Slow Sunday Stitching

This is the tale of the embroidery block that took most of the summer of 2016 to complete ... talk about SLOW stitching! It travelled to Goderich, Port Elgin, Montreal, and Killarney, and still wasn't finished. This photo shows part of the reason for the delay... amazing weather for other activities like canoeing, kayaking, and camping. You can't be stitching when you're supposed to be paddling, and the sun is going down!


Here is the block in progress partially stitched on the shores of Lake George. We were camping and the scenery and weather was glorious.

Life Is Beautiful block #27

And finally here is the block which I finally finished after we arrived home. This one is definitely not one of my favourite blocks ... I despise chaos and have no interest in embracing it! But it was an interesting block to stitch with all those circles, and it holds many wonderful summertime memories.
I'll be prepping the next embroidery block today.
What are you hand stitching? If you have a needle and thread in your hand today, we want to see what you're making!  Link up your blog post below and share your project.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Scrappy Saturday

My Maverick Star (pattern here) collection had some new additions this week. I made two new scrappy purple blocks, this one with a dark star on a light purple background, and a second block that is the reverse. It's in the collection below... the block in the top row, second from the right. Wow those purple striped fabrics really stand out!




I have 30 Maverick star blocks now and enjoy seeing this collection grow.

To see more RSC postings, hop over to SoScrappy.

Friday Circa

Here are the latest blocks I've made for my Circa 2016 project. The pattern called for two 3" hourglass blocks, but after all the little hourglass blocks I've been making for Clarissa, the 3" size just seemed enormous. So I made 2 sets of 4 smaller hourglass blocks and sewed them together. 
Much better!
To see what we are sewing today, hop over to Temecula Quilts. They are hosting the Patchwork Olympics this week with lots of interesting projects posted.

MidMonth UFO Report

Progress is being made on machine quilting my Triangle Stars quilt.  I have completely quilted half of the quilt and still have almost 2 weeks left in the month to finish the quilting and get the binding done. It's looking good for a possible finish this month!

I am free motion quilting both sides of every triangle seam and for the most part it is going well. I have had a few issues with tension since I am changing the thread colour when quilting in the stars and don't always remember to check the tension with each new thread change.

The result is this kind of effect with the top thread peaking through on the back. I have decided that it is going to be fine with me to have a bit of this going on. The quilt is just for me, and although it might be entered in a fall fair somewhere down the road (where the judges will tell me to try to make my quilting lines straighter and to improve my thread tension!) it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be done! That's the goal!

Bow Ties

Don't you just love it when you meet a deadline? Even if it's self-imposed, there is such a sense of satisfaction when you accomplish what you set out to do. And I am delighted that I got my bow ties from last year's block swap sewn into a quilt top so that I could happily sign up for this year's block swap.
And here it is on the design wall... my civil war bow tie quilt top. Thank you to Sharon over at Vroomans Quilts for the inspiration for this layout. I really liked the bow tie quilt layout I saw on Sharon's blog last year using the "barn raising" setting, and having a border of half size blocks across the top and bottom of the quilt.
I like that my layout is slightly off centre, just like me :)
Can't wait to get this basted so I can get going on the hand quilting!

Design Wall Monday - Clarissa

I'm excited to tell you that my very first Clarissa block is finished and is on the design wall today. This is my project choice for Bonnie Hunter's Hourglass Leader-Ender Challenge for this year. You can read more about the original Clarissa quilt here.

There are 144 triangles making up the 36 hourglass units in this 12" block. There are a lot of scraps sewn into this block including a couple of browns from my civil war reproductions, some teals from a Quiltmaker mystery quilt from 5 years ago, and several pieces from last month's UFO project.
I must say this block was quite a challenge especially at some of the seam joins where there are 8 pieces of fabric trying to squeeze under the needle at the same time and hopefully meeting at the same point! I can't wait to start cutting the triangles for the next Clarissa block.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching! 

Yesterday I was at the Fergus Scottish Festival where I enjoyed a whole day of hand quilting. Every year Virginia (owner of Undercover Quilts) sets up a quilt frame in the Heritage Tent and invites everyone to come and quilt. The day started off with 6 quilters and this year we were working on a baby quilt in bright colours. 

