Finally Finished for 2016; I Have Forty Blocks For My Bible Quilt

I just posted my 2016 review this past Tuesday and mentioned that I only completed 35 out of the 40 blocks for the Women of the Bible Quilt.  I wasn't expecting to finish the final five blocks this year but after I saw an alternative layout for these blocks on Pinterest the other day I was determined to finish them even if it meant some modifications which I'll explain later.

15" Blocks 

10" Blocks

The free block patterns were provided by Stitchin' Tree Quilts and are still available online.  I thought this would be a fun and meaningful quilt to start making at the beginning of this year since I was also going to start my daily reading of NIV's The One Year Bible.  There are twelve 15 inch blocks and twenty-eight 10" blocks, each representing a women from the Bible and the goal was to make one block a week and to be done by the end of October.  My friend, Dee, joined me in this project.  The two fabric lines used in my blocks were Amanda Nyberg's Good Neighbor and Emily Herrick's Technicolor which I thought worked well with each other and I also added some Riley Blake for one happy color combination.

I had thirty blocks done by the end of August at which time my past experience with participating in quilt alongs caught up with me--I didn't want to finish the rest of the blocks.  Some of these blocks reminded me of some of the Gypsy Wife blocks with the odd patch sizes.  I am not a big fan of cutting any measurements in increments that are not whole, 1/2" or 1/4".  If there was a merit badge for rotary cutting, I would not receive one.  I much rather make quilts if I can use my die cutter or one of my many shape cut rulers. Plus, some of the Bible pattern instructions were confusing which didn't help since I'm also not very patient.  So the blocks were put away until the beginning of December and I sewed five more blocks.  I kept thinking of ways of I could finish the quilt without finishing the last five.  Like the Gypsy Wife quilt, I was not excited with the way the quilt was to be finished so my last thought was to turn all of the 10" blocks into 15" blocks by sewing a 3" strips of coordinating fabrics around the block but I didn't like they way they looked.  Thankfully, I found my solution on Pinterest where I saw the alternative layout that Studio M did which you can see here:  Women of the Bible Alternative Layout.  To me, I think it's a more appropriate layout for a bed quilt.  So, I had to sew the last five blocks and wanted to be done by the end of the year so I finished them in three days despite having a cold and working on baby shower invitations and planning.  (I'm going to be a first-time Grandmother in March!)  Since I modified some of these blocks I don't feel right in calling this a Women of the Bible Quilt so for me it's my Bible Quilt and I can add it to my  UFO Project List for 2017.  With the new layout, I'm actually am looking forward to making this top.

Now I ready for my New Year Day project of planning my 2017 activities which I am sure a lot of other quilters will be doing.   I hope everyone has a safe Happy New Year celebration and don't do any crazy rotary cutting.

2016 Was A Very Good Quilt Year

After deliberating for several years, I finally decided to start my blog after hearing on a podcast that a blog was a great way to keep track of your quilting activities and with encouragement from Susan Snooks, PatchworknPlay, who told me it would be pretty easy to build one.  And, surprisingly, it was although I did ask Susan a lot of questions.  Since we are in the final week of 2016 and am pretty sure there will be no more completed projects, I thought it would be a good time to do a Year in Review post.

First, the 2016 stats:

• 13 Quilts Completed (Tops sewn and quilted in 2016)
• 9 Quilts Tops (will be official UFOs in 2017)
• 2 UFOs finally completed
• 5 Tops made in 2015 and quilted in 2016
• 4 Baby Quilts made for family and friends
• 12 Baby Quilts made for my Church Blanket Ministry
• 5 Wall Quilts (Two completed and three to be quilted and bound)
• 35/40 Women of the Bible blocks sewn
• Rug Weaving (Three rugs, one table runner and numerous rug mugs completed

I still feel that I don't spend enough time in my studio but housework, working out, dog walking, volunteering and computer time for Pinterest, Facebook and reading and writing blogs always come first; I am so thankful that my husband does all of the cooking.

And now some photos:

UFOs:

My big accomplishment, besides starting the blog, was finally finishing the Lori Smith wool appliqué which had been waiting for the borders to be added for over five years and the Kaffe Champaign Orange Yo-Yo quilt which was a WIP that lasted almost four years.

