A Life of Plenty Topped

This dark row of blocks was the one I still needed to replace on this quilt before it could be put together. I just thought it was too dark for this quilt and doesn't look like it belongs.

I made lighter blocks but this still looks like too much. Maybe it is too bright. I was trying to figure out what to put instead - something simple like nine patches would help use a variety of fabric and keep it light.  Maybe an applique block or two. Four patch would be nice and easy. An Ohio star would be good.

Zeus popped by to remind us that it is not 2015 anymore. I thought putting the date on it would motivate me to finish it quicker. Hah! Although ... if I wait until next year to finish, the 5 would be easy to change into an 8.

Then I realized that I had a spare row of flying geese!  Why do I have a spare row?  I don't know. My guess is that one of my rows were a bad quality and I made another one.  I didn't realize I had a spare row and have already put the other row into the quilt, chopped off points and all. Which means this one is available to put right here. I like it. It doesn't look like there are too many flying geese in there at all.

Circle Block 179

I also added a block of circles.  This will be a nice addition to the circle quilt. That is some serious rule breaking - to make a circle block that doesn't wind up in the circle quilt at all. I've been thinking about this idea for a while, so I might have already used it in some other quilt, but I like the idea, so I am using it (again?). These circles are deliberately wonky to fit the prim mood.

I don't expect you to go back to my posts from 2015, but will tell you that I varied some of the blocks from the original pattern. The rabbit, the turtle, the friendship star, and the circle are not in the original pattern. Jeni didn't have hearts in her quilt either. I copied that from another quilter who added a lot of hearts to her blocks.  I also changed the layout a bit, because I didn't like the long row on the right hand side, and I moved around the same size blocks to balance the colors a bit. The pattern is still available on Jeni's website and Facebook page for free.

I am really happy with the way it turned out, and really happy that I was able to finish it this weekend.  I start work again tomorrow so it is good timing.  There are some little things I still need to do, like adding a handle to the basket at the top. And since my spool block on the bottom isn't centered, I figure I could applique a needle there and make it look like it was planned.  Maybe outline the turtle so it is easier to see.

The borders for this quilt are plain with cornerstones.  One of the quilters who did this quilt-along appliqued the title of the quilt on the top border, which I think is a fabulous idea. I really like the name of the quilt, and it is a good way to show gratitude without telling people what to do or think.

Linked to:
Slow Sunday Stitching

Part 18 A Life of Plenty

I have finished Part 18 of A Life of Plenty.  I was hoping for pink leaves, but the pinks in the orange box and the oranges in the pink box were the ones that jumped out at me.  The Stem fabric was used in the Star Wars quilt. The purple flowers fabric was used in Dear Jane, and the pink with the purple leaves is a really old fabric that was used in my Drunkard Path's quilt that is hanging on my wall now. I showed it to you a short while ago.  I like to use my fabrics in more than one quilt.

Although these are more orange leaves, you will see that they are more springy than the Part 1 orange leaves block.

I made another love shack.  Let's just say this one is prettier than the last one and let it go at that.

Linked to:
Let's Bee Social

Part 5 A Life of Plenty

Part 5 of A Life of Plenty is finished. I have also started trimming the blocks and putting them together, even though there is one more block to do.  There is also one block I plan on replacing, so I will have to decide on what kind of block I want, and make that.

The leaves use the same fabric as the other blocks I have made lately, but the orange flower fabric is a new fabric I cut up.  The beige center fabric was used for Rey's face in the Star Wars quilt.

Here are some of the blocks together, so you can see how they look together. I've lost a house block. Hopefully, I will find it soon. Otherwise, I will just make a new one, and put the other house in the orphan block box when I find it.

Part 8 A Life of Plenty

This is Part 8 of A Life of Plenty.  I wanted yellow flowers but was too lazy to go upstairs to go through the yellow bin. I found this orange that had enough yellow to make me happy.  The background is yellow, and the orange is nice and bright.

This block has more leaves than the pattern because I didn't like my spacing of the leaves, so I added more to fill in the spaces. Most of the other blocks have fewer leaves than the original pattern, so hopefully this one will show that I'm not that lazy. (A hundred years from now, nobody will know about the yellow fabric situation, and if they do, hopefully they will remember that it takes me longer to go up and down the stairs than usual now.)

