Hand Quilting

After a week of machine quilting, I needed a break.  Don't get me wrong I love machine quilting, sometimes a change of pace is needed.  Today I sat down with a cup of coffee and had myself a nice long hand quilting session.

 I am still trying to finish up my Modern Medallion.  After today's work I have only 1 side left to hand quilt before I can bind her up!  I am really enjoying the slow, quiet peace that hand quilting brings.

With the windows open and the birds busily chirping a slow song, it is a nice change of pace from the hustle and bustle of a week with 3 kids.  I seldom have time just to sit and take me time.

 There is always the pull of things needing to be finished, but just for today those things will have to wait.  I'm hand quilting today.

Just Hangin'

This weekend everyone had long term projects they were working on.  M had the typical high school assignments papers, tests and quizzes.  J had a spanish assignment and E had a power point for English.  Therefore I felt absolutely no guilt at working on a couple of my long-term projects (aka. UFO's).  

It was a wonderful feeling to be back sewing and working with fabric.  Being sick this fall I haven't had much opportunity to work on quilting at all.  Truthfully I haven't felt like it.  At one point  I contemplated selling all of my quilting things!  Now that is sick!

I finished up this Star blossom from my summer foray into paper piecing.   It was a quick finish with almost immediate results! John and I just had to staple the finished project onto a canvas.

This was my second finish.  I have been working on this since February!  Well, not continuously.  I bound the quilt, sewed on my rod pocket AND hung it! (talk about an accomplishment).

Quilting patterns

It dawned on me about 2 weeks ago that I had quilted in several months! Granted I had been using my new Handstitched skills to 'quilt' but I had not used my long-arm machine.  The layer of dust covering the machine was my first clue.  The second clue was the layer of things, most of which did not belong to me, that had built up on my quilting table.  Why must every flat surface announce "Please drop everything on me!" Ultimately, I took down my color wheel quilt, loaded it on the machine and got to work.

You might remember this quilt from the Curves Class I took back in February.  (really, was it that long ago?)  sigh.  I had the quilt top finished, the backing cut and even a piece of batting ready to go.  Then the poor thing hung on my "to be Quilted" rack for months.

Such an extended period of time has elapsed that I can't even tell you what got in my way.  Life.  I guess.

Bound and determined to get this baby quilted and hung up on the wall I went to work.  I quilted the background in three colors of gray, ranging from light to dark on the corresponding light, medium and dark areas of the background.  I divided the background area up into wedges by simply extending the wedges from the color blocks.  Within each wedge area I quilted wavy lines, alternating between horizontal and vertical.

Within the center of the quilt I used the pebbles quilting design.  Then I got a little crazy.  I tried something new.  I used my long-arm machine to baste the color wheel.  (gasp!) I then took the quilt off of the machine and starting using my table top sewing machine to quilt the individual color wedges.  (totally out of Control!)

I have 4 wedges quilted with different straight line designs.  Now, what I cannot decide is should I repeat the designs I have or try to make a new design for each wedge?  Or should I only quilt every other wedge.  I have to admit I am leaning towards this idea because it means less quilting time but also because it gives the quilt depth bringing some wedges forward and pulling others back with the dense quilting.

When I am finished I hope to hang the quilt on this wall. This series of wooden wall art has been "hanging around" our house longer than I can remember.  Truthfully I am tired of looking at it.  That and tired of straightening the four individual pieces every time I walk by.

curvy composition

Once again I have finished up another teacher journal.  This journal is a bit different than the rest.  For this next journal I wanted to create my own design.  Since it is to be given to Jack and Emma's Piano teacher, I decided A Grand Piano was in order. After looking at pictures of Grand Pianos I drew the basic shape I wanted.  I started with the basic curve shape from Rachel's Mod Bud Journal pattern. The next section of the piano had yet another curve learned from my Curves Class, an improv curve.  I added this section to the first.  Next I added a basic rectangle to finish out the piano body.  Having purchased musical fabric back in February, I fussy cut off a key board and added this to the piano body. After finishing off the back with some additional musical fabric, I added the journal (aka. composition notebook)  and TA-DA!

