2012 Quilting Review

It is time for my annual year end review of my quilting accomplishments for the year.  This year, I did not blog very much.  I also did not do a lot of quilting.  I have taken care of some medical problems - nothing serious, but lots of little things that meant I got to know a lot of different doctors.  I even spent a couple of nights at a sleep clinic and now have a CPAP machine.

My project-by-project job had some extra projects this year, which was very good news.   I also spent a lot of time writing and reading hubs on HubPages.  I am still trying to have a large portfolio of articles there.  I have reduced the clutter in my house - that is going to be an ongoing project, but I have made great progress.  

Okay, enough chatter.  Let's see if I can find some quilts I have made this year! My latest finish is this coin quilt.  I belong to the Small Quilt newsgroup with Kathy Tracy, and her challenge this year was to make one small quilt each month.  She specified which quilt to make each month - sometimes she provided a pattern, and sometimes she chose one from one of her books.  This one is adapted from her Remembering Adelia book. I added the small inner border.   It is the only quilt I made all year from this challenge.

This is another small quilt I made this year.  It is adapted from a pattern in a book, Red, White and Sometimes Blue by McCalls quilting.

This is a small quilt I made as a request for a friend. It is inspired by a quilt I saw at the quilt show.

That's it - three little quilts.  I am actually proud that I did manage to get three quilts done.  I am tempted to make another small quilt to add to the list, but I think I need to keep my focus on my Hubpages goals.  We have to write 8 articles a month as a part of the Apprenticeship Program, and I have 3 more to write this month!

Besides these three quilts, I did make progress on my block of the month from last year, but that progress has been slow.  We were supposed to be using thangles to make the quilt, and I chose to use a different method.  All of the blocks are made, and I am working on the star points.  This is an old picture, and many more of the star points have been added.  I think I probably would have made more quilting progress if I hadn't been forcing myself to make more progress on this one.  I am glad I allowed myself to work on the little quilts in the meantime.

2013 Quilting Goals

I got scared when I saw that I had made 2012 quilting goals, but it looks like I was kind to myself and expected very little quilting to be done.  I think 2013 will also be a slow quilting year, but I do hope to make more progress on my current quilts.  I'd like to finish three quilts that have been in the works.  Since I have moved my studio to another room, I have been inspired to make use of all the fabric and supplies I do have and hopefully will have more than three little quilts to show for 2013.

I hope all of you had a wonderful 2012, and I wish you all the best for 2013.  Happy New Year!

Quilt Reveal: Three Hearts Quilt

I have finished quilting and binding the three hearts quilt.  Please check my previous posts for details about this quilt.

The fabric I had separated as "use me" in my stash was the one I used for the binding and the simple label. I really like the backing fabric as well.

This is what it looks like before washing. I used two different fabrics for the background, and just like in the book, the one white looks a lot darker than the other when looking at it on the quilt. In real life, the whites are both very similar to each other.

This is what it looks like after washing. The pencil markings came off great, but there was one spot I used the eraser to erase (old habits die hard), and that little blue stain is still on the quilt.  I did play around with the photo program to try to get the colors to look truer in all of these photos. The quilt finishes at 13" x 17".

I like it. I think it will be a great addition to my quilt wall collection.

Three Hearts Quilt

In my last post, I showed you the open book showing you my inspiration for my latest hearts quilt.  There is another picture n this post so you don't have to look for it.  It is from this book called Red White and Sometimes Blue: Classics from McCalls Quilting by Patchwork Place.

My main goal was to make something small and quick, with a modern feel to it. I decided that it would be great to have the three hearts form one heart.  I used pink instead of red because I had just purchased a BOM kit for one month, and it happened to be pink.

You know how libraries put certain books out on display to draw attention to them?  I had found a pink fabric while I was looking for something else, and I had placed it on top as a display because I wanted to use it next.

The piecing was quick and simple, although it did require some unsewing. Why did it take four seams before I noticed the error?  This would have worked great as an orphan block, leaving everyone wondering why I made a y, but I didn't want to cut any more pieces.