I watched some episodes of The Quilt Show this weekend to commemorate National Quilting Day.  I realized why the modern and old fashioned fabric in the last block seemed to me like I was breaking a rule. I was! The rule is that you are not allowed to mix muddy colors with clear colors.  I actually break this rule all the time, but this quilt is supposed to be muddy colors.

We need to come up with a better term than muddy colors.  I loved Bonnie Hunter's use of a variety of background colors and even bought more lights to have that kind of variety. Then people started calling it Low Volume and it became a thing. I think that if we call muddy colors something better, it will become a thing. Who wants muddy quilts?

The background of this block is really old. It was bought in the days when all backgrounds were beige, or so I thought, before I had seen how Bonnie used other light colors besides beige. The green was used in The Earth Laughs in Flowers, and the blue comes from the 1857 quilt box.  I haven't used the orange in other quilts, but now there is plenty leftover to add to other quilts.

I used the background fabric in my fall wreath, which was my first applique quilt.

Part 12 Life of Plenty

I am still sew stitching on A Life of Plenty.  This is Part 12. Lots of little leaves and some double layers of needle turn applique. This one probably has the best quality of applique that I have done lately, as I have been getting more practice, and as I can sit more comfortably as I recover from my surgery.

Block 1 of A Life of Plenty

Part 1 of A Life of Plenty is finished. This definitely proves I am not going in any particular order.  Most of the leaves on this block were already done, so I just added the stem and the last two leaves for a quick finish.

Block 11 Life of Plenty

Part 11 of A Life of Plenty is finished.  I'm obviously not going in numerical order, since I showed you Part 14 last time. I was telling my sister that I was working on a quilt I started last year and showed her the pattern.  Do you see it? It is copyrighted in 2014. Yes, I started this quilt last year in 2014.

There is something about a weeping willow that really intrigues me. It looks so different from the usual tree. I was really happy when I saw that Jeni incorporated one of them into the quilt.

I have been trying to improve the quality of my applique as I go along. I think that I did pretty well on the trunk and branches (until I saw this closeup haha), but these leaves are much smaller than the leaves in the last block. I'm sure the next block will be better.

Part 14 of Life of Plenty Finished

I finished Part 14 of Life of Plenty.  All of these calming blues and greens make me happy.

I am using needle turn applique. I didn't make templates for this block either. I did a much better job with the size of the stem on this one. The curves aren't as smooth as they could be, but that is because I use so many different techniques in each quilt. Each time, I learn how to do the technique, then I move on to another technique. By the time I come back to that technique, I have to learn it all over again.  I'm fine with it though - leaves aren't all that smooth in real life.

Linked to:
Moving it Forward

Part 13 Finished Life of Plenty

I finished Part 13 of Life of Plenty. As you can see, I did not cut out the pattern and make templates - I simply eyeballed them to cut them out. This fabric comes from many different quilts. The brown in the center of the flowers was used in 1857. The green and orange leaves were used in Lansing Leaves. The stems are from the Glitter block.  The mottled spool has been used in many different projects. The green spool was used in a project long ago - maybe Dear Jane. The orange flower is also old - maybe Moonflower.

Unfortunately none of these other quilts are finished, but maybe someday.

Linked to:
Kathy's Quilts 
Oh Scrap!

Slow Stitching

In an act of extreme spring cleaning, I have said thank you to my reproductive organs and sent them on their way.  No need to carry around the extra pound when I don't need them anymore.  I have switched to hand stitching during the recovery and am making more Life of Plenty blocks.

I am picking up the first scrap fabric that will work instead of looking for the perfect fabric.  I somehow like how that modern stem fabric looks with the old fashioned spool fabrics.

Plenty of Quilting

I've been doing plenty of quilting on the daisies quilt. It is going much better now that I have adjusted the tension, and have relaxed a bit. Thank you everyone for your advice. I have sewn down 11 of the 16 daisies. I have been changing the thread to try to match the color of the flowers and have the purple and the pink ones left to do.

This means I have met my One Monthly Goal, which was to quilt 8 of the 16 daisies, but I think I will go ahead and sew the rest of them down this month too. I still have to do the background to do, but I don't think I will have time to do that this month.

I have also been trying to clean the sewing room. This is always a hard task for me to do, as all that new fabric makes me want to start a new project, and the older ones beg to be finished. Since I wasn't about to adjust the machine for regular sewing when it is set up for free motion, I did finish these two blocks that just needed a bit of hand applique. These blocks are from A Life of Plenty. I worked on them during jury duty last year and hadn't put them back with the other Life of Plenty blocks.

