French Mints Mini Fabric Book

I've been wanting to make a fabric book for a long time.  I thought I would be able to get away from making one with the circle quilt. After all, any time I wanted to do embroidery, I could just make a circle block and that should satisfy my craving.

But no, I want a real fabric book. I decided to make a small one with just a few pages to see how that goes. I'm not done with it, but I wanted to share my progress so far.

I bought this little mint tin at the airport, when I could expense a snack.  You aren't supposed to bite them, so they last a long time.  These have a mild anise flavor. These cute little tins are crazy expensive on Amazon.

 

I added some motifs that fit words like calm, serene, tranquil. I cut up an index card to put between the cover and first page to give it some body.

The words fabric scrap came from Silly Mama Quilts. I wouldnt't put "love" in the tranquil category, but it fits the tin cover. Not that love can't be tranquil; it just isn't a word that I would instantly think of when thinking of calm words.

Except for the stitching that holds the pages together, it is completely hand stitched. This one has a scrap of the cover fabric, and I made a mandala around it. A lot of it has the same floss and the same fabric because I was stitching during the State of the Union address and rebuttal and I didn't want to go get more supplies. No, I wouldn't think of politics as tranquil.

For the last page, I used some upholstery fabric. The first strand of thread worked great for the stem and a couple of flowers. The second strand was hard to get through the needle and fell apart. I am not sure whether I will leave it like this or redo the work I did with the second strand.  That ribbon strand is just there for color.

I've obviously worked on this book since the address.  I have a few pages left to go which I will show you later.

Linked to:
ScrapHappy Saturday

January One Monthly Goal Check-In

At the beginning of the year, I made a list of goals for the January and for the first quarter. I said I would:

1. Finish quilt top for On Ringo Lake by the end of the quarter.
2. Trim and bind Adinkra by the end of January.
3. Make 90 circles for Quilty Circle 365 by the end of the quarter.
4. Border, quilt, and bind Life of Plenty by the end of the quarter.
5. Quilt and bind another UFO top by the end of the quarter.

As you know, I finished the Adinkra quilt this week (except for the label) so I have satisfied my One Monthly Goal. Yay!

As for the quarterly goals,

1. I sewed more rows on On Ringo Lake but still need to make the remaining blocks to finish the project, since I decided to make the full size quilt.  I have enough nine patches, so onto to part two of the mystery! The goal is to make this a top by the end of the quarter, so I am on track.

2. Adinkra - done! (except for label)

3. In order to make 90 circles for the quarter, I wanted to make sure I made 31 circles for January. I've made 21 circles so far. Just when I think I am caught up on this project, I am behind again. I did sew my blocks together into rows this month so additional progress was made on this quilt besides the making of the circles.

4. I haven't touched Life of Plenty, but it is a quarterly goal and not a monthly one. Maybe now that Adinkra is done, I will find time to work on this one.

5. Quilt another UFO quilt. I didn't work on any other UFOs.  I did instead work on other projects - I worked on a couple of art quilts for a swap, did some art journaling and started a tiny stitching book. I will show you the art quilts after I send it to the recipient and the stitching book when it is done. The picture shows a better picture of the  snippet ribbon I made this month.

All in all, I think it is a good showing.

Linked to:
Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal February Goal Setting  - Oops, I think this means I have to set a goal for February!  I will set the goal to make enough circles to catch up to the one circle a day for this year.

When I Was Normal

Back when I was normal, I didn't have any trouble throwing away fabric trash. Anything that was less than three quarters of an inch was not worth saving, since all the fabric would be hidden in the seam allowance and you wouldn't be able to see it. It would just result in a bulky seam and no benefit. Selvedges are bad for quilts so they get thrown away. Those crooked little pieces you get when straightening out the fabric for the first cut. Clearly that is all trash.

