I finished the Cha3 table runner pretty quickly. It is already on my buffet, replacing the Red Text table runner I made during the Journey to Nebula. I was getting sick of looking at it.
I realized that I really didn’t follow the directions very well. I explained a little about why in a previous post, but I also could have made the edges of the center a little more wonky. I have more of the squares from the charm pack and maybe I have enough to do that. We’ll see.
Cha Cha Cha Table Runner Finished-detail
I even quilted it myself. The quilting isn’t as good as Tim’s or Colleen’s, but I am happy with it.
I had to unbaste it, because my first attempt was terrible. The second time was better. Lesson: use masking tape not painter’s tape.
The other day I talked about changing out one of the colors. The fabric I will use is show here.
I was pleased that I was able to find it as soon as I went looking for it. I could do without the crosses, but I don’t sincerely dislike them. For a green, I really like the color.
Green fight: AGF vs. Free Spirit
Before I absolutely decided to use it, I compared it with some of the other fabrics. First, I wanted to see how close it was to the green solid Pink Door sent.
Look at them together, even with the issues of color on screens, you can see that they are not at all alike. The AGF is a lot brighter and clearer. NO brown undertones (sorry, Marty!). It is also not so busy that it would act differently in the La Pass pieces.
Greens get along: AGF vs. Free Spirit
After I saw it with the solid, I wanted to see it with the green mineral fabric to make sure it wasn’t too close to that one either.
I think they are both in the emerald family, but the mineral print has a touch more yellow while the AGF has a touch more blue.
I talked about this quilt after I put the design walls back up. I haven’t made all the colors in the rainbow for the Color Strip & Chunk donation quilts, but I have made several. I thought the rainbow quilt would be the crowning glory, but the reality is that I have a lot of stuff on my small design wall and I want it gone or finished. The blocks that were hanging around are now having their turn.
Over last weekend I starting making more strip blocks as I was working on the Cha3 table runner and the Missouri Star donation top. I made a couple of black blocks, the purple blocks you see and that one red-violet block. I am not working on more greys, thought I don’t know if I will need them. I need some green and yellow blocks as well.
The day after I finished La Pass M8, Month 9 arrived. More green.
I am still in awe of the way Pink Door gets these out every month.
La Pass Month 9 fabrics
The fabrics are nicer than last month’s fabrics – brighter, more clear, not as dull. I am replacing the solid with a more emerald color. I just don’t like that solid green. It reminds me of camouflage, the military and the less of that I have to think about right now the better. My only concern is that it will be too close to the mineral green (top center). The fabric I will use is from Art Gallery. It is the perfect color.
Yellow Improv Donation Top & Back – finished February 2022
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
The circle quilt is on the design wall waiting for what comes next
Small Projects to Make or in Process
Most of my progress involves thinking or just cutting.
One Hour Basket for my stuff that tends to accumulate on the dining room table. I may switch to one of the Minikins projects or a Catch All Caddy for this purpose.
One Hour Basket for DH’s stuff that tends to accumulate on the dining room table. I may switch the pattern to one of the Minikins projects for this purpose.
Retreat Organizer – another project from the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club, also on my list, but not yet started. Recently, I saw one of these made up and I am not so nervous about it
Superbloom tote using Hindsight fabric – not started
Ultimate Project Organizer – another project from the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club, also on my list, but not yet started
Westchester shirt – this is a Crafty Gemini pattern. I bought the fabric at PIQF in 2018. I have the pattern pieces cut out and ready to sew. I was held up by the supply list which wanted a Jersey needle. SIL #2 and Mary C said that a regular knit needle was fine. We may start a garment sewing group in the guild. I could use the support.
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.
English Paper Piecing Project– half hexies – I worked on this a little at the guild meeting as it is easier to transport than La Pass.
La Passacaglia – I am up to date on this project and waiting for Month 7 to arrive.
Ready for Quilting
Nothing at the moment
In the Quilting Process
BAMQG Improv Round Robin – I am ripping out the quilting so I can send this quilt to Colleen. I like the look of Big Stitch, but I have enough handwork and wasn’t enjoying working on it. I am kind of shocked at how much I got done. I do feel some regret at ripping out what I have done.
