WiP Wednesday - The Behmoth!!!

Summer vacation has officially begun! Report cards are done and I don't have to go back to work for... well, a while! I've been making the most of my time and sewing a lot!

I've been working away on J-Boy's Good Old Hockey Game and the appliqué on the top is done. There might be a few speed wobbles present, but it's by far the happiest I've ever been with machine appliqué of mine.  I don't know how I managed such a dull pic on a sunny day! Q-A and I went on a F.A.R.T (check Alphabet Soup if you're scratching your head on this one!) and I've got the batting and some snazzy backing all washed and ready to go.

And here's a blast from the past - Toes in the Sand! I can't believe I haven't worked on this one since January! On the week-end, I cut all the setting triangles and now the top's sewn together. And I have backing and batting ready to go for this one too! It was just starting to rain as this pic was snapped... oh the silly things we do for quilts!

 

I even pressed the seams open as directed. What a time consuming process! Don't you just love that Sun Print Text fabric? It cost me an arm and a leg by the time I got it here, but I just couldn't see a solid as those setting triangles.

Finally, inspiration struck in the Michael Miller MQG Challenge department! I made a fun pillow a while back, but used so little challenge fabric that it seemed ridiculous! But this second project - this feels so much more... challenge-y! Here are a few progress pics to whet your appetite.

 Those are stitch and flip triangles you're seeing.

 And yes, those are my new spools of Aurifil lurking in the background. More to come on this quilt in a future post... the top is done and ready to be layered!

It's been a great week of sewing! I hardly wait to get away from the computer and back to the machine! I'm so excited about the progress I've made this week that I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and The Needle and Thread Network.

J

P.S. Speaking of link-ups, for all you Library Project-ers out there, don't forget that this Friday is the start of the monthly link-up!

Sunday Stash #2 - The one with low volume (and a winner)!

I opted out of Sunday Stash last week... I mean if Molli Sparkles is on vacay, it just seems a little lacklustre! But this week... I'm baaaack (and so is he)! 

Last week, These came into my stash and went right on out... they're already sewn into Young B's Oh Deer quilt top! And shockingly, I bought such a small cut (just 0.2m or 8 inches for you imperial measurers out there) that I don't even have enough selvage to tell you a danged thing about them!

 

I do have a little more info on these! On the left, Dot in silver and white by Timeless Treasures and, on the right, Masquerade V by Fresh Designs for Henry Glass. These are what pass for low volume at my LQS. More on low volume a little later...

Now what's this?

That's not fabric, you say? True dat. But it did come into my sewing world last week! And it was such an out there purchase for me that I thought it merited a mention! I blame it all on the Skill Builder BOM over at Pile of Fabric. She's a starcher. God help me. I'm going to starch fabric. Because washing, drying, and ironing it wasn't enough work.

This week, I decided to treat myself to some fabric-y birthday presents from Canadian on-line shop, Mad About Patchwork. I was a bit practical in that I ordered the SunPrint Text needed for the setting triangles on my Toes in the Sand quilt. I could happily order every colour of this!

Also on the practical side, I picked up a few red and blue prints with this hockey quilt in mind. Who could that possibly be for? Not someone's hockey lovin' nephew, J-boy! ☺ That's Pearl Bracelet in Anchor, Remix Ovals in Red, and Oval Elements in Sapphire. 

Then came the impulse buys! This glorious FQ bundle of Michael Miller's Domino Dot. Love, love, love! That purple-y fabric may be my 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge inspiration! I better get my butt in gear on that one!

I had to take Dominique (from the Running Thimble)'s advice and order a low volume stash builder  It's all her fault... she made these and these. Enough said. There's all sorts of goodies in there: (from top to bottom) Stitch Squares in Sea, Pearl Bracelet in Glacier, Botanics Leaves in Curry, Botanics Graph Paper Garden in Curry, La Creme Swiss Dots in Red, Minimalista Prisma Noir, White On White Basics Medium Dot, and Sun Print Text in Mulberry. Mmmm... Sun Print. Mmmmm.... Pearl Bracelet. So powerless to resist...

