Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Colleen sent these two quilts back to me last week. Both are gifts. I have to bind them, which is a problem since I have about 2,000 hours of handwork to do and not enough time to do it. My normal handwork time is taken up now with a 6,000 piece puzzle. I am working on the sky – no clouds, no airplanes – just flat blue sky. It is taking forever. I need to get them done in the next month, so perhaps at Craft Night? At least neither needs a sleeve.
Part of the process is ripping and I had to rip as I was very close to finishing the FOTY 2019 top.
The quilt top started out correct. It is not sewn together completely in the photo (left), but all of the pieces are where I wanted them.
I continued sewing -and it is a lot of sewing to get these Fabric of the Year quilts together- to make chunks.
When I had about 12 seams left, I realized that something had happened. I had reversed a section somewhere along the process.
I can tell because the letters (white on red serif print) are upside down. I try to get the directional prints going in the right direction when I make these quilts. They do have a top and a bottom. I was nearly done sewing the quilt together. I could have gotten the quilt done before dinner if I had just continued. The question, however, becomes “will I notice this forever?” In this case, the answer was yes.
One good thing about this type of quilt is that I could rip out that one section, resew it and finish the quilt, which is what I did.
Except that I also tried to figure out where I went wrong. I know that on November 14 that section was oriented correctly. On November 23rd, it wasn’t. Sometime in that 10ish day period, something happened and that chunk was turned upside down.
It is hard to keep these pieces correctly oriented. By ‘correctly oriented’ I mean in the place I want them. Most people wouldn’t notice and in 10 years, I might not notice either. I notice now, however.
It is fixed and the quilt top is on its way to being finished.
I reached 100 yards used for the first time ever! I am super excited. Of that 31% was for charity quilts. Of course, I want some fabric.
Finished 2020 Quilt Projects
Five quilts are now complete for the year. I am even more thrilled than I was last month.
Finished 2020 Small and Non-Quilt Projects
This category covers bags, toys, aprons and knitting as well as other non-quilt projects.
I feel like I have made more of these small items, but I can’t find any others.
Doing Good
In Process
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.
Small Projects to Make or in Process
Most of my progress involves thinking or just cutting.
Handwork
I decided that some of my projects 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.
Ready for Quilting
FOTY 2019 – ready to take to the longarmer
In the Quilting Process
In the Finishing Process
Still WIPs
I still have WIPs. Who doesn’t, after all? A project in the ‘UFO’ category means I am stalled. A nicer way of saying UFO is a WIP. The list is a lot shorter and the projects are newer, for the most part.
Happy birthday to my YM! He’s 24 (OMG!!) today!
Other Artists
Bonnie Hunter had to move her FB page. Find the new one and the sad, FB tale of woe on the new page. She did finally get the problems with the old one worked out, so now there are two pages! More bang for your buck?
Projects, Classes, Patterns & Tutorials
Sara Lawson came out with four new patterns this month. She sold them as a bundle at first, but that sale is over. They can be purchased individually. One of them is a sewing machine bag. One of her testers has written a tutorial for adjusting the size of the bag if it won’t fit your machine.
Kirsty from Bonjour Quilts has written a tutorial for matching patterns on a quilt back. You could use for other purposes as well.
Sharon from Color Girl Quilts talks about the Stitch Pink blocks in a recent blog post. I talked about the Stitch Pink project in a recent V& S post.
Sharon also has updated her website and the new shop is really easy to use. Very tempting, especially since she is having a sale and donating 5% of sales to the ACLU through the end of 2020.
Jeni from In Color Order is having a sew-a-long using her drawstring bag pattern. She has a post on tips for choosing fabrics and one on using scraps for bags in addition to showing regular fabrics. Remember? I used one of the patterns for the bag I sewed for the Juggling Balls. I really like that pattern. I bought some twill ribbon (not sure if that is the right word) last time I made one to make it easier to thread through the casing. I also don’t like turning small strings like those the drawstring bag requires.
Are you doing the Bonnie Hunter Mystery, Grassy Creek, this year? Check out the Grassy Creek Mystery tab for the color choices and the first clue. I am going to collect all the clues and then see if I want to make the quilt. I don’t plan on using the colors she selected, if I do it. I am planning on using colors from a photo of a house nearby I took YEARS ago. Alternatively, I could use a group of paint buckets that has a selection of fabrics I like, but looks very like my Frolic! color selections. IF I decide to make the quilt.
Camille Roskelley and Maureen McCormick (yes, from the Brady Bunch!!) are doing a quilt-a-long using Camille’s Flower Girl pattern. Hashtag is #ABloomingBunch.
