Finish Along 2018 - Q4

The last quarter really passed me by. In August we discovered we were relocating to Calgary, so life kind of went a little crazy in order to be moved and settled in time for school to start on September 4th. The move happened in time for school, but the 'settled in new accommodation' didn't happen until much later in the month. 

Needless to say absolutely no progress was made on anything on my list, so it remains the same. Although this quarter I do have a quilt retreat, so I really should be able to finish at least 1 item on this list! 

1. Tula Pink City Sampler - needs finishing!

2. Milky Way Sampler - needs quilting and binding.

3. Do Good Stitches Quilt - needs assembling and quilting.

4. Dining room chairs - still need to make 5 cushions!

5. Finish the ribs and cables hat

Linking up with :

Finish Along 2018 - Q3

Oh boy, the last quarter passed by with very little progress! We got a puppy in April and my time has just not been the same since!! 

So my list for this coming quarter remains pretty much the same as last! 

1. Tula Pink City Sampler - no progress this quarter.

2. Milky Way Sampler - still needs quilting!

3. Do Good Stitches quilt - still needs assembling!

4. Dining room chairs - I have made one cushion, but still 5 to go!! 

Here's hoping there's more progress this quarter! 

Linking up with:

Finish Along 2018 - Q2

Last quarter was quite successful! I managed to finish a good number of those on my list! The 3 Harry Potter quilts, the Doctor Who quilt and the Do Good Stitches quilt! 

But then I lost my sewing mojo. I did, however, knit a pair of socks instead. 

McCulloch Socks by Knox Mountain Co

I thought my list for this quarter was going to be a short one, but it seems to have grown. It contains one rolling over from last quarter and a few others I have started recently.

1. Tula Pink City Sampler - no progress this quarter.

Tula Pink City Sampler 

2. Milky Way Sampler - a series of paper pieced blocks made each month last year, a quilt a long with Blossom Hearts Quilt. This is basted ready for quilting. It's a mini quilt so it really shouldn't take too long!

Milky Way Sampler

3. Another Do Good Stitches quilt - I was quilter in February so I now have another 20 blocks to make into a quilt. 

Do Good Stitches blocks

4. Dining room chairs - I have being waiting to use my stash of Fragile fabrics by Zen Chic for the perfect project. I eventually decided what that was! I am making cushions for our dining room chairs. I have been meaning to do this for years! Better late than never I guess! 

5. Table runner - I want to make a table runner that will match the pillows above. Not sure if I will go with the granny square idea or something similar, but I certainly will use the same fabrics as I just adore them.

6. Wide open zipper pouch - I want to make another wide open zipper pouch using more of the cork and probably some more of the Blueberry Park fabrics I have been hoarding! Just which colour should I use!?!

7. Humulus sweater - I like to have something on the needles that I can take out and about when watching kids or just hanging out. So, I am about to start this sweater pattern using some Cascade 220 and Madelinetosh yarns. 

Linking up with :

Wide open zippered pouch for knitting projects

I am currently knitting a pair of socks as a test knit for some local designers, Knox Mountain Knits. I love their patterns and this one is no exception. Until now most of their patterns have been hats, mitts or shawls. These things don't often take me too long to knit. But these socks have been more time consuming for me and have been taking me away from the sewing machine a little. Although I have enjoyed evenings of sofa time knitting after a busy day.

 

The other day, however, I wanted to sew and I wanted a quick project. So I decided to make a new knitting pouch to put the sock project in. These socks have attended swimming lessons, soccer games, strings concerts and just waiting in the car! So I know a new pouch will get well used.

I have had some cork fabric sitting around for a while and it was telling me to use it. I used the tutorial by Stitchmischief, which is really easy to follow. 

I also chose to use some of my stashed Blueberry Park fabric too. They really shouldn't just sit on my shelf forever more! It turned out better than I expected and only took me 1 day to make! The perfect project. 

With plenty of room for a sock knitting project! 

And I just had to celebrate the completion with a short time out in the sunshine on the deck with a cup of tea, cos it wasn't really as warm as it looked!

More blocks for the box exchange

It would appear that other members of the quilt group have not been waiting until the end of the month to swap boxes and have raced ahead a little. So this month I have done the same thing and made a few blocks.

The first couple of blocks made for this challenge can be seen here.

First up this month was a paper pieced block. The paper and the starting white square was provided and I picked the colour orange. I do like orange. It's a bright and fun, and I actually have orange fabrics unlike some other colours! This block came together so quickly and easily! I am tempted to make a quilt like this for myself!! This quilt is going to be a rainbow quilt and I think it will look fantastic when finished. 

Next up the description said to make a black/red/grey 10" modern block. I looked up modern blocks to gain some inspiration. The definition of modern can be so encompassing. Modern I can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. For instance, a traditional block in modern fabrics, or maybe a modern block with a twist. A variety of fabrics were provided with this box, so I used several of them. I chose to make a star block. The instructions were for a 6 inch block and as I am discovering I struggle to do the math to make the block the size I want. This block should have been on more of a faulty angle, but sadly I didn't cut some of my fabrics big enough be able to do that properly. So my block doesn't look quite the way I had envisioned, but I like it and I think it looks reasonably modern next to the other ones in the box already.