I'm linking up with Sunday Stash over at Molli Sparkles. If you're not reading his blog (yes, I said his) blog, you're missing out!

And the winner of the birthday giveaway is.... Cattherine from Knotted Cotton. She said "Everything looks great - and your pebble quilting is enviable:-) No I couldn't spot an error!" And no, I didn't choose her because she loves my pebble quilting! I used a random number generator. Honest!


J

Week-end Update!

Another action packed week-end of sewing! On Saturday, we had our first Do Bee sew-in in ages. Q-A (who's a part of every organized quilt thing that I'm in!) booked a community room at a local grocery store. It was perfect! The room is normally used for cooking classes and meetings, so it's equipped with a full kitchen, sturdy tables, and lots of plugs.

Q-A was working on pillow shams and some shattered glass blocks and the other three bee-mates were making Little Dresses for Africa. I've made these simple dresses as a service project at a Girl Scout camp. They're an easy and concrete way to help little girls living in challenging conditions.
I always have a tough time deciding what to sew off site, so I stuck to small projects. I finished Block 10 (Hermosa Beach) of Toes in the Sand. This one's got partial seams, but really they weren't as tough as I've built them up to be.

Then I moved on to Block 11 (La Jolla Cove).  It went together so quickly that I was wishing I had prepared the fabric for the last block.

Instead, I worked away on my ModQImprov blocks for this month. Stay tuned for more on these blocks later this week!

I only stopped because I ran out of Kona Steel! Thankfully, I packed a little quilting project too...

...complete with dorky quilting gloves! They're Machingers and they really do work for reducing neck and shoulder strain. A sew-in wouldn't be complete without a trip to our LQS, so Q-A and I dropped in. Since I was in need of Kona Steel, we headed right to the Kona aisle. Look what they had!

Mini-bolts of Kona! I've been waiting for the White to be re-stocked as I'm down to tiny scraps. The deal at our LQS is that if you buy the whole bolt, you get 20% off. Whee!!! Discounted Kona!!! Q-A and I both succumbed to the deal: her bolt was 4 yards, mine was 7 yards. I know I'll use every last bit of it!

And Sunday's quilty goodness? Block 12 (Big Sur)! The last of Toes in the Sand. Once I've got the background fabric in hand, I can start piecing the top.

Is it wrong that I'm this excited to return these fabrics to my stash? I love tidying up when a stage of a project is complete.

And then... I whipped up something non-quilty. Shocking, right? Q-A and I had a good rummage through the remnant bins yesterday and found some great knitted fabrics for infinity scarves. These have got to be the easiest project ever. Here's a tutorial, though once you read it, you'll see you probably don't need it!

Showing off my new scarf gives me a little something to look forward to this week. A fine bit of preventative medicine for Sundaynightis!

J

WiP - Wishing I had my Toes in the Sand somewhere!

It's a a blustery, blustery day out there. After all that lovely snow last week, we've had a classic Nova Scotian warm up. Rain, fog, and afternoons that look like dusk. I could do more fluffy snow and blue skies! In any case, I decided to make a school night a little more enjoyable and make some time for a project I started back in the summer - the Toes in the Sand BOM from Jaybird Quilts. It makes me think of sunny days, even if I can't see them out my window, especially since each block is named for a California beach! Here are the blocks I've completed thus far...
Eight blocks of twelve! And this week, one more! I'm on to Block 9 - Long Beach. This one's not too taxing - no partial seams or teeny tiny pieces.

Just three more pairs of blocks to do... I thought about setting a goal to have the blocks done by the end of January, but there's been a lot of goals floating around the blogosphere lately. I think I'll just work on it when the spirit moves me! :) It's nice to be making a little progress on something that's been in the hopper for a while now.

My Giant Starburst quilt from the Canoe Ridge Creations QAL has taken a big step. Since I'm back to work this week, I took advantage of the big tables in the art studio to lay out and pin this lovely. I even press ganged a colleague into pinning some of it. She kept saying how it was hurting her fingers to close the pins. Guess my fingers are like leather from all that EPP!