Linked to:


Moving it Forward Monday
Silly Mama Quilts

2015 Recap of my Year

Today is the last day of the year.  2015 was a good year for me.  Today, I am going to give you a recap of the year by reminding you of some of my posts I made this year.

My word of the year was Clarity, and I tried to be more clear in everything I did.  In my communication, I tried to make sure that people had enough background information to understand what I was saying, and tried to choose my words more carefully instead of taking the lazy way out. While there was effort and improvement, I will continue to work on this.

In my home, I tried to clear out my spaces to be more open, welcoming, and easier to maintain. I was extremely successful in this.  I got rid of some big furniture pieces and either bought something smaller or went without a replacement.  I reduced the number of flower beds in the yard. There has been substantial progress in the  family room, the kitchen, and the yard.  Other rooms also have made progress, but not to the extent that I want. I will continue to work on them in 2016. And it wasn't all cleaning-type work either.  I framed and put up artwork that had been in the closet for years, put up tiles for a back-splash in the kitchen, replaced a defunct dishwasher, had some electrical work done, and purchased and painted a picnic table so I could enjoy the outside as well as the inside of the house. Yesterday, the contractor finished installing a new front porch on my house.

In quilting, I had a lot of fun.  Although the number of quilt finishes I had in 2015 is low, there are many works in progress that provided me a lot of joy this year.  I kept my focus on the projects I was working on and I hope to finish them in 2016. Most of the quilts I made this year are made up of different blocks, so if you have been following along, you have been able to see my progress block by block throughout the year.

In February, I showed the finished the Christmas Tree quilt, which I showed you again recently.

In February, I joined the Elephant Parade Quiltalong, hosted by Lorna Mahon of Sew Fresh Quilts. I added more animals and people throughout the year, and in September, I finished making all of the blocks. These blocks were a lot of fun to make, and now it is just a matter of trimming some blocks, choosing a layout, adding the sashing, and putting them into a quilt.

I also joined A Life of Plenty Quiltalong, hosted by Jeni from the Willow in February. I think I made my last block for it in March.  There are still many more blocks that have been prepped. Even though I was enjoying making both quilts,  I realized that Elephant Parade and A Life of Plenty were competing against each other with my time and space.  Since they both required me to dig through my stash, and different parts of my stash, it might be better for me to do one at a time.  I do really like this quilt and hope to get back to it soon.

In August, I showed the finished Irish Chain Quilt.

From September through November, I worked on the Islamic Tile Quilt. It is now a top and needs to be quilted.

I started the Quilty 365 Project in November, where I make a circle a day. This project is a year-long project, and I have been making a circle a day most days. I've slowed somewhat on this, but hopefully I will get back in a routine for making these circles. These circles have gotten out of order as I was showing them off, but I will be putting them together soon.

 


 In November, I started the rail fence quilt from Sujata Shah's book, Cultural Fusion. All the blocks are now made, and I just need to put them together into a quilt.

This is the first time I have finished making blocks, and yet not taken it to the next level of making a quilt top, and yet I am at that stage for two and a half quilts.  I think it is just the excitement of making the next quilt that distracted me from finishing the quilts I started.  I enjoyed making the blocks, and I enjoy seeing completed quilts, so I am hopeful that all of these quilts will be shown as finishes for 2016.

In December, I made this little quilt out of the leftovers from the rail fence quilt. I even finished it so I could be sure to have another finish for the year.

As a bonus, I want to show you something I haven't shown before. My family came over and we had a craft day, making these cute little strawberries. It is a great way to round out the year with family, and crafting.

I wish all my readers a happy and healthy New Year.  I hope it is the best year ever for you and your family.

Life of Plenty Decision

That row of four blocks I showed you in my last post has been bothering me. They are the wrong color / mood.  I didn't like a long row next to the other long rows in that section and needed to think of a way to break it up.  I kept trying to think about what to put there.  Come on, what a life of plenty have?  Love, it is in there.  Nature, it is in there.  Friendship, it is in there.  Books, nah, they don't seem to fit with the other things in the quilt and may be hard to draw.  Money, no, you buy things with money and there are baskets in there for that.  I couldn't think of anything.

I think the reason the decisions are hard is because there is a limited amount of space left in the quilt for extra stuff.  I like all the other designs that are in the other quilt and it would be hard for me to give them up.

I considered making this quilt bigger, but have decided that it might be better just to start over with another quilt like this where I add things from the multitude of patterns I have collected over the years.