 But then I started the circle quilt and needed a tiny scrap to make a circle, and decided it was better to use one that was from a cutting of a project I was already working on.  I started saving these in this tiny bowl that is smaller than a cereal bowl so I wouldn't have to dig through the trash for these cuttings. Once that bowl gets full, it is time to use it or lose it.

Since I have been working on cleaning the sewing room, I have noticed how many fabric scrap boxes I have (4! Definitely time to start a truly scrap project!).  I convinced myself that it was time to throw away the cuttings since there was plenty of other perfectly good, reasonable, fabric available in the house.

I decided to throw away my cuttings from my bowl.   But first I settled down to sew down the rest of the binding of the Adinkra quilt. And watch some YouTube videos. These came up on their own. I swear I didn't choose them.



So this one says to take the cuttings and make a ribbon out of snippets. In this video, she takes a base and sews some snippets on it. I've sen others that add a lot more stuff, and others who sew snippets together to make the fabric instead of adding to a base. This one was my favorite since it was simple.

People have made and traded snippet rolls, and many of them are chock full of laces and embellishments.  These newly made ribbons can be used for wrapping presents, embellishing art quilts or art journals or just hang for decoration.  You can also take them apart and use parts you like into other projects.

There are some patterns for a snippet quilt online too. Some of them call for sewing in snippets while others call for raw edge applique.



And this one says you can use your snippets to make a binding. Who knew!?

So yesterday I made a snippet ribbon. I tea dyed the base fabric and added some snippets, blues and greens mostly to keep it coherent. I also added some other embellishments like ribbons so it doesn't look trashy.  I think I need to sew down some of the dimensional pieces and add more stamping. It is hard to show since it is long and the lighting is bad, but it was fun to make. I think I can throw away the contents of my trash bowl and start again with new trash.

Quilt Reveal: Adinkra

My latest finish is Adinkra.

I took it outside to photograph since the sun is shining, but the pictures still came out dark and I had to correct them with the photo editor.  They are pretty close though.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this quilt. It was fun to make the blocks once a month. The blocks were easy to applique and the anticipation for the next block was fun.

The economy blocks had a problem with the size, but that made it easier because the sharp points were guaranteed.

As you can see in the picture above, even the join I had to make in the border worked well. The top of the head seamed nicely with the body on the next piece.

The doodle quilting was freeing and went on smoothly.  The fabric is busy enough that the flaws, if any, are easy to ignore.

Even the binding went on well, with four sharp miters in the corners.

Quilt stats:
size:  44" x 44".
pattern: 2016 BOM by Debby Kravotil. Thank you so much Debby!
fabric: variety of African fabrics, most of which are metallic
quilting: free motion echo stitching around motifs, doodle stitching throughout border and remaining blocks
what I learned:

• Expanding the definition of what "matches". This quilt has lots of combinations I wouldn't have thought to use together, but my limited selection of fabrics made me stretch, and I think the result is fabulous.
• I really enjoy combining applique with piecing. The applique and the quilting were my favorite parts.
• When I first learned about free motion quilting, I thought it looked like doodling on fabric, but then I learned rules about not crossing lines, and saw lots of videos about proper quilting designs, and breaking the quilt into sections and choosing a different design for each section and lost the fact that I could truly doodle.  I truly doodled on this quilt and it was exhilarating!

I plan to make up a label that explains all the symbols on the quilt.

Linked to:
WIP Linkup at Silly Mama Quilts

Sunday Recap

The month is coming to  a close, and I am trying to finish up things so I can have a good report for my One Monthly Goal.  To do that, I have been binding the Adinkra quilt.  It takes me a good four or five days to bind a quilt, so I am always amazed when other people finish it in one day.  I guess I am slow because I have to check each stitch to make sure the needle isn't going through the front of the quilt.

I have been keeping track of how many days I quilt at least 15 minutes a day.  Here's my recap for this week.

