Country Roads Mystery

Last week was busy and it didn't leave me much time to work on Calypso. So instead I worked on a little project that Lori's posted on her Humble Quilts blog mid September ~ Country Roads Mystery Quilt along. 

Lori based her quilt on an inspiration quilt and reproduced it with red, blue and black blocks. Here is a link to Part One if you are interested in joining in or go to this link for Part Three to see the inspiration quilt and Lori's finished quilt.  

My blocks are scrappy, made from the fabric scraps from Amaretto Cottage, a quilt top finished recently. Despite working over the weekend, I made a little time to get 16 ~ five inch blocks finished. The QAL's quilt has 9 blocks, my plan is to keep going until I run out of scraps!

I have two ideas for setting the blocks, both have the blocks set on point. Will save that for another day. 

When I took Lynn Wilder's Patchwork Math workshop in August, Lynn had the nicest turntable cutting mat that she used for the workshop. I found one online a couple of weeks ago and it arrived over the weekend. Other than it's still stinky, I love it.

It also has a second circle for pressing which will be great for workshops :0)

Enjoy your week

Tot Ziens

 

Freezing to Flipflops and a Finish

My April goal is quilted, binding on and finished with a label.... for A Lovely Year of Finishes.
(Goal post # 83 and Finish post # 74)
  2014 MidWinter Blues QAL with Lori/Humble Quilts... 

Happy with the fabric choice added to the blocks and setting corner triangles
 I also used it for the binding.

Quilted with a feather and scroll b2b design and a border/corner set.
 And the label... with a Daf added for a Spring finish...

I had to work fast to take a few pix outside this evening, the mosquitoes are terrible already! After a weekend of thunderstorms and hail we are now in the 90's today and I'm wearing flipflops!!! This morning I tipped everything with standing water from the storm. Sadly there were a few flower casualties...

The first of my all time favorite... my China Red Poppy

The first 2 blooms are a little worse for wear from the rain and hail

Not to worry, there are many more buds ready to open soon :0)

Follow this link to see more April finishes at a Lovely Year of Finishes with Shanna and Melissa

Jo

MidWinters Blues QAL

I took a break from setting up my studio today to finish my top for Lori's QAL MidWinters Blues.

and watch the season's end of Downton Abbey :0) A nice end to this season.

Only a flimsy tho. Not my best piecing but I had fun with this one. Lori has the best quilt alongs. Mine is a different only because I decided to reproduce Lori's inspiration quilt, pictured below... I did change the color of the corner setting triangles and used the same fabric for all of the dark squares. The rest is scrappy.

It was a busy week getting my longarm studio back in order. Not quite finished but I did make space to set up a new sewing area in the studio and used it today to sew my blocks together.

I am linking up to Lori's blog ~ Humble Quilts for this flimsy finish to Lori's QAL.

Thank you Lori! You are the best

The Mystery is now a flimsy

2014 NYD Mystery quilt top is a flimsy. I am linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes with this quilt top finish as my January goal ~ link to blog post. Link up # 181. Update: This baby is quilted!!!

After a few block layout changes plus I decided to add borders, this top is ready to be quilted! Notice I couldn't do the misfit layout of the original.

Quilting on my New Year's Day Mystery quilt

I am quite pleased with this one, you never know how a mystery will turn out! All the fabrics are pulled from stash scraps and FQ's except the light print in the large HSTs are cut from two half yard pieces that came from Honey Run Quilters. Many of the fabrics are left overs from Petit Fours, a quilt I made from a kit from Morning Star Quilts. Barbara, a new quilt customer recently brought her Petit Fours that she recently finished that I will quilt for her. When she unfolded her quilt top I immediately knew the quilt! Nice surprise!!

Petit Fours made in 2010

This is a pic of my Petit Fours made in 2010 for my friend Suzanne. The left over border print is in most of the blocks in the Mystery quilt top and more scraps I added to the Anvil blocks.

My goal this year is to use up stash and I think I got a pretty good start on that one :0) Another is to start blocks on a 2014 Barbara Brackman ~ Threads of Memory BOM and do a QAL with Lori of Humble Quilts. Both of them posted the first blocks, Lori yesterday and Barbara this morning on her Civil War blog. Check out the links. Off to sew as I have blocks to make this weekend!!!

Enjoy your weekend! Thanks for stopping by

 Jo

Faithful

Final border added to Faithful this weekend. Not quilted, my plan is to make more blocks and HSTs for sashing. This block has bright colors, scraps from two BOMs last year.

Faithful in progress...

Faithful ~ Steps one and two

 Center block is Peace and Plenty. When I re-sized it to a 6 inch block it came out too small so I added an extra row of sashing.

Faithful ~ Step three

Great way to use up scraps and HSTs, or trade HSTs with other quilter as Lori of Humble Quilts did for her Big Top. Thank you Lori for another great SAL!

Here is a link to Lori's blog with pix of more blocks made.

Take a look at Lori's blog header, it's her Big Top made with 9 blocks, each sashed with additional HSTs for a finish. It's what I plan to do with my block.

Also worked on my Tree of Life project. Last two Pine Tree blocks finished. 

Center tree blocks are sewn together in a medallion. I am planning two 1/2 inch inner borders with a row of HSTs between them before I sew on the corners. Not exactly sure yet what size this will finish out at, close to 50 x 50 depending on the size of a red outer border, if I add one, may just bind it in the red.

Very frustrated with my longarm business right now and the reason I haven't posted the last two weeks. Mom is doing OK. She will be 98 this weekend! We had unexpected rain last night, a quick downpour, enough to make a mess of newly fallen leaves. Will have some clean up and sheltering plants today. Forecast is for night time temps down in the 30s this week. Fall has arrived here in Northern California! 

Enjoy your day!

