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 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

Work in Progress

My blog posts are going to be all over the place for a little while as I am working on several things all at once. Bit of bad planning on my part...

I am doing two workshops at the moment...the Cassowary one with Sophie Standing online and then also an Elizabeth Hartman workshop in person at our local sewing shop.

The Elizabeth Hartman workshop started Monday and only has two sessions, one occurred  this week and another one next week. We are doing a wall hanging from the Fancy Forest pattern. Thought that this would be great practice to tackle the Fancy Forest quilt towards the end of the year.

I only managed to do two animals on Monday...

 The fox which I am familiar with and then the rabbit which was a tad more challenging. In fact I had to do some sections several times as I kept forgetting some pieces. Not used to working in a group setting.

I am making this wall hanging out of the leftover fabrics from the Shannon Brinkley fabric range. Should come out nice. I chose a dark chocolate brown as the background which I already had in my stash,  which is a bit lighter than the photo depicts.

Then today I continued on the Cassowary project. Almost had performance anxieties over this...never thread painted before and we started with the eye, of all things! So today, I just went for it, hoping for the best...

Not too bad...still have some fine tuning to do but managed to somehow make my way around the eye. Got completely lost under the eye and now have a rather dark patch sitting there...I am hoping that I can go over this with some blue meander to made that less obvious. Very interesting actually...I will have to watch this getting lost on your piece. I think it had to do with the tiny piece of fabric that I had sitting around the eye. As soon as that was covered with thread, I lost all orientation and the way it was drawn. Another completely new thing to me is stitching in a hoop. Very different from FMQ. In FMQ I have my fingers very close to where I am stitching and with the hoop I found that my hand forever wanted to go inside the hoop which then made moving around very awkward. Will have to work on that. Otherwise all good...I think I can make my way through this somehow. In general I think that my stitching might be a bit dense but as I have no experience to compare this with, I am just running with it.

Should all be very interesting!

Karin

One Monthly Goal At Elm Street Quilts

In an effort to keep me a bit more focussed this month I am going to link up at Elm Street quilts for their September OMG Link -Up.

The quilt I would like to be working on is Elizabeth Hartman’s Kitten quilt. I started this inexplicably while doing another project and it is already in danger of falling by the wayside (as, of course, I am already working on something else!)

So my goal for September is to do at least 10 cat blocks which should be achievable if I do 2-3 per week. The fabric is already cut and ready to go

The inspiration for this came from our cats...got quite excited about being able to match the fabric to the cat’s fur. This stack of fabric has been sitting in my stash forever waiting for that special project to come along.

This should be fun! 

Linking up to the September OMG Link-Up over at Elm Street Quilts. Hopefully I can show off my 10 cats by 24th September for the finish-up party

Karin

Favourite Finish

Quick post of the finished Lana Lemur Quilt to link up to Meadow Mist Designs to participate in the Favourite Finish Monthly Link Up - August 2020

This is an Elizabeth Hartman pattern and initially I was going to do an entire Lemur quilt. That quickly changed and I stopped at just two lemurs. Not that they were particularly difficult, however piecing one lemur together did take some time and I rather fancied the idea of having all the background space to fill in, so stopped at the two to get onto the freemotionquilting.

For the background I decided to follow Claudia Pfeil's (P)Filler design DVD of dividing the space with large circles strewn across the quilt and then going from one to the next connecting them with lines, pebbles and stacked swirls . Again, slight underestimation of how long this would take, however it did get done in the end.

Here is a close-up of the quilting

I had no particular plan for this and initially found it quite difficult to be spontaneous, however this did get easier as I went along and came rather natural in terms of what to quilt next.

The quilt measures 36in x44in. Love the colours and how it turned out. 

Linking up to the Favourite Finish Monthly Link up at Meadow Mist Designs

Karin

Lana Lemur Continued - Almost Half Way

As explained in my last post, I am trying out Claudia Pfeil's method of filling up a background as demonstrated in her DVD 'Claudia's (P)Fillers'. Essentially this is a mix and match approach starting with some bigger circles strewn across the quilt and then freemotion quilting from one to the other using different designs. The idea is to create sufficient contrast between the designs to make the whole thing visually pleasing.