It was somewhat dark in the tent due to terrible weather and I was very glad I took along my Clover needle threader. If I wouldn't have had this tool, I would not have been able to thread a needle I'm sure. At times it was difficult to see well enough to quilt at all. But we were just stitching in the ditch, so it was easy enough to figure out where to go (just don't look closely at the stitches).

There was constant entertainment in the tent, and lots of activity to watch. The spinners and weavers were there. This is Anna, and she showed me how she was following a very complex weaving pattern.

The bobbin lace makers were there making intricate tiny pieces of lace. This makers' hands were moving so fast that I couldn't get a good picture of her.

And just look at this lovely display of wool embroidery projects! This is Laura and she had several stitcheries on the go. I enjoyed looking at each of her projects and firmly told myself not to get interested in this, as I cannot afford to fall in love with one more type of hand work. There just are not enough hours in one life time!

We've had such a hot and dry summer so far, but not today. Of course because we have the big festival this weekend, it stormed most of the day. It was like being in a sauna and I was sweating just sitting still doing nothing. Just look at the rain teeming down. The fields became huge mud puddles, but we were dry in the tent.

And by about the middle of the afternoon, this lap quilt was done! You can see that the poles on the quilt frame were rolled several times until we were stitching knee to knee. If you go to the festival today there will be a new quilt in the frame, and you can sit down and put a few stitches in yourself!
Even though it stormed, and just poured down rain, we all worked on our hand work projects, creating wonderful masterpieces and enjoying the music, stitching and conversation.

I hope you will take time to enjoy some slow stitching today. We love to see your hand stitching projects and cheer you on, so link up your blog post below and show us what you're working on.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Scrappy Saturday - Circle of Squares

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters are sewing up their light purple scraps this month. Last week I made up some scrappy sprout blocks and this week I worked on a block called "circle of squares". The colours are a little pale and somewhat blah, but when this block is in a quilt it will be a nice contrast with all the other high intensity blocks.



Here it is with the other two blocks made in previous months. I'm really liking it so far!

To see what other projects are being worked on this week, hop over to the link up at SoScrappy.

TGIF

As per my usual Friday routing, I am posting my most recently made Circa 2016 blocks. The blocks on the left are the new ones and they are called "double X". I'm not seeing the X in this design, but they were fun blocks to sew.

Temecula Quilts is hosting the Patchwork Olympics on their blog with lots of interesting happenings, including a fun scrappy pattern that is free while the olympics are on ... check it out here.

IOP Update

So last week I visited with the Indian Orange Peel quilt. I stared at it and tried to get a conversation going, but it was mostly a one way effort. Some quilts are really noisy, but this one was very quiet. I know it's probably my neglect that is resulting in getting the silent treatment. I can make amends for that!
So I asked a new question...

"If I was going to spend some time working on this quilt, and I could pick three things to change to make me like this project more, what would I do?"

I picked 3 problems to work on and put a little red clip by that area as a reminder of the change I want to make.
It's a start!

I also reread the instructions. Do you see the words "practically impossible"? HA! That's exactly how I feel! 
Love these instructions!

UFO Orphanage

From time to time a baby gets dropped off on my doorstep. Not a real one... a fabric one! Sometimes the biological creator takes responsibility for the drop off and sometimes it's a "drop and run" situation. 
Do you remember this abandoned UFO from a few years ago? It's one of my favourite rescues! Lots of the blocks were already made and I easily figured out how to finish it.

Here's the latest package that was abandoned. It's a golden oldie and the original pattern and/or idea is long gone. Now it's just a pile of fabric in colours that the quilter really wanted to like but just didn't. Some if it is cut, some of it is half sewn. There are many HST blocks sewn and some large squares with flip and sew corners.

It's impossible to know what this was going to become and it's a challenge to know where to even start. I started by trimming all the threads on the sewn blocks and finished sewing the HSTs that were started. 
So now what?!?
Any suggestions?

August UFO Update

The machine quilting is coming along really well with this month's UFO called Triangle Stars. I enjoyed selecting a variety of thread colours for each section of the quilt.  I started by machine quilting approximately 1/4" on all sides of the centre diamonds with a variegated thread.

