Hand Quilting BTCT

The past few months of hand quilting have been on projects that I 'had' to get done, and now it's time to pull out my Beyond The Cherry Tree (BTCT).  I saw Lori over at Humble Quilts got another block finished on hers, so this was the nudge I needed to keep mine moving towards finished.

This is all I need to work on this quilt, well, this and time; the elusive element for so many of us.  I use a Roxanne Thimble, the little blue rubber thimble for my pointer finger to help eliminate the stress on my wrist when pulling the needle through, some scissors and the lint brush.  There is always fluff or cat hair or threads that need to be removed.

 I like to load up my spool of thread with a group of needles.  I do this for a few reasons.  The biggest reason it that I can keep track of my needles.  I would hate to loose one on the carpet and then find it with my foot.  The other reason is that it helps me keep my rhythm when stitching. Finish one thread, and just pull off another one.  No need to stop and thread a needle.  I always make sure I end my sessions with the spool loaded up, makes for a fast start the next time I sit down to stitch and I count my needles.

Speaking of spools, my 'go to' hand quilting thread is YLI. It comes on wooden spools and the manufacturer still hasn't realized we need a place to dock or lock our thread.  No worries, a Sharpie and a sharp pocket knife will do the trick.  I just put a little notch in the edge of the spool, and mark it with a dot of Sharpie.  This makes it easy to find the notch when locking the thread.

Here's a picture of my quilt.  Clearly, I have not stayed on task with the quilting as the top was finished in 2012.  My original goal was June of 2015, then it moved to end of 2015 and now I'm thinking end of 2016 is a possibility.  All the blocks have been outlined, and about 2/3 of the border has been outlined.

The 9 center blocks have all the cross hatching completed, but the quilting in the appliqued pieces will wait to the end.  Changing colors will be the last part of the quilting. 

 However, most of the outside round of blocks, 18 in total,  look like this.  Random lines of cross hatching have been stitched, but most blocks are a few hours away from each being finished.  I got a bit done on the weekend.  It's the perfect break from my longarm machine.  Just getting this quilt out and back on the couch is enough to keep me motivated. 

This is definitely my 'best quilt' to date, and I hope I can keep focused on it in 2016 and find those few minutes here and there to keep rocking the needle on this treasure. 

Keep stitching,
Sharon

The Last Quilt

I know you all know this isn't the last quilt I will make. It is the last family quilt that I have left to do. My nephew has patiently waited, has never asked when his quilt will be done, and to be honest, he's a guy and has probably no memory or idea that I would be making him his own quilt. But it's almost done.

The only decision I let any of them make was color. Seriously, letting a non quilter pick out a pattern for their own quilt would be painful on it's own, but imagine if they picked a Cathedral Windows, or Double Wedding Ring, or, or, or.... You get my point. I love this pattern, Blooming Pineapples from Bonnie Hunter. I've made it a lot. It's the pattern on my bed, I've done table runners, it's been gifted to my friend, to my other nephew,  it's just a perfect block to use up fabrics in one color and it's a block you can pick up and work on without twisting your brain on how it goes together. And you get bonus 1/2 sq. triangles. This is what I now have,   240 + blocks  all trimmed up to 2 1/2".

And I have this; a stack of 64 finished blocks, all ready for the design wall. The great thing about this pattern is the lay out options.

I could do this, all the cream marching in one direction.

Or this, I love the 4 cream triangles coming together for a scrappy square.

Or I could set the blocks on pint and find a print for setting triangles, or used cream scrappy triangles.

Or a zig zag setting.  This one might look better with more blocks up on the wall. Squint :)

But for now, this is all in a box, waiting to go on retreat with me.  My goal is not to finish any one top, but to use the huge design wall for the layouts, pin my rows in stacks and mark them all for assembly back in my studio. 

And I even have a starter kit for the next green/cream mock pineapple quilt. 

