Slow Sunday Stitching

It's Sunday again, which means it's time to s-l-o-w down and make time for some relaxing stitching. 
I haven't done much slow stitching since I finished the binding on my Scrap Vortex quilt. But today I can't wait to get my project out, find my needle and thread, and get stitching. This is my last Life is Beautiful block and I seem to be dragging my heels on finishing it, which is really annoying. I'm ready to move on to the hand quilting part of making this quilt, but need the embroidery done first. The only way to get over this slump is to just start. So today some progress will be made! 
One of the best parts of Slow Sunday Stitching is visiting stitching friends around the world and seeing what they are creating. 
Grab yourself a cup of tea or coffee and start your Sunday with a big dose of inspiration!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Green Scrappy Saturday

The RSC colour for May is green, which is one of my favourite colours especially at this time of the year when the grass and leaves are growing and we are surrounded by vibrant juicy greens. I have big scrappy plans for green month but at FSNI last night I only managed to sew one little 5" alternate block for Omigosh. This brings my grand total of alternate blocks to 3! 





That's okay because: a) this is a lifelong project and b) we had a blast at FNSI and talked for 5 hours straight! There was a lot of talking and laughing, and not as much sewing! 

To see blog links to quilters accomplishing more green things than I did this week, hop over to SoScrappy!

TGIF it's FNSI!

It's Friday!
That means it's time for Friday Night Sew In! 
The official FNSI is usually held the third Friday of the month, but it is a challenge to get my little group of sewing friends together due to very busy schedules. So tonight's the night! Who knows what we'll get up to?!?



In preparation I will be cleaning up, clearing space on the cutting table, vacuuming the sewing room, and planning what I might like to sew.
I hope to catch up on my Blockheads and will be sewing leftover HSTs from block #4 into the basket block #8.
Happy Friday!

UFO of the Month

It has been hard to think of working on another UFO since I finished the Scrap Vortex. It's like when you've just finished reading an epic book and you don't have any interesting in starting to read another book and getting to know a whole new cast of characters when you still miss the ones from the book you just finished.  
However, I am setting the goal of finishing my 2016 Aurifil sampler quilt. 


The first step is to piece a backing. There is still some of this Sweetwater border fabric left, so it will feature prominently in the backing. 
Hop over to One Monthly Goal to see the UFO goals for May.

Blockheads Update

There have been 8 blocks posted so far for this sampler project, and I'm a little behind. Here are my 6 finished blocks on the design wall. The bee skep is finally done, although it needs some hand applique added to make it look more like bees would want to live there. 
I am working on block #7 right now and making little circles to sew into the penny basket. I'm using Karen Kay Buckley's Perfect Circles.  I start by basting around the fabric circle as if making a yo-yo, put the washer in the centre and pull the thread tight. 

I spray some "Speed Starch" into the little glass jar and then paint the edges of the circles with the starch using the paint brush. Then I iron the edges of the circle (the heat resistant plastic washer is still in the circle) and magically it makes a perfectly round circle. When it's dry, I remove the washer and the circle is ready to hand applique. The next step is to sew the basket block to put the circles into.
To see the newest Blockhead pattern, hop over to the Moda blog.

100 Blocks Magazine

I hardly ever buy quilt magazines anymore as I just don't find that I am interested in reading them or making the kinds of quilts they feature. 
However there is one magazine that I never miss - Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks. I have made many projects over the years from these magazines. A new issue is available this week and I'll be on the lookout for it. The Quilty Pleasures blog is hosting a blog hop, which they are calling a "road rally" and includes a souvenir hunt (if you have lots of time that you don't want to use for quilting).
In 2010 I made many blocks for a sampler quilt, and most of them were from the 100 blocks magazine. I wonder where those blocks are? They sure would make an awesome quilt. I'm going to search for them in the UFO closet... if you don't hear from me, you know where to look!

Clarissa is on the design wall

Here is block #11, fresh from the ironing board!
I cut into one of my brother's shirts to get that rich dark brown fabric. It was quite an emotional task to cut into the shirt, but I really do want to use these fabrics in quilts. Right now his shirts sit in a bag in the closet, and that's not what I want. So I took a deep breath and started cutting. 



