Friday

Sadly, work is getting in the way of my hobby and I didn't get the block of time that I'd hoped for this week. Am hoping to finish up by noon and at least sneak in an afternoon of quilting.

Kellie has finally posted the joining instructions for the Joseph's Coat. In a way, I wish I'd had these to start with, as I would have been able to make color transitions. But on the other hand, older daughter (for whom the quilt is destined) keeps saying "Mom, relax...I like random...cuz it's just like me". I have been putting together blocks trying to mix the fabrics as much as possible and trusting that the colors will all work out in the end. Turns out that the joining process includes pressing and pinning back all the background fabric, making circles that can be direction-less. This has made distributing the colors far easier than I'd anticipated. Younger daughter and I played with the blocks last night and had a happy combination pretty quickly.

Next challenge is to see if the back basting needle turn approach that I used is going to cause joining headaches. (I was warned that it would.) I should know by the end of the weekend...and will post my discoveries.

Half-way

Not a great photo, but here are the first 25 blocks for the Joseph's Coat quilt. I got this far shortly after Thanksgiving, and have been focused on other things. Just found the photo when I was organizing some work files.

Resolutions

My quilting resolution last year was not, as many quilters attempt, to do one project at a time. Instead, I opted for one project of each technique at one time. Originally, I thought of that as one applique, one quilting, one piecing. As my goal list gets longer, I'm finding it difficult to limit to those 3 categories. I was just looking over the projects in the pile and realized the current categories are:

Easy/fast applique (Joseph's Coat)

Fussy/annoying applique (Grand Teton National Park Floral)

Lap Quilting (Garden of Stiches)

Machine quilting & binding (Whitney's purple blocks)

Prep for machine quilting (Double Irish Chain)

Prep for machine applique (Aspens)

Original Design finished, ready to start piecing (Fall Colors)

Original Design struggling, still finding solutions to re-make a project that wasn't going as I'd hoped (black/white kaleidescope)

And I'm putting all that in writing to try to convince myself that I can't start the 4 projects that are designed AND I have all the fabric for.

Maybe if I work really hard at my REAL jobs over the next 2 days, I can finish those pesky professional projects to free up some quilting time at the end of the week.

Joy in the New Year

I joined the Joy in the New Year challenge at http://tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com/ in the hopes of finishing up some UFO's. I committed to 3, and got 2 done (kind-of). The one that took hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours is the Coral Reef Quilt. I had gotten to the point that every time I work on it, one song went through my mind over and over..."this is the quilt that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend". I managed to get the binding on by the deadline and was happily admiring the finished product, when I discovered one section of fish that weren't quilted. Drat! I'm still considering it done in 2009 and will have time to finish the missing sections during today's football games.

The second challenge that I consider done is Whitney's purple quilt that she started a couple years ago. It has been sandwiched with batting and ready to quilt, but she hasn't had the time or inclination to finish. Again, not technically finished as I need to help with binding, but getting a teen ager to do anything over Christmas break counts as a completed project.

The 3rd project I'd hoped to finish was an original design, Tetons National Park block. The individual petals of the lupine slowed down the progress originally. Did get many done. Unfortunately, I also decided to re-do the Lupine leaves as I think the way I did them made them look too thin. Knowing that I didn't have time for the fix and the finish, I didn't work much on this project.

I have grand quilting goals for 2010 including 8 that have a July deadline, so I can give them out at one of 2 family gatherings. I also have 4 more quilts I hope to finish by the end of the year, but don't have to be done by July. Several of these are surprises in that either the recipient doesn't know it's coming, or they know they are getting a quilt, but not what the design is. Pardon the cryptic nature of the list.

Persian Rug Quilt (original design): Machine Pieced, Machine quilted (long-arm) - Done

Rays of Sunshine (zig-zag, Crazy Mom Quilts): Machine Pieced, Machine quilted - Done

Double Irish Chain (traditional, scrap): Machine Pieced, Machine quilted - front & back pieced

Aspens (adapted from stained glass pattern by Shannon & Torlen): Raw Edge applique, machine quilted (long-arm) - design phase

Garden of Stiches (Lisa Bongean); Hand Appliqued, machine pieced, hand quilted - 1/4 quilted

Fall Colors (orginal design): Machine Pieced, Machine quilted - designed

Kaleidescope Hexes (adapted from multiple sources): Machine Pieced, machine quilted - continually redesigning

Joseph's Coat (Don't Look Now): Hand applique, hand quilted, pieced back - 1/2 applique done

2 English Piecing projects in fushia, lime based on historical patterns : Ellen Ross, c1880, Michigan State University Museum ; ?Taylor, c 1876-1900, Kentucky

Fremont Petroglyph Hunters - applique - researching

Ponderosa Pines - machine pieced, machine quilted - designed

Plains Indians beadwork - researching

Oh, and there's the Monet quilt that I have most of the fabric for, but am making for my own entertainment, so it doesn't have a place on the list, except perhaps as a reward when I get the July deadline quilts done.