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.
Handbag Sampler – this is still the forgotten project. It should be on the UFO list. The blocks were teaching samples when I taught a sampler class some time before I started writing the quilt class sampler tutorials. I found one block recently, but otherwise I don’t actually know exactly where the blocks are hiding. I crawled up in the far reaches of my fabric closet to see if I could find them and they weren’t where I thought. I am sort of mystified as to where they could be. I haven’t even found a picture of all the blocks. WTH?
Lobster – I think I might make this into a tablerunner for the buffet. I think that will be a good and fun use of the piece even if the colors aren’t quite right for the dining room.
Pies and Points from 2016 Victoria Findlay Wolfe class. The last time I worked on it was when Julie and I had a playdate in April 2018. I brought this piece with me so I could cut more elements (Julie has a Sizzix). I lost my excitement about this piece shortly thereafter, but I am ready to work on it as soon as I get my design walls back up.
Pointillist Palette #4: Fourth is a series of 6 quilts; needs tiny square patches sewn together. No progress.
Serendipity Lady – I am still planning to take this piece to be framed. It might need a bit of quilting first.
Who Am I? – This piece is still languishing. Perhaps having a larger design wall will help me regain momentum. The amount of satin stitching I was facing was a problem until I thought of BIAS TAPE. I am going to make the words with bias tape, perhaps different widths, then I won’t have to satin stitch everything. Red Scribbles and Friend Julie helped me come up with this solution. Now I just have to do it!
Valerie has a fantastic sunflower block (quiltlet?) on her blog. It very cleverly uses Drunkard’s Path units to make up the design. This would be a very effective and not difficult design to make. I wonder if I could make it larger? Or with more sunflowers? Great job, Valerie! PS Valerie has an Etsy shop where she sells some of her quilts.
Electric Quilt IG post
The Electric Quilt Company posted this wise advice. It is a good reminder for non-quiltmaker family members that not every minute is a good one to complain to Mom/Sis/Auntie.
Because I have no will power I bought the Kit Supply Tote pattern by Aneela Hoey. Have I made it yet? No. The link is to Aneela’s site, but I bought it from the Fat Quarter Shop. Although I prefer paper patterns, I bought the PDF downloadable version as that was all they offered.
Mary C is doing the Glitter Ball BOM. I took a look at the site and this is a really cool looking quilt! Quite different from other BOMs. More like a row quilt.
Tools, Books, Fabric, Notions & Supplies
I found a shop called Flying Bulldogs. They have great fabrics including some older Martha Negleys. Not the mixed vegetable fabric with the black background, but some nice ones. Really excellent prices, too – $8.00/yard for many prints. I should make sure they are not based overseas as shipping would kill me. They have Joel Dewberry prints, which I haven’t seen anywhere in awhile.
Molly was machine quilting a doll quilt. She has some trouble opening and closing regular safety pins so she was using straight pins and Pinmoors. Pinmoors are bits of foam you put on the ends of pins to keep them from scratching you while the pins are in the quilt. Really great idea! This happens to me all the time. I almost bought some the other day, but decided to wait until my next order.
If you buy a lot of vinyl and are now addicted to glitter and star vinyl, check out Sew Hungry Hippie’s VIP Membership. It’s $5/month and you get a variety of discounts. Click the link to check out all of the benefits.
I do love Sew Sweetness, but I am always on the lookout for other bag hardware purveyors. I found, somehow, Idleblooms. The look and feel is cheerful and they have a variety of interesting bag hardware:
castle zipper pulls
Hogwarts zipper pulls
teacup zipper pulls
zippers with different coil colors
all sorts of webbing
made bags
Take a look when you need some bag hardware
Tutorials, Articles and Other Information
Remember my zipper head tutorial? Natalie from Sew Hungry Hippie has a video version. She uses a jig, which I believe she sells. You can also use the towel holder I use or a fork. Check my tutorial for more info and other tutorials.
