My Diamonds for the Be a Diamond Blog Hop

It's my day to present my rendition of a diamond for the Be A Diamond Blog Hop.

I have to say I am really nervous. Normally when I am expecting company, I thoroughly clean the house, hide all the incriminating evidence, and make the best, labor intensive dishes so you will think of me as a fine, upstanding person who is worthy of being in your community.

However, today, that's not how I am presenting myself. I am sitting in my sweatpants, letting it all hang out, and letting you see the inner workings of my mind. If you are all dressed up in your fancy jewelry for this diamond blog hop, maybe you had better to visit one of the other presenters for the hop.

The rules were:

Make a project with a diamond block on it.
It can be a mug rug, pot holder, mini quilt, baby quilt, bag, etc.

Here's the list of diamond makers:

April 22

Needled Mom

Keepsake Moments

Kathy’s Quilts

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Color, Creating, and Quilting

April 23

Ms P Designs USA

Vroomans Quilts

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Melva Loves Scraps

Storied Quilts

Words & Stitches

Clever Chameleon Quilting

Songbird Designs

April 24

MooseStashQuilting

Beaquilter

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Creative Blonde 

Selina Quilts

Bumbleberry Stitches

Two Maker Chicks

Quilts By Joanne

Today - April 25

Patchouli Moon Studio

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Hill Valley Quilter

Mageez Room

Websterquilt

High Road Quilter - that's me!
Seams To Be Sew

April 26

Creatin' in the Sticks

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Days Filled With Joy

For The Love Of Geese

Quilt Fabrication

Stitchin At Home

Just Let Me Quilt

You can find all the projects on the Be A Diamond Pinterest page HERE

My Diamonds 

After I was done having a discussion with myself for volunteering to join a hop during peak season at work, we came to a compromise.  I would make one small simple diamond quilt. No multiple diamonds, no big project. Just a small thing to hang on the bulletin board.  And with only one diamond, there aren't a lot of options so I was very literal.  I made a diamond quilt. The goal was to make something quick and easy without doing a lot of agonizing over choices. I even used fabric that is reserved for another quilt I am making. The challenge was to do it in the fifteen minutes I had available to quilt. This quilt took more than one session because of some mistakes I made in drawing.

My list of quilts to make includes a quilt that isn't square or rectangular, so this quilt does help with that. It isn't as nice as I would like, but I think it serves as a good prototype for future ideas.

After I finished that one, I decided to try again with the leftover triangles I had from the first quilt.   I really like this lacy fabric I got from Nann, so I made another literal diamond quilt. I just placed the triangles raw edge on the quilt sandwich. I used some of the embroidery stitches from my machine. The lacy fabric has some lacy embroidery stitches and the white has straight stitches. There is a diamond stitch around the quilt to secure the raw edges.

Be a Diamond Blog Hop

It's the first day of the Be A Diamond Blog Hop.

 

I am working up until the last minute to make my diamond quilt, mostly because of a late start and some incorrect drawings. Please be sure to come back on Thursday, the 25th to see what I came up with. 

 

I am looking forward to the ways different quilters interpret this challenge, and I am sure that this blog hop will be very inspiring.  While you are waiting for me, look over there!

The rules were:

Make a project with a diamond block on it.
It can be a mug rug, pot holder, mini quilt, baby quilt, bag, etc.

Here's the list of diamond makers:

Today - April 22

Needled Mom

Keepsake Moments

Kathy’s Quilts

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Color, Creating, and Quilting

April 23

Ms P Designs USA

Vroomans Quilts

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Melva Loves Scraps

Storied Quilts

Words & Stitches

Clever Chameleon Quilting

Songbird Designs

April 24

MooseStashQuilting

Beaquilter

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Creative Blonde 

Selina Quilts

Bumbleberry Stitches

Two Maker Chicks

Quilts By Joanne

April 25

Patchouli Moon Studio

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Hill Valley Quilter

Mageez Room

Websterquilt

High Road Quilter
Seams To Be Sew

April 26

Creatin' in the Sticks

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Days Filled With Joy

For The Love Of Geese

Quilt Fabrication

Stitchin At Home

Just Let Me Quilt

You can find all the projects on the Be A Diamond Pinterest page HERE

Quilt Reveal: Bunny Parade

I finished this quilt in March, but since I expected to have a poor showing for April, I decided to wait for the quilt reveal in April. It is a simple modern quilt, but you know me, I can't leave genealogy mysteries alone, so I added faces to each of the bunnies. They have rose beads for eyes.

This is a free pattern from Moda Bakeshop called Bunny Quartet. The designer of the pattern also provided a tutorial for a carrot on her blog, which I used as you can tell from the photos.  So my bunnies are a trio and not a quartet. She changed the name to Easter Parade, but since I have Elephant Parade quilt in the works, I am going to call it Bunny Parade.

I had some laces out so I decided to have fun with a little photo shoot.

It was fun to make this little quick quilt.

The zig zag quilting in the border is supposed to mimic grass and the spiral quilting in the sashing is supposed to look like springs to represent the bunnies hopping up and down, like Tigger.

I even added hanging corners!

My Quilting Week

This is just to report my progress in my attempt to quilt 15 minutes every day, or the equivalent in a week.  Unfortunately, I did not have time to make progress on any of my projects this week.  But I did three things, for which I am going to take credit, to make myself feel better.

