Promised Block Pics

About a month ago, I promised I would show you some pictures of some blocks. Better late than never, here are the blocks I was promising to show you.

1857 Album Quilt

These three are from the 1857 quilt. The last of the blocks have been released, but I am way behind in getting them ready. These blocks have been prepped but have not been sewn down yet. You see a shadow under all of them because they are all stacked up and you can see a different block underneath each of these. When there is batting underneath, I don't think that will be a problem.

 

 

 Circle Block 191 

The reason I delayed showing these to you was because I thought I would be able to add to this. None of these blocks wow me. But I don't have anything new to show you.

 I have been cleaning and finishing up remodeling projects around my house. With my surgery, I did not get any chance to do any spring cleaning. I am also working on transforming my house and my life to be more low-maintenance.

 One day last week, I was drawn to reading an old post of mine. It was the first post from 2016, and in it I mentioned that I was working on following the book by Marie Kondo and touching every belonging in my house and deciding whether I should keep it. This has turned out to be a long-term project.

I have been living here for a very long time. I am not planning on moving, but the basic premise is that I am moving out of the house and moving back in without hiring a moving truck. What would I put in here if I was starting all over again.

One of the problems is I bought a couch as part of this process. And every time I pass it, it beckons me to take a nap.

1857 Quilt Progress

I have been working on the 1857 quilt lately. I prepped some more blocks and now have 16 blocks prepped. I even sewed down some of the fusible applique. I really like how it looks. One of the decision I made early on was that I was going to match the thread to the applique, and since this quilt has at least four colors (red, yellow, blue and green), this will take a lot of thread changes to get done.

I worked on pink today, so the block that has two different pinks is done. It is the only block that is done, and even it isn't really done because I still need to add the corner diamonds. But progress has been made on the quilt and I am satisfied with that.

This is a free BOM offered by Sentimental Stitches. We get a month to download the batch of blocks that are offered that month. After that, they are available for purchase.

 Linked to Let's Bee Social and Silly Mama Quilts.

August Adrinka Block

I know last time I said I had all month to make the August block, but my finish didn't feel finished, so I went ahead and made it.  It is the middle one in the second row. Only a few more blocks left to go.

I am now working on catching up with the 1857 blocks.  This will take longer since there are several blocks that are released each month.  I think I have a better chance of catching up with the 1857 than I do the circle quilt, since each day the circle count I need to make keeps going up.

Linked to Let's Bee Social. I really enjoy seeing all the different types of projects quilters are making.

Halfway Point of Circles 365

I won a bundle of scrap fabric from Brooke at Silly Mama Quilts.  Such beautiful pieces that I had to start right away and make some circles.  Thank you Brooke!

Block 152

Some of the pieces were already sewn together, so I sewed them up some more, cut them and sewed them back together.  This is a large circle that is bigger than a block, so I will have to find a place where it can overlap without encroaching too much on surrounding squares.

 Block 153

I decided to let these pretty fabrics do the heavy lifting and made a simple circle.

 Block 154

I really like this linen fabric and the circle that was in it, even if I did have to cut into the middle of the fabric to get to it.  It is on a chenille background.  Both of these pieces were in the scrap bundle.

 Block 155

This one is one of a few that didn't use Brooke's scraps.  The heart is a leftover from the 1857 quilt.  There are dots in the butterflies so if you don't see the outside of the heart as a circle, you don't need to call the quilt police.

 Block 156

This fun whimsical fabric is going in as a whole piece.  Lots of circles to see, and anything I do will cover up the fun fabric.

 Block 157

This is another leftover of the 1857 quilt.  I cut lots of circles, and squeezed the scrap onto the block.

 Block 158

Another leftover from the 1857 quilt.  Why throw away the tiny pieces when you can make a circle out of them?

 Block 159

These are all from the scrap bundle.  I really like this one.  It sets a scene of going on a bike ride someplace floral and pretty and having a picnic. So romantic.

 Block 160

This is a scrap from the 1857 quilt.

 Block 161

These are also from the scrap bundle. I like that the background and the foreground are strong forces that work together.

