To Do Tuesday #42 - Making a Start

Well, let's see how we went. This is what I had on my list

- once my thread arrives make a start on the filling of the quilt above once I worked out a bit of a plan on how to go about that✅

- baste another little charity quilt and hopefully start the quilting on that ...maybe another clamshell allover✅

- cut the pieces for a couple more cat blocks ❌

- continue on my knitting projects✅

As I was waiting for my thread, I completed the last two (of the four I was given) of the charity quilts. The first one was a little scrappy baby quilt which I again did a simple clamshell design over it. Still love doing this, particularly for little baby quilts.

The second quilt was a very bright 'Crazy' quilt which I ended up just doing an allover meander over it. This ensured that I caught some of the fullness in some of the blocks and bonus, also almost straightened out some wonky sashings. Win-win!

My thread arrived yesterday. I ordered a pastel grey 100wt Invisafil for my Indigenous looking quilt in the hope that I would be able to just use one thread colour to go over the whole lot. So far I tried white, several tan colours, peach and now the grey. The grey turned out not too bad...definitely could get away with that but due to the frequent and heavy backtracking that I am planning to do, not really my cup of tea. It blends in just fine on both the white and the orange, but as soon as you backtrack the grey does become a bit more visible. I actually preferred the white thread in the end on the orange.

So today, after all this mucking around and indecision, I looked at my project again and decided that I would change colours in the white and burnt orange sections. The Indigenous fabric is multicolour and I can comfortably just continue to stitch  with the white colour over it as long as I do not do a huge amount of backtracking. So in terms of colour changes this should not be too bad.

Made a start on this today

This is quilted with a strong Invisafil orange colour and I do like the look of it. As the whole piece will be heavily quilted, given the thin 100wt thread will hopefully not overpower it. This should be very interesting. The idea is to fill all the different areas with different designs. Initially I was going to plan this out, however today I just went with the flow and started with a design that was not even on my list. Felt like doing this particular design, so just made a start and am now looking for a design that will go into the white area...needs something with lines so I need to have a bit of a think about that. After this I will section off another area and choose another few different designs. Good fun...

Also started yet another project that was not on the list...an Australian Christmas Panel!

Picked this panel up a while ago from our local sewing shop. It is called 'Bush Celebration' from the  Devonstone Collection. Acquired some backing and more wadding the other day and attached the borders today. What is the idea here? Not entirely sure yet but am thinking to use this as another practice piece for some Nemeshing (this was demonstrated in Bethanne Nemesh' class 'Feather Faster'). Maybe a bit of a variation of that, i.e. instead of a lot of feathery type plumes, maybe go for a leafy type arrangement. We shall see...the grey Invisafil thread that just arrived is just right for this and will blend right in which will be handy as I will have to outline some of the animals that make up the Christmas tree.

So my list is constantly changing as I keep jumping from one thing to the other. For the remainder of the week I will

- continue to fill my current freemotion-quilting project. I want to take my time with this a bit to really try a few unfamiliar designs in order to just practice and hopefully commit them to muscle memory.

- continue on my knitting projects ( I did continue in the week and I will show you my new socks once they are completed...have about 30 rows to go)

- continue on the cat quilt, maybe do just one more cat block.

That's it...I know that I will not do anything else as my passion is with the freemotion filler project at the moment.

Linking up to 'To Do Tuesday #42' over at Quilt Schmilt.

Karin

To Do Tuesday #34

My list from last week:

- baste one of the scrap quilts on the machine and start the quilting. Will do a Baptist Fan design over it, so that will take a bit of time but I am really looking forward to it.✅

- clean up the sewing room a bit. Following the last few weeks with working on several projects, it is rather messy and I do need uncluttered space around me when quilting.✅

- construct another hanging sleeve for a wall hanging that has been sitting behind my sewing machine for the last two years at least (can you believe it?).✅

- finish off my beanie!✅

Wow, a first...done everything on my list!

I actually finished my scrap quilt ready to be gifted this weekend.

Did a Baptist Fan design over it with my new Baptist Fan Rulers from Michael Quilts. Absolute pleasure to do. Will do another post in the next few days on how I went about it in case people are interested in how to do this with a bigger sized quilt on a sitdown longarm machine. Took photos this time of the whole process as I went through.

