Quilting Progress

 

I didn't realize I was this far behind in reporting my progress for 15 minutes to stitch. I thought I just missed one week. How time flies. It has gotten really hard for me to decide what to count as stitching this month.

For the first two weeks, I know that I didn't do any stitching, but I have been recording and editing videos that tell people about each of my quilts. My family asked me to make videos telling the story of each quilt, and it has been really fun to do that, even though it takes me a lot of time to film and edit the videos. I had been planning on putting all the quilts in a photo book, but this is a little easier, since I can work on one quilt at a time instead of getting together all my thoughts and records about all my quilts for a book. So even though I have been immersed in quilting, I didn't make any progress on any of my quilts, so I am counting the stitching time as zero.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 42, 43, 44, and 45

 

For the next two weeks, I have started recording videos for Vlogmas, where YouTubers post a video every day.  I have decided to show my viewers how much work they can get done in 15 minutes. This will keep me from having to come up with a new idea every day. 

I will be working in December, during daylight hours, so I have been trying to record these videos now, and will be editing them in the evenings to post them in December. To keep the videos interesting, I am bringing out a new unfinished quilt every day, but that leaves me feeling like I have to put away incomplete things. I normally don't switch to another quilt until I have finished that step of the process, at least one block. This means that I have continued to work on a quilt even after the 15 minutes of recording is finished.

15 minute days these weeks --14 out of 28

15 minute days this year -- 227 out of 316 days

Success rate  = 72%

 

 

Linked with:

 15 Minutes to Stitch follow this link to see all the other people who participate in this challenge

Quilt Reveal: African Garden

 

I finished the quilt formerly known as Tuxedo Vest. Since the name is based on the fabrics on what is now the background, I am changing the name to African Garden to refer to the applique which is now the focal point.

This was the quilt as I left it in 2021. It was supposed to be a simple baby quilt, but I don't know anyone who would want it as a baby quilt. I thought about keeping it, but I would need a lap quilt so my original plan was to add more columns and make it larger. But it didn't motivate me to continue.

When I finished the Portraits quilt and listed the chart that I include every time I start or finish a quilt, I realized that I needed to get some more finishes in order to meet my very easy goal of finishing more quilts than I start.

 

I pulled out the Tuxedo Vest quilt but kept it in my bedroom until I was ready to work on it in an effort to keep the sewing studio clean for the YouTube videos.

 

I bought a bunch of African fabrics and put them in the same staging area in my bedroom until I was ready to film them. Placing them together like that with the Tuxedo Vest quilt gave me the idea that I could use them to applique on the quilt.

 

I was originally thinking of adding just one or two motifs  to help the floral fabric and the stripe fabric work better together. I cut out a bunch of motifs to try them out on the quilt,  and I couldn't reject any of them, so I used all of the ones I cut.

I used my general technique to combine the applique and the quilting. I secured the edges of the appliue and then stippled the background.

 I tried to add a piece from an older quilt, but they are shiny, and I decided to use this piece from the stash of fabrics.  I think I have used some of the background fabric in another quilt so the continuity is there, and I can use scraps of this quilt in another quilt.

 

I made a YouTube video about the process if you are interested in seeing that.

I've made a lot of quilts this year but I need to finish at least one more to meet my goal of finishing more quilts than I start. One thing about keeping records, I know it is not a record year in terms of started or finished quilts.

Celebrating Zoey's Gotcha Day

 

Zoey joined my family on September 15 last year, and on October 3, I added a post here on this blog about her as a way to document her growth and progress.

Interestingly, not much has changed with her. Most of the changes are mine. When I first got her, I kept wondering if her energy and her past traumas were too much for me to handle. She doesn't jump on me or put my hands in her mouth as often as she used to, mostly because she is more comfortable with me and doesn't get as frightened or nervous as she used to. She has separation anxiety so she will jump on me or pull at my clothes when I come back from taking the trash out for pickup.

 Mostly though, I am no longer afraid that she is going to bite me or hurt me when she jumps on me.

 

She finds the ripe passion-fruit and plays ball with it until it breaks and then she eats it. She is much better than I am at determining which passion-fruit is ripe enough to eat so she gets more than I do. In the picture above, you can see a yellowish green walnut and beside that is the darker green passion-fruit. 

I tried to put a daisy on her head like I had put the dandelion in a previous post, but she decided she would rather know whether I still love her. 

Yes I definitely do. I am so happy she is here. She still loves her squeaky ball and carries it around with her, even to bed. The one that fits her mouth is small enough to roll under the couch and furniture, so I have to keep getting them for her. 

Now that firework season is gone, I have reduced her anxiety medicine. She no longer chews on furniture or baseboards when I am gone, but I still try to stay home as much as possible or get a sitter for her when I have to go anywhere for more than an hour. She walks around the house crying and looking for me.

I haven't added any more talking buttons to the board, but she loves to use them to tell me she loves me, to ask for food, and to ask to go outside. When I tell her to wait, she will wait a few minutes and will remind me when the few minutes are over. I am glad she does that.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 41

 

I spent these weeks quilting and binding African Garden quilt. That's it in the picture at the top of the post. I am really happy with how it turned out. One of my determining factors about whether  quilt is successful is how it looks when it is all rumpled up, and this one definitely makes me happy. Even when you can't see the pattern, the colors make it so pretty.

