Spring Break - Update 3

Limited quilting Sunday b/c of the ride...but did finish the echo quilting that is on all the pink section.  Need to go buy groceries and green thread.

Mid-day update:  The green/lime hand quilting thread no longer exists.  Not a surprise as I think I bought the spool I have on clearance.  After much debate, I passed up the multi-green poly blend thread and just bought an extremely bright green cotton thread.  Works just fine with some bee's wax.  Figure it will shrink more evenly with the other cotton thread and cotton batting when I wash it.  About 1/3 done with the outer border (of the 1/2 I'm working on).  
Bought lots of fresh fruit and seafood, figuring that if I needed to feed the family, I don't want food prep time to cut into my quilting time. :)  

Spring Break - Update 2

I spent all day Saturday quilting.  Never even got out of my PJ's.  Now THAT's a vacation.

Made great progress on the NH Ashley quilt (Garden of Stitches, Lisa Bongean - Primitive Gatherings).  I have been working on in 4 quarters, to make it more manageable for lap quilting.  Yesterday, was the process of connecting 2 sections, then quilting the connection section.  I was feeling quite pleased with my progress about 11 am, but by evening was only seeing what still needed to be done, rather than what was finished (the whole half empty/half full thing).  I'm also going to run out of the varigated green/lime thread I've been using on the border.  Still deciding if I need to buy more, or find something in the stash that will work.

I think that another long day or several evenings will get this 1/2 done.  But today, the sun is shining and it's supposed to get to 65 degrees.  Going to bundle up and hop on the back of the Harley for a date with the hubby.

Spring Break - Update 1

We're staying home for spring break, and the weather is predicted to be cold and rainy.   This is my opportunity to catch up on all those things that I started over Christmas break...and that need to be finished by Summer.  My goal by week end:  Finish 2 quilts - The SD Ashley Double Irish Chain (needs binding and some missing stitching), and the black silhouette columbine quilt (needs piecing, machine quilting & binding).  Get to the next cut-off point for the Joseph's Coat quilt (35 blocks).  Have at least 1/2 of the NH Ashley quilt completely quilted (Have 3/4 of the field quilting done, but need to join, do the joining quilting, and the outside border).   I really need to finish that one so I can start another that needs to be finished by May 15...but I'm not sure my hands will hold up to that much hand quilting in such a short time.   I may also have to work on some piecing projects, as there are 3 other quilts I want to finish by July 1, and I'm going to have to take breaks from the hand quilting.

First update  is for the JC.  Here are blocks 26-32.  I have the final 3 toward the cut-off started.

Joseph's Coat Progress Report

I have little to report  as PROGRESS on this project since my post a month ago, since I haven't worked on it at all.  But Kellie has asked us to all post updates...so here's the synopsis.

I have 25 blocks finished and ready to piece together, a fact that is unchanged from January 5th.  I am in the process of working on 11 more blocks which,  when completed, will be the next 3 rows.  I have all the background and joining pieces nicely pressed and ready for action.

I like to work on this project while watching TV, which is why I got so much done in the Fall:  I'm a fan of (American) football.  I thought I'd get more done during the Olympics, but finished working on a number of other projects instead (see blog entries re: original columbine blocks, and the 2 Ashley quilts).  If I know that I'll be sitting in a waiting room (doctor appointments, etc), I'll tuck a square or two into a Ziplock bag to take along.  And every few months, I have to attend an all day staff meeting, with a group that is not offended if I do handwork.  I also knew going into this semester, that I would not have any spare time in the evenings, which is one of the reasons I tried to get so far ahead over Christmas break. (I'm a consultant and teach a university course as adjunct faculty.)  With no plans for Spring Break, except relaxing, I hope to increase my "finished" count to 36.  And I'll be finishing this bad boy in May/June (when my classes end, but my daughters are still in school).