Back to the quilt...entirely made out of scraps and if you are following along the first to be completed. Have another bigger one that needs to be finished off. I used my last piece of batting from a roll I had purchased a couple of years ago...just fit, which was very lucky.

Pieced the backing together using some bigger pieces from my stash.

Particularly like this...shows of the quilting really nicely and is such a great colour. Finished it off with a dark blue binding with little stars on it which suits the overall look of this quilt. So, an entirely 'free' quilt!

Close up of the quilting

Also finished my hanging sleeve for a wall hanging which has sat around for the last 2 years at least.

That took a grand total of about an hour and a half...can't believe I left it for so long! For the time being I hung it behind the sewing machine as I am struggling to find a free wall to display it properly.

And last, not least, finished my latest beanie (gifted to my daughter).

Great beanie pattern from Nimble Needles. Also felt like a freebie as this wool was purchased years ago. Don't even know what the idea behind it was.
 

Also sewed on the binding to my table runner, so overall felt very productive this last week.

For the remainder of the week, I am planning to 

- handstitch the binding to the table runner to finish that off.

- pin and baste my other scrap quilt ready to be quilted, and

- probably just relax a bit (strained one of my shoulders a bit and will need to go a bit easy on the quilting for a moment)

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #34 over at Quilt Schmilt and Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication.

Karin

My New Rulers Have Arrived!

I have been waiting patiently for my new rulers from Michael Quilts. I ordered them about mid-March and they arrived a few days ago which was incredibly fast considering the distance. Had one of the charity quilts ready to go...a cute little Nine Patch quilt in brown tones.

The rulers were packaged well and came with a page of instructions on how to use them. I have got the original Fab5 Fan set consisting of 3,5,7,9 and 11in half circle (Michael Quilts also sells an expansion set with the even numbers now).

I have done several quilts with a Baptist Fan design in the past. My issue was with the awkwardness of using full circles. In the past I have used Amanda Murphy's circles up to the 7in circle and then switched to the Handiquilter circle rings for the 9 and 11in. As you can imagine this was rather awkward to hold and inaccuracies were unavoidable. Nevertheless the Baptist Fan design is a forgiving design and the quilts that I did do looked ok. However when I first saw the Baptist Fan rulers from Michael Quilts I saw that he had additional lines on the rulers for alignment as well as half circles and thought that this might be easier to manage on a sitdown machine.

So, I went to work on the little charity quilt.

This is the largest ruler which just about fills in my hand. As you can see I put some stable tape behind it to prevent the ruler from sliding, however noticed in the second row that that was not enough. I took some of that off and put the more grippy Handiquilter sticky grips on there as well as using a large strip of that white gripper material you use for lining draws to stabilise the ruler. Quilting a Baptist Fan design on a sitdown machine is harder than doing it on a frame, I believe. On a sitdown everything moves...you are holding a large ruler that begins to slide, your quilt is shifting or dragging and your movement in itself might shift the ruler. Add the compaction that is occurring, it can be really quite tricky and you do need to adjust your expectations a bit in terms of how perfect you are going to quilt this out. I noticed in the second row that I was sliding and adjusted the grippy material, however once you are out by a bit you are out of alignment and will have to make a decision on whether to continue or not. As I have done this a few times, I was used to this and continued...the rows looked even across and my fans were looking good in terms of consistency.

Of the five rulers most of the times they were in (almost) alignment, in fact the 5in ruler was always in alignment but across the quilt the upper rulers were sometimes out by as much as a 1/4in. When I had done half of the quilt I also noticed that my fans had shrunk ever so slightly in width...again, a consequence of doing this on a sitdown machine by probably pushing too much against the ruler and thereby inadvertently also slightly shifting the quilt over. Half way through then I had to turn the quilt over to avoid having all this material in my lap which then meant I was doing the fans top down. I found this actually a bit easier and was happy with my alignment, in fact by that stage it seemed to have improved as I did do a bit of fudging here and there.

The completed quilt

The back

I love the Baptist Fan design...looks really nice and my fans appear very consistent. Actually comparing it to a previous quilt I can definitely see the difference that the rulers have made. The spacing of the fans looks so much better.

In critically examining the quilt though I saw that my fans seemed to have sunk on one side. Now that made absolutely no sense as they do look perfectly straight on the back. After a while though I realised that the quilt had a slight bow on the bottom and aligning my first row to this I carried that through all the way to the top...something to watch out for next time! But the design is very forgiving as I said before and that little mishap is hardly noticeable as your eye is drawn to the consistency of the fans.