Completed Quilts:

Jelly Roll Charm Chase 

Low Volume Wild 8 Coverlet

Judy B Grandmother Log Cabin

Blue Lives Matter (Stacked Squares pattern)

Bits of Sunshine  (FQS Jolly Bar pattern)

Ernie (inspired by Mary Etherington)

Ernie II  

Wild Ernie

Easy Addition Plus 

Unruly (My Quilt Infatuation pattern)

Amy Butler Coverlet 

Story Coverlet

Pinterest Club Gray and Yellow

Out of the thirteen quilts completed during 2016, two of them were quilted by my LAQ, Jan and the rest were quilted by me which was a pretty good accomplishment since I was experiencing problems with doing straight line quilting on my Juki 2010Q.  Thankfully this was finally resolved this past October and am now looking forward to machine quilting the tops I made this year and previous years which may total more than two dozen.

The five UFO quilts from 2015, two quilted by my LAQ and three by me:

Lefty C+S

Righty C+S

Holly Jolly Bar

Gypsy Wife Sampler

Asian Blossom Happy Lappy

Baby Quilts for Friends and Family (all quilted by me)

Two Completed Wallhangings:

I'm happy to say that I won't be photographing any more quilts with the white plastic hangers since I found the perfect quilt hangers for photographing, Boot Hangers with Swivel Hooks.  And I do have to acknowledge that I put my three die-cutters to good use during the course of the year and I received a fourth die-cutter, Sizzix Big Shot Plus, for Christmas.

2016 was a very good year for piecing, quilting, buying lots of fabric, thank-you Dee and Carol, connecting with quilting friends, here, there and down under, blogging, learning new things, Hell-o Pic-Monkey and finding out what I don't want to do.  I have a big challenge for 2017 which I will post the next time along with my future activities.  Hopefully, my creative energies will continue next year.   Yes, a blog does keep you on track.  Thanks again, Susan!

Final Quilt Finish for 2016, I think.....

I made the quilt top earlier this year and recently realized that this would make a nice Christmas gift for a certain someone so I spent this past weekend quilting and binding it.  Since we are experiencing sub-zero weather lately, only a crazy quilter, like me, would go outside to take  a photo of this quilt since I didn't like the way the inside photo turned out.

The top was made from a Pinterest Club kit which was several years old and was purchased from Country Threads.  I added some fabrics to make this quilt which measures 40"x56", a nice size for a lap warmer. To make this quilt soft and snuggly and really warm, I put fleece in the middle, in lieu of batting, and used gray Minky for the back.  I have found from working with Minky and fleece in the past, you don't have to quilt it much since both are synthetic material.

I only quilted the top and fleece together and then added the Minky to the back by tacking all three layers at the block corners.  The Minky is secured further once the binding was sewn on.  When I quilted the top and fleece together, I used Missouri Star Quilt Co. polyester thread with a 90/14 Jersey Knit needle and it turned out beautifully.  Since I started using a Janome Walking foot on my Juki 2010Q, I have been beyond happy with my machine quilting.  As you can see on the photos below, there were no dreaded pinches or puckers where the quilting intersected which happened a lot when I used the Juki Walking Foot.

Lately, I've been basting my quilts with quilters straight pins (they're almost 2" long).  I really like the ease of using straight pins but unfortunately don't like the inevitable pricks and pokes on my fingers, arms and stomach so maneuvering the quilt is done very slow and very carefully.  I think the next best invention would be a combination straight pin and safety pin.  Using Pinmoors would be an answer but unfortunately are way too expensive--$35/100.  I did find an alternative to these which is buying a roll of 20 ft. polyfoam caulk saver for $3.00 which will give you  approximately 240 1" pieces.  I found this idea from the Closet Crafter; here is the link:  Closet Crafter .

When I first made them and used them, I found they were quite staticky and stuck to my fingers and flew around the floor.  So, I ended wrapping each one with 1" blue painters tape which helped.  I do used them but sometimes find it annoying that I first have to pin the quilt first and then go back and add these.  Plus, some of them do fall off during quilting so you still end up getting poked, but for the price I pay for these, it's worth it.  But when I feel like quilting dangerously, I just use straight pins, especially for small quilts.