Yesterday was my halfway point of making the circles. I should have 183 made, but have 161.  I don't mind running behind during my busy time at work, and think it will take too long to catch up.

1857 Quilt

As a reward to hanging with me until the last circle, I will show you my progress on the 1857 Quilt. More blocks have been prepped. I still need to sew down a lot of these pieces. There are lots of circles in this quilt too.

Free Motion Quilting and More Circle Blocks

I've started quilting the Daisy's Chickenpox quilt, and when the machine is set up for free motion quilting, the production of the 365 circles has slowed down. I still have a few to show you though.

Block 113

A four-patch with quarter circles appliqued raw-edge style. Orange thread is in the machine because of the quilting and it matches here.

Block 114

Another design that starts out with a four patch, but this one goes way beyond that. Most of the border will be hidden in the seam allowance so very little will show.

Block 115

I know I've done circle of triangles before, but it looked really good last time and I enjoy using up these pretty little scrap bits. I was thinking about making a snippets quilt, but I think I have enough WIPs.

Block 116

One of my friends from HubPages, Mark Ewbie, drew a drawing of a woman looking on as a man was reading the directions.  I really liked it, so I cropped it and recreated it in fabric.  There was a quilting challenge to make something with the theme of reading, and since I didn't want to start a new project, I could at least satisfy myself that I did something about reading in my quilt.

Beginning of Row Six

Here's the layout of this week's row. I haven't sewn these together yet.

I have secured the applique on all of the blue and yellow sections of this block, as well as all the 1857 blocks. I am doing them assembly line by color, to avoid continual changing of thread on my machine.  I still have to do the green (once I get some green thread) and the red. There is going to be a lot of starts and stops for the leaves on this block.

Daisies Quilting

Before I show you the quilting on the daisies, I need you to turn into a man on a galloping horse.  While you are at it, you might as well choose to be an unobservant man.  Get on the horse and gallop really fast, as fast as the horse can handle.  Are you ready?

Ahh, isn't it lovely?

All right, I will show you a clearer picture.

I've quilted a couple of the daisies down.  I am facing several issues in doing this.

• I am planning on giving this quilt to someone, so the stakes are higher.
• The fusible I used was not a good quality, and even though I did press them (at least twice), the petals still are not secure in some places. It also has been sitting, folded, for a while.  There are a couple of places where the petals bubbled up and got a fold stitched into the quilting.  I'm willing to let those go.
• I don't have a flat bed on my sewing machine.  I bought a drop-in table, and while it solved the problem for my old machine, my new machine doesn't fit in the table. I have put up stuff (books) to get the bed as flat as possible but I still have some drag.  I'm going to have to research and save up for a bed for this machine.
• Those inner petals have to be pinned out of the way, and the pins have to be avoided while quilting.
• Free motion quilting works sometimes for me and sometimes it doesn't.  I did fine on the improv quilt but it was fairly small.  The biggest problems I had on that one was to limit the jerkiness and getting the stitch length from being excessively big or small. I didn't have tension problems on that quilt. 

On this quilt, the tension isn't right.  The top thread is flat while the bobbin thread goes in and out.  I think this is a function of not coordinating the machine and hands correctly, but only practice will help with that.  I am hoping that I will get better as I go along, and then I will take out some of the particularly bad stitches and try again. I think I will switch to a practice piece for a while. I might have to think of some walking foot quilting for the background too.

Question: Is this type of tension problem just an issue because it doesn't look good, or will it come apart with washing and use?  Just trying to figure out how important it is to fix it.

Linked to:
Oh Scrap! 
Moving It Forward 
Freemotion By the River 
Building Blocks Tuesday 
WOW - WIPs on Wednesday

End of February Recap

For the month of February, I had two quilting goals.  One was to meet my one monthly goal (OMG) of piecing the blocks together of my rail fence quilt.  The other was to keep up with the Quilty 365 project.  I have met both of those goals.  Here's the proof.

One Monthly Goal: Rail Fence

For the Cultural Fusion Rail Fence, here's the pieced top.