Svetlana of Sotakhandmade has a new video tutorial for her scissor keeper (AKA scissor cozy) pattern. I made a couple of these last year and I think they make great gifts.
Svetlana also has a good video for making the front pocket of a pouch (Devon pouch??). Using the techniques int he video and your own measurements would allow you to add a front pocket to other bags.
Frau Schnitte shows her Yve bag in one of her posts. It is available as a pattern, but only in German.
Articles, Media, Exhibitions and Shows
One of my Spiky Stars blocks has been made into a virtual quilt and is being displayed on the website of the Toledo Museum. By this I mean that my block is one in a sampler quilt virtually stitched together. The website says “nspired by the Toledo Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change, TMA organized a COVID-19 Virtual Quilting Bee in advance of the exhibition opening. Nearly 100 quilt squares were submitted from across the United States. Community members submitted both traditional patterned quilt blocks and those addressing aspects of life amid the current global pandemic, which marks a moment of change and uncertainty on a global scale. Many of the squares were digitally stitched together by The Electric Quilt Co. and can be viewed below.”
Sara of Sew Sweetness has a new video on how to remove rivets.
The New York Times had an article called “What Could Be More Comforting Than a Quilt Coat?” about ‘quilt coats’. Remember wearables from the 1990s? Rachel Clark? This is the second NYT ‘quilt’ article that has annoyed me because it is poorly researched and incomplete.
Barbara Brackman has a short video on the history of her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. The blog post where is read about it talks about the upgrades to Blockbase as well.
Barbara Brackman has post about an exhibit of Women’s Suffrage quilts. My favorite is the ‘Votes for Women’ quilt. Remember Mary Poppins?
The New York Times (you may need a subscription or check your library) had an article about making cloth masks more helpful in keeping away the virus. The main points are:
Fabric, Notions, Supplies, Books & Tools
Sew Tites** are a favorite notion/tool of mine. I find them useful for areas that pins** won’t go through and WonderClips** won’t reach. They have come out with another new version, the Sew Tites Magnum, which is designed for loading quilts onto longarm machines. I am sure they can be used for bags as well. Let me know if you try them on your longarm.
My students and I had a discussion about where we buy fabric, supplies, notions and tools. Carrie talked about My Favorite Quilt Store. After just a quick look, I love it. I haven’t bought anything from them yet, so the eCommerce process might put me off, but we’ll see.
Carrie also mentioned ModernQuilter. This is a great shop as it includes a lot of my favorite prints and designers. Some are similar to what FabricParty has, but in larger cuts.
I am interested in the CriCut since Julie got one and cut out Cotton Candy pouch for me. There was a recent discussion I saw where I heard about the Easy Press. From what I understand, it is like an iron, but presses [interfacing?] various things on to fabric. Looking at the blog post makes it seem like an iron and I wonder if it is necessary if you have an iron or better than an iron?
**I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item 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.
As mentioned, I am an affiliate of Creative Fabrica, the digital marketplace with machine embroidery designs, quilt patterns, fonts and designs. They are currently hosting massive Black Friday promotions and I have signed on. Read about the promotions below!
Get unlimited access to quilt patterns and machine embroidery designs
If you are familiar with Creative Fabrica you might already have heard about their premium All Access Subscription. It gives unlimited access to all digital products on their site: machine embroidery, quilt patterns and other needle craft patterns, plus fonts and graphic designs.
For Black Friday they are offering their premium subscription for just $1 (96% discount) for the first month, and thereafter you pay $19/month (35% off).
90% off on over 1 million designs and patterns
If you aren’t interested in getting Creative Fabrica’s subscription plan, they will also be hosting a site-wide sale with 90% off on 1 million+ products. This is the moment to purchase the fonts and graphics that you have been eyeing all year. It is also possible to purchase the Full POD license with the 90% sale products, so that you can get products that you can use as-is for your print on demand stores.
The sales end on Tuesday, December 1st at midnight PST / 03:00am EST.
**I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item 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 finished two of the exteriors for the Sew Together Bags I am making. I have quilted the third one, but still need to make the embellishments.
I was able to quilt all of them as leaders and enders while sewing together the chunks of FOTY 2019.
The first one shown includes the mini Dresden Plate I talked about the other day. I made the Dresden Plate for class and added it to the exterior. You might think the placement looks weird, but I didn’t want any of it to be cut off. I wanted it to look ‘modern’ as that is an aesthetic the recipient appreciates. I also wanted as much of it as possible to be seen, so I placed it within the seam allowances (fingers crossed) and above the center line. You may be able to see the pins I used to mark the center.