 So for the remainder of this week I'm going to focus on getting ready for the holidays and when there is a lull, I'l work on my Women of the Bible Blocks which I started at the beginning of the year.  As of yesterday,  I made 33 out of the 40 blocks so there may be a good chance I can finish the remaining seven blocks by the end of the year.  But then I do have other tops laying around that I would love to machine quilt.  I do need to order a roll of batting and am waiting until next month to buy it.  I didn't tell my hubby this because I didn't want it to be my Christmas present.

I hope everyone enjoys their holiday and Santa brings you something special.

Cheers!

Hanging It Up: The Quest for the Perfect Hanger

Ever since I started pinning my quilts on Pinterest around four years ago and posting them on Facebook over a year ago, I've been trying to find interesting ways to photograph my quilts.  I love seeing the photos of quilts hung in beautiful outdoor locations on other Quilters' blogs.  Unfortunately, my house sits on a typical suburban lot with no interesting tree branches or fences to hang my quilts on nor do I have a beautiful garden. Plus, I really don't want the neighbors seeing what I'm doing since none of them are quilters, I don't want to have to explain myself.  So the majority of my quilts have been photographed, using my hand-me-down iPhone 4 given to me by my son when he upgraded to a new one, on my small front porch on the bench or hanging from either the screen room door  or outside patio door.  The bench is a nice place to photograph my quilts but sometimes to get the full effect of the quilt, you need to hang it up.

My quilts were first hung on clear plastic skirt hangers and then I graduated to using white skirt hangers purchased from Wal-Mart but I still wanted a more polished look.  This was a sorry attempt to hang my quilt on an angle and it almost fell off the top hanger.

Always on a lookout for the right hangers, I thought I found my answer when I was looking through my Material Obsessions book by Kathy Doughty and noticed that when she photographed her quilts outside, she used these metals clips with S hooks and the search was on.  The closest that I could get to this was purchasing metal beach towel clips and 3" S hooks.

I  really liked how it photographed but the problem was that sometimes the S hook would fall off of the clips when I was just about to hang it which is annoying when you're standing on your tippy toes.  BTW, this quilt was hung on my garage door which is now a new location for a quilt photo shoot and you should have heard when one of my neighbors was driving by and hitting the car brakes to see what I was doing.

So, again I went searching and finally found what I have been looking for:  Hanging Boot Clips with Swivel Hooks, all one piece, so no falling hooks.  I found these on Amazon where I also found the metal beach towel clips and don't know why I didn't see these boot hooks before when I was searching earlier. Here is the link for these clips.  Hanging Boot Clip with Swivel Hook

Now with the winter weather finally here with a blast, it looks like I'll be taking photos inside the house.  The screen room is too cold so I was noticing how nice the morning light is in the living room.  I started thinking about buying a photo shoot backdrop rack to hang the quilts but at a price of over $200 for a good one or making one with PVC pipes for $10 but with no adjustments for changing width or height, this thought went quickly on the wayside. I did take the above quilt photo on the hanging rack in my studio but since it's in the basement, the lighting isn't so great.  I could get a photo lamp or I could finally take the time to learn how to edit photos on PicMonkey or maybe I should get an iPhone 7 since I heard the camera is really great.  A new search is on!

Trying To Be Good During The Holidays

The most very good thing I've done during this holiday season was to finish the final four baby quilts for the Blanket Ministry at my Church which means I met my commitment of making twelve baby quilts each year.  It's always a good feeling to make these and an accomplishment when they're done.

I thought I would share my favorite patterns which uses just six fat quarters for the top; one for a baby quilt and the other for a lap quilt.  What I like about making these quilts is that you can use six fat quarters from the same collection or mix them from several collections.  For the baby quilt, I tend to pick bright colors based on the one or two focus prints I pick for the quilt and for the lap size quilt, it's a great way to use the large focus prints that you can't bear to cut up.

Baby Quilt

The size I make for the Blanket Ministry is 36" square which is the bottom quilt. I cut, from each of the six fat quarters, four 3.5" strips (3.5" x 20") and arrange them into two sets of three strips to make rail fence blocks.  Once the strips are cut and sewn, I cut 9-1/2" blocks, two blocks from each strip set, a total of 16 blocks, eight of each color set.  I like to arrange all of the blocks horizontally in a four by four layout,  so in order for the seams to nest, I iron one set of strips with the seams going up and the other set with the seams going down.  The top quilt is also made from six fat quarters but I cut five 3.5" strips which will make twenty blocks  for a quilt measuring 36" x 45".