It's a little jumbled up right now, but you can see the quilt in all it's glory here. I have some ideas on how to quilt it, but I've love to hear your suggestions. Feel free to leave me a comment. It's also pretty exciting to me that my LQS brought in this extra wide backing by Riley Blake. Finally, an extra wide print that fits my style!
I'm linking up today for the first WIP Wednesday of 2014 over at Freshly Pieced. I'm really starting to get the hang of this linky business!

I've also resolved to have a new perspective on WiP Wednesdays. In the past, they were like a report on what I still hadn't finished. Not so fun. Now, I'm going to celebrate whatever happens to get made! Much more fun. This should be fun, right? Thanks for stopping by!

J

Thanksgiving Three-peat

How to spend a long week-end when Himself is at sea and the fam-jam is away? Quilting, of course! And I managed to have sew days with quilt-y pals three days in a row. Talk about a three-peat!

Saturday had been a scheduled Q-Squared day for a while, but other commitments reared their ugly heads for Q-A and Q-B. The upside was that Q-D and I had more room to spread out!

I struggled to decide what to work on this week-end. I opted to quilt a piece that had been around for a bit. I needed a consult with at least one of the Squares to get things going. Though it was free-motion, I wanted to keep my lines of stitching running more or less vertical. Out came the masking tape! I've been using this trick for ages! 

The goal was to make it look like raindrops. Thankfully, raindrops don't have to be consistent or any particular shape. Here's another shot of the quilting... I'm saving the money shot for another post. You'll have to be patient!

Q-D had similar issues with indecision this week. She brought a pile of stuff to choose from. When she got her with all her bags, it looked like she was moving in!

Q-D found a pin of this lovely tree quilt a while back, and, rather than just doing the tutorial given on the blog, decided to make her own paper piecing pattern for it. She brought it along this week-end and we got to joking that I should pebble quilt it. Q-D's a little obsessed with my pebble quilting since I made this...

We kept joking and then.... I grabbed that sucker and got to work. It took the rest of Saturday evening and Sunday morning to quilt it, but Q-D seemed to think it was worth it!

 And here she is all done but for the binding...

The pebbling really makes the trees puff out. I quilted a little surprise in there for Q-D. I wonder if she's found it yet. I think Q-D should make me one in exchange. Just the top - I'd quilt it myself!

While I quilted one of her quilts, Q-D plugged away on another. This quilt was the first project she ever brought to a Q-Squared day.... it's been around for a while! Yes, those are paper pieced mittens. And yes, they are tiny! 

Once Q-D hit the road to join her family for Thanksgiving dinner, I knocked out a block for Global Stash Bee, an on-line bee hosted on Flickr. So far, I'm not loving this one as much as ModQImprov Canada. I think it's because it's on Flickr... I'm just not that into it. This month's Queen Bee requested any block at all in Christmas colours (though not necessarily Christmas prints). I chose Megan's Star from Modern Blocks.

I'd kind of forgot about this book, but when I needed some solo block inspiration it was perfect. I even found a block for a future ModQImprov Canada request!

And then today! Ade from Chezzetcook Modern Quilts finally made it here for a sew day. She's been under the weather... just read her blog post from last week-end for the gory details!

I kept on plugging away on my Toes in the Sand blocks. This is a little problematic when there's someone else quilting with me. They're challenging (the blocks, that is) and sometimes I have to talk to them to make sense of it all. Embarrassing, non?

It took me forever to finish the cutting for Block 7. It has 43 pieces! Yes, I said 43!!! in each block. And I made two. I was afraid of the partial seams on Block 4. Clearly, my fear was misplaced.

 There was a lot of referring to the book on this one!

I did it! Block 7 - Pebble Beach - is done! I think it was a good decision to do these in order. Otherwise, I'd have skipped this one and had it to do at the end!

Things got a little chaotic on Ade's table! She too had project indecision for this visit. Must have been something in the water this week. You can see the blocks she received in ModQImprov Canada, as well as those lovely Amy Butler and Heather Bailey prints she used for her postage stamp quilt. Not visible (behind the blue bag) is the block Ade's working on for me for ModQImprov Canada. I blogged about it  here. N.B. She tidied up mere seconds after this pic was snapped. Honest!

My table stayed a little more streamlined today. Those Toes in the Sand blocks are tricky enough. I didn't need any visual clutter!