Easier said than done!

I started out with the following designs, combining straight lines with stacking shells and pebbles

Felt that it needed something more and decided to mix in a meandering box design to create contrast to those round organic looking designs. Also wanted to loosen it up a bit as I do not want the whole quilt too tightly quilted.

That looked alright however I was not entirely happy with my boxy meander. I did, for a bit of extra fun, try that box design with a ruler in another section...basically just to see how annoying this would be. Never really considered doing this with a ruler and always thought that this would be incredibly tedious.

Wow, to my surprise that went like a treat. All I had to do was to flick the ruler around my box...I did not meticulously align the ruler, just eyeballed its straightness because I was sure that visually, the eye would view its straightness and assume that the lines were all properly aligned at the correct angle. In addition, I used the Capri stitch regulator for this exercise which made it look even more formal. This was exactly the contrast I was after. It looks straighter, more formal and mixes in well with the surrounding lines.

If you compare the two pictures above you can see the difference (yes, I un-did my organic box meander). While the more organic, freehand method is fine when it stands alone as an overall design, for this exercise I really wanted a sharp, crisp contrast to the curves and circles. Really happy with how this is turning out.

I almost finished all the circles for about half the quilt. Quilting the straight lines in sections 'eats' up a fair amount of space and the filling tends to become more manageable that way. Running out of ideas on what to put in the circles and will have to recycle a few designs.

The Capri 18 is behaving like a dream...no tension issues (I am using Aurifil Mako 50/2 on top and Deco bob in the bobbin) and the stitch regulator is my best friend for all those straight lines.

I am joining Cheeky Cognoscenti for her very first Long Arm Learning Linky Party.

Cheeky Cognoscenti

Check it out! The linky party will run weekly and is open every Tuesday through to Friday.  

Karin

Lana Lemur Quilt

The Lana Lemur quilt top is done!

I made the baby quilt version of the pattern. It measures 36in x 45in

Does not look like much now, but imagine this with some fancy FMQ in the background! It will be awesome, just need to wait for my Capri machine to arrive. I am thinking dense background quilting like pebbles and swirls (which I will probably regret once I start with that).
Also will jazz up the binding a bit, I think...maybe insert a strip of the orange in there to give it a bit of interest.

The lemurs were challenging to make...the face is made up of tiny pieces and you do need to concentrate a fair bit to get that right. My second lemur ended up a bit better...got the eyes straighter and also the nose in exactly the right spot, but I must say, both times I was just about ready to give up when doing the face. Luckily, then comes the body which is fairly easy and you start seeing the end, so you press on.
Not sure whether I could make an entire quilt with just lemurs...on the upside, making another Fancy Fox quilt now appears like a piece of cake. The pieces are a bit bigger and the face of the fox is not that involved. Also have the Kitten quilt which is similar to the fox...definitely on my agenda (I seem to be going through a bit of an Elizabeth Hartman phase at the moment).

Karin

Lana Lemur Quilt

As I am without my HQ Sweet 16 (sold, waiting for the new Capri machine to arrive!) I am concentrating on making some quilt tops. Recently got the Lana Lemur (and also the Koala Bears) pattern from Elizabeth Hartman. Absolutely adore her patterns. Last year I finished her Fancy Fox pattern... still want to do another one of those as well.

Anyway, got going on the Lemur pattern in a somewhat disorganized way cutting the pieces as I was needing them. Definitely underestimated how small those required pieces were (i.e. 1in). Never mind, I had the time and got started on the face...this took me most of yesterday...in between doubting whether I would get this together. However, I took it fairly slow and just worked my way through the diagrams. Elizabeth' patterns are very well put together with lots of diagrams. In fact, I skipped most of the writing (there are 3 different options in terms of sizes which I always find a bit confusing) and just concentrated on the page with the measurements for the pieces and the individual diagrams.