Really impressed with these rulers. They are as great as I thought they would be. Apart from three points of alignment that you use for doing your fans, there are also little tick marks of 1in for advancing to the next fan and then there is this little mark for when you have to start a new Baptist fan.

See that little mark on the ruler...that is how far you travel up again to start your next fan with the small 3in ruler. I really appreciated this being there as I stitched this quilt with a light brown thread, so backtracking in a haphazard way was highly noticeable on the white sashing and this little mark ensured that you don't go too far and awkwardly backtrack back where you need to start. Made for a really clean start of the little fan.

Overall, really happy with the rulers and will do the next charity quilt with them as well.

In terms of linking up to To Do Tuesday which I am a bit late for as I did get carried away with the new rulers: I did put my design together for my wholecloth, washed the fabric and am ready to start the tracing...waiting for some thread now to see what colour I am going to stitch this out.

For the remaining few days I will

- start tracing my design onto the fabric

- baste another little charity quilt.

Lots of other things to do , but as my machine has finally gone for a spa treatment, that's it...I am off the hook in terms of piecing anything, so that will have to wait. 

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #13 over at Quilt Schmilt and the Favorite Finish Monthly Link Up at Meadow Mist Designs.

Karin

To-Do-Tuesday 22/3/23

Another week has passed with some progress. I seem to be working in starts and stops. 

My tasks for the week were:

 pin and baste another charity quilt

- make a start on the drawing of the wholecloth quilt✅

- make a few more scrap quilt blocks.

Lots happening over at our place though which did not leave a lot of time for quilting. We have been working on getting my father-in-law's house ready for sale. Just one more clean up around the house and then it is ready to go on sale after Easter. It's been a long and arduous journey and I will be glad when it is over. On the bright side though, it was also my birthday last week and I went online shopping...always great fun! Still had a voucher from Christmas for one of the local quilt shops. Got a few odds and ends but also purchased Bethanne Nemesh' Lily Love Line ruler #1. 

Had a try in the week on some scrap material

What an amazing little thing...the heart comes out at 4- 1/4in x 5in. I like the way that this stitches out...all done in one hit...shape, feathers and all. Very easy to do as it is not a huge ruler which can be massaged to go where you need it to be. Also interesting is the way Bethanne makes her rulers multi-purpose. This little heart shape can also be used for a quick border.

The border was incredibly easy to construct...no fuss, just flipping the ruler over to get the wave going with the end feather in place and then going back to just fill that in. Really liked this for a bit more of an informal border. The curl is not that deep, hence easier to fill, particularly if you put a few curls in the mix.

But back to my birthday...it's great getting older. Nobody knows what to get you and I always have quilt related ideas to fill that gap. I had my eyes on some Baptist fan rulers from Michael Quilts in Texas (?I believe) for some time, but so far had not acted on that as the postage is understandably high. Well, this is what we ordered for my birthday! Very excited about this as I think those rulers are the best thing since sliced bread. Have watched some You Tube videos, read the reviews...now just waiting to try them out. I will baste one of my little charity quilts so I am ready when they arrive. Looking forward to this and will report back on this of course.

In between I did more work on my wholecloth...I said I would be drawing this out, which I did, but I did it in the new drawing program (Affinity Designer 2). This was extraordinarily difficult, but as I had already started drawing it in the program I felt compelled to finish this to see whether I could pull this off. Probably should have started with a simpler design. Most of it was manageable until I decided to put some Amish Feather Curls in the border. While I am good at drawing and designing in general I did struggle with my spatial understanding or whatever you want to call this. Got very confused with the direction of the curls a number of times. I managed to draw one quarter and then had to mirror and rotate the piece to make up the border with the curls going around the border in the right direction and that is where problems started to occur...my quarters did not line up 100% and for the life of me could not understand what was happening. This is what I mucked around with for most of the week. It finally dawned on me where I had gone wrong (likely to do with me changing my snapping option a number of times and also going in individually to clean up some feathers, thereby ensuring that they would not match when tiled). The drawing by that state had an alarming amount of layers and little sub layers and it was absolute hell to try to fix some of that. However, I finally finished it and am happy with the alignments...it is almost perfect. There is a tiny mis-alignment in the feathers only which is not a big deal as I will simply correct this when I trace this onto fabric. Everything else aligns 100%.