Admittedly, I have not been following Kellie's directions exactly.  I couldn't afford the fuseable at the time the project started, and I'm too lazy to do the freezer paper.  I used the back-basting needle turn approach.  This saves me a ton of time with the fuse, glue and positioning steps.  The "up" side, is that I save several hours per block this way, and my points are perfect.  The "down" side is that the points aren't perfectly symmetrical, and the joining step is a little more fussy.  I blogged on those steps in January.   Also, because I'm picking the fabric colors as I go, I have to be more thoughtful about distributing the fabrics evenly, and b/c it's a scrap/stash quilt, there are a few fabrics I'm having to save for the final 2 rows, so things look a little more even.   I find it best to baste & applique 3 alternating center petals first.  This decreases the amount of bulk of fabric hanging around at the center.  Then I baste & stitch the other 3 center petals. The 3rd round is the outer 6.  I prefer to work on 6-10 blocks at once (the exact # usually determined by the next goal cut-off).   I typically work one color at a time, across the stack of blocks.  That way I don't have to continually switch thread colors.

One thing that I hadn't planned, but worked out very well, is that I took the project with me to several social gatherings, and let my friends pick out their favorite color combos for the center 6 petals.  This helped me to keep things random.  And if their choices were a bit odd, I'd just balance it out with the outer 6.  Though I can no longer tell who did which, it's fun to think about the fact that a 6 year old picked one set, and another grouping selected by my-husband's-best-friend's-girlfriend.

This quilt is my older daughter's High School graduation quilt.  She is graduating, 9 months early, in August '10.  She picked the fabrics from the stash.  That has been part of my challenge.  I would have NEVER chosen to use this many different colors of fabrics.  And some of her favorites are the ones that I think don't really go with the rest.  Given my druthers, this would have been hot pink or red scraps on black.

I plan to make this a completely reversable quilt...since the last quilt I made for the daughter, lives on the bed backing side up (but mom, I really like this side...)  I plan to take the big pieces that are left and make a filmstrip quilt. I plan to quilt by hand between the petals so the quilting on the back side looks like a field of curved triangles.

Joseph's Coat

After ignoring this project for a couple months, I spent the weekend joining rows 1 &2 together.  I outlined my steps in an earlier blog.  This is where my plan to do needle turn instead of the technique that Kellie is using, added to the time.   Officially, this makes the quilt-top 27% finished.  The next section and deadline will involve rows 3-5, so I'll need to have 21 blocks ready for the next step which is supposed to be done by the end of April.  The good news is that I have 10 finished and 7 more that I started.

I finally have the Silhouette versions done.  Unfortunately a little blurry on the pics...but you get the idea. I'm very pleased with these, and have a Hoffman wildflower batik to sash these squares with.  It'll be a 60" square with some random width machine quilting.  

I'm not as happy about the color versions.  I made them with Kona cottons.  I would have been happier if the red was more coral.  And what appears as white, is actually a butter yellow.  The light color is quite sheer and took careful planning to keep the dark red from showing through.  I plan to finish these with some traditional style pieced borders, and hand quilting.

I need to get these prototypes ready by the May workshop in West Yellowstone, MT.  The patterns should be available through Victoria Rose Quilts after the workshop.  Anna may be doing these as Saturday afternoon sit-and-sews in West over the summer.

Persian Rug Quilt

    Since I'm not making much progress on other things...how about some recent pictures of old projects?  This is the Persian Rug Quilt.  It's all detailed piecing with no applique...just to prove that I can piece after all.   If you click on the top picture you can look at it up close and see that there are 3 unrelated fabrics fussy cut to make the design.

    I had purchased yards of lush dark blues, when I finally got a reply back from the recipient about the fabric swatches I'd emailed and she replied that the colors were lovely, but a bit dark.  I bought a new batch of tans to lighten things up and the lovely blues ended up on back.  

     I also machine quilted this one.  Unfortunately, one bobbin worth of thread had tension problems and I didn't notice it until I was home.  I can see it in the photo...can you?  Being as how I'm not inherantly a perfectionist, it was clear that I wouldn't be ripping that out since it's only noticable on the back.  It keeps it from ever being in a jurried show...but the purpose was to please the recipient, not some judges.