I know I've shown it to you earlier this month. I don't want to start quilting this one yet, because I already have a sandwiched quilt that needs to be finished first. The Daisies Chickenpox quilt, which has been sandwiched and ready to quilt since December 2013. Yikes! Wasn't that just yesterday?  I have two sandwiched quilts, and I decided that instead of buying more safety pins or making do with the ones I do have available, I would finish quilting one of the quilts that are holding my safety pins for ransom for March's One Monthly Goal.

Quilty 365: Rule Breaking Quilt

The second goal was the circles. I showed you earlier in the week that I had caught up with making 100 circles in 100 days. Today, I want to show you more circles. Today is Day 105 so I should have 5 more circles to show you, but I should have 6 more for a true end of the month recap.

Blocks 101 and 102

I saw a quilt made of drunkard path blocks to represent sunrise or sunset, and thought I should use that in my quilt.

 Block 103

This skinny block is only one inch wide finished.Who said all blocks have to be square? I didn't sew the circles individually but made a grid pattern to secure the circles.

 Block 104

The pattern for this block comes from the Splendid Sampler quiltalong.  I reduced the pattern to fit the size of this block.  This block doesn't do the pattern justice.  I highly recommend looking into this quilt-along.  The Facebook page shows all sorts of color choices.  Many quilters have also added applique and embroidery to their blocks.  The creativity is amazing.  It is a good lesson on how to take a pattern and putting your own spin on it.

I know there are a lot of Quilt-Alongs this year, and I found a great resource that provides a list of the 2016 Quilt-Alongs and shows you what they each look like.

Block 105

These are scallops made the lazy way.  This block is made to commemorate some new fabric I purchased from Connecting Threads.  I have been feeling guilty about my fabric purchases this year and last because I've probably bought more in this time period than the previous decade. I'm not used to buying a lot of fabric at any one time without having a purpose for it, but when you buy online, you have to buy enough to get the free shipping!

 I also had a hard time using this in a block, but I made myself do it.  It's only two pieces from a charm pack and this quilt is worthy of using new fabric!

This block is very thick because of the layers of fabric and fusible.  I decided not to try to follow the curves when sewing this down because of all the applique blocks I still need to sew.  Those will need more precise work.

 Block 106

I was originally planning on making a large circle with two smaller circles like this in a horizontal setting, but once I had them cut up and ready to place, I found I liked the diagonal placement better.

I now have enough blocks to make a row.  I will add these to the quilt top and show you tomorrow.

 Blocks 107 and 108

These are the scraps from Blocks 101 and 102. It didn't seem right not to go ahead and sew these too.  I didn't want to put them side by side with those other blocks so I waited to make these.  I debated turning these around to make a big four block square, but have decided to leave each as a separate pair.

I know I am making more blocks than I need to.  I am breaking the rule that you can't sew ahead of schedule!  With spring coming, I will be entering a busy season at work, and with yard work, I will be much busier.  I feel better getting a few circles ready ahead of time.  It will mean fewer catch-up blocks further down the line.

Blocks 109, 110, 111 and 112

This one gets four block numbers because it is an extra large block.  I still need to sew the applique down. This one is inspired by the 1857 quilt and uses the fabric from that quilt (I bought less than I need for that quilt and I am using up the fabric before they are truly scraps!)

The pattern for this block is from a Quilt-along at Legends and Lace. Click on the block in the sidebar.  There are several free patterns.  I really, really like the way the background works with the applique in this piece, and am debating whether I should add busier backgrounds to the 1857 Quilt.

1857 Quilt

Speaking of the 1857 Quilt, I have prepared the last block.  I need to sew down the applique for all of the blocks for this quilt.  Besides being boring, the white background makes the blocks hard to photograph.  This block uses the same beautiful fabrics as the last picture I showed you of the Rule Breaking Quilt, but they don't look nearly as good in the pictures for this quilt.

Linked to:
One Monthly Goal 
Moving It Forward Monday 
Let's Bee Social

1857 Album Quilt

I've been talking about the 1857 Album Quilt for a while, but I haven't shown you any of it yet.  The pattern is free from Sentimental Stitches as a 2016 quilt-along.  I've always wanted to do an album quilt, and I don't know what it is about this quilt that made me decide this is the one, besides the fact that the pattern was free, and it is hard to resist so many quilt-alongs.  I really like the beautiful variety of images in this quilt. There are 64 blocks in the quilt.