What a masterpiece!  LOL.  Yes, my points are a bit off and perhaps the keys are exactly the way they should be,but the piano is pretty cool.  I am so happy that I was able to take my new skills and blend them harmoniously into a new curvy composition of my own.

Journal Covers--A curves project

A Blog is a type of journal, a very public view of the thoughts, ideas and feelings that are floating around in your head and through your life.  There is lots of debate among bloggers about the amount of information the writer should openly share.  I'll admit, while I do post quite a bit of personal information, I do consider how much I share.  The internet does make it all to easy for information to get into the wrong hands.

For that reason there is just no replacement for the good ol' fashion journal. While many journals are sold with fancy leather, cloth or decorated covers, some are as simple as a wire bound notebook or an inexpensive composition book.

My latest curves class solved the problem of an inexpensive journal with The Mod Bud Journal. (yes, another curves project.  There are far to many cute projects in this class to even think about leaving one out!)  With the end of the school year coming just 4 weeks away, (how did that happen?) I thought this would be a wonderful gift for the teachers.

I have been making end of the year teacher gifts for at least 4 years now and I think this is a great way to let the teachers know just how much you appreciate them. Nothing says "thank you" like a personally made gift. I made up four journal covers with fabric I already had in my stash.  (Love when that happens!)

I tried to pick fabrics that represented the subjects that the particular teacher taught.  (ie. music for the band teacher, geometry fabric for the math teacher.)  Each flower turned out just slightly different that the others, with makes them look personalized as well.  I am hoping that they will be well used and hold up through the rigors of Middle School teaching.

rolling right along

My wheel quilt is rolling along quite nicely. When I saw this quilt pattern I immediately thought Color Wheel.   Last week I showed you pictures of how I sorted out my fabrics into group. Once I decide upon the colors I knew I wanted to arrange them into a color wheel.

It took several attempts to get the configuration to look like the picture in my head.  Adding, Black, Brown,  Tan and Gray wedges through an unanticipated wrench into my pattern.  Moving the pieces around only added to my frustration.  Eventually, I did settle on an arrangement.

Next I moved onto the background.  The original pattern picture shows the background done with 4 different quarters in blacks and whites. You can view it Here through this link or over at Stitched in Color.  Rachel set the bar pretty high with her design, making it difficult for me.  I thought the black and white were very complementary to her wheel and I wanted to keep with that feeling, without coping it.

I searched for days trying to find the right background color.  Then I remembered the gradating black, tan, brown and turquoise fabric I purchased on clearance months, maybe years ago. BINGO!

This was the perfect background!  I played around again with the configuration of the wedges.  Having black in the wheel and in the background made it a little tricky.  Once I sliced the background into quarters it made the process a lot easier.

Now I just have to decide should it hand this way,

 this way or

 this way?

Another Curves Project

Look at me!  I am just cruising right along. Less than one month after the curves class, only 5 days less than one month, I am finishing up another project.  This was one I was psyched to get started on!  This is the Slices Mat from Stitched in Color.  I love it when quilts can be used as things other than bed coverings.  This mat is just slightly larger than 20 X 30,  the perfect size for Kitchen or Bath.  Mine will have a permanent place in my kitchen, at least for now.

I used the rest of this beautiful fabric that I had left over from my Laundry Bag project.  I wanted the large print pattern to be, some what continuous, so I cut out my fabric length wise instead of across the width.  Even with the seams I didn't loose too much of the pattern.  I added the teal, turquoise sold for the leaf shapes.  Both Kona, though I don't know the exact shades.  Sorry. The border fabric is a stripe I acquired somewhere along the way, but it matches so nicely.  The Olive Green backing again, Kona.

Only the middle leaf gave me trouble.  Don't look to closely. Okay?  I think I pulled just a tad to hard and stretched my fabric beyond its normal limits.  I trimmed it up nicely, but then, sadly my points refused to match.  Sigh.

I quilted this with basic straight lines on my home sewing machine.  Somehow I got it in my head that this would be quicker than quilting it on my long-arm machine.  Unfortunately, it was not. I used the wrap around binding.  I have only used this method once before, with a hand quilted piece.

