hugs and Kisses)

*5 wallhangings (Country Roads, Cozy Afternoon, Always Home, Light Side of the Moon, A New Beginning)

*5 lap quilts (Scrappy Braid, Scrappy Carolina Chains, Under The Sea, Polka Dot Batiks, One Stick at a Time) 

*5 bed quilts (Starburst, Confluence, Hero's Homecoming, Pointed Prisms, Big Stitch Sampler)



Don't you think it's a little bit odd that I finished 5 quilts in each category? And is it also weird that 5 of the finishes were hand quilted?!? 
FIVE was the number of the year for 2015!
Give me a high five!

Design Wall Monday

The big reveal of the layout for Allietare was posted on New Years Eve, but I haven't had much time to work on my blocks yet. It is a 2 block quilt, and I did get a start on the "Echoes of Pisa" blocks. 

The quilt needs 20 of these blocks and I wasn't sure that I had enough red scraps left to cut the centre squares. I decided to use up a few of the smaller scraps to piece some 4 patch blocks for some of the centres. 
To see how other quilters are progressing with their mystery quilts, hop over to the Quiltville blog. And to see more design wall posts, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Thanks for joining us for the first Slow Sunday Stitching of 2016, and welcome to a whole new year of celebrating the art of hand stitching!
For those that enjoy numbers, here are some statistics from the past year of Slow Sunday Stitching celebrations:

**Total # of 2015 Sunday link ups: 1,684 
**Busiest month: 193 links posted in November (5 Sundays)
**Second busiest month: 165 in March (also 5 Sundays)

That's a lot of projects that we enjoyed seeing, and a lot of hand stitches taken over the past year!! 

Here is one more statistic that I like to keep track of ... the number of inches I have sewn on bindings.

To the end of November, my total was 3,709", and added to December's only finish (Tucker) which was 52", makes a grand total for 2016 of 3,761"! That's a lot of stitches made by these little hands!

Today I plan to put a few stitches in my star quilt. I am stitching black thread on a black star block, so the photos are not worth sharing. But you can be sure that I will be slow stitching my way through the season premiere of Downton Abbey tonight! 
I hope you have something interesting to show us today. Do you keep track of any hand stitching statistics for your own entertainment? Link up your blog post below and tell us what your hands are stitching and what progress you are making on your projects.

Happy New Year!

I started off this new year hanging out with, and cooking for, my family - an awesome first page of my 2016 book!

2015 ended with finally finishing Christmas gifts for the nieces and nephews - 11 pillowcases!

4 were made for the girls with an Olaf theme (from Frozen), 

and 7 for the boys and of course they had a Star Wars theme.

Here's the stack of finished pillowcases ready to wrap and put under the tree. That represents a lot of hours of effort right there!
It's been 16 years since I made these for all the kids, and since that batch I had learned how to make a french seam. That means there are no exposed or fraying seams. If you haven't tried that method yet, you can see a tutorial at Karen's Fabric Obsession.





Here's another one of my recent creations - a pickle tray.
I had fun finding unusual flavours and a variety of pickled vegetables. My niece made the labels for the tray. It was interesting to see which of the kids were game to try anything, and which wouldn't eat a single one!
Once the company leaves today, I will be heading to the quilting room to work on my mystery quilt. Did you see the exciting Allietare reveal? It's a gorgeous quilt and I can't wait to see how my version is going to come together!