Lap Quilt

I call these lap quilts, Happy Lappy Quilts and is based on the Six and One Half Dozen quilt pattern by Hydee Ann Sews, a tutorial can be found here:  Hydee Ann Sews.  I just love this pattern because it's a great way to use up the large scale prints some of which has been sitting in my stash for a long time.  Again, it is a great way to mix up fabrics from different collection.  It's a nice size for keeping the lap warm, 40"x 54" (approx.) and I like to take one when I go to the movies because my theater has the reclining seats and I'm getting to the age where I'm always cold.  These quilts come together quickly and make great gifts.

As mentioned in my title, I am trying to be good, meaning staying on task which is hard to do especially when all the quilt goodies I purchased on Black Friday are starting to arrive, new magazines purchased  and need to be read because I'm always looking for new ideas, plus I just discovered Kraft-Tex.  I still need to finish decorating the house, buy Christmas gifts (online of course), send Christmas cards (not online), clean my studio, etc.  It's gotten to the point I actually had to make a list and so far only one item has been crossed off.  Thankfully my husband and son are doing the bulk of the decorating.  Meanwhile, cleaning up my studio is going on day four, today's distraction is the new dies and discovering PicMonkey which meant I had to put a photomark on all of my quilt photos and making a photo collage.

Hopefully my plan on finishing everything by this weekend will happen because after all I still have a quilt top which needs to be quilted by Christmas--which isn't on my list.

A Sew-Along Finish--Split Square Quilt

I finished my Holiday Split Square Quilt this past weekend which is a wonderful sense of accomplishment for me which I will explain more later in this post.

Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene's latest book "Sew Charming" was just released and there are so many wonderful quilts that I want to make, mainly because I have fabric in my stash which will work well with all of the quilts, the quilt sizes are doable, the smallest is 15"x18" and the largest is 48"x60" which are great sizes for the wall, table and gift giving and most inspirational of all, many of the quilts are quilted with straight lines, my absolute favorite look and I can now do since the Janome walking foot is working well on my Juki.  Also, another added bonus is that I can die-cut or use my shape-cut rulers for many of the pieces, finger risk is minimal.

Mary Etherington is hosting a Christmas sew along for one of the quilts in the book, Split Square, http://country-threads-chicken-scratch.com/uncategorized/the-christmas-sew-along/ which measures 24"x28".  The idea for Sew Charming is you can use this book in two ways- either a charm square book or as a scrap fabric book which is right up my alley since I can do both.  My Holiday Split Square Quilt uses leftover Sandy Gervais jelly rolls strips from my Holly Bar Quilt and yardage of two teal fabrics.  And, of course, I did a horizontal straight quilting just like Mary's quilt.  My quilt was finished right before the launch of the sew along because I received my book several weeks before and I knew this was the quilt that was going to be made.  My impetus was getting this quilt done was that I have several quilts which need to be finished this week and because I realized while I was making the top, it would be perfect to hang on my hallway door near where the Holly Jar Quilt will be draped over the banister.  I love finishing quilts when there is an immediate need for them which leads me to explain why I participate in Sew Alongs, Block of the Months, Mystery Quilts, etc.

Sew Alongs are fun and you can participate by yourself but for some reason you always like a friend to do one with you, sort of like a partner in crime feeling.  They're also great when they fall into one of these categories:

1. you can use the fabric that you already have in your stash which is my favorite reason;
2. it's an excuse to buy new fabric which isn't a bad reason because sometimes you need to add to the stash
3. it's something that you can really use 
4. it teaches you new skill sets or is outside your comfort zone.  Unfortunately, when sew alongs fall under this category, my completion rate is almost non existent or I deviate from the pattern in order to get it done.