I sneakily talked about buying fabric - it is very rare for me to buy fabric specifically for a quilt. I tried to retain the mood of the quilt, but will not be using reproduction fabrics. Some of these are from a charm pack for variety, and others are from yardage.  I washed, dried, and pressed the fabric, something that is probably even more rare for me than buying fabric!  I traced shapes onto fusible, pressed them to fabric and then cut out the shapes out of  the fabric.

Yesterday, I was finally able to arrange the shapes onto the background and can show them to you. These pictures don't do the blocks justice - still winter and dark.  I will use a machine buttonhole stitch to secure the applique. I am showing them with the pattern so I could keep track of the block numbers.

 Forgot to reverse the pattern - you were right Allie!

I did press these blocks but it certainly doesn't look like it. Do I need a new iron?

Circles 79 - 87

Here's another batch of circles for the Quilty 365 Circle project. Mine is currently named The Rule Breaking Quilt.

 Circle 79

I already showed you Circle 78 which is on the left. It uses leftovers from the Adrinka quilt.
Circle 79 is on the right. An apple is not quite round, but I thought it was close enough. It was a scrap of fabric I picked up to trim and decided to turn into a circle instead.

 Circle 80

 I used a pieced background because I wanted something different that didn't look I made these batches at a time.  I was piecing it as a leader and ender while quilting the leftover rails quilt, which meant that this one finished before the other ones that were being prepped. I think I am going to choose the arrangement in the quilt for this batch, but I have to number them to show you.

Circle 81

PBS (Create TV) had a six hour marathon where they showed quilting shows. My allergies were really bad, so I couldn't do much work but it did give me a good excuse to watch all of them.

I'm pretty sure that all the shows were reruns but since I don't get up at 6am to watch tv, I had only seen a couple of them which had aired at more reasonable times.  It was nice to put faces and personalities to some of the names I had seen on the internet.

One of the techniques they presented on Quilting Arts was layering the fabrics, sewing circles, and cutting the layers.  Then using machine embroidery to embellish.

 Here is me butchering this technique. I put the layers in an incorrect order(I think the background goes in the back  not the front)  and cut the black line way too skinny so it is hard to see, but I like the way it looks here.

 Circle 82

The reason my dining table is not rid of scraps that need to be trimmed for scrap vortex is that I keep bringing more downstairs.  This is one I brought downstairs. I want to keep making plain circles because that is absolutely allowed and I don't want people to forget that. I like that this one is dark and sedate. I used embroidery stitches around it which you can't see very well in the picture, but it will be a nice reward for people who bother to take the time to look at the individual circles.

 Circle 83

 Another do, using a small scrap from the railfence quilt.  This one makes me hungry for All Sorts candy.

 Circle 84

One of the scraps I brought downstairs was a bag of leftovers from the Daisies Do Tell quilt. (That quilt is sandwiched and holding my safety pins for ransom.)  The scraps are very tiny, and only some of them have fusible on the back of them.  I had the fusible out anyway as I am tracing the blocks for the 1857 quilt, so it was an easy decision to make these.

 Circle 85

This one uses leftovers of a circle block which uses leftovers from the rail fence leftovers which uses leftovers of the rail fence quilt. These pieces already had fusible on them so it was a simple matter of arranging them and sewing them down.

 Circle 86

These are more leftovers from the Daisies Do Tell.  I wanted to make a circle out of shapes that were not circular.

Circle 87

The glasses were supposed to be the circular part, but they didn't turn out as circular as I wanted, and the background fabric wasn't flat enough to use so I cut it out and appliqued it on a new background. This one one represents my new pair of glasses, although they don't look like that.

I have also quilted circles on my leftover rail fence quilt.  I used a green washable marker to draw the circles and am hoping that it washes out.  Poor Zeus was so confused when I brought out different sizes of  plates but no food!  Yesterday with my allergies, I chose a sedate green for the binding, but today I cut out a bright orange. I want to hurry and bind it so I can get it washed before the marker becomes permanent.

Linked to:
Move it Forward Monday 
Linky Tuesday