When that was done, I quilted all the white triangles around the centre diamonds. Then I moved over to the green star and quilted that area with these Aurifil threads. As you can see I am quilting both sides of every seam in this quilt.

It is a fun challenge to see how far I can quilt with a continuous thread without having to stop and restart in another place. Here is the green star corner finished. It's going quite well so far and I am enjoying quilting with different colours as a break from all the white triangles. I am also really liking the texture, and am working on getting my lines to be as straight as possible.

Design Wall Monday Bow Ties

The sign up for Barb's block swap is coming up soon, and the (self imposed) pressure is on to sew up the blocks from last year's swap. Deadlines are good motivators for me. Here are the bow ties from last year on the design wall.
Next will be a 1" or 2" muslin border followed by a border of mini bow ties.

Here are a few blocks that I have sewn so far and a stack of pieces cut and ready to sew. The block on the bottom left is one of the swap blocks from last year. 
And see those cute little blue scissors and matching tape measure that Julie sent to me for participating in the Log Cabin Lunatics link up? I am putting them to good use!

To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching where we celebrate the art of creating hand stitched works of art. 

To celebrate our Slow Sunday theme, I have a video to share with you today to remind us to enjoy every minute of every precious day!




I have been working on my next Life Is Beautiful block and have made progress on the multitude of circles in this block. Today I will be outlining the creature (is it a ladybug?) and stitching the words. This is block 27 of 32 applique blocks, so I am starting to see the finish line on this step of the project (you can see the first 13 applique blocks on the design wall here).
What are you hand stitching today? We love to see your project and encourage you on your slow stitching journey. Link up your blog post below...

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Scrappy Saturday

The August colour for the Rainbow Scrap challenge is light purple, otherwise known as lilac or mauve or lavender. It's not a colour I know very well, but I do happen to have a few scraps to work with. I started out this month making 2 more scrappy sprout blocks, for a total of 14 blocks.

And here is the garden of sprouts that is growing in my sewing room. They look way better than plants I've grown this year. I totally gave up on my garden this year, so am enjoying my fabric sprouts instead. No rabbits will eat them, no weeds will choke them, and no drought will kill them!
If you would like to sew your own garden, the block pattern is free over at TraceyJay Quilts.
To see more Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, hop over to SoScrappy.

It's Friday!

Friday is Circa 2016 day around here, when I post the blocks I've made from the mostly recently released pattern. Last week was an interesting block called "formal garden". This pattern is new to me, and is made from 8 HSTs and a square. These blocks look like a fan to me ... or maybe it's just the hot weather that has me obsessing about fans!?!
To see this week's pattern, hop over to Temecula Quilts.

Indian Orange Peel Update

Long time readers of my blog will probably remember the IOP project from 2010. It has been severely neglected even though it has been hanging on my secondary design wall for years. The pattern is by Karen K Stone and is by far the most challenging project I have ever tackled. 
You can read about the drama here.
When I was visiting my friend Louise last week (BTW I have two wonderful quilty friends named Louise... perhaps I should change my name to Thelma!) she was finishing her Indian Orange Peel quilt.
Yes... Louise is finishing her IOP! Here she is hand stitching the binding, with her sister, who is the infamous Barbara. 
Barb and I both have versions of the IOP in production because we took the same class together all those years ago. Barb won't even talk about how her quilt is coming along, or where it might even be stored! I think she's blocked it from her conscious awareness as a trauma response!

Here is Louise's almost finished Indian Orange Peel quilt. I just love this quilt! She has done an incredible job of colour and value placement. 
I wonder if she would notice if I swapped my block parts with her finished version?!?
Or I could just force myself to work on mine?!?

Okay okay! 

Here is my poor old dusty Indian Orange Peel on my secondary design wall, with pieces falling onto the floor. I sat and forced myself to stare at it a long time. Poor thing! 
First I will gather up the pieces that fell on the floor and then figure out what my next steps are going to be to make progress once again.
A big thank you to Louise for the inspiration to begin again!

