Checking in

 I have lots of quilting to do, two smaller quilts and I finally pysched myself up to quilt the Criss Cross quilt. Next is just finishing off the BOM sashing. I use my Janome for quilting and binding and put my ironing board next to me as a support. 

Quilting set up

On the Hotchpotch quilt I quilted on either side of the seams instead of in the ditch, wavy crossing lines in the border and used a 55" wide Llama print on the back. 

Llamas

Having ditch quilted the two central block seams on the Criss Cross quilt I am now hand quilting in perle cotton around the stars and inside the corner hour glasses. It hasn't taken too long and I'm now going around the edge blocks. I laid out the quilt to see where I was up to. 

Criss Cross quilt

On the bed

 

A favourite scrappy quilt using "Mary's Triangles" technique units.

Sewing Room Tidy

 Having finished the last machine stitched sections of the BOM quilt and Liz Coleman's workshop project it was time to bite the bullet and get on with some quilting. First stop tidy the sewing room.

Next manhandle the big quilt through the machine sewing the inner two seams of the block.

Now I am hand quilting around the stars and the corner triangles.

So it's time for another break, this time making a couple of bags from Liz Coleman's Oast bag sewing day, a Japanese loop bag and a zipped tote. 

Very pleased with my loop bag

Zipped tote

 

Mitring

 After Krista Moser's email landed in my inbox I decided that my veggie piece would be a good guinea pig for her mitred facing technique. So I cut strips the length of the sides plus two facing widths, laid them on and placed them on the front. 

I sewed just a short middle section (for such a small piece it should have been less than her suggested 5") and sewed the four mitres. 

I should have left 1/2" unsewn for hem turn under

I pressed and turned then to the back, made a hem, pinned and stitched in place by hand. Looking good.

Pinned in place

All done

Grow your Veg

 

I have changed the sky in my little hanging and added the vegetables, carrots, beetroot, onions and parsnip and a simplified version of the foliage. I was determined to finish it thisafternoon and thanks to Alan making the tea (spaghetti bolognaise and salad) I did. Once trimmed it looked much better. Now I'll face it and add a sleeve and put it to be sold at the QQ show in aid of funds.

Detail

The vaccine programme is accelerating further so I'm hopeful our show will happen.

Progressing

 Having made my bargello baby quilt I thought that   this Just get it done quilt pattern would a good one to use up another bundle of fat quarters I've had for a while. For some reason the sewing did not go well - I made error after error and did nearly as much unpicking as sewing. Now the pieced top is complete and is awaiting a border or not, to be decided later.

Fabrics Karavan by Valorie Wells

Today I sewed the last long seam to join the quilt as you go sections of the Carolyn Forster Today's Quilter BOM and here it is laid out on the bed though I have still to handstitch it down on the back.

 Also today I did a 3 hour Quilters' Guild Region 2 workshop with Liz Coleman - I need to finish stitching down the rest of the background strips and the add some root vegetables and foliage. Excellent tuition from Liz.

After Quilts

 I have been trying to use up scraps left over from finished tops. If I can't I put them in my scrap bin in a bag so I can locate them more easily, either a particular fabric or the combination. I did this with the Fibonacci scraps thinking they will be suitable for a bag. There's an Oast workshop in March. 

I have thought of these as leftover quilts but Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts (I've been watching a lot of her YouTube videos lately) calls them "after quilts" which I like.

I did this with my Crisscross quilt using up leftover HSTs (plus a few extras) to make Breaking Dishes. As quite often happens the after quilt is quilted and bound before the original one perhaps because I take a more casual gung ho approach.

Breaking Dishes, all done.

Detail

Two Tulips followed the Tiptoe quilt and the last few 2" squares went into a doll quilt.

Doll Quilt

Two Tulips

Tiptoe, the original version

Another respite

Very quick and easy

 

Having made the Fibonacci top which enabled me to put off quilting the Crisscross top I now have two largish tops to quilt, so in a further excuse I made the baby bargello from Karen Brown's Stashbuster 4 pattern. Now I have another top to quilt albeit a more manageable size. I made it from a set of fat quarters which arrived from a subscription service which had me nonplussed but were just the job for this project.

I found just the right backing fabric easier when the top is less than the width of quilting cotton.

In my defence I am also joining my BOM QAYG blocks on my Pffaf machine because with the IDT I can use the quarter inch foot whereas I walking foot quilt on my Janome. Once the BOM is finished I'll get down to quilting.