Inspiration
Remember all those merit badges I sewed on to the YM’s sash for Boy Scouts? I have a few by Moda, too, but I can’t find a photo at the moment. I came across merit badges for adults**. These could provide impetus for you or someone else to get things done. Also, who doesn’t want a merit badge for doing something you have to do anyway?
I found a talk from some academics on contemporary quiltmaking. You’ll have to tell me how it is as I haven’t had a chance to listen.
**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops. However, 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 still making a few of the regular guild donation blocks. I have started work on the next Color Strip Donation top to go with the others. The HST 9 Patch is made from leftovers from the HST Star quilt top. It is larger than the other blocks – 12.5×12.5 rather than 8×8. Peggy said she would do something with it.
I made good progress over the weekend on the Cha Cha Cha table runner. That name is a pain to type so when you see Cha3 you will know what I mean!
It looks a little static. I probably should have used the black for those small 1.5″ strips instead of using more of the colors. I still like it and think it will be a cheerful addition to my table runner collection.
Remember a few months ago when I tried out a Missouri Star block that I had seen on their weekly show?
I like this block, but I did not enjoy making it. I has been hanging on my design wall for months and I wanted to do something with it. For a few weeks I have been thinking of adding another round of star points and making it into a donation top. Over the weekend I did that.
Missouri Star donation top
I used my Triangle Technique to make HSTs. While this is a great chart, and covers the most used sizes, it doesn’t go up to making 8″ (and larger) units. I guessed about the starting sizes and was a little bit off.
I had to add a little strip to each HST to make them fit. It is not super noticeable and will be fine for a community quilt. Lesson learned.
Another month of La Pass is finished. This was a lot of pieces, but I powered through and I am really happy I was able to keep up especially in light of my trip to Portland.
It was kind of a hassle to haul this giant piece across states, but it was also good for me to have some sewing to do while I was away. It was a little of a stressful trip and sewing always helps me relax.
I ended up buying the pattern for the Cha Cha Cha table runner. Aside from wanting to support independent designers, I didn’t want to spend time trying to figure out how to make the table runner with the required supplies.
After reading the directions, I decided to make it a different way. Mostly I am not cutting the border up into a 100 pieces. I will put it on in long pieces so as not to break up the motifs of the fabric design.
Cha Cha Cha Table Runner skewed
What that means is that instead of cutting 100 border pieces I cut only the pieces I need to fill in the gaps when I skew the lines of pieces, then I will cut longer pieces for the border. I haven’t cut the borders yet.
I did all of the cutting after work and before dinner. I wanted to be ready to sew today. I will cut the border pieces when I am ready for them. I am also still fiddling with the layout of the fabrics.
The fabrics are Birthday by Sarah Watts of Ruby Star Society. There are some dots I am tempted to buy more of for future projects. I’ll try to use up my other favorite dots first.
Before I went to Portland last week, I finished a bunch of half hexie stars. I think La Pass is good for the other EPP project.
These are pretty cheerful. The purple one in the upper right hand corner is a Tilda print I bought at Calico Creations in Mt Vernon last year. Don’t you love the way the flowers came together in the center?
I was fortunate that Amanda had some free time and we were able to hang out a little. Of course, we went to quilt shops. I didn’t have a whole day to spend as I was working while I traveled.
Pioneer Quilt Shop – Creepy View
We definitely made time to visit Pioneer Quilts again. I wrote about it a little while ago. The shop had refreshed fabrics and had moved some things around in the lobby area, but was otherwise the same great shop. I looked for ideas for the wool felt I bought last time. I refrained from buying more wool felt, though I was tempted.
I saw some pincushions I could make and also some table runners, though they used black as a background (patterns from Primitive Gatherings). I don’t want something that dark or folk-arty, which is why I was thinking of buying some wool felt yardage. I didn’t as I got the idea to cut overlapping ovals (or another another shape) from what I have and putting them together to make a table runner for the buffet. I’ll check the wool felt I have at home and see if I can make something large enough with the wool felt I have.