Still got confused today when taping this together but am very happy with the result as I now have a workable copy to trace from. Mind you, this has also shown me with some certainty that I need to watch some more tutorials about this program...there is so much I do not know as evidenced when drawing this out. I did come across a few functions by accident that were extremely useful and powerful and I am certain there are lots of others that I could have employed to make the job easier. 

So, for next week I will concentrate on:

- putting my design together and starting to prepare the wholecloth; hopefully I will start with the marking, but we shall see. I am planning to stitch this out over the next two months

- baste a charity quilt ready for the Baptist Fan rulers; can't be long now...they went to Italy from the US, then to Qartar and should be on their way to Australia...

That's it...will leave it at that as I also have one more session of the Wholeloth workshop to do and realistically will not have time to do much else. Have several quilting projects though that will need to go back on the list when things quieten down a bit.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday#12 over at Quilt Schmilt. 

Karin

To Do Tuesday - 31/1/23

Another week has gone by. Nothing too exciting from me, however feeling a bit productive this week and have got a few things done. My tasks from last week were:

- to start working on a new pattern, i.e. get off the computer and do some sewing!✅

- to pin and baste another of those charity quilts and maybe even get it quilted. - partially done

Also finished my handout for the upcoming wholeclass workshop which was not on the list. ✅✅

The week was spent finishing the cute little giraffe charity quilt, i.e. attaching the binding and the label

So very cute!

Then I basted another charity quilt...also very nice. Feel quite lucky to get all these pretty quilt tops to quilt from the Orange Tree quilters group.

Really like the fabric and colours of this quilt. It is very well pieced and very straight and against better judgement I decided to do an allover pantograph design on it. Do not do this usually for the charity quilts as it takes me a bit longer being on a sitdown longarm, however this little quilt is just asking for it. Sometimes you just have to go with your first thought and I do feel in the mood to spent some quality time on it.

However, to make it somewhat quicker this time, I only traced out the first design and then stitched patiently through 8 sheets of Golden Threads paper to use for this quilt.

The design is Cloud Nine-Petite from Patricia E. Ritter which is available through Urban Elementz. Was not sure whether this would work, but used a 100/16 needle and went without a hitch. Will start quilting this in the next few days and am looking forward to this. Find this incredibly relaxing. Have done this design before, but felt it was the most perfect fit for this little quilt in terms of size and theme.

Also started (and finished the quilt top) on a new pattern...again, really bold and bright colours.

Will pin and baste this quilt at the end of the week hopefully. Easy design, semi-easy to do and comes together relatively quickly. The only thing I struggled with was my 1/4in seam. Had used my Accuquilt cutter to cut out the pieces and found that the cutter is just so correct which made me loose a few millimeter here and there when piecing it together. When I cut the fabric out myself this does not usually happen as the pieces are obviously cut slightly larger.

The last few days I have spent writing out a handout for my upcoming Mini Wholecloth workshop in March. Dreaded that task a bit as it involved a lot of drawings, however, it is done and I am happy with it. Had to really think about this as it has been a while since I stitched those Mini Wholecloth quilts out.

For the coming week my tasks are:

- pin and baste the new pattern quilt top and hopefully start at least the ditching of it.

- quilt the charity quilt with the e2e design, attach the binding and the label ready to be delivered next week.

- not hopeful, however let's put it on the list...start with the write up of the new pattern, if possible.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #5 over at Quilt Schmilt

Karin

To Do Tuesday Linky Party - 3/1/23

The Linky Party's host has changed. The Linky is now being hosted by Carol from Quilt Schmilt. 

So, let the fun begin:

My list was small last week:

- cut out the fabric for a new pattern so that I can put this together without interruption. The fabric is washed and ready to go.❌

- have a look at and think about the Peter Rabbit Quilt that I have agreed on quilting for somebody else. Will show a photo of this next time.✔

Well, did not look at the new pattern and started the Peter Rabbit Quilt instead. I am doing this for a friend's mum who worked on this all of last year. The quilt is rather large (width alone is 64-1/2in) and I was not looking forward to pinning and basting this. Have not done a large quilt like that for a while and took my time to preserve my back.

