I need to finish these! Q4 2015 Finish-Along

Haven't posted in FOREVER, but I really, really need to finish some of my WIPs. Some of my two-year-old WIPs are not included here.

I am hoping the Finish-Along will push me along. "Put a fire under my butt" is what I thought, then I decided that was a little rude, but I guess I will never quite be a PC quilter.

So, I have many more projects waiting to be done than this, but these are the ones I hope to finish in Q4.

A tote based on Crafty Gemini's tutorial for Missouri Star Quilt Company.  It has been sitting around all summer. Time to finish it up. Fabric is from Kate Spain's Horizon line.

A rainbow quilt, which I started because I had a jelly roll and wanted a quick sew. Then I didn't like it, so have chopped it up and am adding white. Thanks to my Music City Modern Quilt Guild members for help on how to fix it. Now I just need to finish it.

The Riley Blake Quiltcon Challenge. I couldn't just go black and white, so want to add color somehow and maybe curves. I've never done true curves, so this will be a challenge. It will also be a mini-quilt.

Top and back are pieced. I just need to make the quilt sandwich and get it quilted. It won't take long if I would just get started!

I bought these "cheater" placemats to quilt for a Christmas present. Totally not my colors, but I still think they are pretty, but if I don't start, they won't be done in time for Christmas.

A Harry Potter quilt for a little girl who LOVES Harry Potter books. This is fun, but time consuming. However, it MUST be done before Christmas, so I have to get started. This may be first on my list because I want to take my time with it. I have made a mini-quilt from the same pattern and it was fun to watch it come together. Just in case she outgrows Harry Potter, thought I don't know how anyone could, the back will be Tula Pink's tigers from her new Eden line.

My goals! Hope I get there!!

A Finish--Shocking but True!

Well, finally I am finished with my heart quilt. I refuse to go back in my blog and see when I started it. It underwent many changes as I worked on it, going from a rail fence to a heart, then a heart with a red center. I also did my first long-arming on this quilt. Had to rip some out because I had railroad tracks on the back, then do my own FMQ on my domestic machine. I think it looks fine after washing though. So, I guess you can say this is my first true, not practice, FMQ.

Today was the first sunny day in awhile, but a cold, cold wind was blowing as we took these photos.

Tallulah came over to investigate...actually to see Yud who is just to the left of this photo, but I couldn't resist including this photo even though the wind was really not helping me with my photo. If you ever meet my husband, don't tell him you saw his bald spot. He is trying to pretend it doesn't exist.

In this photo of the back, you can really see how the wind was blowing and more of the bald spot. :-)

2015 Finish Along

Adrianne at On the Windy Side is hosting the 2015 Finish Along and I am excited! You link your WIPs to the quarterly linky party and then link back to your finished projects at the end of the quarter. I am hoping this forces me to finish some really old WIPs, including a Christmas wall hanging I did in one of the first classes I took after I got my sewing machine.

All the details are available on Adrianne's blog linked above. Prizes are along involved, so link up those WIPs.

Below are the three projects I hope plan to finish in the first quarter. Two baby quilts. There is actually a third I need to do, but I don't have fabrics pulled yet.

I don't have a pattern here, but I am doing half-square triangles in a diamond pattern. Hope that is enough information for the Finish Along.

The upside down Christmas quilt. OMG...the mistakes I see on this quilt. I have actually enjoyed getting it out again because I can actually see how much I have learned about quilting in two years. And how much my style has changed.

I may have more projects to add before January 7th because several are "in the works," but they are not complete enough to include here yet. One is pulled with a pattern, but I am not feeling that quilt today, so don't really think I would complete it during the first quarter, so I am leaving it off.

Mondrian Riff Mini-Quilt Tutorial

I am not quite sure this is a tutorial. I think it is more of a "this is how I did it" explanation. If you have questions, just let me know.

This is an easy quilt, so beginners who know how to rotary cut and sew 1/4" seams will have no problems with this quilt, especially if you like to stitch in the ditch. If you do not know how to stitch in the ditch, check out this video from Quilty with Mary Fons. Of course, depending upon your color selection and patience with burying threads, you might choose to do another type of stitching when you are ready to quilt your pieced top.

