Hand Stitching and Catch Up

Happy Easter everyone!

It's been a slow week in terms of progress and accomplishments.  I've been sewing down all the little pieces of my Sweet Land project.  It's been slow going as my machine has decided that it doesn't like the invisible thread and keeps breaking.  I've gone to matching regular thread which has lead to lots of thread changes.

I ran into a problem with putting my Quilty 365 quilt sandwich together.  I use a spray adhesive and after I got it about halfway done, I noticed that the backing fabric had bubbled.  I'll be taking that apart and restretching that fabric.

Since I'm planning on hand quilting that and since I've never done that, I  got out my Palmateer Point unfinished top and am now trying to hand quilt that.  It's not going well...I need more practice!  So far, my biggest problem is trying to keep the stitching going in a straight line.  I'll probably end up taking it all out and redoing, but right now, I'm going to keep on so I can watch my hopeful improvement!

My stitching is really hard to see on this...some are in pink, the others are tan.

I did manage to empty four grocery totes of scraps and get them sorted into strings and scraps to be cut into squares or other usable pieces.  The hard part is deciding what sizes and then organizing into colors.  I see beautiful photos of nicely organized scraps and hope one day to be among them!

Linking with Slow Sunday Stitching

Quilty 365 Progress

Very, very slow progress but progress nonetheless!  It took me ages to get the side borders on this.  For some reason, the bright pink fabric on the narrow border grew about two inches as I joined the two borders leaving the yellow border short. They weren't cut on the bias and the seams were all pressed before sewing...it's a mystery!   After checking out several options and realizing I was going to have to put a seam in somewhere, I just added to the ends.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make that seam look like a line of quilting.

I've decided to hand quilt this..I've never done and this seems to be a good one to start with...all those circles!  It's been a while since I've done any hand stitching so we'll see how it goes.  After I quilt the body, I'll add the remainder of my circles and half circles to the outer edge.  The plan is to have them facing inward on all sides.  This started out as a six months record of my circles but it is taking all the remainder for the borders, so I'll have the year in one spot!

I see that some of my letters need to be repositioned and the year needs some adjustment also...

Linking with Em's Scrapbag, Monday Making

One of Those Days!

We've all had them, I'm sure.  Mine started when I started laying out the borders to to my Quilty 365 project.  How wide to cut, will I have enough room to put writing on them and what color order should I use?  Mostly fun questions and I knew what I wanted the finished quilt to look like. So I cut the borders and laid out the first of my circles and the doubts started.  My circles look a lot smaller when cut in half and the gap of plain fabric looks a lot larger.    I'm not a big fan of borders on quilts anyway.  I think that a lot of the time, they detract from the quilt and make the eye look at the border instead of the whole quilt...I do know that I'm in the minority on this.

before wide border

While I thought about the width of the border, I started by laying out my scallops on the inner portion carefully measuring the 1/4" seam allowance. I pinned into place and went to my machine putting my last spool of piecing thread on it.  I sewed about an inch when the thread fell off!  I turned the spool around and it happened again.  Somehow the thread was catching in the little slit.  Using a kitchen knife I was able to pry enough plastic off so I could sew with the thread.  Two scallops in, I noticed that each was growing when being sewed.  I had to unpin and realign each one.  About nine scallops in, I had to leave one out.  My circles are done with fusible interfacing and it seems to have pulled the fabric in enough that it makes the measurements off.  OK, fuse first, then sew....except that my new batch of cheap fusible interfacing is fussy about what fabrics it wants to fuse too and it doesn't like the border fabric.

projected border

These aren't even pinned yet but what do you think?  Too much yellow space?    

Linking with Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh quiltl, and Oh Scrap                                        

Quilty 365 Progress

When I last posted, I had completed my August and September blocks.  I did get about 3/4 of the way through October before I quit.  I simply ran out of fabrics!  I would have had to duplicate existing circles or make the 4" circles out of two or three fabrics.  I do like that look and have several in my quilt but it wouldn't have worked for my planned layout.  For December, I had decided to do the entire month with Christmas fabrics plus some red and greens and make a wall hanging for that month alone.  Those are still pinned in a pile by my machine.  Next July, I promise!  I'm going to devote that month to finishing all the Christmas projects I've started for the past several years.

I have the quilt put together, except for the outer borders.  I'm working on those now....hoping that my vision will work out without too many problems. This will include all of my circles except for December. One immediate problem is that I've lost a month of circles!  I knew that I would....I just have to remember/find where I put them for safekeeping!  Here is what it looks like without the 6" wide borders.

