A quilters quarterly report....

OK, no judging please, it has been one heck of a quarter! I have only managed to post twice in March and have not even finished any Zentangle challenges, although I started many. Sad, I know, but at least one of the things keeping me busy during that time was a quilt. It wasn't on the UFO list, unfortunately, but I started it in mid February and finished top and back last week at it is at the long arm quilters until mid to late April. Other than that I did get some things on my list done or at least worked on.

First on the list was to border the crumb quilt. DONE! We won't talk about that no back has been made and no quilting has been done... The goal was to get the border finished and I did! Go me.

Second on the list was to make a backing and quilt the Winter's Winning Hand. PART done. I made the backing... a sort of mish mash of leftover parts and some Gingerbread Man fabric that seemed appropriate but wasn't big enough. I never got around to the quilting part so technically not a finish although progress was made.

backing for the wreath

Third on the list was to quilt the Holiday Wreath. I made the backing and began quilting it. I ended up doing some machine trapunto on the ribbons and then stuffing them even more before I even started the quilting. It may have been a mistake as it is going to be mighty hard to get my skip-happy machine to quilt right close to those fat sections... but live and learn. At one point after cross hatching the background around the wreath and getting into free motion stitching around the motifs in the borders I ran out of thread and it took a few days to get more of the right color... By then 'the moment had passed' so to speak and I had moved on to other things. I hope to pick that back up this week while my son is off hiking and I can stay up and sew into the wee hours. So, again, not a finish.

The charity quilt I was planning on finishing was worked on! I pulled it out, made a few blocks, decided on how big it will be and found the rest of the fabric I need for it. Still not done, however and no new photos.

So, I got one thing on my list done and made a very special retiring teacher a huge queen sized quilt from beginning to 'flimsy with backing' and added all sorts of sentimental value to it with names and signatures from students and teachers. Not too bad for a quarter, even if not everything was on the list! Now I need to assess what I will work on in the coming quarter. Thanks for stopping by. To see what other people have managed to finish this past quarter stop by Quilter in the Gap's quarterly check in post.

Many things in progress, few things actually done...

Hello all you lovely blog-land readers. I am alive, but just barely. I knew two months ago when I scheduled my calendar that the first half of March was going to really stink, and I was RIGHT! I have been overly busy and had some not so lovely additions added to the mix like the death of a terminally ill family member, the long lasting yucky cold of my preschooler and the failure of a committee member to fulfill her duties regarding the science fair leaving me in the lurch at the last minute . Now, of course because said preschooler crawls into bed with me and puts her stuffy little head right next to mine on the pillow... and coughs in my face... I have that same yucky cold AND a ton of things to do! Yea me!

BUT... one sunny day late last week before I was completely snowed under by the science fair I did manage to take a couple of pictures of the only project currently getting any attention and one project that has been finished for a while but I have not had in my possession until now. First, the teacher quilt has all border vine applied and stitched and all of the green leaves stitched as well. I have one flower done and have added two of the bees. This is a distance photo, I don't have detail photos yet. I have also added all the names that will not be written by the children themselves... that in itself was a comedy of errors, but nothing horrible and that just makes it 'handmade' right?

This is what the bees will look like and I have been debating how many I will add... one to a flower seems a little too regular, two to a few flowers might be a little crowded. What do you think?

This project is a quilt for the assistant pastor at your church who left... um three years ago almost? It took two years to pull it all together working with various quilters making blocks. It was a finished flimsy late last spring. It was finished by the quilter, also a friend of the pastor, last summer and we have been waiting for the current senior pastor to decide when to give it to him. I just got it back from the quilter's daughter last week so I finally got to see it quilted. She does a great job and honestly, when you can find a quilter who WANTS to bind the quilt for you its a winner! She enjoys binding... how amazing is that!

Being the work of multiple quilters it was exciting to put it all together but I think it came out nicely. I love this layout and its ability to accommodate so many different sizes. I hpe he appreciates it and it is not too lame that it took so long to put it all together. 

All my other projects are on hold. I had hoped to finish a number of tops this quarter. There is one that is part way quilted (holiday wreath) and one that has had a backing made (winter's winning hand). The crumb quilt is finished, although I have made no further progress on the backing or quilting. To see what others have 'in progress' visit Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday. 

I have made Crumb progress... but only in my head!

I had really wanted to get a few things actually quilted... this is called 'quilting' right? Not 'piecing'? However (and there always seems to be a 'however' in my life) I got caught up in a piecing project (shocking I know!) that is for someone else and has a deadline and must be sent out to quilt which will take goodness knows how long. So, all my limited sewing time has been spent doing that. It is turning out fabulously, if I do say so myself (see the past few posts and tune in later this week for a photo of the final top photo) but it has kept me from completing even the small top I was actually quilting in January when I ran out of the right color thread. Drat, foiled again!

So this is a re-hash of the final crumb top, Hearts of Gold. I plan on quilting it... and this is where the 'progress has been made - I made an actual DECISION! with a gold toned variegated thread in a large overall meander. I don't think it can stand too much of a pattern since there is already so much going on. I may do a straight line grid to stabilize the whole thing before I start. I will also certainly take special care with my hearts - probably echo quilt around them a couple of times and work the meander around them. There are a few other crumb tops, some of them actually quilted! over at the Crumb Round Up.