Then I got a notice from the library that I had a book that was about to become due to return.

Colorful Stitchery: 65 Embroidery Projects to Personalize Your Home by Kristin Nicholas was the only one that could not be renewed.  I looked through it to make sure I wasn't going to miss out on anything important. It has lots of cute little stitchery projects.  The patterns are all tiny, so you can enlarge them on your printer.  Then I  noticed the pattern for the vase that is sitting on the chair on the cover of the book.  My quilt is full of flowers in vases, and this one would fit in it perfectly.  That vase can take up the place of two blocks, and I can still piece two blocks to fill up the space. Decision made.

You know what a Life of Plenty needs?  Unlimited inspiration in the form of library books and the internet.

National Quilting Day

Happy belated National Quilting Day.  I hope you had plenty of time for quilting.

The Quilt Show is offering all of its older episodes for free this weekend, so I was able to find lots of inspiration. I was supposed to be making blocks for Elephant Parade, but  I wasn't able to think and machine sew, and also pay attention, so I did some handwork. I made two blocks for A Life of Plenty.

I had the hardest time fitting the flowers in this one until I realized I had cut the background too narrow, so I added another piece.  I really like the folk art nature of these tulips. I put a date on this one. Now I am obligated to finish it this year!

Here they are on the floor in a random manner. I'm still not sure about that row of pieced blocks in the center.  That pink and brown just seems to disappear, but it may be the wood background that is causing the problem.  I am going to think about what to do with those. Right now, I am thinking of making this section into two blocks instead of one.  Maybe Ohio stars and friendship stars, applique, or a combination of stars and applique.

Pieced Blocks for A Life of Plenty Finished

I finished all of the pieced blocks for A Life of Plenty.  I was supposed to make two basket blocks and one row of four blocks. I don't know the name of that block.  I didn't want to make two baskets that would be next to each other, so I searched for an applique pattern. Maybe a dog, a horse, a squirrel.  I spent a lot of time looking for something that would work, but didn't like any of my choices.  Finally, I decided to stop wasting my time and just trust Jeni. She had already done the work of choosing the blocks, and I needed to get the blocks done before work starts up again.

I started with the row of four blocks.  This one has partial seams, which I have done before.  This quilt is definitely not for beginners!  I enjoyed making the blocks. I made a mistake with the cutting, in that I didn't have both fabric facing the same way when I cut.  This meant that two of my blocks spin a different way than the other two, but I decided to make the blocks anyway. 

After making the row and putting them next to some of the blocks, I realized that the blocks are way too dark for the quilt. This is a low volume quilt with accents of color.  I needed to choose lighter medium colors. Since I enjoyed making the blocks, it wasn't any trouble to make another batch of blocks.  I really liked the layout, so I repeated my cutting mistake on this batch.  It looks like it might be too bright in the picture below, but I think that is because of the flash.  The first batch will be saved for another orphan quilt, or may wind up on the back.

I took a break to look at some blogs and saw someone who had made a low volume quilt with friendship stars. That's exactly what I needed for A Life of Plenty!  I realized that the reason I was having an issue with so many basket blocks was that baskets contain physical things.  With my goal of clarity for the year, I don't want to have a lot of physical things.  Friendship belongs in A Life of Plenty!  Both the friendship star block and the basket block went together quickly and easily.

The next step is to add applique to the basket blocks, and work on the remaining applique blocks.

The Geese are Flying!

Jeni posted the directions for putting together all the blocks for A Life of Plenty recently. It is such a beautiful quilt!  I'm so glad I joined this quilt-along.  This post, though, made me realize how far behind I was, since I had a late start.  I decided to work on the pieced blocks to get closer to the finish line faster.  I made three house blocks. I knew there were a lot of flying geese in this quilt, but hadn't realized quite how many - there are more than 40.

I really like using the no-waste method of making flying geese.  You make four flying geese at a time, and you don't really see the geese until the end. It is like magic! There are a lot of scraps used in these, from back in the day when most fabric came with floral designs. I don't know exactly what makes a fabric "prim", but there were some scraps I just wanted to use up that don't look like they belong in a prim quilt. I decided that just like I don't make purely modern quilts, I don't make purely prim quilts either.

I really dislike paper piecing.  I haven't had much practice, but when I try, things don't work out well.  The last block Jeni gave us was a paper pieced one.  I thought about substituting it with another block, but stayed firm and decided to make the block.  It is only one block, and I haven't actually completely made a paper pieced block.  At least if I actually make a block, I can say that I can do it, and maybe I will be convinced to use it more.  Otherwise, I can at least say that I tried.

proof that I have tried paper piecing.