On a sad note, my local sewing repair shop has gone out of business.  The Kent Super Sew and Vac was there for about 45 years and was extremely knowledgeable about vintage machines.  He hated my big box Brothers but when I walked in and asked for a belt for a Morse Super Dial, he went right to a drawer and pulled out the proper belt and asked what color machine I had found.  He also had a very large collection of Featherweights.  I shall miss that shop!

linking with busyhandsquilts for finish or not Friday and
Crazy Mom Quilts

Starting Over

Quite a few of my circles for the Quilty 365 project have come from charms and fat quarters which leave a small scrap too big to toss out.  In an effort to use these up and improve my skills, I surfed and found the Lazy Girl variation of the Single Girl quilt.  Perfect!  Practice in curves, uses lots of scraps and something a bit different since it was popular about six years ago...way before I started quilting.

I decided to make four squares...a complete circle to try it out.  In the process, I've learned several things.
1.  a quarter inch difference in matching the centers equals about 3/4 inch off in the sides.
2.  I'm going back to my apparel sewing technique of marking the wrong side of solid fabrics with
     blackboard chalk.
3.  Actually sewing the curve was not a problem...just like setting in a sleeve.
4.  I really, really need more accuracy in pattern drafting
5.  trying to figure out which way to slant a seam for an angle is really hard if you have no spatial            ability at all.

Back to the drafting table for another try!

The solid is Kona cotton Valentine.

Linking with Em's Scrabag

August Quilty 365

August was over way too fast for me....I got way behind on everything this past month!  I did get my circles sewed and turned but that was about it.  I'm still trying to decide what to do with them.  I'm leaning towards the flower design with a dark green background.  August was more colorful than July with more summer flowers.

I did manage to get some of my collection of thrift shop shirts turned into fabric....and I have some summer fruits and a bunny fabric.

I do wish I had a better bunny fabric...this is in honor of the little half grown bunnies that come out in the evenings and graze in the grass/gravel parking lot next to me.  I live downtown, in a business district, so I do enjoy seeing all the urban animals.  I usually have an opposum and a raccoon that will visit ie..come inside and eat my cat's food in the middle of the night! but I haven't seen them this summer and my cat didn't bring in any baby bunnies to play with so it's been a good summer overall.

I've decided to hand quilt my six months version and will be putting that together in the next couple of weeks.  I've never done that before so we shall see how it goes.  Any tips are appreciated!

Linking with Daisy and Jack Handmade
Em's Scrapbag

The Second Six Months (Quilty 365)

Looking at all my circles, July seems to have been a pretty dull month.  Lots of pastels trying to forget the heat, reds when the heat got the better of me and a small piece of Japanese bamboo fabric.  I did get some navy blue stars for Independence Day.  The zigzag  fabric was new for an experiment but turned out to be so poorly printed that the lines wouldn't align.  The rest of the piece will probably be popping up in small bits for the next several years!

In my last two posts, I explained that the first six months of circles are now being made into a quilt because of the size consideration.  It's 48" x 60" before any borders.  I don't think that I could handle a quilt double that size.  So now what do I want to do with the next six months?  I haven't put them on squares yet because I think I want to go in a different direction.

Clamshells, maybe?

or flowers

or tightly laid out on the backing fabric with diamonds showing?

All of these were just quickly laid out.  Any other suggestions or comments?

Linking up with Daisy and Jack

The First Six Months (Quilty 365)

Here are my first 6 months of circles sewn into their rows.  I have 15 rows of 12 squares...each square finished at 4 inches.  Right now, they are in groups of four rows with one row of three strips for ease of quilting.  As things stand, I may be quilting this on my featherweight!  I do plan to add a narrow inner border and an outer border.

For the layout, I divided my circles into light and dark of each color and put the whites and neutral in the center.  I worked in a circle from the center and put them in order according to a basic color wheel. There were some surprises...a lot less red and green and more blues than I expected.

For those of you that might not be familiar with the Quilty 365 project, the object is to make one circle a day for a year.  Your circle might represent your feelings,  temperature, or even scrap reduction.  I've done it all and also marked some holidays.  We link up on the first of  every month at
Daisy and Jack Handmade.

I've been making my circles with a fusible which is then turned forming a circle which has less points than if I tried to do basic  needle turn applique...arthritis has made my fingers fairly stiff.  In my first Quilty 365 post, I showed how I did this.  All my Quilty posts are labelled, so if you want to see a closer view of  them, just click the label.

Another view

Linking with
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
Moving It Forward at Em's Scrapbag
Oh Scrap at Quilting is more fun than housework
Daisy and Jack Handmade

Quilty 365 Halfway

I started the Quilty 365(2017) project with Leanne of .Daisy and Jack Handmade in January after seeing her post.  I did make circles to include the first 2 weeks of that month so that January was a complete month.  Unlike some BOM's and other monthly or weekly projects, I've kept up with it.  Some months have been a scramble and I'm running dangerously low on fabrics but I now have a complete 6 months of circles on 4.5" squares.