Do you have a "go to" pattern when you are making quilts that will possibly end up on a camping trip?

Keep stitching,
Sharon

A New Year, A New Finish

December it the time of year I get excited about starting new Christmas projects and always say they are for next year. I enjoy working on something of the season and so I did some red work stitching during my vacation the beginning of December. It was all hands on deck once I returned, getting all the customer quilts quilted and back to them in time to bind and gift out on the 25th. I had decided if quilts weren't required for Christmas, then I would take the few days between the 25th and the 1st to clean up and regroup in my studio.

December 26th: I enter the studio with clear intentions, start cleaning and work on this green scrappy pile of strips and blocks that have grown roots beside my machine. It's JUST time to get these blocks done so I can gift out my last family quilt.

December 26, later that day:
In the clean up/pick up process, I find this pattern, border strips and squares all piled together on top of my Christmas fabric drawer and I pick it up. (big mistake)

December 27th:  Oh I'll just cut a few scraps and do a few corners to make the faces of these cute snowmen.  No, I didn't save these tiny off cuts.  Now that's just too small for me and remember, I'm cleaning up my studio and working on the green pineapple blocks.

OK, so you can see a few FG to the left.  Thought I'd test out the holly print for the background.

And once I got the snowball blocks all pieced, I thought I'd see what they look like on my design wall.  No time like the present to get them stitched together, right?

And while I'm at it, might as well make a few more FG blocks.  I love the  Elanor Burns method, it's perfect for something like this project.  All the outsides are the same and the centers are scrappy.

I only needed 78, so what the heck, just get them done.  A little trimming and the FG are perfect!

December 31: Well, might as well get the whole thing put together, quilted, machine sew buttons on for eyes, use some wool for the noses and a few sets of eyes.  All this just adds to the quilting as they were done after it was quilted and bound.  I stitched out an eye on one of the faces, just to make them individual and a little quirky.

January 8th: Stitch out the text around the inner border, using red Aurifil color 2260 in 28 wt.  It's my go to red thread for any type of red work stitching.

Oh, and I did get the drawer of Christmas fabric organized, tidied up and all put away.  That's what I started to do, right?

So who else worked on Christmas projects after Christmas?  According to IG, I wasn't the only one.  Now its back to the longarm and customer quilts for January. 

Pop by later this week to see what happened to the green blocks!

Happy New Year,
Sharon

Then and Now

It's great to look back at quilts of days gone by.  I recently took some time to refold and reorganize my stack of quilts that reside in my spare room.  After looking at a few of them, I decided to snap a few pictures of this one and blog about it. 

This is a Blooming' 9 Patch and it came to fruition after my first visit to Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  I went with a non quilter and after we were on quilt overload, we headed out of town to find our car parked way down the road into Sisters.  I stopped to take a final glace at the town, and saw a Blooming 9 patch done up in blues.  I was drawn to it like a magnet.

After pondering how this was put together, another viewer pointed out the corner and showed me how it was pieced.  I was captivated by this organized chaos.  We continued to our car, and headed back to the I-5 via Salem.  That required a stop at Greenbaums.  The doors were being locked as the last few customers left and I was 1/2 way down the block when my gf mentioned she saw the book that this blue quilt was in.  I hurried back, knocked on the door and made my final purchase of the day.

I love this quilt, although I don't decorate with pink and am not really drawn to this color.  Now that it's been many years, I looked at this with different eyes last week.  I love how I made it go from light to dark and back to medium values, that was not planned. Here's where I would change it up, I used a gingham check after the center toile, and it lacks the movement of the rest of the fabrics.  That's truly the only change I would make after all these years. 

It was interesting to look at this in a new light.  We evolve and our tastes change, but to still love something after moving to a whole new genre of quilting and fabrics is surprising and it makes me smile!
Keep stitching,
Sharon 
#grassrootsquilting on Instagram

Just Face It!