I only had three pieces of pink, so instead of looking for more or using a fabric twice, I decided to make only three hearts.  I liked the idea of using three hearts that form one heart, instead of making all six blocks. I think this design would be great for a couple with a child, or three children, or three grandchildren.  The white spaces would be lovely for embroidering in the loved ones' names or quotations.

My choice to use only three of the hearts left a lot of white space for quilting. Even though the goal was to make a thoroughly modern quilt, I decided that it was my quilt and a more interesting design would be a better choice.  Besides, I wanted to make use of the books from my big book buying spree.   Instead of simple quilting, I decided to use some quilting designs from the book Sophisticated Stitches by Don Linn.

It is a machine quilting book, but the motifs work just as well for hand quilting. The author encourages adapting the designs and using parts instead of the whole, and mixing and matching. I used some parts, and was happy to see that they fit perfectly into my quilt without resizing. This decision to hand quilt slowed the progress down considerably, but it is enjoyable. This week I have been hand quilting for at least fifteen minutes every day while I watch the Olympics. I was going to use white or cream thread, but decided it I was going to take the time to hand quilt, I would get credit for it, even if it did look sloppy and show my uneven and crooked quilting stitches. In fact, with my modern quilting style, I am not even fretting about uneven or crooked stitches. It's liberated if I do it on purpose, not mistakes. Can you be liberated and sophisticated at the same time?

 I did the top center and two of the little free form hearts on Monday.
 Tuesday, I did the left side and the other free form heart.
On Wednesday, as I was quilting, my mother called and reminded me about the family pack of chicken in my refrigerator. She said she had come over earlier in the day when I wasn't home and saw it there. She would have cooked it for me, but she didn't know what I wanted. Oops, I had left it there to defrost and I was supposed to cook it on Tuesday. When I got home from work, I was too hungry to cook, so I ate something quick from the freezer, planning to cook it later. But I would forget, because I wasn't hungry. So, I quickly set the hand quilting aside for my cooking emergency.
When it was time to quilt on Thursday, I could not find my needle. The thread from my unfinished motif had broken in two and the needle was missing. The quilt was on the couch, but I didn't remember it being in that location. Apparently in my cooking emergency, I hadn't properly put away the quilt. The dog was frantic because of the thunderstorm. I was worried that he might have had a fight with the quilt, and I was hoping that the needle didn't win. It wasn't until it was time for bed that I found the needle in the fold of the couch. On Friday, I finished the top half and started on the bottom half, which I completed on the weekend.
There is a little bit of extra space on the sides I want to quilt and I will be finished.

Quilting Orgy

No Mom, not that kind.

I've been madly trying to make up for lost quilting time.  I've been sewing anything and everything that wants to go under my pressure foot.  Big or small, new or old, it doesn't matter.  All sorts of parts and pieces are piling up on my sewing table, all jumbled up in a glorious mess.

The HSTs are star points for the BOM I did last year.  Instead of buying the package finishing kit, I chose to buy my own fabric, so that my quilt wouldn't look like all the others.  As usual, I wound up buying much more fabric than I need for this quilt.  Of course, I can use it for other quilts, including my Jane Stickle quilt and my other fall quilts.

The little pink things are for the hearts quilt - my newest project.  I like to have a new project going to keep my momentum going on my older quilts.  When I tell myself that I can't start a new project until I have all the old ones done, my motivation to quilt completely leaves, so now I use the new projects as a jumping ground to finish the older ones.

The purple / orange/ blue/ green thing at the very bottom is my Wildflower Garden quilt.  This one is even older than the BOM.  I had a minor error on this block and ripped it, but for some reason, didn't manage to sew it back together.  Now it is done.  All the pieced blocks are done. I need to work on the applique on this project.

I've also been madly skimming through my Google Reader.  I can't just delete the whole and start over.  So I skim and keep all the ones with the pretty quilt pictures, and keep adding to that never ending quilts-to-make list.

The hearts quilt is actually completely pieced.  I still was not able to free motion quilt it.  My machine is very fickle with free motion quilting, and I'm not in the mood to make it behave, so I am hand quilting it. It is another small quilt, and I am hoping that it will be my next finish. I'm actually enjoying the hand quilting.