The best sew alongs for me are the UFO Challenge.  Over the past few years I have participated in several of them and I was able to finally finish at least 20 of them, some of them well over five years old.  Unfortunately, my Fat Quarter Shop 2007-2008 Piece & Plenty Mystery Quilt never made it on one of my lists.  This is my oldest UFO and I only need to finish three blocks; but these blocks really stretched my skill set and patience, an example being one of the blocks I finished had a background with over 60 patches and most of it was going to be covered by an appliqué sand pail.  I'm not a big fan of appliqué nor blocks with lots of tiny patches.  My friend, Carol, who I convinced to do this quilt with me, affectionately refer to this project as the Quilt from Hell and I still feel guilty about suggesting this as something we could do together and fear what payback could be.  I've taken the box containing this project out trying to come up with a way to finish the quilt without making the final three blocks but something keeps telling me I need to do the remaining blocks, so the box still sits on my shelf.  I've already decided another quilt along that I did with my Facebook friend Dee this year, Women of the Bible quilt, is going to be on my UFO list.  I told Dee, it's only 40 blocks, we do one block each week and we should be done by October, it's a piece of cake and the quilt is so pretty.  For this sew along I purchased new fabric (Good Neighbors) and as of this date, I've only made 30 blocks.  My only excuse for not finishing it is that some of the blocks involved rotary cutting odd sizes which used to be out of my comfort zone so I put this project aside for quilts which allow me to use my die-cutter.  Also the quilt finishes to king size and I really don't need a new quilt for my bed yet.  Again, payback may be coming from Dee (it didn't help that I won our World Series bet).

Some of the sew alongs that I participated in were the ones that Mary Etherington hosted during and after Country Threads days.  I did the last Block of the Month where I quickly learned that I didn't like 1" HST but I did like that I could use my stash of civil war prints.  Also, the quilt was made per the pattern, except for maybe a few mislaid blocks, and it is quilted and laying on the quilt rack.

Last year's sew along, was Mary wanting to do Jen Kingwell's pattern Gypsy Wife and talk about a quilt that made me want to scream, this would be the poster quilt.  For those familiar with the pattern, you can see I did not make it according to the pattern because I just could not do the finishing strips and chose to finish it in a sampler style.  As soon as I was finished with this top, I quickly sent the pattern book to Dee which may be another payback in the future.  At least my quilt is finished and the mere mention of Gypsy Wife makes my eyes cross.  Payback for Mary is to continually send her fabric and patterns and extolling the wonders of a die cutting machine.

Another quilt I made was based on a quilt Mary was making several years ago which she called her slab quilt and I wanted to make one because I have this decade old bundle of red and black fabrics which were perfect for this quilt and I also could use my die-cutter.  I realized that I never posted a photo of the completed quilt which I straight line quilted before I bought my Juki.  Although it's not an official sew along quilt, I call this a Monkey See, Monkey Do quilt which I do a lot, especially with the Ernie quilts.

Last but not least, another sew along quilt I did this year was Pat Sloan's Secret Garden Quilt which consisted of twelve 15" blocks.  I made mine with only nine blocks because I wanted a new wallhanging for the family room and if I made it with all twelve blocks, it would be too big for the wall space above my couch.  This made me realize that I don't have a good track record with sew along quilts which I don't know why I should feel defeated with this aspect of my creative life.  I was planning on sending this quilt to my LAQ but realized after see of the quilts in Sew Charming, I think I could straight line quilt it myself, especially since the Juki and I are working so well together.

In planning my 2017 quilt activities, I was not going to participate in any sew alongs which has fallen to the wayside since I've committed myself to doing two now; one is the Red Pepper Quilt that Connie Tesene has graciously provided me with the pattern and one in which Carol has finally wreak payback on me for the Quilt from Hell experience, we're doing Lucy Carson KINGWELL's Smitten quilt, https://www.amitie.com.au/shop/c/p/Smitten-by-Lucy-Carson-Kingwell-for-Jen-Kingwell-Designs-x4700618.htm, pattern and paper pieces have been ordered.  This is definitely a Yikes and a Category 4 sew along, I don't mind doing the paper piecing but it's the putting it together that is going to be a challenge, I wonder how long once I'm making this quilt, will I be figuring alternative ways to finishing it.  Also, there is Dee's payback that's out there and hopefully won't be coming too soon.

Just can't say So Long to Sew Alongs, can we, because friends don't let friends quilt alone.