Days with stitching this week:  7 out of 7
Days with stitching this month:  28 out of 28
Days with stitching this year:  28 out of 28
Success Rate:  100%

Woo hoo! And this week, I made sure I didn't have any stretching of any rules. I truly stitched at least 15 minutes every day this week, and usually quite a bit more.  I have also been trying to spend a few minutes a day cleaning my sewing room.  It is difficult because there is so much temptation to start new projects or work on other existing projects.  Having been very productive this week, I think I was way too ambitious with my quarterly goals. I guess they were meant to be far reaching.
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts<>


>P.S. Marti showed her progress with such a pretty picture so I made my own. Thanks for the idea Marti!

I didn't use an app though, just an Excel spreadsheet. I decided to keep the data about the days of the week I worked so that I can see if some days are better sewing days than others. I know weekends will be better, but I was surprised that I missed a Thursday.

 

Circles, Etc.

Here is more progress on my Circle 365 Project. The goal is to make one circle block a day, but I tend to make them in bunches.

 

Block 216

The plan was to have some quarter circles surrounding the center circle, but the corners showed up.

 

Block 217

I've made this type of quarter circle blocks before with the pieced backing, but the other one was pieced and this one is raw edge applique.  I don't know if I have another one like this with the raw edge but I'm not going to be looking for it. I'm sure it is made with different fabrics. And this one has stripes going two different ways.

 

Block 218

This one was going to be rows of circles but I decided to make a circle of circles.  I guess it is in the eye of the beholder whether these are rows or a circle.

 

Block 219

 

A circle pie. I needed to remove a quarter circle to get spaces between the pieces.

 

Block 220

 

This is leftovers from block 218. Pieced backing.

 

 Block 221

 

This is the remaining quarter circle from Block 219 with other bits. The dark green makes me think of a mushroom.

 

 Block ?

 

This block doesn't have a number yet because it doesn't have a backing.  I decided to make an asterisk circle, and thought I should make it big and then trim it down to size. The asterisk is quarter inch finished, and I wasn't about to make it any skinnier than that. I could trim it down smaller, I suppose, but it is going to wind up being one of the bigger circles, and therefore getting four numbers.

Putting it Together

Left side. I figured you would be asking about the blocks above the circle. I put together the blocks that had not been put together yet and came up with three rows. I decided not to piece them to the top rows to keep the top rows from being too stressed. I think that if I keep piecing each row to the top one row at a time, that top row is going to keep getting picked up too often. I figure if I piece them in three sets, I can then put them together afterwards.

You may be able to recognize the two blocks in the first row as recent blocks. I decided to put this row of recent blocks on top instead of the bottom because I think it looks better there.  There is a big block right above this big block and I wanted to separate out the big blocks with at least one row.

Middle Left

Middle Right.

Right side.

And in case you were wondering if those little white specks were flaws on your screen, no, it is not your screen. The sky has a little dandruff problem today.

Linked to:

Let's Bee Social #217 

My Quilt Infatuation Needle and Thread Thursday

A Whole Lot of Stitching Going On

I was so busy stitching, that I didn't have time to update my progress!

Days with stitching this week:  7 out of 7
Days with stitching this month:  21 out of 21
Days with stitching this year:  21 out of 21
Success rate:  100% 

On Thursday, I wasn't in the mood for stitching, but since I stitched more than 30 minutes every other day, I am going to go ahead and give myself credit for Thursday.  Actually, I was in the mood for stitching - I wanted to start a new crazy quilt, but since I already have two crazy quilt UFOs, I decided that I should probably get bonus points for not starting a new quilt on Thursday. 

I did start a couple of new quilts yesterday though.  I joined a quilt swap, and decided to make two similar quilts. Sometimes it is difficult to give away something if it is successful. And if it isn't successful, having two will give me a way to have a backup, which hopefully is more successful.

The eye candy picture shows the progress on the binding of the Adinkra quilt.  I was handstitching it down while watching Victoria.

Linked to:
Oh Scrap! I made sure you could see the backing on this quilt so you could see I am using blue!
15 Minutes to Stitch