Sweet Land of Liberty Month 3

Here are both halves ...the entire width won't fit in my camera's view.

The project for month three is mostly applique and adding embellishments to the already sewn pieces.  I dipped into my vintage sewing supplies for a quarter inch wide seam tape and buttons for the branch and berries.  As always, the birds, stars and lettering are drawn freehand.  I find it very interesting that something which looks fine in a rough draft or on graph paper looks completely different in fabric!  Once I cut the green birds and placed them, I thought they looked like lizards. After some adjustment, they do look a little more like birds.

If you aren't familiar with this sew along, it's being run by Lori at Humble Quilts.  This is based on a Cheri Payne quilt and there is no pattern currently available.  Lori gives us block dimensions and photos of what she and Denise have made and then we copy and/or change things as we see fit.

 I see that I lost a letter on the trip from my livingroom to the front porch.  The handwork on attaching alll the letters will probably take me the rest of the month!

Linking withBusy Hands Quilts and  Crazy Mom Quilts

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

Sweet Land of Liberty

The two panels and the stars are the February blocks for the sew along.  I'm kind of late with these....I had most of it finished by the end of the first week in of the month then spent the rest of my time thinking and procrastinating on the flying geese!  It's a case of I love the geese but they don't love me!  I always seem to have points cut off somewhere....I'd love to do one of those quilts that's all geese...but not yet.

There is no pattern given for this quilt.  Lori posts the month's project on her blog Humble Quilts then we all copy it or find patterns as best we can.  This has turned out to be quite fun.  I did try tracing the eagle from the computer screen but couldn't get the size quite right.  I do have a couple of tries that looked more like a bat but I'm happy with my final result.  The same with the angel...I finally got a wing that I was happy with.

Choosing the fabrics has been an adventure...most of my stash (which is mostly scraps now) are modern prints that I didn't really like with the primitive look of the quilt.  There is a little of every thing in this...a couple of strips from an old French General Christmas collection and men's shirts make up the majority.  The tan background of the angel is from a length of apparel fabric that I got as a mistake with an order years ago.  The pale yellow background for the house block is the wrong side of a very, very bright print and most everything else is from the scrap bags.

Here they are together, with some of the March done.  I still have all the little bits of March to do...there is a vine in the blank blue strip, lots of birds and lettering still to go. Now I need to sit down and do lots of embroidery on this!  This is all together in one piece but too long to fit in my camera's view.

Linking with Humble Quilts, Oh Scrap, and Em's Scrapbag

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                                        

A Finished Project

Finally, I have finished a project before its holiday!  Even better, February 2 is National Wear Red Day  supporting women's fight against heart disease and I have a red heart for it.  My basket of unfinished 3+ year old Christmas projects is so jealous!

new version

About 2013, I found the Pixelated Heart pattern from Blue Elephant Stitches.  I reduced her 3" squares to 1.5" squares (finished) and it is 13 squares by 13 squares. It fits my 16" sofa pillow perfectly. The backing on both pillows is linen done in the envelope style.  After one exploding commercially made zippered cover, I never use a zipper on a pillow.

  It was intended as a Valentine Day project but I enjoyed it so much that it has been on my couch ever since.  It's now looking somewhat shabby and worn.  Some of the background fabrics are cotton/poly shirtings and years of wear and cats napping have taken their toll.  Since I had a charm pack of Valentine fabric, I used it to make a new version.  I don't really want to live with cupids and hearts year around, so the new one will go into storage after the day and I need to make another pillow for the couch!

Original

Linking with Crazy Mom Quilts and Busy Hands Quilts for their Friday finishes

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

I'm Back!

I've not posted in a while...a variety of things...illness, procrastination, and a lack of interest in all of my fabrics lead the list.  I do have projects that I want to finish and projects that I want to start so I just sat down to the machine and started in.

My new project is the Sweet Land of Liberty sew along hosted by Lori over at Humble Quilts.  This is a Cheri Payne design and there is no pattern.  Lori is giving the basic block sizes and you do your own thing from those sizes and the pictures she posted.  I've never done a primitive style project and this looked to be the perfect project for my stash of  thrift shirts.  Here's my first month...I've still the embroidery to do.

For the economy blocks I used the information from Catbird Studios.  Very clear and the size turned out for me.  Thank you

I couldn't really see the house well enough in the photos so I made my own simplified house.  I'm fairly pleased with it but I think I may redo the light green economy block and the "A" again.  I'll put it away for a couple of days and then see how I like it all


Linking with Finish or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts
Humble Quilts