Christmas Lap Quilt

Well, I'm one step closer to meeting my 4th quarter finish-along goals.  The Christmas fabric that I won from  Gail (Hand Quilter) has progressed from this

to this.

I added some Snow and  some cute little reindeer from Riley Blake to make this little lap quilt. 

Straight line quilting on either side of each seam adds to the clean crisp look, as does the cheery red binding.  It adds the perfect Christmas touch to a chair in the corner of my living room.   

Fraternal twin quilts

I really should start recording more of the process rather than just saying what I've done.  The odd thing is, I'm really a process person--I'm just not someone who documents that process.  Maybe that should be my 2013 resolution.

At any rate, I have a finish.  Actually, it's two finishes, and also actually, I really finished these at least two weeks ago, but it's been impossible to photograph them. With the leaden grey sky that forces me to keep the lights on throughout the day, I wasn't able to get in indoor shot at all.  And the endless rain prevented me from taking them outside.  But the weather finally cleared long enough to take some pictures.

These I-spy/matching game quilts were on my 4th quarter finish-along list.   The centers of the framed squares include (among other things) butterflies, chairs, pink pigs, grey elephants, balloons, scissors, sail boats, owls (both happy and scowly), fairies, mushrooms, bicycles, swings, kites, doll carriages, dresses, and many birds.  All that fussy cutting really ate through the stash, but now I'm left with a huge stack of scraps.  The frames are made from pastel Kona solid jelly rolls.

The backs use up the jelly roll strip leftovers as well as some Kona snow and polka dots from the stash.  Binding is a pink and white Lecien stripe. 

While not identical, the two quilts are similar enough to cause some confusion over ownership.  To forestall any potential disagreements, I foundation pieced their initials in two corners (to keep with the matching theme).

Quilting was a simple swirly loop--easy to do, and it crinkles so nicely.  These are quilted closely enough for durability, but they're still beautifully soft.  I hope the girls like them as much as I do. 

Fourth quarter plans

Well, it's time to link up for the fourth quarter of Rhonda's finish along.  So far, my track record hasn't been great.  No finishes the first quarter, only one in the second, and two in the third.  But maybe, if the trend continues, I'll be able to finish three this quarter.  But which three?

I'm still working on the dresden quilt I started back in the 80's.  It's a fairly large quilt and all the hand quilting is taking a fair bit of time.  I'm about half done.

Then there's Sheila's Mystery Quilt along that I'm completing after the fact.  It's taken a couple of sideways turns and I'm not sure that Sheila would recognize it any more.  But I'm making slow progress. This is where I was in July ...

 

and I've since added the ET Phone home block created by Lynne.  There are 84 pieces in this block!  84!  If I'd stopped to count first, I might have selected something a bit less challenging, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I also have two little girls who would like quilts for their beds.  I've started on eye spy type quilts. Each square is duplicated so they can also play matching games with them.  I've cut out most of the charm squares and this is the last of the lot.  Then I'll sash them with pastel strips from a couple of jelly rolls that have been sitting here long enough. I'd really like to get these done before Christmas. 

And, speaking of Christmas, a while ago I won some very pretty Christmas fabric from  Gail, who blogs at Hand Quilter, and I've started to make it into a lap quilt.  Nothing fancy--just something to add to the seasonal decor.  So it would be nice to have it done before the season passes.

So, all in all, I'd say this is pretty well impossible, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

Third quarter finishes!

Yes, that's a plural.  As in, I managed to finish more than one project from my quarter three list for Rhonda's finish along. Naturally, they're not the two that have been in the queue the longest--those would be the Mystery quilt (although I've nearly finished another block) and the Dresden quilt that I included in my to do list for the first, second and third quarters of   No, these project were new ones that I added for quarter three. 

My first finish, early in the quarter, was sundresses for the girls.  I blogged about it here.

The second was much more recent.  I blogged the entire saga (loved it, didn't love it, loved it, didn't love it, et cetera, ad nausem) here.

So, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with myself.  It's the most I've managed to accomplish yet.

I Won!

Last month Gail, who blogs at Hand Quilter, offered this gorgeous giveaway as part of Quilting Gallery's blog hop.