I used a design-as-you go approach for this design, starting with color selection - bright, bold solid colors. I went with red, yellow, orange, blue, and green to begin.

Use your design wall or a dining room table and start by laying out two1.5 inch black strips. Size doesn't matter at this stage. Choose something bigger than your expected finished quilt top. I chose strips that were  1.5 x. 27.5 and 1.5 x 43.

I like asymmetrical, so started with the off-center cross below. My design wall is just a cheap plastic table cloth turned backwards and tacked to my sewing/office room wall so that the flannel backing is on top.

Now just start cutting your fabrics. I tend to choose 5", 4", and 2.5" strips because I can easily use the leftovers in other projects. When I get to a random spot that needs color, I measure the area I need filled and cut a strip to match.

 I also pull strips off the design wall and use them to measure for cutting too. This is where design-as-you-go really comes into its own. By putting the blue rectangle on top of the green I wanted to add, it was easy to see know where to cut the green.

Once I add a few pieces, I back up, take a photo and decide if I like the pattern or if I need to change something.

For me, this is too square and does not have any white. I may need another black strip somewhere too. So off to cut some white strips/blocks and we will see what we have. I think I am going to build this "sideways" and then turn it later. I am going to add more rows/strips to the left of the long vertical black strip.

Still a little square, but more white. I also do not like the white strips that are parallel to each other in the same locations.

This is the rectangle I am looking for, so I am pleased with that. I have one more piece to add in (see the design wall peaking through under the lavender). I think I want another red piece or even a random different color. If I go red, I am probably going to have to move a few pieces around to make that work.

Notice that I do not care about the uneven ends. They will be easy to even up with I am finished sewing the sections - the areas between the black strips - together.

Piecing is easy. Just section off the areas around the black stripes and use a 1/4" seam. Once you have a set either horizontally or vertically completed, you can begin to add in the black stripes. On this mini-quilt, I added the strips horizontally first, then cut so that I could add the longer vertical strip.

I just used gray on the back (Kona Pewter) and used straight line quilting to quilt. Quilting is still my weakest area. My goal for 2015 is to improve my quilting and become less afraid of FMQ.

Because I was in a rush to finish my Secret Santa gift (and this was it), I have no photos of the back of the quilt. I do have one with the binding. I used a 2.5" black double fold binding and machine stitched it. For machine stitching, stitch the binding to the back first, then fold over and iron and stitch close to the edge on the front. 

The only finished photo I have is from our guild Secret Santa swap and is not great, but at least you can see it with binding and after washing/drying. Using color catchers in the wash meant I had no problems with the bright colors bleeding at all!

If you look back at the design I decided would work, you will see that this is different. I also think I have the colors of the Irish/Ivory Coast flags in the top right corner. 

Mondrian Riff Mini-Quilt/Wall Hanging

So, if you know Piet Mondrian's work (above) and you quilt, you have likely had the same idea - ohhh, I could make a quilt like that. This weekend, after thinking about it for awhile, I decided to give it a try. Below is my first attempt. 

I chose colors and then created the design on my design wall (a reversed plastic table cloth). I like it a lot, but learned one VERY important lesson. Do NOT, I repeat do NOT steam press a light-colored square without first removing all the black thread remnants. I do not pre-wash my fabrics and the black just melded with the yellow in one tiny, irritating spot. ARRGGHHH!!

I was making this as a Christmas swap gift, so back to the drawing board. The tiny black dot that would not bother me if I were making this for myself is just too irksome as a swap gift.

I am making a tutorial for my next Mondrian. Stay tuned.

Silly Cat!

Willow update: She will sit on flannel, but not quilting cotton. Comfort over beauty. A cat after my own heart!

Silly Willow refused, absolutely refused, to sit on her new window seat cover today. Now, it could be because it is wicked cold outside for Tennessee and the air from the window is cold. It could also be that she is just picky. I vote for the latter.

So, I am going to make a her new cover in flannel with wool batting. This is one spoiled cat.

Willow

First, however, Tallulah gets her cat pad with wool batting. She sleeps in the basement because she attacks Jaspyrr, and it is a little chilly down there. No worries though, she has her own little house that is also covered with blankets. The cats have us trained!