Pinning and basting done

Struggled with the basting a bit as I did it in a grid this time...at least that is how I started off but then I had to divert every now and then in order not to hit the embroidery. 

Look at the cute characters

It is a very pretty quilt. Not sure yet exactly how I am going to quilt it, but I have plenty of time as the ditching will take a while. Finished all of the major seams today and also managed to outline Peter Rabbit. Given the size of the quilt, it is quite cumbersome to do the ditching and I am glad that I have got the big table of the Bernina Q20. For once had to take everything of the table as the quilt kept pushing things out of the way.

Looking good...always amazes me what a difference a simple outline can make. I am stitching this down with Invisafil thread in order not to distract from the pictures but also to not draw attention to some imperfections. My friend's mum did an amazing job with the piecing...those blocks in there would not have been easy to do, so some seams do not align and I also had a fair amount of seams where the seam allowance is turned over half way through a block. Invisafil is a great thread to hide some of that. In the instructions (this was a quilt along via a magazine), all the pieced blocks were done with a 1 in grid and the applique was left alone. That, I feel, would only work if the piecing is very accurate as the grid would follow some of the seam lines, so I don't think I will follow that.  Also in two minds at the moment whether I will backfill behind the appliqued characters or whether I leave them as they are. Suggestions are most welcome!

Well, totally absorbed with this quilt at the moment...

For this week I am only setting the one task as I have got some other non-quilty things to do:

- continue with the ditching and outlining of the Peter Rabbit quilt. No doubt, after I done that I will need a break!

Linking up to Quilt Schmilt for her very first TDT Linky Party

Karin

I have been busy!

Finished my little pink baby quilt

It came out at 31in x 40-1/8in (78.7cm x 101.9cm)

Looks great...here are a few photos of my handiwork

Even had a suitable backing that I have been saving for 'I don't know what...' since the early 2000s. Suited this little quilt perfectly.

I have put it up in my Etsy shop so hopefully it will go at some stage soon. I am seriously running out of space over here.

I am linking up to Texas Quilt Girl who is hosting her last To Do Tuesday today. Thank you Linda for taking the time to host this...really appreciated!

My list for the week to come will be simple and smallish:

- cut out the fabric for a new pattern so that I can put this together without interruption. The fabric is washed and ready to go.

- have a look at and think about the Peter Rabbit Quilt that I have agreed on quilting for somebody else. Will show a photo of this next time.

That's it for me, need to build in some relaxing...

Karin

To Do Tuesday - 21/12/22

Last week was a whirlwind of Christmas shopping. Not very organised this year...went to the city about four times! Now there is only food shopping left which we will have to do later in the week. I am looking forward to just relaxing.

Last week's goals were small, but achievable

- stitch a simple charm square quilt together from fabric that has been sitting in my stash for many years. 

- make a start on a new pattern, i.e. get the cutting of the fabric done

- prepare for Christmas which of course we left to the last minute again!

Well, Christmas shopping done ✔

Made a start on that little Charm Square Quilt. Had the squares already ready to go and managed to baste it and start the quilting. ✔

So pink and very cute. Decided beforehand that I wanted to do one of those edge-to-edge designs over it and made a start on it.

Explained this elsewhere on the blog (see one of the posts HERE) how I do this on a sitdown longarm machine. In brief...I use Golden Threads paper for this where I trace the design on and then stitch over this. Time consuming...yes, but so rewarding in the end.

Chose the Daisy Dotz design from Urban Elementz again, even though I have a number of other flower designs on hand. Thought that the leaves had to be in there as the fabric has little ladybugs on there. Love doing this...so relaxing.

This is what this looks like

I trace the design with a blue water soluble pen (you could also stitch through several pieces of papers without thread to avoid having to re-trace this over and over again). This ensures that I do not get accidental marks on my fabric. If anything it will be the blue residue of the marking which, of course, washes out.

Here are the first two rows

Love that design! As you can see I do take the paper out as I go along except for that little bit down the bottom...this is where the next two rows line up. Its got the last row stitched out and bitses of the next row drawn on, so you have two places to line up the next lot. Also check my stitching at this stage...tension, points and generally to get a bit of a look what that looks like. I do leave the basting in until I am totally finished and the pins on the bottom definitely will be removed when the next row is placed. I do attach the paper with removable glue dots (and the line of pins on the bottom and top) so that nothing moves too much as I go along.