15 minute days these weeks --14 out of 14

15 minute days this year -- 213 out of 288 days

Success rate  = 74%

 

 

Linked with:

 15 Minutes to Stitch follow this link to see all the other people who participate in this challenge

Progress on Tuxedo Vest

 

I bought a bunch of African fabrics. I know them as Kitenge, which is what they are called in East Africa. They are known as Ankara in West Africa. I showed them all in a Youtube video.

I fussy cut some of them and am appliquéing them to the Tuxedo Vest quilt. It looks very different now from where it started. It will be finished shortly.

Looking at it now, I am reminded of a Jane Sassaman quilt that was a garden. I had put it on my mental list of quilts to make a long time ago. I can't find the picture now, but it makes me happy that I am retroactively able to cross that quilt off my to-do list.

Yesterday, I found an art quilter who uses Ankara fabrics to make art quilts, Marcellina Oseghale Akpojotor. She was featured on the Colossal, which features different artists every day. They remind me of the dimensional pinecone quilts that were in a book I recently saw, even though these quilts aren't made with triangles.

I also want to bring your attention to American Quilt Society Worldwide Quilt Parade that is going on right now. I submitted three quilts to that parade. I am from Ohio, if you want to find them faster. You can vote for quilts you like there if you want.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 39 and 40

 

I spent these weeks admiring the African fabrics and cutting and appliquing them to the Tuxedo Vest quilt. Eventually I will rename this quilt. Right now I am thinking of Kintenge Garden or Ankara Garden.

15 minute days these weeks --14 out of 14

15 minute days this year -- 199 out of 274 days

Success rate  = 73%

 

 

Tuxedo Vest Progress

 When I entered the finish of my portraits quilt on my spreadsheet, I noticed how far behind I am in my very easy goal of finishing more quilts than I start this year. As the weather is turning cooler, I know that I need to make some fast progress towards my goal.

I have pulled out my Tuxedo Vest quilt since it looked like it would be a quick finish. It took me a while to search out what I had named this quilt.  The name will change, but I haven't come up with a new name. 

It turns out that this quilt is about two years old and when I left it, I was planning on adding another column to make it a little bigger. It is a simple and easy quilt that I should have been able to finish in a day or a weekend, and here it is, still unfinished two years later.

I had hung up this top on a hanger, but I didn't put the leftover fabric with the quilt.

I put the quilt top with the African fabric I recently purchased in my bedroom because I want to keep my studio clean for Youtube videos when I decided that some of the African fabrics would really enhance this quilt top.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 37 and 38

 

I am showing this chart again to show that I need to have two finishes to meet my goal. I spent most of my time thinking about what to do with the Tuxedo Vest quilt, so there isn't really anything to show for it. Until this morning, I wasn't really thrilled with any of the ideas, but I could see that I was making forward progress. It finally clicked this morning, and now I am ready to take more action on this quilt.

15 minute days these weeks --9 out of 14

15 minute days this year -- 192 out of 267 days

Success rate  = 72%

 

 

Linked with:

 15 Minutes to Stitch follow this link to see all the other people who participate in this challenge

Quilt Reveal: Making Friends

 

 I finished the portraits quilt I showed you in the last post.

I used the index card portraits as my inspiration, so I used background fabric that would result in the same size as the index cards.

I used fusible applique to add the body and the body parts: hair, whites of eyes, eyeballs, nose (optional), mouth, and clothing.

 

I decided to use the binding fabric as a border instead, and since it looked like a frame, I decided to birth the quilt instead of bind it.

I used embroidery stitches to stabilize the quilt instead of stitching in the ditch.

I added straight stitches in the border to mirror the look of the frame.

Finally, I used free motion quilting to secure all the fused pieces.

Although I had a bit of a panic when I thought the portraits would look like aliens instead of people, I settled on the idea and am really happy with how it turned out.

It took me 24 working hours to edit the video, since there were so many clips as it took me a little less than two weeks to make the quilt, and the software added extra, duplicate, and unnecessary clips.

 

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 34, 35, 36

 I have been awful about reporting my 15 minutes to stitch progress this year.  The good news is that I did stitch every day these three weeks and even finished a quilt - the Making Friends quilt I have been showing you on this post.

15 minute days these weeks --21 out of 21

15 minute days this year -- 183 out of 253 days

Success rate  = 72%

 

 

Linked with:

 15 Minutes to Stitch follow this link to see all the other people who participate in this challenge

 

My Weekly Painting and Quilting Progress

 

I had a fabulous arty week. I have finished five 8" x10"paintings so far, all based on quilt blocks. I have five more blank canvases to make for this series. I will use bigger canvases for the next series. 

I found out that my video problems with Youtube had to do with system upgrades, internet speed, and low battery and not really a bug in any software. I am getting better with the software although the things I want to do is much harder to do than talking head videos.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 33

I did start quilting though. I am making a quilt based on the index card portraits I have been making. The blocks will finish at 3x5 to match the size of the index cards. I am having fun with these, with fusible applique, but the pieces for the facial features are so fiddly.

It is taking time to make this since I am also recording my process so I can make a Youtube video out of it.

15 minute days these weeks --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 162 out of 232 days

Success rate  = 70%

 

 

Linked with:

 15 Minutes to Stitch