Here is the face emerging

This was actually quite challenging and I was struggling...the face comes together in 3 parts and is tiny. This section comes to 5in and the seams are all ironed open which I am not used to at all. When I photographed the face I realised that one of the eyes was a tad smaller than the other...will have to watch out for that for the next one. This could have possibly happened because I was swapping between two rulers. Need to stop doing that! 

Must say, I am not a fan of making 1in flipped over half square traingles! As I went along though I started using a fabric glue stick and lightly glued the 1in square in place before sewing on the diagonal. That worked really well and the flipped over units were on average a bit better than before.

After this it got a bit easier (completed the rest of the lemur today) although still could not get away from those 1in pieces. They were everywhere...

Found some matching fabric to make the ears pop a bit and trimmed away some irregularities to make it all fit. Overall, I found that measuring the completed units as you go and straightening them did the trick (mostly!). 

Then came the body which was nice and easy

The tail section looked easy enough, however I am a bit sloppy in my 1/4in seam allowance and as a rule always stitch this a bit narrower...as I was going along, I started to get a bit concerned as to whether this would all fit together (made a few mistakes when I did the fox quilt in terms of trimming some completed fox blocks and inadvertently cutting into the 1/4in seam allowance, hence cutting off some points). Sewed the rest of the tail extremely carefully and did a little bit of fudging to meet the seams and wow...it came out beautifully

Not too bad for a first attempt! Absolutely love the look of this lemur. I will make another one for the small baby quilt option of the pattern. The rest of the quilt will just be the beige background fabric which will allow me to fill it up with some cool FMQ once the new machine arrives.

Had a look at the Koala Bears pattern...also has a fair few 1in squares in there 😬 Maybe I will get used to them!

Karin

Another Baby Quilt

Working on another baby quilt and did a bit of fun sewing on the side.

Had a pack of charm squares called 'Corner of 5th and Fun' by Sandy Gervais for Moda Fabrics. Always struggle with what to do with charm squares but keep buying them anyway. Decided to just set this into some sashing and be done with it.

Lovely colours and it is coming along nicely. Not sure yet how to quilt it...thought about just doing an allover design but also looking at the rulers, in particular the arcs and wonder whether I just arc away in the squares and then quilt something in the sashing. We'll see...

Also had two foxes with brown eyes left over. Thought that they were too pretty to discard and made another two, then used up the last bit of the woodgrain fabric. Planning to make a table runner out of this, using up the brown fabric which was a bit lacking in quality as a border. If nothing else this will be nice and colourful and bonus, used every available scrap of the grey, woodgrain and brown fabric.

So enjoyed making the foxes again as I now am familiar with the construction and the best way of putting them together. Definitely will make another fox quilt! In terms of quilting I am thinking of putting a grid design over the faces, some ruler work in the borders...this will be good fun.

Karin

Second Finish of The 2019 Finish Along Third Quarter

My Fancy Fox Quilt is finished. 
This is the second item from my goal list for the 2019 Finish Along. You can find the information about the 2019 Finish-A- Long on  Leanne's blog She Can Quilt. There you will find more detail on how this link up works and also find the list of bloggers who are hosting this great event. The link up for this quarter opens on 1st October.

I did the Baby Quilt version of Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Fox Quilt (had just enough grey fabric for that size). The quilt measures 34 x 46in

I used my favourite fabric for this...the Dryad fabric range by Shannon Brinkley for Paintbrush Studio.

For the background I chose some cool woodgrain fabric

As explained in previous posts I used the backing fabric to follow the woodgrain pattern as an overall design and quilted this back to front, so to speak. Love how this turned out! For the thread I used a brownish-grey SoFine thread from Superior.

So cute! I think I am going through a bit of an Elizabeth Hartman phase...already eyeing out her Hedgehog pattern and definitely will do another fox quilt, this time with a brownish background and slightly bigger.

Linking up to Studio Sew of Course for the Q3 Finish-A-Long.

Karin

Fancy Fox Quilt Top Done!