I appliqued it on using straight stitching this time. My center circle is slightly un-circular and I will have to see if I do something about that.
The second one shown is using a simple line of 2.5 inch squares, some of which have been truncated, because of the size required for the bag. I like the 2.5 inch squares I chose. I think t they go well with the green, but the text prints also have happy thoughts.
The quilting on all three is very simple, straight line quilting. I think I have done more quilting this year than in the previous few years. I don’t feel any better about it, but I am not embarrassed by my efforts either.
I want to be clear that mostly I felt like trying out some new things and thanking some friends for being friends, which is why I decided to make these. It’s not like I don’t have 3,000 other projects in process.
My niece received her pillow and sent me a photo of it on her couch. She is in the process of rearranging and refreshing her house. She said the pillow goes very well. I am pleased.
It looks like she could stand a few more cushions. I will keep that in mind as I make other items. 😉
I finished Jawbreaker in mid-October. I sent it off fairly quickly, but it took me awhile to send the pillow form (laziness, disorganization). She sent me a thank you note, but we think the thank you note took a beach vacation, because I received it almost 3 weeks later. My niece is very good about thank you notes.
As mentioned, I am an affiliate of Creative Fabrica. They are having a promotion and I have signed on. Click to access the promotion.
**I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item 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.
After sewing all the pairs together, I really started to pick up speed. I spent a few hours on Saturday and a few more on Sunday making progress. I have about 12 more seams to sew before I finish the top. Yay!
It is still large, but I am always amazed at how much smaller pieces end up as the seam allowances disappear.
I’ll be fortunate to get any sewing in today even though we are only having 4 guests. I’ll let you know tomorrow or this weekend how it all went.
Have a GREAT Thanksgiving!
I finished my large-ish EPP ball and really like the way it came out.
I fussy cut some favorite fabrics and then spent several hours during Craft Night and some guild meetings basting the fabrics and, then, sewing the ball together.
I used the last bits of my bag of fiberfill to stuff it. Normally I would add some Beanie Baby pellets to the stuff to give the ball some weight. However, I plan to give this ball to a 1 year old and I don’t want her breaking a lamp or giving one of her parents a black eye when she throws it.
I think these balls would be fun for people of any age, though the fun could get out of hand at a family event.
**I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item 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.
We will be doing Dresden Plates in class next week (we are off for Thanksgiving, which gives me more time to prep), so I made a mini Dresden Plate. It is a little different from the tutorial I created before. Mostly it is different because I made the ends of the petals pointy rather than round. I might make a short tutorial talking about making pointy petals. We’ll see.
This Dresden Plate is a little larger than 7 inches in diameter. Petals were relatively easy to make. I sort of used the tutorial on the V& Co website, but really I just looked at the sizes and they type of wedge then did my own thing. It could have gone very wrong, but I got lucky. I am going to use this as an applique on a Sew Together Bag I am making.
I made more donation blocks before I started working on the Charming Donation Top.
I am pretty pleased with the colors. I decided that I would try to use the donation blocks in a quilt top. The guild is still keeping up with making quilts, but moving them between people is harder and giving out packages of blocks isn’t working very well. It is easier for the Community Giving team to provide a quilt to be quilted. We’ll see how this works.
I decided to make some Sew Together Bags as gifts. I know I have whined and complained about making them before, but I was reminded how useful they are when I was using my Embroidery Sew Together Bag for Craft Night. I have a couple of friends for whom I want to make something special and these will also be useful.
I know I should be working on the UCAB! I can’t seem to get myself to do it, but I really need to get it done.
I spent the day on Wednesday cutting the pieces. I didn’t get all the way through the fusible nor did I have time to quilt the outside, but I am much farther along than I was before I started.
I didn’t bring the binding fabric, so I have to cut that, but all the other fabric pieces are cut.
Even though it is fiddly, I do want to make a pincushion for each bag. I have added them to all of my Sew Together Bags and I think it is a very useful feature.
One thing I am going to do is to try and embellish the outside. I am going to add a little piecing to the exterior. The pattern, which I have said is basic at best, talks briefly about ’embellishing’ the outside, but doesn’t give specifics. Since I have two Sew Together Bags of my own, I measured the outside of one of them and have an idea of where to place the added piecing. It will look something like the above example.
I read some of my posts again and found that this is a hard project. I have some good advice for myself. I will try to take it. 😉 I know that I will be able to do them relatively quickly.
I am making good progress with FOTY 2019 once the pairs were sewn together. There is a lot of sewing, but the larger the chunks I have to sew, the faster it goes. I am hopeful that I will be done with this soon and can move on.