Here are all 11 of the Clarissa blocks on the design wall.
It's totally intriguing to study the effect of value and how each block looks so different.
I know I say this every time I post a new block, but I LOVE this quilting project!!!

Total number of triangles in these 11 blocks is 1,584!

Linking up to Patchwork Times and Sew Fresh Quilts.

Totally in Love!

The Scrap Vortex quilt is FINISHED!  
The photos aren't great because it was late in the day and I had to fiddle with the camera's exposure settings, it was 5 degrees outside, and it was windy. But it's done!
Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways...

1) First of all, I love that it is a finished, useable quilt (instead of a UFO sitting in a closet). I am proud of my efforts to move it constantly forward to completion.

2) I love the asterisk corners and think that creative spark is growing into another whole quilt idea.

3) I love the metaphor that scrap quilts are. All those tiny bits of fabric have joined with their friends to become something amazing! That is the power of a group, and the beauty of a mosaic, with the strengths of each part contributing to the beauty of the whole.

4) I love that the quilt began with a quiltalong at Crazy Mom Quilts, and the quilting design also came from Crazy Mom Quilts! The spiral quilting is perfect for the vortex theme, and I am relieved at how flat this quilt is in spite of all those tiny pieces, bias edges, and intense quilting... there were a lot of variables to manage in this project. This is the back of the quilt, made from two pieces of yardage joined for a simple backing with two seams.

I like this terrible photo because it shows the wind and camera exposure elements I battled to get a good photo. At least I was able to get some shots before the rain started.
Ahh the trials of a quilt blogger.... LOL!

I am so excited to be able to post my finish over at the One Monthly Goal link up! Woo hoo!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching where we celebrate the art of creating things with our hands, where we connect to our ancestors by using time-honoured techniques to make things we could easily buy for a fraction of the cost, and where we recognize the value we add to our lives by engaging in this restorative practice. 

This week I finished the machine quilting of my Scrap Vortex quilt, and today I am hand stitching the binding. Isn't that a great piece of leaf fabric in the quilt backing?!?

How long do you think it will take me to stitch the 272" of binding? 
Is it possible to do this much binding in one day?  I could've easily finished it by machine, but I really enjoy hand stitching a binding and didn't want to miss out on one of my favourite parts of quiltmaking, just to meet my artificial goal of finishing this quilt in April. I stitched around one corner yesterday and have everything ready for today, including some arthritis cream for when my hands start to ache. Check back later tonight to see how I made out. If I finish, I will post a photo. If I don't finish, well... let's just be positive and hopeful!
What are you hand stitching today? Link up to your blog post below and tell us all about your project...

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Spiral Quilting

Progress is being made on machine quilting my UFO, but it's not done yet.
Here is a photo of one of the corners of the quilt and you can see the circular quilting lines out to the edge. So far it's laying fairly flat on the edges, which was my biggest concern with this quilting design. If everything isn't completely flat and well basted, you can end up with a teepee in the middle of the quilt and ruffles on the edges!
Also I have decided that it needs a dark scrappy binding, so I sorted through my basket of leftover binding ends and pulled out pieces to use. It will take extra time to construct a binding from so many smaller pieces, but it's perfect for this project. I hope it will be my Slow Sunday Stitching project to hand stitch the binding ... so exciting that the quilt is this close to finishing!!

Grand Illusion Resurfaces

This quilt was a Quiltville mystery that started in November 2014. Although I enjoyed piecing it, and really liked the fabrics I had originally picked, it never really grew on me like most quilts do. I did make two changes that helped me to like the quilt more (removed the green and changed the border) but still it didn't make my heart sing. 
So I decided that it would be a comfort quilt to donate to my quilt guild. Once that was decided, the quilt project fell deep into the UFO closet!
This Saturday my quilt guild is having a Bee Day, so this is the quilt I'm going to spend the day working on. I am collecting the leftover blocks and yardage to be organized and gathering all the supplies I will need to move this quilt forward toward a finish.

No Scrap Left Behind!