Making Peace with Piecing

So, I guess it's time I come clean and admit that I don't really like piecing. I get no joy in the persuit of perfect points. But sometimes it's a necessary evil. And some of the people that I love are tired of being cold on winter nights.

Here's the top I just finished for Jesse and Ashley. Yea...it's their wedding quilt. I think they've been married 7 years. Ya just don't want to rush into these things, you know, in case things don't work out. I figured as long as I was doing make-up quilting, I'd also make Jesse a high school graduation quilt too. I'm still in the planning stage. I might get it done before their kids graduate. At least that is my goal.

Double Irish Casserole

I stepped away from both the applique and quilting projects this week to do some piecing. I have to admit that I don't enjoy time at the machine as much as I do hand work. It was a good change of pace, and I was able to get a lot done in the couple of afternoons that I had free. The pattern is going to be Double Irish Chain. But as I was sewing yesterday, I realized that because it's a "stash" quilt...it's starting to evolve a lot like a pre-payday casserole. Not enough of some of the ingredients to follow the recipe exactly. The center 18 blocks will have the blue/grey print, with the grey swirl making a row outside them. I have one more row of 10" blocks to go outside that if I'm to get to Queen size. Unfortunately, I'm nearly out of the solid blue, and nothing in the stash that matches. I also need to go back and make the mostly-white connecting blocks that go between these. There's a real chance that I don't have enough of the patterned fabric to follow the design. Sounds like a project for Saturday to sort it all out. The good news is that I'm fairly certain how I want to finish the back, with a panel of variable width stripes to use up some other blues. That'll make the quilt completely reversable with a "traditional" and a "modern" design side.

Progress

I seem to make great progress in everything but photography. The girls long ago confiscated my camera and finding it (charged) is a real challenge. Blog tonight...hunt down and add the photos tomorrow.

The past couple weeks I've been focused on the Joseph's Coat Quilt Along. I figured I could get a lot done over Thanksgiving weekend between the long road trip and lots of Football. Managed to get 9 blocks done, and parts of several others by the time I returned. By the end of this past weekend I was up to 15. Since the goal was to be at 6 by last week, I'm in pretty good shape. Doing the back-basting, needle turn approach is also saving a lot of time. I saw one post that estimated that it was taking 4 hours per block. I'm averaging 2.5 since I'm not messing with the interfacing, gluing and placement steps. It has also helped me to do multiple blocks at once. Since I'm working with so many colors it seems easier and faster to sew one color at a time. I'm prepping the next 10 so when they are done, I'll be over 1/2 way (49 needed total)

Still working on the Coral Reef Quilt. Ugh. I'm not sure I'll ever get done. I spent hours and hours this weekend with nothing meaningful to show for it. I did notice Sunday morning that I was almost out of the teal quilting thread. Drove to Hancock Fabric at half-time and was horrified to find that the didn't carry that color. Not even in regular thread. What if it was discontinued? Could I find it on-line? Could I send out a plea to my quilt blog friends to dig through their stash? How much would I be willing to pay if I could find it? Fortunately my anxiety was short-lived as JoAnne's is only 3 miles further and they had the needed color. I didn't even feel bad about paying full price.

I had planned on today being a day I could completely devote to quilting. Got de-railed until about 2:00, but then managed to put in about 3 hours on the Double Irish Chain quilt. Have 14 of the 25-patch blocks done. Now it gets tricky. This is a "stash" quilt, so there isn't enough fabric to do the whole quilt in the traditional 3 fabrics. White background is OK. A blue primary color I'm pretty sure I'll have enough of. But the 3rd fabric is going to have to transition into 2-3 fabrics. I re-designed the quilt at least 4 times this afternoon. The main 3rd fabric was left over from a fussy-cutting project which makes estimating the yardage pretty challenging. I think it's going to be some trial and error. Time to make peace with my seam ripper.