Clarissa Block Formations

Clarissa is my new leader-ender hourglass project initiated by Bonnie Hunter's annual challenge. 
First of all, blog reader Vicki told me that you can buy a real pattern for this quilt over at Hoopla. I don't know what the measurements actually are for this pattern, and I am making up my own based on my math (which we all know is seriously flawed, but in a really creative way!)
When I saw the Clarissa quilt, I only took 4 close up shots of the blocks.  Why I didn't take a photo of every single block, I don't know. I'm sure it had something to do with not wanting people to think I am crazy. Which I am!

This week I really studied my photos and the block formations in order to learn what is was that I liked about her block designs. This is what I see:

-each block is made up of 36 hourglass units. 

Clarissa Quilt Block #1

-at the centre of every block is a four patch unit, and some of the centre blocks have a very pronounced pinwheel which is made by altering the value of the fabrics in the hourglass units.


-every once and a while she pops in a high contrast wild fabric, like this polka dot navy fabric.

Clarissa Quilt Block #2

-some of the blocks have definite colour rounds. Here you can see a blue round and a pink round. Also she randomly throws in a different colour, like a white triangle where a pink should be.

Clarissa Quilt Block #3

-the position of the hourglass blocks is usually alternated every other block on every round. You can see it clearly on the middle round where every other block has the dark fabric up/down or left/right. 

-when using a patterned directional fabric (like the striped fabric) she made sure that it went every which way.

Clarissa Quilt Block #4

-she sometimes used similar colours/value and yet made it totally scrappy. Look at the outside round and how many different fabrics there are!

Are you sewing a Clarissa block and/or quilt? Many people commented and emailed that they would like to experiment with this block/quilt design. You will have to either purchase the pattern or make up your own, since due to possible copyright infringement it would not be wise of me to post instructions on how to make this quilt.
If there are enough people making this pattern, I will host an occasional link up so we can see the progress and encourage each other. Let me know!

August UFO

July's UFO saw a bit of progress last month, but it is definitely not close to being finished. However it was not for lack of effort! The seam join problem was fixed, and then I machine quilted the right side border and attached it to the quilt. This is how it looked at the end of the month. Close, but no cigar! So I'm putting it away again for a bit of a break and bringing back the UFO from May called Triangle Stars.
I started this quilt two years ago, and a lot of progress was made on it in May when it finally became a quilt top. It was too big of a goal to finish the top and the quilting all in one month. Now it is the UFO goal for August. 

Here is the work pile - the quilt top, the white batting, and the white backing. I don't think I've ever made a quilt with this much white.
I purchased a white batting because my regular warm and natural beige batting showed through and gave the quilt top a beige tinge. The backing is just plain white yardage pieced together. Getting these three items to this point is already a major accomplishment!

The pin basting is the next step in preparing for the machine quilting. Lots of people really detest this step, but I don't mind it. I put on some great music and it goes really fast using the Kwik Klip tool.
To see more UFO goals for August hop over to One Monthly Goal link up.

Design Wall Monday

Last summer Barb hosted a bow tie block swap and I participated in the Civil War group. The 82 blocks I received are wonderful and right now I am highly motivated to finish my Civil War bow tie quilt. Why now you ask?!? 
Because Barb is going to be hosting another block swap in August, and I want to finish up the project from last year's swap so that I can be a guilt-free participant this year! 
I went totally scrappy with the layout, pulling the blocks randomly from the pile and sewing each block to the next one in the pile.
(see the blocks I made for the swap here). 
This is a bad photo of the start of the layout on the design wall. Going random does not mean that the colours will be evenly distributed, so there are too many yellow/golds in the upper right quadrant.
I'm not going to sew it that way of course... some modifications are going to be made to this "random" layout right away!
And also I have an idea for a fun border that I want to make. Last year Sharon posted a photo of her bow tie quilt (see it here) and when I saw it, I knew that I would try the same design. I really liked the idea of making smaller bow tie blocks for a border. 
The block swap bow ties are 4", which means the border bow ties will be half size at 2". And it just so happens that an anonymous "angel swapper" sent along two mini blocks last year, so I have two to start and only need to make about 80 of those.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.