A puzzle for you...

Someone suggested that I add bees to the border of the quilt I have been posting about (like in yesterdays post) so I tried it on a trim piece left from the border cuts. All in all I am pretty excited by the bee. However, as I looked more closely at it I realized that the 'random' scatter of letters on the fabric is not entirely random.

I got to looking at the full scrap piece and can find the following words...

Love, joy, hope, patches, apple, path, passion, liberty, more,

These all occur in straight rows and none of them are backwards, although some of the letters are in different orientations. Can you find these words? Can you find any other words? I am intrigued... It does not look like a 'word search', but it turns out it is! Cool! Now if I could just stop looking for words and go to bed! Goodnight!

More of the same... and that is a good thing.

Oh my, its been a while since I've gone a whole week with no time to post... I've been busy sewing so that is a good thing!  I have been working on this teacher gift quilt to try to get it done so I can drum up interest from faculty and staff and parents. I would love it if they would be willing to "go in together" on this retirement gift so I can have it professionally quilted. It has gotten quite large.

To the right is what it looked like Friday night. I had a big sewing day planned for Saturday that never happened due to bailing out an absentminded and less than totally organized 11 year old, but that is another story. I worked a little Saturday night and a bunch Sunday afternoon and evening and this is where I stand now, after adding 3 borders this morning. Those borders look plain, but they are actually parchment colored with about 16 point Time New Roman capital letters scattered all over it - very appropriate for a teacher.

It needs one more border with a single 'light' block in the upper right corner to make the numbers come out right for the student names from 13 years of teaching 2nd grade. I have one made that is very low contrast so it won't stand out too much.  The vine and leaves will extend all the way around. I am not sure that will be the final arrangement, but something like that. What do you think, alternating leaves like it is, or opposite? Should the wave of the vine be longer? I would like to add a few flowers to give her fellow faculty a place to sign if they want to. What style flowers? I am thinking a pretty primitive look similar to the red flower on the left. Any suggestions?

So that is what I am up to. Keep your fingers crossed that I have enough of the green fabric to make the vine... I did the calculation but it seems like a ridiculously small piece of fabric yielding an unbelievable amount of 1" bias strip... I am skeptical. To see what others are up to head over to Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

EDITED TO ADD:
Oh, oh, I just did a little trial on a scrap piece to see how I would do a bee buzzing around a flower...

Squee! I am in love with this little guy! I definitely need some tear away stabilizer before doing too many more of these. Oh, and this gives you a better view of the border fabric. That is all, nothin' else to see here citizens...

Yay! Some Progress to Report on an Actual Quilting Project!

Don't get too excited... its not like it is on the "Finish Along" list for this quarter or anything, it is actually a new, high-ish pressure project with and actual due date and other people depending on me getting it done. Ack! Perhaps that is why there is actual progress to report!

I posted a previous design wall Monday about a quilt based on 9 patches that I had begun with some left over 4 patches. This is what it has grown into, mostly over this weekend. I still need to do some figuring but I think I am about 18 blocks from finished on this one. I am also thinking that it needs a border with a waving vine and some machine applique, possibly raw-edge leaves to soften the patchiness and angularity of it all.

Ultimately it will be 8 blocks high and 7 blocks wide, beginning and ending with a 'dark' row of blocks left to right. The border will be in the neighborhood of one of the darker gold/tans in the neutral and the proposed vine would be a nice solid dark green, to the forest/loden end of green. The leaves added to the vine will be scrappy to echo the central part, but not all over the map... mostly darker colors. Note that I am not totally in love with this quilt yet. It seems like so much chaos. I have tried an alternating layout but that is much more chaotic. Any suggestions? Other possibly layouts? What about concentric 'circles' of dark and light rather than rows!? I just now thought of that... let me run upstairs and try it.

TADA!

Oh yes, I think I like that one better... with the additional dark row on the right and the blocks at the top required to complete it. Do you think that looks better? Especially with a gently curving vine winding along the border? It changes my numbers a little, but I don't think that is a deal breaker at this point. Gotta love looking at a design through the lens of a camera to change your perspective.

The idea behind it is that the recipient has been teaching at the same school for something like 15 years and is retiring this year. I wanted a 2" light square for every student she has taught during that time. I will get the students I can find (like my son's class) to sign their first names in a square and I might be able to muster the help I need to write the names of the others (taken from past year books) in the rest. I still have some work to do, but it is coming along and I would be happy to hear some feedback on this one, as I am far from confident at the thought of the end result. What do YOU think? To express your insightful opinions on other people's current projects head over to Judy's Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday post.

An update on the 'less than appealing' fabric giveaway.

We wouldn't want it to feel badly about itself so I guess we really shouldn't call it 'ugly'! I have no time to learn new things about the random number generator and there were few enough entries that I used a little random generator of my own. I put slips of paper with the names on them in a basket and let the resident 3 year old pull one from the pile. Trust me, you can't get more random than an energetic 3 year old! So here's the scoop.

Joan won the panel of kite flying children. I hope it brings you many hours of free motion fun! Remember, stock up on needles and clean out the lint before you start!

Chiska won the bird/owl fabric. I hope you find a wonderful use for these happy little birds on royal blue.

Thanks for playing everyone. Should these ladies not contact me within a week I may just draw again!