Made a concentrated effort to finish off the Fancy Fox quilt top. Don't know about you but it always takes me a moment to really get familiar with a pattern, so the first few blocks are always a bit out in measurement and I usually still try to work out which way I am going to press the seams. After having done a few I then could go over to chain piece elements together.

On the weekend I did the remaining 9 blocks chain piecing the segments in one hit. These last 9 blocks were much better in accuracy than the first few, so I felt that I was really getting the hang of things.

All the eyes done! I thought I was on such a roll until I noticed this...

I was trying to keep the direction of the fabric the same, but I am so spatially challenged that I got the eye section the wrong way around. Initially I was going to leave this, but then I thought that I was not going to be able to overlook this, so had to slow down and re-do a few eye sections.

Anyway, it got done and yesterday I completed the sashings and top border

So cute! This is the baby quilt size of 34 x 46in. In retrospect I wished that I had made this larger but I just had enough grey background fabric and for the white I used every available piece that I had down to the very last scrap. I think that I will do another one with a brownish background, maybe adding a row in width and length.

Learnings: don't be too over-zealous with cutting the blocks to size...I did on quite a few occasions and forgot that I was cutting into the seam allowance, hence some of the points were no longer points! Hmm...now the fun begins with the quilting. Would like to do a woodgrain design but am really not that good at it...may need to practice for a little while to see whether I can let loose on the quilt. Alternatively, a nice allover design...still pondering.

Karin

Fancy Fox Quilt: Half Way Through

Thankfully I am a bit busy lately, otherwise you would have had a blog post for every single new fox. I am so enjoying working with the Dryad fabric range from Shannon Brinkley. Absolutely love that fabric.

This is how far I have progressed over the last week...half way through!

I think I am hooked and will definitely be making another one of these. Took me a moment to get familiar with the pattern. The key seems to be in the organisation of your pieces. This is one of Elizabeth Hartman's easier patterns, however I found myself doing the first few one by one as I just could not get my head around all those different pieces, some of them very small. After that though it got easier and I started to work out an order for the construction and then was able to chain piece sections at a time. I am now half way through and have just cut out the remaining 9 foxes, all pieces neatly stacked in piles in the order that I am going to sew them, so it should go much faster now. Really enjoying this pattern and already have looked at some of her other ones, like 'Hazel Hedgehog'...bit of an obsession starting here, I think (I do also have her Bear pattern but that has lots more pieces and appears a bit intimidating). We'll see ...

Linking up to Midweek Makers over at Quilt Fabrication

Karin

Fancy Fox Quilt: Test Block Done

I have got nothing to quilt 🙀 so I started on the Fancy Fox Quilt. It is on my list for the 2019 Finish A-Long, but in between I might have to construct something else so I can do some FMQ. Always have that tension between the actual piecing and the FMQ. Piecing takes me a while and takes away from the time that I can spent FMQ, but eventually I run out of quilts to actually quilt on. Might clean up my design for the next whole cloth, then maybe I can alternate between the two because I get a bit restless if I have nothing to FMQ.

I love Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Fox pattern...in fact I love all her patterns. You can find them at Elizabeth Hartman Design. A friend of mine just did the Llamas and the Flamingos, but that looked a bit too involved for me. I finally got the Fancy Fox pattern with a gift voucher from the Fat Quarter Shop that I got for Xmas.

Yesterday I made a start. I am using my all time favourite fabric, the Dryad range by Shannon Brinkley for Paintbrush Studios.

It is absolutely gorgeous fabric and almost falls into the ...'too good to cut up' category, however I thought the other day ...'how ridiculous'!...what am I keeping it for?

So, I made a start...you need only one strip of a Fat Quarter for one fox, so my Fat Quarter bundle will last me a very long while. I am starting with a baby quilt size to see how it goes, but already am thinking that I may make another one straight after.

My first fox...so cute!

This was very easy to piece together once I got my head around cutting all those pieces out. For the background I am using a grey organic cotton, so I am closely following the colour arrangement of the pattern. Love the look of it! I will need 20 foxes for the baby quilt, so this should come together relatively quickly.

Onto the next fox...

Karin