It was while I was working on my July circles that I started wondering how I was going to put them together.  I went back and reviewed my Pinterest board and then it hit me...some of those quilts are huge!  Way more than I can handle in my limited space.  I started laying them out and found that I have 15 rows of 12 squares each. That almost covered my 5x8' livingroom rug.  After some rearranging, I came up with a layout and started sewing.  Here's were I'm at currently...halfway through the year and halfway through my rows.

These are hanging on my front door.  My seasonal door dec until I can get them joined together!

Linking with Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making and Em's Scrapbag

June Quilty 365

I got a new background ....tiny yellow triangles on white...and I'm not sure I really like it.  In person, the yellow is hard to see and my camera makes all the circles look like measles!  I'm going for a scrappy yellow look and shall have to play around with these along with the previous months.  This month is noted for my using the last stack of my fat quarter stash....that's all the black prints.  In addition, lots of flowers and the green shamrock represents all the clover in our front yard!

Kitties!  In all honesty, the selvedge and my friend that sent me the black print claim that they are dog prints.  I did check against the paws of my cat that I had then and they are cat prints!  I'm sticking with that.

Victorian woman and children...I used this fabric ages ago to make a small ironing board cover.

Breast Cancer Awareness fabric from several years ago.  I never did find the right pattern or idea for it.

I had to clean out one of my scrap/storage bins to find enough fabrics for this month.  I've got several more to go, so I should be good for another month or two. That's an unexpected perk of this project!

Linking with Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or not Friday and .daisyandjackhandmade

May Quilty 365

I really haven't accomplished much this month except to choose my fabric of the day.....I did make it through the month with a few circles of interfacing left but I'm out of pale yellows in my stash for backgrounds.  I know I've got some gingham I was planning on using but that has evaporated when needed!

So, for this month, I'm in mourning for my three machines that died on the same day.

On a more cheerful note...a weeks worth of polka dots!

Digging way down in the stash, a few Lida Enche fabrics from my second quilt...circa 2013. She's a local artist and her fabrics were included in a kit from a local designer I bought in 2012 at a quilt show.

Butterflies, dragonflies, sea creatures and a creature make up this month's selection of animals.

I did finally remember to get a box to store all my circles in....thanx Leanne!

I'm also about 25% done with putting together a quilt top.   Hopefully, I'll be able to finish that in the next several days.  Unfortunatly, I've found that my Kindle Unlimited and BookBub subscriptions are the biggest detriment to my quilting time!

Linking up with Leanne at Daisy and Jack Handmade

April Quilty 365-2017

A little late getting my circles posted, but here is April.  I've really started digging in the bottom of my scrapbags, drawers I haven't opened in a while, and pulled a stack of ancient blues off of my shelf.  Most of those came from Goodwill in the first place and I've had them over five years.  I plan on cutting them into strips, so I thought I'd make circles of them first.

April has still been very rainy and grey here in the Pacific Northwest, so in honor of two consecutive days of sun, I cut into my Hawaii cats and found more cats in a single layer cake piece.

It rained for the next two days!!  Trying to counteract that are some flowers, butterflies and a bee.

I'm still digging and sorting boxes and bags and hope to find lots more flowers for a sunnier May!  If you would like to see some completed circle quilts from those who started last year, they are on display at Audrey's blog Quilty Folk

Linking up with Leanne at Daisy and Jack Handmade

March Quilty 365

My 31 days of circles for March!  The last two on the bottom row are for St. Patrick's day.  Above them, two days of monkeys.  I think they came from a bundle I bought on eBay several years ago.  I have mushrooms, flowers, bees and people walking in the rain for spring....it's coming slowly to my corner of the world.  You can see some color variations in the backgrounds.  I'm doing all my backgrounds in pale yellow...some paler than others.  At the end, I hope to have a nice scrappy look to it.

The 31st day is represented by my mini quilt for Jen & Jan's Laundry Day Mini Quilt Blog Hop.  My reveal day was March 11 and this is my quilt.

I'm currently planning on using this as a center for my completed circle quilt.  I quilted through the batting and then added the backing, which is held on by the binding. I just need to unpick the back if the binding, iron and it turns into sashing.  You can read more about this mini quilt  here.  There are still nine months to go so I may change my mind!
Linking with Daisy and Jack Handmade April link  and

Progress!

February circles are finally completed!  And I'm caught up with March also.  If you are not familiar with the circle project, it's called Quilty 365 and started November 2015.  Leanne from Daisy and Jack Handmade  is continuing on this year.  The idea is to choose a piece of fabric every day of the year and make a 4.5" block.  At the end of your year, the assembled blocks will provide a fabric diary.