1. I got three magazines in the mail.  Oops, I didn't realize I had subscribed to three magazines!  Primitive Quilts, American Patchwork and Quilting, and Today's Quilter.  I did enjoy looking through them and am going to give myself credit for quilty time, even if all it did was increase the list of quilts I want to make.

2. We have several quilt guilds in the area, but they usually meet in the evenings at a location far from my house. I am usually too tired by then, don't like driving at night, and sometimes I work second shift, so I am usually unable to join them. Yesterday, they met during the day at a library close to my house.  I didn't have time to do any sewing, but I did stop by to say hello and see what they were doing. I didn't count the exact time I talked to them - it was more than fifteen minutes but I'm not sure how much more, so I will just count it as fifteen minutes.

3.  I made a decision about my quilting.  I had been working on quilting the drunkard's path, but that takes building of courage, and maneuvering a big quilt, and every time I thought about working on it, I decided not to.  So now I have decided to take it easy on myself and switch quilts and work on something less thought-intensive - like the rail fence or the ATC holder.  Both of these are just mindless feeding pieces into the machine, which hopefully will help me make actual progress on quilts. I folded and put away the drunkard's path quilt, and I am going to take credit for that too.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 15

This week, without making any progress on anything, I am taking credit for looking at quilt magazines, talking to quilters about their projects and making a decision that will hopefully move quilts forward for the next few months.


15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 3 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 93 out of 104 sessions
Success Rate: 89%

 My 2018 end of the year average was 85% and I hope to beat that this year, so I am still on course for this year.

Apple Blocks

Nann from With Strings Attached as offering some orphan blocks for adoption, and I volunteered to adopt some apple blocks. There was some competition, and I won these beautiful apple blocks from a block swap.

I was surprised to see a box sitting on my front porch as I wasn't expecting a big package. Nann sent me the apple blocks, sure, but she also sent loads of fabric.

But that's not all, she also sent me a bunch of books and a pattern.

Thank you so much, Nann for this wonderful large haul!

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 14

This week, I was not able to quilt during the week and was hoping to make it up during the weekend, but I wound up getting sick with a cold and needing rest more than quilting. That, and the household chores, meant that I was not able to quilt.

I did enjoy looking at the books and fabric I got from Nann.


15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 0 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 90 out of 97 sessions
Success Rate: 93%

The success rate is rounded up, but it is still a big disappointing drop from the 100% I've had throughout the year so far. My 2018 end of the year average was 85% and I hope to beat that this year, so I am still on course for this year.

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

Still Quilting Drunkard's Path

When I told you that I was almost done with the dark circles on the drunkard's path quilt (two weeks ago?), I was telling the truth. I had already quilted more than three fourths of the circles.  But since progress has been slowed this week, the measurement of the progress has changed, and I am still almost done with the dark circles even though I have quilted quite a few more. The measurement is more in terms of how many I have quilted - about one to four quarter circles a day.

On one of these days, I ran out of thread, so my 15 minutes was spent up finding more thread, winding the bobbin, and finding the next dark quarter circle to quilt and running the lint roller over it to prepare it for quilting. Had I been spending a whole afternoon, these 15 minutes wouldn't have been thought of, but since each 15 minutes counts now, the fact that no quarter circles had been quilted that day does not mean no progress was made that day.

I took Zeus for a car ride, but when we got there, he would not get out of the car!  I think he was afraid to jump, since he got hurt the last time he jumped out of the back.  I think he should be okay from the passenger side. He didn't let me carry him down and I couldn't get him to go down to the floor board so he would have a shorter jump. He is heavy for me to carry and when he isn't cooperative, that makes it that much more difficult. That was the end of our outing. When I got home, he still would not get out of the car, and I had to fashion a ramp from things I had in the garage and distract him with cheese.  My emergency ramp won't work when I am not in the garage so I will have to think of something.

 

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 13

This week, I made a bigger effort to quilt every day instead of quilting the whole week's worth at one time on the weekend.  I managed to quilt four out of the 7 days, and was able to make up the rest of the time on Saturday. I spent the time quilting more dark spaces of the drunkard's path quilt. I am thoroughly enjoying the process of quilting the quilt and do like the quilting I have added, but when I try to show the photos, I get critical and see the wonkiness of the stitching and the lint from the batting.

If you only sew one stitch, you have to show that stitch, good or bad. If you sew several stitches, you can choose the best one. I finally got smart and decided I didn't need to show my stitch, good or bad. I take plenty of other photos to cover!


15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 90 out of 90 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

Weekly Progress on 15 Minutes to Stitch

It is that time of the year when you get to see more progress pictures. It is a big quilt, so it is taking some time to stitch.  It is a large lap quilt, slightly smaller than a twin. I am making these deliberately wonky figure 8 shapes for the border. Some of the wonkiness might not be as deliberate as some of the other wonkiness. I am so used to working with small pieces that it is hard for me to quilt farther apart.  I will try again in the lighter areas, but for now, I am going for consistency.

 

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 12

This week, I wasn't able to quilt during the weekdays, but was able to minimally make up the time on the weekend. I spent the time quilting more dark spaces of the drunkard's path quilt.  I decided to go ahead and quilt them all in purple instead of switching up the colors so that the spaces all work together as one unit.  I wish I had made that decision earlier because I could have quilted them more continuously earlier!

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 83 out of 83 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

This time last year, on the 25th, I sewed 2 out of 7 days, so I am ahead of last year. Hopefully I can continue to stay ahead!

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch