Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
These are mine. I don’t usually do this kind of thing, but I saw this image on FB and decided just to write down the first words I saw.
Mine are listed above. I don’t know if I feel any affinity for them, but I do feel a little spooked. They are oddly what I need to consider.
Finishing a donation quilt first in the year has to be good karma, right?
I had been saving some 16 patches to make a donation quilt and decided that New Year’s Day was the day. I combined the 16 patches with pieced sashing and cornerstones from an article in Today’s Quilter issue 91. The information was in the Essential Guides sections, which is great for tuning up your skills.
I wanted to try the technique out, so I took out those donation blocks and got to work. I, mostly, used up some Pure Elements Linen for the sashing background and used a solid for the cornerstones and the back.
It felt so good just to do some easy piecing and I am pleased to have a donation quilt to bring to Sew Day next week.
Admin
The Minikins page has been updated again.
I received a whole shedload of “your posts go against our community guidelines” messages from Blogger about my old Blogger blog. Since I moved my blog here in 2009, I decided not to spend time telling them their algorithm had screwed up (or someone decided to cause me trouble) and just delete the blog. It doesn’t need to be there anymore. If you want to see any posts pre-2009, they are all here. You can either search or check the sidebar. It’s really annoying to have to deal with something like that, but easily remedied. Hope you had a great New Year!
Projects, Classes, Patterns & Tutorials
For those of you playing along with Chilhowie, the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt, be sure reprint the Part 3 PDF. Bonnie made some corrections and posted them right away. Just make sure you have the correct pattern. Find all the different parts on the Chilhowie page, but be sure to download what you need before Bonnie removes it.
Bonnie Hunter has also posted a block webbing tutorial. Block webbing is a method of sewing blocks together so they stay in order. She uses a 16 patch block (like the donation blocks I make) as an example. Very clear and very useful.
Jaybird Quilts has a Temperature quilt project that looks different from others. It’s more like a braided quilt.
Persimmon Dreams, in association with another quiltmaker has Project Quilting challenges. I think each week brings a new challenge.
Media
The Tula Pink video from early December is fabulous! She made a bunch of stuffed animals from her Everglow collection. They are adorable.
These paintings look like awesome quilts. I don’t want to get into a big discussion about art vs. craft, but how much would this painting cost vs the cost of a quilt with the exact same design?
Friend Julie has another great Cornucopia post from December. Some of the links in this post originally came from Julie’s post. It is so interesting how we see different things on the web.
I hope you all have a great day and a wonderful year!
2022 blog posts: 364
2022 fabric used: 42 yards net (140 total – if you do the math, you will know how many yards of fabric I bought or was given.)
Finished 2022 Quilt Projects
Finished 2022 Small and Non-Quilt Projects
This category covers bags, toys, aprons and knitting as well as other non-quilt projects.
Doing Good
Ready for Quilting
Nothing at the moment
In Process or To Make
The ‘In Process’ is used to denote projects on which I am actively working or are on the design wall waiting for me to stitch. I am continuing to try not to put away projects. I find putting a project away ensures I never work on them, because I just lose steam.
Quilts (machine work)
Quilts (Handwork)
I decided that some of my quilts are in a different class because they are hand piecing or embroidery or beading. They take longer. Thus I created a new category and have moved some projects here.
In the Quilting Process
In the Finishing Process
Small Projects
Most of my progress involves thinking or just cutting.
Still UFOs
I still have UFOs. Who doesn’t, after all? A project in the ‘UFO’ category means I am stalled, it hasn’t been worked on in awhile or it is waiting its turn to be worked on. The list is a lot shorter and the projects are newer, for the most part.
I am annoyed that some of these are still WIPs. I just need to work on them!
I started off the year finishing a couple of blocks I had started in 2021. Then I just started making blocks as I had time. I didn’t make as many as in previous years, but as I have said before, every little bit helps, right?
One of my students invited me over to her house for lunch. It was a fabulous lunch! She is a great cook and I stuffed myself. Both students were there and they got together and got me a wonderful Christmas gift.
The wrapping was definitely professional, but the gifts were what I really enjoyed. First the whole thing was ‘wrapped’ in a organizer tote box.
It has four levels and they clip together so I can carry it somewhere. The levels can be completely taken apart or one can be taken off, leaving the other three clipped together.
In my lucky case, each level was filled with fun surprises. The first level held thread and some of those new(ish) zippers with the round pulls. The colors are super fun – neon green and neon orange. The other two have two colors – one color for the zipper tape and another color for the zipper. I have seen people using those zippers, but have never bought them. Now I can try them out!
The second level held items I can use for bag making plus some embroidery floss and a small bracelet made by Carrie. They also included a guide for my machine. It will be very useful when I need to sew a quarter inch seam, but also want to use a foot other than my quarter inch foot. I’ll also be able to easily measure 3/8″ when sewing bag linings. Can’t wait to try that. The two things that require no testing are the washaway tape and the machine needles. I can always use more of both of those!
The third level held journals! They are similar to my favorite Leuchtturm journals** but a little different. Also, they are blank. I haven’t used blank journals in years. I like the Leuchtturm gridded journals, because I can draw quilt blocks in them. Recently I have used a ruled Leuchtturm journal** and a Miquelrius gridded journals**, so I am flexible. I am almost out of Leuchtturm journals, so I will definitely use these.