(photo from Gail's blog)


And I won it!  As I told Gail, I don't have a single Christmassy quilted item in the house, so it's going to be a priority this year.  I'm thinking of the Lady's First lap quilt from the Back to Charm School book.  The tree skirt version is shown on the book's Martingale web page.  It would look great with this fabric line, and it's simple enough that I should be able to finish it in time for the holidays.

A BIG Finish

Back in April I signed on to the My Precious Quilt along.  I had a couple of Lily and Will jelly rolls that I wanted to use to make a queen-sized quilt for myself, but I couldn't bring myself to cut into the fabric.  It was so perfect, and I wanted the quilt to be perfect too.  My Precious was the perfect motivator to get started, but it was including it in my third quarter to do list as part of Rhonda's finish along that motivated me to finish.

A bit of history is needed here.  Quite some time ago I bought a Lily and Will charm pack and fell in love with the colours--the sunny yellow and cheery blue seemed just the ticket to counter our very grey winters.  So, I decided to buy two jelly rolls, but when they arrived I was feeling pretty awful, so I just put them up on the shelf for another day.  But I kept that charm pack on my table just to keep me thinking about what I might do. I knew that I wanted to make a quilt that would leave the fabric in relatively large pieces so as to really show it off.  I just couldn't decide what pattern to use.

After signing on to the quilt along, I unrolled the fabric only to find that it wasn't what I expected!  There was no cheery blue.  Yes there was sunny yellow, but without the blue, the brown just seemed to overpower the yellow.  I decided that far from being precious, I didn't really like it, and I didn't want to have it continue to take up space on my shelf or in my head, so I'd just quilt it and get it over with.  I added some white to lighten it up and sewed the strips together.  The white made a huge difference, and I found that I wasn't hating it any more.

Then I cut the strips into 6.5 inch squares and started sewing them together only to find that my quarter inch seam marker had shifted and none of the squares were actually square.  Definitely not loving it again.  After giving it some thought, I decided that I had a couple of options: 1) trim the blocks so that they were square (tedious and time-consuming) or 2) just live with it.  Since I no longer loved the stuff, I decided to live with it, and as a result, not a single block lines up exactly with it's neighbour.  Okay, maybe two line up in the entire top.

Oddly enough, this was somewhat liberating. I decided to clear out some other fabric that I wasn't loving in order to piece the back.  I'd bought this fabric for a specific project, but by the time it arrived, the parameters had changed and I really didn't need this much brown.   

And, since it was essentially rubbish now, I decided that I was going to use it as a playground--appropriate, since it was likely to be used as a picnic quilt.  I definitely wasn't going to take the time to hand-quilt it, nor would I lay out the cash to have it quilted, so I free-motion quilted it in sections.  My machine only has about 4-5" harp space, which means that they weren't very big sections.  So, I did my very first all-over meandering stipple, and I tried a variety of methods for joining the 12 sections.  And I also sewed the binding by machine for the first time.  I used Sharon Schamber's washable Elmer's school glue method instead of pins to sew on the binding and it worked great.  Not a single puncture wound.

As for the back, cut down into smaller pieces, all that brown doesn't actually look that bad.  Each fabric is used three times, although that isn't evident in the photo because I had to fold it over the line to keep it from dragging on the ground.  When you can see all of them, that solid brown square doesn't jump out so much.  I've decided that I like that Honey Vine print enough that I'm going to order some more.

So, what do I think of it now that it's done?  It's okay.  I'm pleased that it's finished.  The FMQing turned out fine, and I'll definitely do more of that in the future.  Same with the binding.  I learned a lot from this, and in the end, it looks nice and sunny on my bed.

Measure twice?

As I noted previously, I decided to think of Sheila's Mystery Quilt (http://bluepatchquilter.blogspot.ca/p/mystery-quilt-long.html)as a skill building activity.  Becoming proficient at foundation piecing was incredibly satisfying, so I figured that I'd also incorporate some English paper piecing.  But where to put it?  In the spirit of "go big or go home", I decided to replace block 1, the big 18 incher...

 with this...

The sharp angles were challenging, but in general, I was quilt pleased.  Until, I tested it in the layout and discovered it was too big.  By a full inch.  And, it's not the type of block where there is a wide border that could be trimmed.  The points of those deep blue triangles are pretty much essential.  So, back to the drawing board.  Maybe I'll stick with the original block one, and try EPP in a smaller section instead.

On the plus side, though, I've definitely built that skill.  And I really like this block.  I'll have to think of something that I can use it for.