I couldn't be more pleased with how well this turned out.  I really love this cures class and I am learning lots.  Not only that but that projects are beautiful and the directions are well written.  Stitched in color will be offering the Curves Class again sometime within the next year.  I highly recommend it!  Seasoned Quilter or Beginner, you can learn a less painful way to put curves into your projects.  Here is the link if you would like an email update for the new class time and date.  Happy Piecing.

This week along with finishing a t-shirt quilt and attending the Constitutional Convention, I was able to get one more Curves Class project checked off my list.  This beautiful Orange peel Pillow was a testament to patience.  More than once I had to make myself walk away.  If I didn't I was sure to keep sewing into the wee hours of the morning.  Those who know me will attest to the fact that nights are not my best time. I get sleep, then sloppy and then mistakes, often big mistakes happen.  As a self proclaimed type A person leaving projects unfinished drives me insane, so walking away was so HARD.  I am glad I did because the results are well worth the time and patience.  

I am much happier with this result than I was with the scallop quilt.  I contribute this to taking my time and slowing down.  Curves are hard enough on their own.  I certainly don't need to make it worse by being tired and sloppy.  I used the same fabric selection I chose for The Clamshell Pillow, making them a very cute unmatched, matched set. Don't you think?

  I still need to run into the store and pick up some buttons to finish off the back.  The pins work but they are painful to sit on. :)

The only real problem I ran into was that I picked up the wrong size pillow form.  A sad case of 1. not making a list and 2. not reading the directions clearly.  I had to make a few modifications to the border and curve my points to make the form I did purchase work.  I'll admit I could have exchanged it but I just didn't need one more thing to do and I was so excited to finish!

picture this

Okay, my life has finally calmed down enough to up load some pictures of things I have been working on.  I told you about the scallop quilt in the last post, with promises of pictures.  Well here it is! 

My scallops are much less than perfect, so much so that this is as close as you are getting to the points on this quilt.  I used a print for the focus fabric, not liking it so much.  Next time I will definitely be using all solids.

Scallop Quilt

I have been working on this Twin bed t-shirt quilt for a client for the last 3 weeks, minus of course healing time for my hand injury. Which is healing, slowly, very slowly.  I won't bore you will all of the details but keeping in mind my past history of illness, we'll just say it didn't go as planed.

TA-DA!

Just finished quilting

back of t-shirt quilt.

Finally, I am getting back to working on the quilts from the final two weeks of curves class.  Assuming I am able to keep all of my digits, I should be finished with those projects by mid-may. :)

Somewhere over the Rainbow Road

Well here it is my finished Rainbow Road Quilt!  I love this project.  It was fun (and quite frustrating at times).  My curves are not as curvy as I would have liked.  But that is why I took this class, to work on my curves, right?  Even though I have been quilting for 10 years (can that be right?) the Curves class is really eye opening.

 I have learned so many new things.  It is wonderfully refreshing to have a new take on putting together blocks, piecing, quilting and even binding my quilts. I increased the length of my Rainbow Road Table Runner to extend over the edge of my Dining room table.  I also left the edges curvy.   The long length of the quilt emphasizes the curvy edge.  Unfortunately, the curvy edge requires a bias binding, which I didn't remember until I saw my edges curling up.  Now my quilt curves everywhere! To add extra curve I quilted a Feather Filler from Leah Day's Second book From Feathers to Flames.

I also managed to finish up my Drunkard's Path trivet.  What a cute little project!

This week I have been swamped, so I am getting rather behind on my class.  There are so many awesome projects that I am inspired to create!  Just so little time.

Pieces

This week came in went in pieces, at least those that I remember.  I know I cut fabric into many, many pieces.  I also picked up lots of pieces.  (Most of these being pieces of other people's clothing.) I even sewed together a few pieces.  Thankfully, I am not falling to pieces, yet.  It does appear as though this week will remain in pieces (That's what I get when I brag about getting sewing done on the weekend).  Apparently these projects can only be completed next week.  Here are a few of the pieces I have laying around my sewing room.

rainbow road strips

Pieces of my Rainbow Road Quilt for the Stitched in Color online course.

Front

back

Pieces of my Drunkards Path trivet (also a Stitched in Color project)

Pieces of my Irish Chain Quilt laid out to admire.  Ah well, maybe next week I'll be picking up the pieces and making completed objects.