The bottom level held a fun sewing t-shirt and a box of Wayne Thiebaud cards. OMG! The cards have some of my favorite WT images. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the t-shirt, but it has a rainbow colored heart monitor with a sewing machine and a pair of scissors. It is really fun.
I was so overwhelmed when I saw this gift. It is such a generous array of items. i was really grateful to them.
**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need at quilt shops, I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.
Yes, another bag as a gift for Julie. I actually finished this in September, but couldn’t show it until now, after it was presented.
I chuckled to myself as I cut out the bag at Super Sew Day right under Julie’s nose! She may have noticed the fabric, but I just didn’t make a big deal out of it.
I didn’t have a good sense of how large these bags would be. I hope this one isn’t too small. It will work for a bag or accessory project for sure, but probably not for a large quilt project. Julie doesn’t knit or crochet, but she does have embroidery projects and this will work for one of those as well.
It is, as I may have mentioned, a fairly easy project. I think the ByAnnie patterns seem overly complicated sometimes. The directions are very complete and I have grown attached to the binding instructions, but in general I think they seem overly complicated.
The Percheron Pouch ended up very well. Despite my despair when I was finishing it, it turned out fine.
Although I am not a fan of brown and beige, I think the brown and beige handbag zippers work with the Paris fabric.
There is a little bit of turquoise in the fabric to liven up the bag. I fussy cut the top so that the Paris motif shows, which means that most of the turquoise is on the bottom.
I was also able to fussy cut -sort of- the Paris motif on the back panel. The back panel makes up the hinge assembly for this bag.
As you might remember, I put Odicoat on the bottom to help keep the bag clean. You can’t really tell that there is anything on the bottom.
I chose a dusty turquoise for the inside or lining fabric. The lining is a little baggy so I need to work on that on the next one. Without putting Odicoat on the inside I am not sure how I would use one of these. I’ll have to think about it since I may want to make another for myself.
I still plan to make another since I figured out why the thing was so hard to put together – and I want to get it right. This is an interesting bag and I think it makes a great gift.
I made a bunch of these project bags as Christmas gifts. Here is one I made for Mom.
Of course, I used the paint tube fabric. I still have a lot of it, so there are more bags in Mom’s future. The ByAnnie pattern** includes four sizes. This is the large size, but I don’t think it is very large. It is about half again as wide and tall as a sheet of notebook paper.
I was kind of surprised at the size, actually, though I do have issues with understanding how big something is in real life when I look at an image online or check dimensions. If I had known the size, I would have made the extra large, which is also included in the pattern.
I am not sure I’ll make this pattern again. While it wasn’t difficult, once the quilting was done, I am not sure it is useful. There is no gusset, so how much stuff could actually fit? I don’t know. I haven’t tried one. Maybe for EPP pieces?
I hope these are useful despite the size. My Mom always finds good uses for the bags I make her.
**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need at quilt shops, I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.
I am taking the day off, but wishing everyone peace in their lives. Have a great day!
A lot of guild members are sick of these simple blocks, but I still like them. They are easy to make and work really well, as I have said a million times, for leaders and enders.
I am keeping some of these blocks to make a donation top. I haven’t made one in a long time and need to get back to it.
As mentioned the other day, I had cut only enough pieces for one (of three!) Month 16 rosettes. The M16 process is taking me forever. I cut and basted at Sew Day, but I guess I didn’t make as much progress as I thought. I was cranky and irritable that day.
Or it feels like it is. The other day, I left work at 4 and started cutting and basting.
I used the same fussy cutting layout for the pink rosette as I did for the blue part of Rosette #1. I like how the blue one looks and hope the pink one will look similar.
I also didn’t use the snake heads for the green rosette. I used the fabric, but cut the flowers out of it and avoided the snakes. Apparently, insects are ok, but snakes are categorized with animal heads in my quiltmaking mind.
I also rearranged the colors quite a bit. One of the remaining M16 rosettes will have more spikes.
After writing about the Hackney on Sunday, I looked back at the patterns I have made from Minikins Season Three* and decided I wanted to see them all together. The Minikins patterns are bundles (12ish different patterns) of small project patterns from Sew Sweetness. So far, I have purchased all three bundles.
Here are the projects I have made from Minikins Season 3 patterns:
It’s kind of fun to see them all together, isn’t it? Not sure the designs really have a theme, but it doesn’t matter.
I haven’t made all the patterns, but I will some day. they make great gifts and I am constantly thinking of new ways to use the designs and new people to whom to gift them. People in the Sew Sweetness group complain that they don’t want all the patterns and want to buy them singly. I think they should just shutup and let Sara run her business the way she wants.
Check out the full Minikins page.
*no affiliation, just a happy customer
I finally finished the first rosette for Month 16. This month feels like it is taking forever and I haven’t even started writing the New Years cards, which take up a ton of after dinner time.
I am pretty pleased with the blue parts of this rosette. As I said before, the dark blue and the turquoise batik look GREAT.
I had to cut more pieces. On Sew Day, I only cut pieces for this one section and that took up some time in the evening the other night. The next rosette is in process and I will, with luck, have a progress report soon.