One more down! Block 8 - Santa Monica.

I have just four more sets of blocks to make and I'll done. Well, done the blocks anyway! 

And before she left, Ade gave me this! Isn't it cool? It's an orb. I can't believe she just gave it to me... saying it was just going to become a pillow anyway. I'm tempted to turn in into a mini-quilt/wall hanging for my bare studio walls. In exchange, I gave Ade back a book that's been on my shelf for easily...hmmm... let's say, 8 years. I couldn't get rid of it - it wasn't mine!

So what am I grateful for on this Thanksgiving week-end? There are many things - Himself (of course) and the rest of my family, to be born in such an amazing country as Canada with so many advantages, to have health, wealth (at least some) and happiness (most days!). But as I write, I'm thankful for the quilt-y friends that filled up what might have been a long (and not in a good way) week-end all on my own.

What if we woke up tomorrow with only what we were grateful for today? That's my deep thought for today!

Hope you found some sewing time around the pumpkin pie and turkey!

Another Sewin' Sunday!

Another gorgeous autumn day... cool, crisp breezes and sun streaming in my studio window. And sewing... ah, sewing!

Today was meant to be a sew day with my quilt-y pal over at Chezzetcook Modern Quilts, but alas, she's under the weather. Feel better soon, Ade! Since I was on my own, I thought I'd carry on with the blocks from my Toes in the Sand quilt. They're are a little tricky and I'd have a hard time working on them whilst having a stitch n' bitch session. Better for solo studio days, methinks!

First up for today was Sonoma Coast. I fiddled around in the studio for a while before starting this one. To be honest, the partial seams were making me uneasy. Procrastination was my solution... at least for a little while. But I finally bit the bullet and got down to work...

 Partial seams in progress...
Turns out, partial seams are nowhere near as hard as I remember them! Perhaps my skill level has improved since I last did them. I should hope so - since it was over ten years ago! There's only one other block of the twelve that has partial seams and I'm not at all worried about it anymore! Here are the completed Sonoma Coast blocks.
Next up, Torrey Pines. The strip sets in this are super easy, but it's a little disappointing to make a length of strips when you only cut half of it into triangles. I'm not a fan of wasting fabric! I might need to make a funky improv piece with all the leftover bits.
The more blocks I made and added to the collection on my floor, the more jarring one of my blocks from last week (Santa Barbara) seemed. The orange I used seemed like a good idea at the time (how many times have we heard that one?!), but now....not so much. Out came the seam ripper... I kept the aqua dot and the hexo fabric, but subbed in a new orange. Much more satisfying.

There are a few more blocks I might end up re-making. I think I was so focused on using a variety of fabrics that I made some poor choices. They're just blocks at this point, so I'd rather re-make 'em now than regret it when they're part of a finished quilt. But fixing stuff is not near as fun as making new stuff so on to Santa Cruz! This is the first block to use the jewel shape that is part of the Hex n'More ruler. I'm really happy I didn't cheap out this time and use the templates in the book. The ruler is well worth it!

This is designed as a block of the month quilt, but if I keep it up at this pace, I'll have all the blocks done in a month! I'm definitely going to need to order more of this Hexo fabric. It's sneaking its way into most of the blocks. And you know what? I'm pretty okay with it!

Himself has returned from a day in the woods, so I'll be back to my EPP while we have some quality time (read as: catch up on episodes of MasterChef Australia Professionals!). Since I finished my pillow this week, I've decided to start a new project. Here's the trouble - it's in the QPPP - Quilting Project Protection Program. It's like the Witness Protection Program, only for quilting projects destined to be given to someone who might read this blog. So I'm only going to show you a quick peak. And you likely won't hear about it again until it's reached its destination. If anyone asks, you haven't seen it. Deal? Great.

It's coming along nicely, though I've had a moment or two where I can't help but feel I've bit off more than I can chew. And these larger hexies are more challenging to manipulate while stitching.

Remember... if anyone asks, you never saw this project. But aren't those batiks just gorgeous? Though I haven't been as enamoured of them lately, I still love the saturated colour.

Thanks for reading!

J