Tallulah

Quilting Help - Worried about Back to Front Mood Conflict

Below are photos of my IB front (soft, sweet, bird-filled) and back (vibrant, slightly chaotic). The moods strike me as really, really off. Plus the birds on the front are more orange-red and the red on the back is definitely a blue-red.

Do I save this back for another quilt? Don't want to, but I am afraid I am going to have to.

P.S. I also need to get better with photos. The last ones have looked blurry to me.

Moving Right Along!

Finished up a mug rug for the Two for Teal 2014 swap for ovarian cancer. Was great to participate at least in a small way for such a worthy cause. Hope my partner likes her mug rug.

Also working on my quilt for Rachel of Stitched in Color's Angled Camp. Still have to cut some more rows. I am slow because I keep changing fabrics. I have NEVER been able to choose fabrics and stick with those fabric choices. Ah well...that is part of the fun of quilting. I love, love, love the Charley Harper fabrics from Fabric Worm. Great store if you live in California. For those of us who don't, fabulous online store also!

And finally Textile Fabrics in Nashville is having their big Fall sale - 40% off all fabrics and 70% off sale fabrics. You cannot get better than that. Sad that I cannot go on Monday, which is the first day of the sale, but Tuesday will definitely include a visit!

Memorial Quilt Delivered

Memorial quilt - quilted, washed, delivered. I promised my father I would not post his photo online. He did not quite believe me, so would only show lower the quilt to his eyebrows. I think he would approve of this photo.

The quilt is in honor of my mother who died in a house fire on February 1 this year. If you follow my blog, you have seen the quilt in progress. My mother and I picked out the fabrics and pattern during Christmas 2013, so after the fire I continued with the quilt to give it to my father. I love my quilts soft, so didn't quilt this one heavily at all.

I love the quilt and every time I see it I am reminded of our last Christmas together--happy thoughts, not sad.

Kaffe Fassett Nine Patch Beginnings + Charley Harper Fabric

Heart quilt pieced; not ready to quilt. So, I started a nine patch with some Kaffe Fassett fabrics that have been waiting for me to use them. My first block may be slightly insane, but I think I am going to like it once I can mix and match blocks. I've added in some other fabrics for variety - don't think Kaffe would like that, but I just couldn't resist. The white is just my design wall (the back of a cheap plastic tablecloth tacked to the wall.

I love, love, love my Charley Harper fabrics (Birch Fabrics Organic) from Fabricworm. I had a fabric meltdown and bought way too much of it. However, I've been looking at the fabrics for a year and finally decided to buy some before I can't find this line anymore. I may use this to make the Indian Blanket quilt from the ::Angled:: camp. There is also a wall hanging in the latest Modern Patchwork magazine (Summer 2014) that would look good with these fabrics. Hmmmm.

Heart Quilt Photo

So here is the front of the heart quilt finally pieced. I have to say that it was sort of a pain to make the seams match, but at least after all of this I am getting better at it. The last three long rows I had to glue AND pin. The blue squares are from a chain-pieced jelly roll. I was going to just make a random square quilt of the blues in 10-inch squares, but my husband said it was "not the best quilt you have ever made," so I changed to the heart, which I like much better. This is a gift for friends who recently got married. I'm late with my gift - per norm if it is a quilt.

I pieced it in squares and then sewed the squares together. The final seams were the long vertical ones - with pinning and glue basting. Took me awhile to match seams.

Here is Jaspyrr who watched the entire photo shoot with absolute distain! Love my Jaspyrr. Yes, we know the deck needs to be stained again. It is just too hot to do it right now.

Heart Quilt

Well, after my dad and husband dissed my rail fence quilt--"it isn't the best quilt you have ever made"-- I did some thinking and blog reading and thanks to Adrianne from On the Windy Side and Jolene of Blue Elephant Stitches, decided to do a heart instead. Thank goodness Jolene's design is done in squares instead of rows. I also used five inch squares because I wanted a larger heart and wasn't going for a pixelated look.

Here is the drawing I did before I started so I could see how big the quilt would be. In the drawing, you will see colored squares on the corners, but I decided they looked funky, so I eliminated them. I am only going to have one row of gray at the top and bottom and one to the side. I machine quilt on a good, but small-throated machine, so large quilts freak me out.

