To Do Tuesday 30/8/22

Last week I undertook to do the following:

📌Finishing the quilting on the Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging

📌Sewing the binding onto the show quilt and preparing the sleeve; also need to think of a title so I can do the online entry.

Almost! Continued on my quilting of the Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging and only have a little bit left to do on the top

Close up

Well, the second task is also almost done. Finished the binding on the show quilt and did the online entry. Now I can relax a bit...only need to do the sleeve and label and then wait until I can drop it off. The show is in early November, so still some time to go.

The next few weeks will be quite busy. I am teaching a freemotion-quilting class over 3 weeks and for some reason I also put some socialising into those weeks. All seems a bit full on, but always happens that way. I seem to be just at home doing my own stuff for weeks on end and then all of a sudden there is this flurry of activity outside of the home.

Well, also found another UFO project...the Kitten quilt...posted about it HERE

Made another block...they are just too cute. The blocks are a good size and come together quite quickly so I am going to include these in my weekly goals. I thought that I could do at least one or two blocks per week to knock this off and get it done. This has been sitting around for some years which is just ridiculous.

So, what am I going to plan for this week

📌Make at least one more cat block

📌Put up another listing in my Etsy shop for the second quilted baby panel that I made. Need to do some photos and work on the listing. Hopefully we will have a few sunny days so that I can take some decent photos. It has been very rainy over here.

📌Finish the quilting of the Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging 

📌Ambitious, but I should be making a start on the four charity quilts that need to be quilted. Maybe I could get one at least to the basting stage. Picked them up at least 3 weeks ago.

📌Prepare the sleeve for the show quilt.

Lots of bits and pieces to complete, let's see how we go...

Linking up to Texas Quilt Gal for To Do Tuesday 8-30-22

Karin

Another UFO Spotted!

Well, in my efforts to clean up a bit and get some order happening in the many spots that I seem to stash fabric, I stumbled across this UFO. It is Elizabeth Hartman's 'Kitten' pattern.

Can't actually remember when I started this, but I do remember that I started this with great gusto. Well, I managed to make 3 blocks before this became a UFO!

The inspiration came from our feline friends, Abby and Pixie

This is Abby

This is Pixie

I had this fabric range I once purchased in a sale which was just perfect to bring out the colours of those cats, so off I went starting this quilt. Even had many of my strips and bitses and pieces pre-cut and neatly stored away in a plasic bag, all ready to go...(marvelled at my organisation and structure at this point😼)

Not sure what happened...no doubt I got side tracked and started something else thinking obviously that I would get back to this quilt. Hardly ever happens. 

So today I had a good look at it because I was unsure whether I had any of the background fabric left as this was not stored away with the rest of the fabric. Thinking that I maybe just started on a whim, not thinking about the sashing that will have to go in between the blocks, I went through my fabric. Eventually found the background fabric which was a relief. I did sit down and pieced another cat which took me about an hour and a bit. The quilt consists of 30 blocks, so I am thinking that if I do maybe just two blocks per week, I will eventually get this done. Unsure whether I will have enough fabric for 30 blocks, but I will get a quilt out of this. Would be a pity to just leave it, as I obviously spent some time cutting my strips and other pieces ready to go. This might be a good task to do on weekends in the evening instead of vegging out in front of the television.

Here are the four cats that I have so far...

Will put this on my goal list next week, I think.

Karin

To Do Tuesday 23/8/22

My goals for last week were:

📌Put up the first panel as a listing in my Etsy shop...photos are done, just need to do some editing and write up the listing.✔

📌Continue on the Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging, i.e. at least get all the characters quilted.✔

📌Sew a binding to a quilt I have earmarked for the annual quilt show...of course, I left this to the last minute. Still have to do the blocking, binding, sleeve and label and deal with the negative self talk that is going on in my head (happens every time!)❌

📌Edit the handout for a freemotion-quilting class I am teaching in early September ✔

Not too bad...only the show quilt I am dragging my feet on...little bit of self sabotage going on there. I am unsure about that quilt and am still debating whether to put it in or not. If I think too long about this though, I will not put it in, so I have done some blocking and have cut the binding ready to sew. I have enough time to put on the sleeve and label and then I will see whether to put it in or not. Always go through that period of indecision...very annoying!