I am celebrating with Amanda Jean from Crazy Mom Quilts as she kicks off a blog hop for her new book "No Scrap Left Behind". Amanda Jean is such a generous person and has freely shared so many wonderful tips, creative ideas and quiltalongs over the years. So when she publishes another book, I want to support her! As soon as I heard about the book I pre-ordered it and have enjoyed reading her new ideas and seeing her fabulous scrappy quilts. Click here to see the blogs on the celebration tour and enter the daily draws for free copies of the book.
With one week left to the finish line, my April UFO (which started with a Crazy Mom Quilts quiltalong!) has been pin basted. 

Only quilters can appreciate how much time it actually takes to go from a quilt top to being ready for quilting. The thread has to be chosen for the top and the bobbin, and the quilting design has to be figured out. The backing fabric has to be chosen, measured (and pieced sometimes) and pressed, the batting has to be cut and fluffed up in the dryer, and the quilt top has to be pressed. Then the layers have to be smoothed out, one on top of the other, and finally the pin basting can begin.
This quilt insisted that the quilting design had to be the spiral pattern, which is also something I learned from Crazy Mom Quilter Amanda Jean Nyberg from her tutorial here. I have quilted this design once before and remembered that the beginning of the spiral is a little tricky using the free motion foot, but when you change to the walking foot, it's a little easier. 

However, you are shoving half of the quilt continuously through the harp of your sewing machine, around and around, trying to keep the curves smooth. Shoving the quilt through the machine and repositioning it constantly means that your shoulders and hands will be aching, but it's the price you pay for leaving it to the last week and trying to finish it before the end of the month! LOL

Once you get to this stage of the quilting, when you are farther away from the centre of the spiral and moving to the outside of the quilt, it gets way more fun! There is less fabric to shove through and the curves are more gentle and easier to manage. I am lucky to have two large tables to spread the quilt out on when I am machine quilting and it holds the weight of the quilt (except the part that is on my lap, which in this photo is the top half of the quilt that is hanging over the front of the table).
An important spiral quilting tip - always make the spiral go clockwise, or the bulk of the quilt will accumulate to the right of the needle in the harp of the machine, instead of to the left of the needle and you will not be happy!

Design Wall Monday - Finished Quilt Top

The Scrap Vortex is finally a quilt top!

I started this quilt in June 2015 and it has used up a ton of scraps. The piano key borders took a long time to prepare and attach, but I'm soooo happy with how it all turned out. It is rich with scrappy fabric memories and completely frenetic - just like my life! 
The quilt top measures 59" x 77".
I have a week left in April to get this quilt pin basted, quilted and bound. I feel like I'm on the amazing quilt race TV show...will she reach the finish line in time?!?!
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times. To see some amazing improv quilts, hop over to the AHIQ link up.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly celebration of the art of slowly stitching by hand! We encourage you to slow down, breathe deeply, take a few stitches, and enjoy seeing the slowly created projects of hand stitching gurus from around the world.

I had a terrible flare of "gettingthingsdoneitis" this month, with many deadlines and not enough time. So now I have to recuperate, slow down and get myself calmed down. A few more embroidery stitches will be put into this Life Is Beautiful block. In fact my plan is to deliberately move SLOWLY like a sloth for the entire day. 
It used to be that the animal symbols of being slow were the turtle and the snail. But more recently the sloth has become the representative of slowness. Have you seen the Zootopia movie? Here's my favourite scene of sloths at the DMV:


It's Sunday, so slow down and stitch like a sloth!
And then link up your blog post below and share your slow stitching project with us.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Scrappy Saturday

The colour of the month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is "multicolour". That has been quite a challenge for me for my RSC projects, so I practiced with some cookies first! 

These are some of the easter cookies my daughter and I made last weekend. It was great fun to decorate each one differently. My favourites were the ones with all the icing colours. The colourful cookies created quite the family conflict, since she didn't want anyone to actually EAT these treats. Apparently she thought we should just admire the creations for a few weeks! They're long gone now!

I did finally make a sort of multicoloured block for my Circle of Squares project. My scrap collection doesn't seem to have much in the way of multicoloured fabrics, and this is the best I could do!





Here are the 9 blocks on the design wall.

To see more Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, hop over to the weekly link up.

UFO update

April is more than half over and I am not exactly on track with my UFO goals, but am making progress in the right direction. I was hoping to have the quilt top finished by now and ready for pin basting, in order to be able to finish the quilt by the end of the month. That goal doesn't feel impossible at the moment, but we'll see what progress the next week brings.