I decided to sneak in the paper piecing in between the flying geese to make the job more palatable.  Instead of the flying geese making the paper piecing better, the paper piecing made the flying geese worse.  I kept having trouble with the paper piecing. I started out with the fabric facing the wrong way, then I pieced the second fabric the wrong way, then I pieced it on the wrong side, and mostly I kept coming up short even though I had a really large fabric.  There was a lot of ripping of seams. I didn't shorten the stitch, so it wasn't difficult, but having to redo the same parts over and over again was not fun. 

The frustration also made me be more lenient with the flying geese blocks. I left the chopped off points the way they were.

All the flying geese, house blocks, and the paper pieced star are done.  There are a few more pieced blocks to finish and a lot more of the applique blocks. I do think I will be able to go back to enjoying making this quilt now that the paper pieced one is done.

Another turtle and another bird

I made a lot of progress on my Life of Plenty quilt yesterday. Instead of only one finished block, you get to see three!   Jeni from the Willow has posted the last block of this quilt, and will be working on finishing instructions and borders next, so if you want this pattern, you had better go over to her blog and get it while it is still free!

I did another substitution, and instead of a little pumpkin, I added a turtle. It uses the same green fabric that was used on the Elephant Parade quilt.  There is a bigger pumpkin on the quilt, and as I said in my last post, I didn't want to make this too much of a fall quilt.

This bird is one of the blocks that are in Jeni's quilt.  I started with the same green floss as the turtle, but it is light for this block, so I switched to a darker green.  It is therefore variegated!

To give my wrists a break, I decided to make a pieced block from the quilt.  I have been randomly making blocks, and choosing fabrics. I noticed that the directions is building the quilt as we go along, so I should be checking the placement of the fabrics I choose, but hopefully if I will be able to swap out the places in the quilt if I have the same fabric too close to each other in the quilt.

There are a couple of in-process blocks I will show you later, but as you can see, this stack of blocks is getting bigger and looking more like a quilt!

Bunny Rabbit

One of the blocks on A Life of Plenty is a small cat.  I didn't want a cat in my quilt. I am allergic to cats, and my allergies are plenty aggravated lately since the basement cleaning. I was debating what to do instead while I worked on another block, a sprig of leaves. Should it be a turtle?  Not a cow, how about an elephant? A playful dog would be nice.

It's been snowing all winter.  And when it isn't snowing, it is cold, which means the snow doesn't melt.  And if you need more variety, sometimes it is even cold AND snowing.  The heater keeps turning back on right after it turns off.  But my mood has not been affected, and I have come to realize that, indeed, I have a life of plenty.  This is probably because I was able to work from home this winter instead of having to drive out there in these weather conditions to go to work.

I took a picture of Zeus in the deep snow one day. He absolutely loves playing in the snow. He begs to walk no matter the weather or temperature, as long as it is not lightening. The photo took a while because I really had to time it right until he was in deep snow.  I shouldn't have bothered since the very next day, it was deep like this pretty much everywhere!

The night before last, I peeked out my window and saw a rabbit in my garden. It was just sitting there on top of the snow, frozen.  I thought that he might be sitting still because it felt my presence. I walked away, but when I came back a few minutes later it was still sitting there. So cute!

Then yesterday morning, I was going through my blog reading and came across Jeni's blog.  She hadn't posted another block for A Life of Plenty, but she had posted a different free design for a blog hop. Yep it was a rabbit, and I decided it was the right substitute for the cat.  I had to shrink it to fit, which made it harder to applique.

It had to be pink, because a lot of people are making pink elephants for the elephant parade.  Also because I do not want my quilt to turn out to be a fall quilt. Plus spring is around the corner. And also because I had a scrap of pink fabric out to make the flying geese for this quilt. I decided to use a buttonhole stitch because I don't know if there is enough contrast between the pink and the background. I am working on trying to improve the quality of my applique, but since I added a new element of buttonhole stitch, it doesn't look like it is a higher quality. I used a children's washable marker to trace the pattern; that's why his leg looks so pronounced. I need to wash it off. The pattern also has some flowers, which I might add if there is space.

Here it is with the other blocks. I haven't shown you the leaves yet because I still need to figure out how to do the stem, and a couple more leaves need to be appliqued down.