Continued on my Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging...done all the quilting on the animals and am now doing the background.

I am a bit bored (yep, avoiding that show quilt) so I decided to vary the background around the animals but do the border in one design. My choice of fabric and thread means that you cannot really see the quilting very well anyway so I think that will work. It turned out nice and flat (I am using a 60/40 Cotton/Polyester batting) and would also be great as a table runner.

Had some issues the last two days with tension. Inexplicably, the setting I used so far decided to not work that well anymore. Had little pokies of yellow thread coming up on the top or alternatively the brown thread showing on the bottom and no adjustment on my part seemed to make a difference. The Q20 is very reliable in general, so that was a bit surprising. One thing I like about the machine is that it stops if it does not like something. I wanted to run my thread at a tension of 1.5 ( the stitch looked very nice at that setting) however the machine was stopping every couple of minutes bringing up a tutorial about threading. I think that tension was too loose and would slip in the disks, however if I set it one notch higher it would be too tight. So it made sense for me to concentrate on the bobbin tension...I mucked around with that setting it higher and then tried lower, then tried a thread net, a new needle, oiled the machine, looked for fluff and repeated that process ten times over. Very frustrating and did not make a lot of sense. One thing I have learned over time though is to stay calm and just think it through. So yesterday I tried again, setting the bobbin tension considerably higher and the tension worked perfectly well at a higher setting. Funny enough that was on the other side of the runner, so I am wondering whether I will have issues again when I go on the left side thinking maybe the batting is slightly different on that particular patch. We shall see...

I will be glad when this is done. I think if I do another Elizabeth Hartman piece again I would revert back to an allover design. Stitching in the ditch around the open seams was just annoying and difficult to do when you have contrasting fabric like that. While I think that you can get away with pressing the seams to one side on the bigger characters, for some of those animals that would not have been possible because of the amount of small pieces. I think I did try this before on the fox, however it comes out better (and flatter) if you have your seams open. I am planning to do another Fox quilt and will definitely do an allover wood grain design again.

For next week I will keep my goals smallish as I got a fair bit going on around me, so I will concentrate on:

📌Finishing the quilting on the Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging

📌Sewing the binding onto the show quilt and preparing the sleeve; also need to think of a title so I can do the online entry.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday which is hosted by Texas Quilt Gal.

Karin

To Do Tuesday Link Up

Tuesday certainly comes around very fast, it seems.

Last week I set the following tasks

📌Finish off the hand sewing of the binding on the second panel.✅

📌Not sure this counts, but I will have to spend some time to put up the first panel as a listing in my Etsy shop...that always takes a moment as you have to be fairly specific in what you write, what photos you use  and how in general you present your item. ❌

📌Continue on my Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging by making the last fox block and putting the sashings in between. Who knows...I might even get it basted. Can't wait to freemotion quilt this one! ✅

Well, two out of three...not too bad. Life just got in the way over the last week and I felt like the Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging, so everything got a bit left behind.

My other panel baby quilt is finished.

It's hanging outside in the wind at the moment as I sprayed all the marks off with water. Bit of a grey day over here, but I don't like to leave the blue marker in for too long. Together with the other panel there is a few days of work to get them both up in the Etsy shop. A job for the next few weeks.

As mentioned, I got motivated to finish off my wall hanging. So this is basically half of a baby quilt from the Fancy forest pattern.

To be honest, I am not sure I would make it through an entire quilt. The piecing is quite challenging. Maybe if you do it over time but for me personally there would be a lot of danger in this becoming an ongoing UFO.

Now to the fun part, the quilting. I had seen that Natalia Bonner quilted a Fancy Forest quilt some years ago. Found them on You Tube and decided to give that a go. Looked all pretty easy and straightforward...famous last words...of course, it was not. Had a number of quilting decisions to make about the things that I obviously did not think about before.