Have several more rows to go since then and will finish this hopefully before Christmas.

Also made a start on a new pattern, however realised that my block sizes were wrong (like a nine patch that measured 10in???). As this is going to be a custom layout that meant painstakingly going in (EQ8) and changing every single element of the design to accommodate the change in block size. Got it done, however have not cut out my fabric as yet. That will have to wait for another day.

Linking up to Texas Quilt Gal for To Do Tuesday and wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas with lots of nice food, good company and hopefully some quiet time for a little bit of relaxed quilting.

Also linking up to Freemotion Mavericks at Quilting & Learning- What a Combo

Karin

To Do Tuesday - 18/10/22

Belated link up for To Do Tuesday over at Texas Quilt Gal...

Well, this time I have got an excuse though...our cat ended up in vet hospital last week, which was very traumatic for all involved. She suddenly fell very ill last Sunday...it looked like a stroke actually, but when we took her to the vet they said that was uncommon for cats. Nevertheless they suspected a neurological problem, so she had to stay for a while. As the evening approached though, we had to go and transfer her to a 24/7 vet hospital. She was then put on a drip for the next 3 days and drugged to the eye ball. Initially it did not look good at all, so we were expecting the worst, however by Monday she made a surprising recovery...most of her neurological symptoms had disappeared and she responded well to the heavy pain relief they had given her. As it turned out this was a muscular issue somewhere around the neck which they likened to being hit by a car. The weird thing was though that nothing untowards had happened in the hours before she fell sick...everything was as per normal. So it has remained a mystery how she actually injured herself. All a bit weird...she was sent home having to have strict bed rest! Needless to say the cat was quite messed up from this ordeal and it took most of the week for her to get back to her normal self. She had a follow up the other day and all seems well. It's funny though...when she was so sick you tend to do a lot of reflecting. We have had her for 12 years by now and she is approximately 14 yrs old, so quite an old lady by now but the thought of  potentially losing her so soon had not crossed our minds up to then. Was all a bit of an emotional roller coaster.

But anyway, I did link up about two weeks ago and will just continue from there. My goals were as follows:

📌Make a sleeve for the show quilt ✔

📌Finish the feather quilting in the rose quilt above  ✔

📌Baste another charity quilt

📌Design a Mini Wholecloth for another workshop or at the very least have started that process (have about 3 weeks to do this).  ✔

I am finishing the last bits for the show quilt to hand it over next week. This will be a relief. I am always happy when the quilt is gone and I do not have to think about it again until I see it at the show. This should be interesting. Our quilt show will be held as part of the Australian Machine Quilting Festival in November. Looking forward to this as I am also booked into a couple of classes.

Finished the Rose Charity quilt but did not get around basting another one. Too much going on.

In between I spent some time designing and quilting out a Mini Wholecloth in preparation for another workshop next year. Of course things did not go as planned. I was rushing and trying to cut some corners to finish this quickly which did not work. Messed up my border and had to unstitch the whole border...this took the longest time! Finished it yesterday and it looks a treat

It is basic but I had to think about what was achievable in a workshop setting and the varied skill level of participants. Was really thrilled with the design and how I managed to print that out on the home printer ready to be used. Actually quite like what I have come up with and would not mind making this bigger for myself with more frames and feathers around the outer edge. I found the small scale a bit limiting, definitely not used to that. I probably will stitch this out again over the Christmas period using maybe different fillers and a different border treatment just so people can choose what suits them better. Still a bit of work involved in thinking this through, doing a bit of a handout, but plenty of time for that still.

For next week, I will not put much on my list (given it is already Thursday) ...feel I need a bit of a break.

📌Baste another charity quilt ready to be quilted

Linking up to To Do Tuesday over at Texas Quilt Gal.

Karin

To Do Tuesday 20/9/22

Misleading title as it is Thursday here already. However, I missed last week's Tuesday and do not want to fall off by the wayside again.

On my list the previous Tuesday were these tasks:

📌Make at least one cat block during the week for my Elizabeth Hartman Kitten quilt ✖

📌Make a start on the charity quilts with the aim to get at least one done ✔

📌Make a sleeve for the show quilt ✖

One out of three...well, we had a family of four staying over for a number of days and afterwards things just got incredibly busy. Also ran the last session of my freemotion-quilting class last Friday, so all in all a very busy week. However, I did make a start on the charity quilts in between and got one done.