Pioneer Quilts door handles
Pioneer Quilts door handles – detail
I never noticed the door handles before, but they were beautiful. I took a picture thinking that I might be able to use some or all of the design for something.
Pioneer Quilts purchases 2022
I also bought a few things, including a new Yoko Saito bag book. The shapes of her bags are amazing! Look at that one on the cover! The ribbon is another Renaissance Ribbon that I hope to use the ribbon on another bag soon. Pioneer Quilts was the first place I saw that type of ribbon in person.
The pinks on the bottom right might be great for the Friesian Pouch with those great pink zippers, especially the circles. I have some of that fabric in a different colorway. I haven’t seen that colorway before.
Pioneer Quilt Shop
3101 SE Courtney
Portland, OR 97222
503.654.1555
info@pioneerquiltshop.com
We stayed with Mary in Ashland overnight on our way to Portland. This area is a quilt shop mecca, but I want to use fabric not buy much more, so I had to balance my love of quilt shops and quilt shopping with my bursting fabric closet.
Green’s – Bags with patterns
Mary directed us to Green’s Sew & Vac, which is a sewing machine and vacuum sales & repair shop with a HUGE selection of bag supplies and 2000 bolts of fabric. They had one of the best selections of bag making supplies I have seen. They also had bags made up – A LOT OF BAGS – and hanging near the patterns, so shoppers could see what the bag looked like and how big it would be. I liked this store even before I talked to Vickie, the owner/operator of the part of the store where the bag making supplies lived.
Green’s – from left to right
I didn’t pay much attention to the machines, but I saw Janome, Babylock, and Bernina for sale. I think that one in the front is a M7 Continental. I am still enamored of that machine, but can’t buy it now. There was also a whole room of vacuums, which I didn’t explore.
Accuquilt display
The shop has so many different aspects. The first thing I saw was a 70% off sale of Accuquilt. You bet I looked at what they had. One thing they that I would have bought in a second was a die for a bowl cozies. I still want to make bowl cozies as gifts for DH’s cousins. Sadly, it was only for the Accuquilt Big not the Accuquilt Go!**, which I have. I might have been tempted to buy an Accuquilt Big, but they didn’t have one. Probably a good thing. I don’t have anywhere to store it at the moment.
Green’s fabrics
In terms of fabric, they had a good selection of quilt fabrics, but also more canvas and heavier weight fabrics like canvas than I have seen at other stores. I didn’t see any of the Echino canvas like I bought in Ashland at Sew Creative last year.
They don’t consider themselves a quilt store, which Vickie made clear to me. They consider themselves to be a bag making store. I think that is a good business model as there aren’t a lot of stores that specialize in bags. They had a lot of quilt-adjacent supplies and the fabrics could, mostly, be used for quilts as well as bags and other projects.
One thing I saw was a lot of embroidery supplies: Kimberbell**, thread, interfacing and things on which to embroider such as tea towels. I didn’t recognize the interfacing brand and I wasn’t in the market so I didn’t investigate.
Bag making supplies
Some of the bag making brands available were Sallie Tomato, Emmaline and ByAnnie. I haven’t actually seen Emmaline in person before, so that was a mini-thrill. The shop carried a lot of hardware, much of it I had never seen in person. I was thrilled with what I saw and wanted to buy everything.As you know, I like online shopping, but there is something special about seeing bag hardware (and fabric) in person.
They have just started this part of the venture, Vickie said, so are adding supplies slowly.
One of the bonuses at this shop was their YouTube page where Vickie has a live session, called “How Vickie Does It”, every Thursday. She told me that she focuses on bag making in these sessions.
Green’s purchases
I bought a couple of things. I am not going to embroider on the tea towels. I am just going to use them in my kitchen. They are perfect for my decor.
I bought the small triangular pieces. Sadly they didn’t have the corresponding lobster clips.
Green’s Sewing & Vacuum Center
1017 Knutson Ave., Medford, OR
Tel: (541) 779-3411
https://greensdirect.com/
https://readysetsewclasses.com/
No masks required
**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops. However, 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.