UFO and a SAL

Working on my October UFO ~ making Tree of Life blocks this weekend. Two more trees to finish, they take some time and patience. Drafted new trunks as the new corner blocks are larger than the blocks in the center. Started with some ideas for the final layout, adding a saw tooth sashing around the center blocks.

New corner tree blocks in progress...the HSTs are squared to 1 3/4, finish at 1 1/4 inch.

The first tree trunk I drafted, the branches were too big and the roots too small. This one is just right...

This is my quilt where all the HSTs came from, the corners from all of the snowball blocks...

I've also started on Lori ~ Humble Quilts SAL ~ Faithful. Part one was to make any 6 inch block for the center. I decided on a Peace and Plenty block. First one made was in my Civil War Sampler with Barbara Brachman's BOW. It was 8 inches and I needed a 6 inch block for this project. Using Quilt Genie I made the block but it finished at 5 inches so I added the purple sashing. Part two was adding sashing and HSTs around the center...

and part three is adding another sashing and 44 more HSTs this weekend. Four of us had a conversation at dinner before a guild meeting last week about how different random means to a mathematician and a quilter. Sew I can't say this is random... it's organized chaos :0)

All the fabrics and HSTs are scraps and cut offs from two BOMs I made in 2011. Mostly from Flying Geese blocks. I make a habit of stitching a second line of stitching before cutting off the triangle corners. The sewn cut offs get thrown in a container with more HSTs, ready to be pressed and squared to size when needed. Also how I ended up with so many HSTs for my Tree of Life project above. Great for scrappy projects and Saw Tooth borders too. This SAL with Lori ~ Humble Quilts was the perfect project to use up more of them. Check out Lori's quilt top made with HSTs she traded with friends, it's Lori's header right now.

I love it when I see vintage quilts and the owner says "I remember that fabric in a dress". It happened just the other day when someone brought a vintage quilt in to my studio. A Dresden Plate quilt her grandmother made in the 30's. Since I haven't made cloths since my teens, I don't have scraps from dresses and such. This will be a fun way to remember past quilt projects.

Now to get out and enjoy the fine Fall weather we are having in Northern California. Hope you all get to do the same! Enjoy your day, stitching away. Thanks for visiting.

Groetjes, Jo

Quilting finished on the Medallion

I finished all the quilting on my Medallion quilt made along with Lori and Randy's SAL. This is the most quilting I've done on one quilt. Using a wool batting to create a trapunto effect with a heavy feather and pebble fill around the applique border with a double outline stitch...

1/2" Crosshatch behind the center basket... the one thing I am not happy with is my choice of fabric for the basket. It would be better with a darker print.

"Melon" (I've named them) stitches in the pinwheels...

as well as in the quarter square triangle blocks in the second border and feathers in the triangles around them...

 and last, a sawtooth stitch with more melons in both of the one inch inner borders.

The entire quilt was quilted on my Juki TL2010Q (not one stitch was done on the longarm). I still enjoy doing FMQing on a domestic. I like the 'organic' look of designs that are not exactly the same and without a stitch regulator, the stitching is not perfect either :0) altho, a stitch regulator would be nice! My Gammill is great for large designs and pantos but for me its too heavy to do small hand guided designs. I am looking to buy a lighter weight longarm and have been test driving the Innova. I have someone interested in buying my Gammill so will see how that goes. 

Last night was our last meeting for our Chico guild's quilt show coming up soon! My job is vendors and have 17 signed up for the show. Set up will happen a week from tomorrow with the show on Sept 28th and 29th. It's Annie's Star Quilt Guild's Harvest of Quilts.

My Medallion will be in the show along with two more of my quilts plus a challenge quilt. I will take lots of pictures and post them as I did for the last show in 2011 (our shows are every other year). There will also be pics of customer quilts that I have not posted because they will be in the show too. Very exciting! This is the first show that I am this involved in. It's allot of work and allot of fun... and it will be nice when it's over and my days won't be quite so crazy!!!

Enjoy the day, stitching away :0)

Quilting on the Medallion

Last weekend I started the quilting on my Medallion quilt top from Lori and Randy's SAL. 

Up to now all the quilting has been done on my Juki TL-2010Q. Very different mind set from quilting on my longarm. So far it's OK, not perfect, but it is fun! 

After pin basting I started in the middle. First was an outline stitch around the applique with the regular FMQ foot and a second 1/8 inch echo with the same foot.  Then the 1/2 inch cross hatch. Working from the center out stitched all of the inner borders and the quarter square blocks with SID using a walking foot. Then I started FMQing on the outer border applique with the same double outline stitching.

This weekend I added wings to the birds! Using freezer paper, cut out a wing shape

 pressed it to a bird and stitched around the paper template. 

Removed the paper and pressed it to another bird, then a second one in reverse.

 So far so good... then I started a feather fill. 

Parts of it I like, some not so much. 

before fill

after fill

The part I like are the larger feathers with curved spines. The rest looks like pebbling.

It is back up on my design wall while I decide if is stays or if I take out Madame Seam Ripper :~/

Back to work today. Enjoy the day, stitching away!

Lori and Randy's Medallion SAL

 

Top is a finish and ready for quilting!

Using a wool batting I can't wait to get started on the quilting this weekend. 

Thank you to Lori and Randy for a great quilt-along. 

Here is a link to Humble Quilts with a linky to see how other quilters did their medallion quilt and check out how Lori quilted her top!

My plan worked great! 

Basted on blank borders. Then laid out and glue basted all the pieces. 

The small leaves are fused and the stems are 'tubes'.

Removed the borders...

Did all the machine applique

 and then the borders were sewn back on. Stem ends went into the seams...

Lots of thread colors as well as four different buttonhole stitches and settings

 and of course a little fussy cutting