Here is the partial quilt on my design wall--a plastic tablecloth tacked to the wall - :-)--. I am beginning to wonder how in the world I am going to make points match, but that is an issue for sewing/glue basting. I will prevail somehow.

I have added a red square in the middle to represent love for the wedding quilt. I may make it a heart or add the names and dates of my friends. I don't have an embroidery machine, so the names will be SMALL, but I have a set to try it on first. I am surrounding it with Kona Ash fabric because grays, blues, and greens are favorite colors of the wedding couple. 

I have to say that I think I would like white better, but this quilt is not for me and the gray looks fine. How I am going to quilt this baby is another story all together. I will worry about that later. I sometimes really feel like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind when I quilt--worrying about things tomorrow. I guess I could plan the quilt out, quilting design and all, but that is not as much fun as the "figure it out later" process. I do know I am NOT going to FMQ this quilt. I am still learning and I don't want to totally destroy the quilt.

WIPs for the Slow Blogger Link-up

So, I am linking to the Slow Blogger movement monthly doings from Weekend Doings, introduced to me by Knotted Cotton. Now, I love Martha's photos of her knitting. My photos are truly terrible in comparison, but I have four WIPs and one completed project to share.

First up, my attempt at free motion quilting from a class I took. The class was offered by the Hickory Hills Quilt Shop in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The class was great. I, however, will need a LOT more practice before I can even be considered an "acceptable" FM quilter. I don't have a stitch regulator, so I am trying to make consistently sized stitches as well as handle the FMQ. The center flower is an absolute mess (hence no closeup of it). Practice, practice, practice. That is what it takes.

Next, a bag that I really would like to make, but trying to make it made me realize why I avoided sewing for so many years. I cannot read the instructions. Quilt patterns are much, much easier to read and at least I can look at the finished quilt and sort of figure it out. The bag is currently a mess as I figure out how to finish the lining--the instructions are impossible!

Then we have a table runner from a quilter's meeting at Hickory Hill Quilts. I used Sharon Schamber's gluing tips (she demonstrates for binding in the link). NOW, AT LAST, I have points that match. I simply have been unable to get matching points when I use pins. Glue, I love you. I just need to quilt this and I am done. Using some Anna Maria Horner fabric in matching colors on the back.

Sharon Schamber's Glue Binding

Now, the big quilt that scares me to death. I have a good machine, but a tiny throat space - Bernina 350. I love my machine, but it took forever for me to baste this quilt (501 basting spray). I am following Ann Petersen's Crafsty class-- Quilting Big Projects on Small Machines -- to do this. Fingers crossed I manage. I swear I did what she said and set the glue with an iron, getting the wrinkles out, but the photo with my dad holding the quilt - I could not get him to go outside and it is Father's Day, after all - looks just awful. My husband helped me make the quilt sandwich, but I am not quite sure we did such a great job.

The quilt is a memorial to my mother that will go to my dad. She was killed in a house fire on Feb. 1 and this was a quilt we had picked out together for me to make for her. My dad won't care if it looks terrible, but I will. Fingers crossed I manage the biggest quilt I have made to date.

Finally, we have a quilt I am making for a friend's wedding present. Per norm, I am late getting it ready. It is a rail fence and I like it, but both my dad and my husband think it is fairly ugly. My husband said, "It is not the best quilt you have made." Hmmm. I am thinking of adding 2.5 inch gray borders to each 10 inch block, then quilting the blocks. I will join them with an inch binding strip of batik, a la Ann Petersen's class. I'm so freaked out about my dad's quilt and my small machine, that I need an easier way to create the wedding quilt throw.

If you have managed to get to this point, thanks for reading! I meant to post before this, but just never got around to it. I am so glad that I saw the post about the Slow Blogger link-up. Got me motivated again.

On another note, I am thinking of making a quiltshop hop in Missouri before I head back to Tennessee. Would go to Tula Pink's mother's shop in Stewartsville, Missouri (MO) (Country Expressions). I am not sure her mother is still co-owner or that the shop is there, but I will be close because I would definitely go to Hamilton, MO to Missouri Start Quilt Company! I will also stop by the Albrecht-Kemper Museum in St. Joseph, MO to see the Tula Pink and Luke Haynes exhibition. Too bad none of my friends are quilters or I might get some company on my journey!