There were 3 tasks to do:
1) The areas of the quilt top that needed to be improved (so I could like the quilt more) are now fixed. That task involved tedious unsewing and resewing, but I'm happy with the changes.

2) The scrappy piano key border strips are almost finished.


3) I made 4 scrappy asterisk blocks and they will be perfect for the cornerstone blocks at the ends of the border strips.

Now I just need some time to connect all these parts together into a quilt top!

PS... hop over the Cynthia's blog to see her fabulous colourwash scrap vortex quilt. She pieced it as a leader-ender project... just wow!
PPS... hop over to the Oh Scrap! link up for more scrappiness and thoughts about backings.

Blockheads Update

Block #6 was posted last week and is a sunflower. 
It's one of my favourite blocks so far because it has a pieced base that was interesting, but not too complicated or stressful to sew, plus a tiny bit of easy applique. 





I made the circle using Karen Kay Buckley's "Perfect Circles" and it turned out okay....
not at all perfect, but it's done! 

Here are my first 5 blocks on the design wall. I have cut out the pieces for block #4 and that will be my Slow Sunday Stitching project for this weekend.
Hop over to Moda to see what we are sewing for block #7 - click here.  
Also, if you are a member of Facebook, and want to see more block collections, there is a group page where quilters are posting photos of their blocks - Blockheads Facebook.

Design Wall Monday

Scrappy piano key strips are on the design wall today. These are going to be borders for the scrap vortex quilt. I am piecing the scraps on wax paper to see if I like this technique. It's keeping the strip sets perfectly even and so far, I'm really liking it. A few more sections are needed to add to the quilt top, but right now it's the perfect mindless piecing job!

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 with SLOW hand stitches. Today is Easter Sunday, so I am wishing a Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates this.
I'm moving more slowly than usual after a couple of weeks of living at breakneck speed everyday. Today I am not doing anything I don't want to do. I am not doing paperwork, or housekeeping, or yard work, or errands. I am just going to BE. That's my goal today. 
Just BE. 

"This is where you left off stitching... right here"!

I was inspired to reflect on this after reading a Huffington Post article by Jodi Gibson called "Have We Forgotten How to Be"? She definitely described me. She wrote: "We feel every moment should be productive in one way or another".
When I was speaking at the Haldimand guild this past week I was talking about how I organize myself to work on many projects at the same time and I actually said: "I never waste time". It's true. I rarely just sit and relax, and BE. If I have "down" time, it is filled with activity of some sort. That's not always a good thing.

My Granddog Max is the best inspiration for doing "nothing". This is the stare down he gives you when you try to do anything else but pay total attention to him. He will insist that you stop whatever you are doing to cuddle him. 
Today I will take a few moments to just BE. To sit still and not DO anything. It will be a challenge for me, which is sad, and is even more reason why I need to do it. 

What are you doing today? Will you spend a few moments to just BE? What are you hand stitching today, in between moments of BEING? Link up your blog post below and tell us about your hand stitching project.


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Letter Making

Today I am working on some improv letters to add to my bear quilt. This project started with Lorna's quiltalong over at Sew Fresh Quilts. 
It will become a camping quilt to commemorate the year I saw a bear up close and personal. That experience has become a family legend, complete with a song written by my brother-in-law, and therefore this legend requires a commemorative quilt. I'd like to have it done in time to use for camping season this year.

There are many ways to sew letter blocks to add to a quilt, or to be the main focus of the quilt. I have tried many techniques over the years and have enjoyed all of them. 
Here are some of the many resources that I have consulted:

1. Letter Sew-along hosted by Lynne Tyler. She teaches how to make make letters using improv piecing. If you need inspiration, she has many creative letter quilts on her blog Patchery Menagerie. My finished quilt from the sew-along that I finished in 2013 can be seen here.

traditional patchwork letters

2) Temecula Quilts hosted a quiltalong called "Little Letters" and it made an adorable baby quilt. The free pattern is still on their blog here and is made using traditional patchwork techniques.

3) Patch and Dot is hosting a new quiltalong making ribbon letters using traditional patchwork. You can read her ideas and see the first 3 letters here.


4) My two favourite reference books for improv pieced letter blocks are Word Play Quilts and Out of the Box.

improv letters