Enjoyed that one as the fabric appeared really quite old. Love how you can lift up a quilt like that with some very simple quilting.

Made a start on the second one today and almost done all of the ditching.

Interesting little quilt...the red roses are as red in real life as they appear on the photo. I am thinking feathers for this one in the black squares. Thought that I might practice what I learned in Bethanne Nemesh' Feather Fiesta class, i.e. quilting a feather wreath in the middle and some sort of feather arrangement in the setting triangles. Maybe also a simple feather border in the black sashing to lighten this quilt up a bit. As learned in the class that would be all mainly freehand with minimal marking. While I practiced this earlier in the year, this would be the first time doing that on a 'real' quilt. Normally I would have stencilled the wreath in. Hmm...a bit hesitant, but think that this is the perfect little quilt to practice on. 

Not sure what colour thread to use though. I usually go for high contrast but not everybody likes this. Mind you, if I go through the effort of quilting some feathers I actually prefer to see them. Thinking of a grey thread which will read as very light on this. Decisions, decisions...

On my list for next week:

📌Make a sleeve for the show quilt

📌Finish the feather quilting in the rose quilt above

📌Baste another charity quilt

📌Design a Mini Wholecloth for another workshop or at the very least have started that process (have about 3 weeks to do this).

My cat blocks will have to wait for a moment as there is too much going on, however they will be back on the list next week so that they do not end up on the UFO pile again.

Linking up to Texas Quilt Gal for To Do Tuesday 20/9/22 to  see what other quilters are working on. Always dangerous though as there is so much inspiration out there...

Karin

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

To Do Tuesday #58 & Weekly Progress Update

So, what have I achieved for the week

1. Natalia Bonner’s 9 Patchalong.✅ 

Managed to keep up and even almost finished the border

Block 3 and 4 done

2. Make another few cat blocks ✅

3. Work on a new pattern ❌

4. Prepare fabric for piecing Natalia's Bonner's Star Sampler for the Let's Stitch a Year of Stars which is starting in January 2021✅

Not too bad, considering we had some major upheaval around our place this week with the construction of a major retaining wall.

For the week 15 September to 22 September, I am planning to:

1. Continue with Natalia Bonner's 9 Patchalong, i.e. Block 4 & 5 and maybe complete the border

2. Continue with piecing the cat blocks, maybe another 2 blocks

3. Start piecing at least one block of Natalia's Bonner's Star Sampler for the Let's Stitch a Year of Stars

4. Work on the new pattern, i.e. clean up design in EQ8 program

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #58 over at Home Sewn By Us

Karin

To Do Tuesday#57

First time participating in the To-do-Tuesday Linky Party over at Home Sewn By Us. Have been wanting to do this for a few weeks but keep missing Tuesdays all the time. Seems to come along too quickly.

For the week 7th September to 14 September I would like to work on:

1. Natalia Bonner’s 9 Patchalong. 

She is releasing two videos per week and I need to be on the ball to keep up. This week I stitched 2 of the blocks, but have heaps more to go...need to finish the filling of the sashings and the borders as I go along. This is good fun and I am learning heaps, particularly as I am stitching along on my new HQ Capri with the stitch regulator.

Block 2

2. Make another few cat blocks

Started spontaneously on another project...the 'Kitten' quilt from Elizabeth Hartman. Got super excited as I am making a brownish type quilt with fabrics that I have had in my stash for a while, always looking for that right project. The project is all cut out, its just a matter of getting going on the piecing.

This quilt will feature our two cats, Abby and Pixie (Abby featured above) 

So, for this week I would like to at least get a Pixie block done

3. Work on a new pattern

Have designed a new pattern for my pattern shop. This has been sitting on my computer for at least the last 6 months. Need to actually do it! Maybe this week I could finalise the design on EQ8 and select the fabric (let’s keep it real, there is no way I am actually going to make a start on piecing this).

4. Prepare fabric for piecing Natalia's Bonner's Star Sampler for the Let's Stitch a Year of Stars which is starting in January 2021

I think this is enough for just one week. Hopefully this will give me a structure to work to and get me a bit more structured throughout the week.

Linking up with Home Sewn By Us for the To Do Tuesday Linky #57

Karin