Lastly for this month, I had to make a disappearing block using black and white with a splash of red. It would appear that black and white are not fabrics I gravitate towards when shopping! So I struggled to find these in my stash. And they look quite different to the other black and white fabrics used in the other blocks in the box. The other ladies choice of fabrics are more flowery, so I hope my block doesn't stand out too much. This was a fun one to make. Making a 9 patch with some plain and some HSTs and then slicing it up and sewing it back together in a different order. I like this block, I just hope it fits in with the others ok.

At the beginning of each meeting we have a quick show and tell of the boxes. The owner of the box is not allowed to see all the blocks until the end of the exchange, but everyone else gets to see the blocks. This is really fun and interesting to see everyones interpretation of the box theme!

Doctor Who Quilt ** Finish **

This quilt has been finished a while! I started this as part of a quilt along run by Whims and Fancies and Trillium Designs back in May 2013.

For the first few months I managed to stay on top of the blocks as they were published but then I got behind and had to play catch up and that took me quite some time.

Some of the blocks are posted here, here, and here. Until I had all the blocks but then it sat for a long time while I decided how I wanted to put it together into a top.

I made some text to go along with the blocks, but I didn't take pictures of those for some reason. But I did take a picture of a rough lay out.

For some reason it took me a long time to get this completed. 

Completed quilt top

I had grand designs for the back, more piecing and more blocks. But I had the idea to give this gift at Christmas and time was running out so I decided to use some fireside backing on the back instead. I chose a dark grey that went well with the purple. 

For the quilting I did large stippling around the purple background avoiding the blocks. I then did some small amounts of detailed quilting on the blocks. 

The quilted front

Quilting on the fireside backing

This quilt is large and rather heavy, but warm and cozy and finished! :) 

Stats:

Pattern: Blocks by Whims and Fancies and Trillium Designs, layout by me

Quilting: Free motion stippling and some detailed outlining, by me

Fabric: Kona Midnight and fabrics from my stash

Size: 65" x 80" 

Started: May 2013

Finished: February 10, 2018

This was on my list of goals for the first quarter of the 2018 Finish-a-long.

Do Good Stitches ** Finish **

Last September was the quilter for our Do Good Stitches group - the Happiness Circle. So I chose a wonky, improv type log cabin. The colour scheme was turquoise/aquas and greys with the centre blocks being a red or yellow. Here are the two blocks I made for the quilt.

And here are all the blocks I received. Our group is not quite 12 so I was lacking a few, but luckily I have enough of these colours in my stash to make up the blocks.

To make it a little bigger I decided to add a border around the edge and I had some Kona ash that worked well and made it just the right size.

As usual, I didn't have enough of a single fabric for the backing. So I made a back in the style of the front - a large log cabin block. I am trying to use up some of the fabrics I have had for a long time, so this was perfect. I rather like the large style block.

The Back

Having done several quilts lately that required lots of quilting I was ready for a fast finish, so I kept the quilting simple on this quilt. I did organic lines across the quilt, super fast!

And look a label. I am terrible at labeling quilts. But this was simple as I was sent this little label and just had to attach it. They are perfect. 

When binding a quilt I usually opt to machine stitch the binding in place and then finish by hand. But this time I thought I would try sewing the binding down by machine. I have done this before but find I have to take it out more times than I can bare because it just doesn't work well. But this time it went like a dream, I couldn't believe it. No seam ripping!! 

And there we have it, another finished quilt ready for giving to a charity - just need to decide which one.

The Front

This was one of the projects on my Finish-a-long list for this first quarter! So good to tick another one off the list.

Stats:

Pattern: Improv/wonky log cabin

Quilting: Free motion organic lines, by me

Fabric: Group quilt, so lots of different fabrics

Size: 58 x 70" 

Started: September 2017

Finished: February 11, 2018

Quilt group box exchange

I recently joined a small quilt group that just started meeting on Friday evenings again. It's really informal and we meet at someones house. I have been taking my binding to finish, a perfect project to carry around. 

This week we started a quilt box exchange. We each create a box with a theme, colour scheme and a sample block. Each month we swap the boxes and make a block for that box according to the instructions inside. There are 10 of us taking part so towards the end of the year we should all have almost enough blocks for a quilt. 

There is quite a range of themes - summer, simple patchwork blocks, disappearing blocks, Christmas, shabby chic and Halloween. 

My theme is halloween and my colours are purple, green and orange because they were the colours in my halloween fabrics! I decided to give two options for blocks I'd like. Firstly, a wonky star block made using the tutorial here, and a choice of sizes. I am not thinking a rigid 4 x 3 quilt layout, so hopefully I will get a mixture of sizes, or I'll just make some myself.

12.5" Wonky Star

6.5" Wonky Star

The second choice of block is a halloween style block and my example block is a haunted house made using paper piecing. The colours don't look as distinct here as they actually are. The orange and yellow look the same, but they are actually quite different.

We don't get to see the blocks being made for us until the end of the swap, which is going to be really hard when the boxes are in the room. Guess that's part of the fun!

This month the box I received had instructions to make a light pink and grey simple patchwork block. Luckily the light pink fabrics were provided as I don't have much in the way of that colour these days. I just happen to have a book out of the library - The Quilt Block Cookbook by Amy Gibson with lots of individual blocks. So I chose the Winding block from this book and made it: 

Windsong

Looking forward to swapping the box at the end of the month and having to make another random block. I like variety so this is great for entertainment.