Fibonacci top

 

I completed 5 of the blocks in Saturday's workshop and am pleased I've kept at it, sewing a sixth one then resewing another so as to get a better colour balance with two large turquoise patches, then adapting  Carole Lyle Shaw's plan to space out the blocks and yesterday I added borders - just enough fabric.

It's very odd but a break from recent work and I expect it will find a home somewhere.

I think I'll quilt in straight lines of serpentine stitch.

The colours fit in with the view from here this morning.

Through the bedroom window. Sorry about the strange blodge ...

Transatlantic workshop

 

The wonders of Zoom will never cease. From 4 till 9 (11 to 4 EST) I did a Fibonacci block quilt work shop with  Carole Lyles Shaw. I was impressed with how once pieces were cut how quickly the blocks went together. I incorporated some background (the light) into my blocks and am intrigued with how this will look in practice. I chose not to incorporate improvisation at this point. I finished 5 out of the six blocks in the time and have lots more pieces cut out. Here are three:

The two bottom fabrics are
quite unusual - not sold as
quilting cottons.

Serendipity Curves

 

Freely cut

On Saturday I and nineteen other Quilters Guild members did an improvisational curves workshop with Brenda Gael Smith. It was an interesting experience as she was live from NSW Australia and it was 5 am for her and 6 pm for us. We saw the view from her sewing room window - lovely sunny coastline! All very jealous. I have used hand dyes for various other workshop samples and will attempt to combine them into a quilt top at some point. She did say  cocktails optional but perhaps I shouldn't have taken her at her word and had that G&T. I was flagging by 9.30 but kept going and completed my stint. 

Further cuts

Kawandi/Siddi piece

Kawandi quilts are made by the Siddi origiinally from Africa, community in India. The pieces are added from the outside in. This has its origins in a February 2020 Quiltcon workshop in Texas. It's very rough and ready, I'm afraid and my shoulder is still recovering - I don't handstitch as well as I did. I shall machine it to a background and it will be a kitchen chair cushion.

 Meanwhile I am still struggling through quilting broken dishes - very tedious.

Goodbye

 In the first lockdown nearly a year ago I pinned a roughly raw edge applique rainbow to the bench under my kitchen window. I vowed to throw it away on the day I got vaccinated. That day has arrived. I got my first dose. It is very intriguing to see how much the fabrics  have faded, however "good" the quality.

2020

Today

In it goes

Sandwiching

To sandwich quilts I set up a foldable table in my living room and to give it a better height use furniture risers under the legs. I spray basted the Breaking Dishes quilt but I am tacking the larger Crisscross one which has 80/20 wadding and another pieced back.

Now for the back

 

I couldn't find a single piece for the back of Breaking Dishes - I pieced three pieces of Laura Ashley lightweight curtaining fabric for the centre. Although I know it's not great quality I love the weight and feel of this which I think  I must have bought as a remnant at a stash sale. 

 Then I cut strips of my border fabric for the top and sides - I had to piece the side strips. I still didn't have enough which was an opportunity to insert a strip of pieces leftover from the top.

Using wadding from the roll would have led to wastage and I had pieces of poly I could tape together to make the piece just big enough.

By the time I had finished I had just a few 3" dark squares remaining and small scraps of the pink and the wadding. I think the pink may also be  Laura Ashley - her brushed cotton. The wadding is Hobbs Tuscany poly a really nice puffy quality with no kinks or creases. It makes for a very nice snuggly quilt. 

Bordering

 Looking at my last post I realise I've made considerable progress  since. I felt the triangles needed a border to finish it off and make it a better size. It was the usual problem of having lots of fabric but not one that seems just right or that I have enough of. In the end I went for an older pink ditsy print that I think by its texture might be a Laura Ashley brushed cotton.  

There was enough to miter (I usually write "mitre" but the spell check disagrees) so I cut my pieces the length of the sides plus two border widths and a bit extra. To aid accuracy I marked my stop point a quarter inch from the corner and sewed on all four border pieces doing a back stitch at the point to stop the seam unravelling.

Here you can see the border piece extending beyond
 the edge of the top.

Sewn seam with back stitch at point

Having attached all four border pieces I drew a 45 degee angle from the marked point.

Then I aligned the adjacent borders to form a point and sewed along my drawn line taking care not to catch the seam allowances but again to stop at the point.

Once pinned sew along the drawn line.

All that is left is to trim and press for a nice neat finish.