- My background was much darker than what Natalia quilted on. The seams of the Fancy Forest quilt are ironed open, hence the stitching-in-the-ditch was a bit of an issue. When you watch Natalia do it in the video she just runs over the seams and if she did not exactly hit it, it did not matter as thread and background blended well. In the end I chose to quilt with Invisafil 100 wt thread...a brown colour to echo the characters and a tan thread to stitch-in-the-ditch around the seams. What an adventure!

- stitching with such a fine thread then meant that the quilting itself would hardly show, i.e. I did some feathers in the rabbit's ears and you do have to look really hard to see that.

This was the pay off...had I stitched, like Natalia, with a 50 wt thread, this would not have been such an issue, however it would have meant that any slip up in the seams would have been very noticeable and unsightly. Also did not take into account my fabric choices really as the patterned fabric made the feathers even more invisible. However, I know there are in there and they look cute. I could have changed the thread weight just for the ears but in the end that would have meant changing thread weight constantly which would have meant changing bobbin etc. In the flower block below Natalia also had some feathers which I am going to leave out as the fabric is just too patterned. It would really not add anything.

- in terms of tools of the trade, I used the following rulers

This was also a change from what I normally do, i.e. use one ruler for a job. Somehow this piece needed a different ruler for different tasks. I used the middle Handiquilter Ditch ruler for doing the echoes around the characters as it has 1/4in markings. I needed this to judge the distance that I needed to advance around the points.  Natalia Bonner's ruler was great for the 1/2in lines across the character as it is nice and big and covered the whole face usually, holding everything in place. On the right I have a ruler from Bethanne Nemesh which I used to stitch in ditch of the open seams. As I had to stitch on the lighter side with my tan thread, this ruler is small enough in my hand to be able manoeuvre it around as I go along.

Did the owl yesterday

Have three blocks left to quilt and then will do some heavy background quilting in the dark brown fabric. Not sure yet exactly what designs to choose...might use similar designs to Natalia Bonner but I am not sure yet. She used pebbles, some paisley looking shape and swirls. Might change that up a bit.

So, for next week I will hopefully

📌Put up the first panel as a listing in my Etsy shop...photos are done, just need to do some editing and write up the listing.

📌Continue on the Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging, i.e. at least get all the characters quilted.

📌Sew a binding to a quilt I have earmarked for the annual quilt show...of course, I left this to the last minute. Still have to do the blocking, binding, sleeve and label and deal with the negative self talk that is going on in my head (happens every time!)

📌Edit the handout for a freemotionquilting class I am teaching in early September

Linking up to To Do Tuesday 8/16/22 over at Texas Quilt Gal.

Karin

To Do Tuesday Link Up

It's Wednesday and I am ready to link up to To Do Tuesday hosted by Texas Quilt Gal.

Last week I set myself the following tasks:

📌Attach binding to one panel and hand sew to the back of the quilt.

📌Quilt the second panel and attach binding.

📌If time allows, complete one more block of my Elizabeth Hartmann wall hanging

Here is how I went:

Did finish off one panel, binding and all

It looks lovely with the bigger clam shells on it. I used a 60/40 Wool/Polyester batting and the quilt is nicely lightweight and fluffy.

Also made progress on the second panel...finished attaching the binding and am currently hand sewing it onto the back. Really feel that I need to learn how to sew this on by machine...it is taking forever even though these are small quilts.

Got majorly side tracked again and completed two more blocks of my Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging, which is just a portion of the Fancy Forest pattern, namely Hazel, the hedgehog and Frances, the fire fly.

Here is the hedgehog

Love this block! Lost a bit in the seam allowance at the bottom but will be able to fudge that out with the sashing that will go in between. Having finished this I finally sat down to do the fire fly. Dreaded this block as it looked very involved. While I love Elizabeth Hartman's patterns, I do not enjoy piecing with that many small pieces! So, I pieced my little heart out over the last two days, going incredibly slow and deliberate, measuring, making sure everything was right, but mistakes do creep in very quickly by not getting the orientation right.