I'm finding that my scraps, which I thought I had so much of, aren't suitable in many ways...too small, too ugly, just don't fit my mood or whatever.  I really hate to cut into fat quarters so I'm breaking into charm packs.  I'm also finding leftover blocks and pieces from quilts I've made.  In the top row, #3 and the last one in the third row down are from the quilt I did for the Iron Quilter at Missouri Star Quilt Company.  That was 2013.  The first one in the second row from the bottom is from my heart quilt designed by Kathy Doughty. Right under it is a failed paper piecing for the Splendid Sampler. So this has really turned into a diary.
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Linking with Oh Scrap! and Em's scrapbag

Jen & Jan's Quilter's Laundry Day Blog Hop

The sun is shining.  A breeze blows the clouds and drys the day's 365 circle quilt.  The front lawn is nicely mowed while the field in the back is growing wildflowers and the cats are inside looking out.

Welcome to my stop on Jen and Jan's Mini quilt blog hop.  I've always wanted to do a house quilt so when I saw this pattern I couldn't resist. The free pattern for Quilter:s Laundry Day can be found here .  I'm also participating in the Quilty 365 so my mini mini quilt is the circle for today.  The clouds and the tree are made the same way I do my circles...shape sewn to light interfacing and then turned.  I put a hedge in the front of my house and a bright brass doorknob.


This was a lot of fun to do, but harder than expected....right now, my  floor and cutting table is covered with rejected fabric choices and second guessing my final choices was constant.  I may have to do another one!

Right now, I'm planning on using this as a center for my finished circles at the end of the year.

There were some great quilts shown yesterday and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of todays!  If you leave and comment on Jen's or Jan's blogs, you will be entered into a drawing.  You can see all of the quilts on these blogs.

March 10 Reveal Day

Jen Rosin  A Dream and a Stitch
Kate Heads at Smiles From Kate
Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter
Karen Thurn at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats
Melva Nolan at Melva Loves Scraps
Vicki at Vicki's Crafts & Quilting
Julie Stocker at Pink Doxies
Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts
Diann at Little Penguin Quilts

Jayne at Twiggy & Opal

Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication

March 11 Reveal Day
Janice Holton at Color Creating & Quilting

Sola at Alice Samuels Quilt Co

Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

Amy Gerlich at Amy Scrap Spot

Sharon Denney Parcel at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs

Tami at Sew Much for Free Time

Suzy Webster at Adventurous Applique & Quilting

Tish Stemple at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Susan Gordon at Sevenoaks Street Quilts

Anne Boundy at Said With Love

Barbara Wootie at The Flashing Scissors
Jan Welander at Making Scraps

Linking with Crazy Mom Quilts   and  Busy Hands Quilts

So Behind!

These are my February circles from the Quilty 365-2017 project.  As you can see, I've gotten behind on sewing them up.  They are all there, even if halfway sewed and I am choosing March's every day.  I am running out of scraps...never thought that I'd say that!  Most of my scraps seem to be too small, the wrong color or just not speaking to me.  Looking at other;s blogs, I have a severe case of fabric and scrap envy!

I'm still working on the Bear Claw quilt and always seem to be ripping out a section as I've sewn the hst's on backwards.  My backing fabric for the diamond quilt hasn't shown up yet...big mixup at the vendor resulting in lots of emails, phone calls etc.  My camera program seems to have stopped working and informs me that it can't create the files??????? It's also dating every picture as 2009! I think it's trying to tell it's time for a new camera.  The pictures seem to be going somewhere although I had a hard time finding them.. After on year, I still don't like windows 10!

On the brighter side, I'll be taking part in a mini quilt blog hop on Friday March 10 and have been working on that quilt.  I like to work on different projects at the same time so I've started another quilt.  Hopefully some pix will be coming soon.  And the new monthly mini quilt was released this morning!

31 Days of Circles

I'm taking part in the Quilty 365 for 2017 over at Daisy and Jack's blogl.  These are my 31 circles for January.  I've put my circles on a 4.5 square and will be doing a yellow scrappy background.  So far, I've had enough of one shade of yellow to do the entire month.  The scrappy part will start to appear next month.

The circle fabric gets chosen first thing in the morning and really has no relation to how I'm feeling,  The very dark circles are a deep purple batik and from the diamond quilt I'm still working on!  They do not indicate that I'm depressed!  I have noticed that the flower fabrics tend to get chosen on sunny days.  I have multiple scrap bins and grab a handful and chose from those.

I've used a drinking glass for the circle pattern and  draw that onto a thin interfacing, then cut and stitch.

I place the interfacing with the fusible side next to the right side of the fabric.  When I slice the interfacing and turn, the fusible side is then on the outside and can be fused to the background. The middle circle is shown partially turned.  This method works so much better for me than using freezer paper or needleturn applique.

Linking up with Daisy and Jack Handmade