It was time to put one of my own designs onto the longarm and I wanted to cross hatch the whole piece.  Not a problem except the blocks were 20" and I would have WAY to many stops and starts in the middle of open spaces.  After some discussion with my gal pal  about loading the quilt 'on point' and then doing the stitching straight across I decided to do a test run on a smaller piece.

I started by lining up the center of the quilt top from left to right to make sure the center row of stitching would go directly across the top, then I stitched the rows up towards the top point. After that, I rolled to the center and stitched the bottom half.

The one discovery was that I should have used a full piece of batting instead of putting the batting on  point like the quilt. When I rolled the piece, it was funky. Lesson #1 learned.

After turning the quilt, I had to line up the piece so I had an exact straight line again, left to right. Lesson #2 learned. This seemed easy in theory, however there was a bit of fussing involved.

Since this was a test piece, I figured I'd keep on testing and for the first time, I faced one of my pieces.  I have another piece waiting in the wings that a binding would not do it justice, so here is my first attempt at facing a quilted piece.
Lesson #3 was clipping and grading the seams in the corners to get a good turn. 

It pays to have a small test piece when you want to try out new techniques. After all this, my original piece did not get cross hatched, nor did it get faced. But this piece got finished, almost by default and I call that a win! One more finish from the sewing room. Yeah for me!

Keep on stitching,
Sharon

Three Long Weeks

No, it's been longer than that since I last posted.  Three weeks is how long it took me to do this.

Yes, this book sat on my counter for three weeks before I finally unwrapped the cellophane cover.  I wanted to make sure I had the time to sit and soak up  all the info at the beginning of this book. It did not disappoint.

I know others have posted about this book, but seriously, I cannot imagine a quilter not loving this book.  When I think of two color quilts, immediately Red and White is what has always come to my mind.  I know there are other great two color quilts, but really, this book has quilts that will give you goose bumps.

Although it's been over 4 years since the show, opening up the book brought me right back to standing in a crowded foyer at the Armories, waiting for the doors to open. And when they did, the sight literally brought tears to my eyes. I had the same emotion when I opened up this book and flipped through the pages. I have only casually pursued the photos, but saw enough to know that this book will be a go to for years to come. When I came across the page with my favorite quilt, (I know, how could you pick just one out of 653) I told my guy, "That quilt was hanging up on the back wall, I can close my eyes and see it right now." And sure enough, when I searched out the photos of the room, there it was, hanging up on the back wall!

Maybe one day I'll recreate it, but until then, I have my memories and the book!

Keep stitching,
Sharon

The Process of...............

This is a shout out to local quilter's in the Bellingham, WA area.  There has been a last minute opening in my 6 month workshop called, The Process Of...............

This came about after meeting with quilter's for 12 months during our What Not's Demo Days.  Some of the members wanted to continue to meet and learn or brush up on techniques.  These workshops will run the first Sat of the month for 6 months, and it's very affordable.  Only $15 per month with a 6 month commitment.

During the first month we will be discussing and learning the process of drafting out blocks, changing their size, drafting out your own quilt pattern and learning how to make templates from these drawings.  Before we wrap up the  2 hour class, the members will put out their wants, needs, and goals of the workshop.  Those ideas will be the building blocks of the future meetings.

I am a process teacher, I want you to learn how to make good blocks, so your quilt will be flat, straight, and square (or rectangle *vbg*).  The blocks you create in the workshop will all be your own choice, and at the end you will have some great pieces to put into your own original quilt or use as samples for future projects.  I've done this workshop before with a commercial pattern and the feedback from quilter's was wonderful.  One student emailed and told me she has never had her blocks go together so well as those from our workshop.  Yeah to that !!!

OK, if you are local, come on, join in the fun.  We will meet 1st Sat of the month, starting in October.  Class is 10:30 - 12:30 at Fabric Etc. in Bellingham , WA.   Click the link and give Carol a shout if you are interested in this great class.

Thanks,
Sharon