This is an absolute bummer when it happens as it means that you have to do the whole unit again...not enjoyable at all! Also interesting to me as a pattern writer: I do not read the text in a pattern at all, just follow the diagrams...so important to have good diagrams in your patterns.

Well, made it to the end and here it is, the fire fly

Not being the greatest piecer in general, this was an absolute nightmare for me (worse than Lana the Lemur which I thought was rather involved), however it turned out sort of ok. I have got a bit of a mis-aligned strip in the middle on the left but there was not much I could do to even that out, as it was more important to focus in on making the block as straight as possible as it is rather large. Overall I am really quite happy with it...given the different fabrics used, the little misalignment is only noticeable when you focus in on it, so I am going to leave it. This wall hanging is just for my sewing room, so it will do...finished is better than perfect! I thought that was it but noticed I still have to do another Fox block which will be a breeze after this.

 

For next Tuesday I have got the following tasks lined up

📌Finish off the hand sewing of the binding on the second panel.

📌Not sure this counts, but I will have to spend some time to put up the first panel as a listing in my Etsy shop...that always takes a moment as you have to be fairly specific in what you write, what photos you use  and how in general you present your item.

📌Continue on my Elizabeth Hartman wall hanging by making the last fox block and putting the sashings in between. Who knows...I might even get it basted. Can't wait to freemotion quilt this one!

Linking up to To Do Tuesday over at Texas Quilt Gal to see what other people are up to. Thanks to Linda for hosting this link up, it definitely helped me to stay on track and get some things done.

Karin

Finishing off some Panels

Found two more panels in my stash which I am currently finishing off. Went through some of my fabric and needless to say, I got way too much fabric stuffed in every corner of the room. Finishing off the two panels I thought that I would get rid of meters of backing and use up some additional fabric for the binding. However as I am also looking at a new pattern I promptly ended up at the fabric store purchasing meters of fabric (colours that I did not have in my stash), so in fact I ended up with the same (if not more) amount of fabric in the cupboard. Can't win...

I am quilting the trusted clamshell design again on the panels. Really like the design for baby quilts and for me it is the most time efficient design to quickly quilt out. This time though I made it a bit bigger for the first panel as the panel has larger characters on it and I thought it would look a bit better if I went up by an inch.

For this I used Amanda Murphy's 5in circle template. Was interested to see how this would work at that size and also how I would go with not having the 'stopper' that is on the Multi Clamshell ruler.

The wadding for this panel is 60/40 wool/polyester and the whole thing felt really puffy and light weight when I basted it. Wondered how that would go with a bigger clamshell.

First few rows went without a hitch. I actually did not miss the stopping notch that the Multi Clamshell ruler has. As this circle is bigger I had to anyway quilt half of it, then change my grip to quilt the other half. Don't think there was one stop where I went over. The fluffiness of this gave me some issues though as the whole thing was extremely movable as I went along. I again used a drawing 5in circle to always mark my mid point of each clam after I finished a row to ensure that my row continued to be straight and in line with the one underneath.

Inaccuracies do creep in as you go along however. For me it usually happens when I need to turn the quilt and quilt the clams the other way. I don't worry much about it though as this is not noticable and you can fudge your way through as I have done in the photo below...a bit of a side step to get back to how it should be. Not ideal, but does the trick and unless you go looking for it, will not feature at all.

Coming to the end of a panel is always interesting as you then can see how accurate (or not) your rows have been. Was pleasantly surprised with this one as the last row of clams was 'spot on'.

Finished this in a couple of hours and looks quite lovely in that size.

The quilt feels light and fluffy...will put the binding on tomorrow and then it's onto the next one. And that's it...no more panels in the cupboard and the next quilt show is months away, so theoretically no  opportunity to purchase any more panels unless I go specifically looking for it. Don't know what it is with me and those cutesy panels.

Linking up to the To Do Tuesday Link Up by Texas Quilt Gal. As this is my first link up I do not have a list from last week...

For next Tuesday I would like to have the following things finished:

📌Attach binding to the above quilt and hand sew to back

📌Quilt the second panel and attach binding

📌If time allows, complete one more block of my Elizabeth Hartmann wall hanging

Karin