Final Push

 

Over the course of the week, I finished sewing 4 sections of the side panels, and discovered a section (top left) that was only 1/2 sewn.  I'll do the vertical seams when I do the last 4 panels. 

The top and bottom left panels are fused and ready for stitching.  I am out of 50% of the original fabrics, so did some clever substitutions.  Laid down the fabrics that I did have, and filled in with similar options. 

This morning I organized what was left of the original colors.  Added 7 more substitutes from the stash.  Will do my best to match colors to the original where it meets the other panels, and freestyle the rest.  As par for this project, I seem to be a panel short of the fusible.  SIGH.

Furlough Finishes

I often joke that my job really gets in the way of my hobbies.  A 4 month work furlough for Covid-19 really proved that to be true.  While I typically finish 4-6 quilts a year, depending upon complexity, I've finished 17 of varying sized and difficulty, not to mention about 3 dozen face masks.

Loud was started a couple years ago.  The hand applique took forever to finish.  It was a re-work of 2 other designs. 

 Then a series of original designs.  Vizsla is a fund raising quilt for a friend.  

Covid quilt for Chris, started before the furlough and finished during.

His & Hers wedding quilts.  

An octopus for my daughter.  

Then I got a little obsessed with underwater photos.  So a jellyfish.

Starfish.

Squid (or is it a cuddle fish?)

Of the 21 projects on my 2020 goal list, I completed 8, but only 1 from my oldest UFO list.  I started a quilt for my mom in 2010 that was going to include 80 squares with themes about her life.  I made 9.  The week before her birthday I planned to put them together for a pillow for her.  She insisted she had no use for a pillow.  So in a couple days I made 6 more blocks and quickly quilted it.  Still need to take pictures of the final outcome as I was putting the binding on at 5am the day we were headed to her house.  

And somewhere between projects, I cleaned up the sewing room and put together packets of scraps, leftovers and random fabrics to make a series of NICU donation quilts.

I am scheduled to go back to work next week.   Leaving me just a few days to make progress on Monet so it doesn't get abandoned again.

Slogging

 

It is hard to properly express how much I hate this project right now.  This represents a day and a half of placing squares.  There are in the neighborhood of 2270 in these 5 panels. The center panel is the missing piece of the previous post.  Following the design as accurately as possible. 

I don't have enough of any of the fabrics to finish the plan as it started.  The outer panels, I focused on making the first 4 connecting squares true to the pattern, then free styled the rest.  

I am down to 4 panels, each 30 x 12 pieces.  So 1440.  Unfortunately, they are the top and bottom panels which have darker squares.  And I am pretty sure I don't have the fabrics needed.  Good thing I'm the queen of improv. 

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/woman-with-a-parasol-madame-monet-and-her-son/EwHxeymQQnprMg?hl=en

So Over Monet

I am so ready to be done with this.  And it is not helping that Blogger flipped this image, clearly to annoy me.  I should be excited that there is only one section 15x 47 to go.  But that's just the feature panel.  Turns out, that makes the quilt 61x 108, so I'll have to add 15" side panels on each side to make it a bed spread.  (Weirdly, my original plan was 72x96, but maybe math isn't my forte)

On a positive note, I convinced myself that I don't have to quilt it.  This is the back of the panels which has the fusible web and a million seams.  The fabric is quite secure.   I just ordered an extra wide fabric back that looks like canvas.  I will either use some tacking stitches to keep it from shifting, or I may FMQ outlines of the boy, parasol and lady to hold the back to the front. 

And I am going to do some improv piecing on the outer panels.  My  3 year old granddaughter came for a visit and decided that the yellow cardboard identification tags that I had used to keep the 60 colors straight were really interesting.  I don't really have the energy or interest to sort that $#@! out. 

Day of the Dead Quilt

 I've been so good about working on finishing projects, that I decided to reward myself by starting something new.  It's going to be in the style of Dia de Muertos.  It is for my friend Boomer who survived a "widow maker" heart attack, collapsing as he walked into the Emergency Department. The full sized skeleton will be wearing the shirt they cut off him at the ED.

The quilt will be full of symbolism related to his life and hobbies.  The gear eyes are for his lifetime as a mechanic.  The white mouth surround and red nose are for his years as a professional clown.  The winged warrior is the symbol of his motorcycle club.  The teeth and warrior details are shown here on a plastic overlay and will be quilted in. 

My friend's roomate Frank posed for this picture so I could figure out how to add a hat tip (a feature of his professional clown portrait. 

I hope to make some progress on the spine & rib designs today.  My first draft was out of proportion since I tried to do it mathematically from an image and still match the size of the shirt.

Loud!

 Another finish!  This quilt was started Feb 2019 when I was testing a foundation piecing pattern for a friend who wanted to learn to quilt when she retired. It is called Nell's Star /Charleston Star  available at this link.    I am not certain where the purple/orange batik came from.  Nor do I understand what compelled me to buy it.  I suspect that I bought it on clearance. I decided to pair it with green to round out the color wheel.  That is one LOUD color scheme.

 This much color is not everyone's cup of tea.  But then I thought of my friend Lori.  She's a colorful character.  And she is constantly crocheting things for my granddaughter.  She never forgets my birthday.  She was long overdue for a gift from me.

 I had purchased Aunt Millie's Garden from Piece O'Cake Designs because I liked their funky flowers. (Click on the link above if you want to know what it's supposed to look like) I decided to rework them into a border.  Unfortunately, there was a delay of a year from when I started the project to when I picked it up again and I'd forgotten some of my plans.  Subsequently there's more design changes where 2 corners include the star/dot flower and 2 do not.  I kept wanting to add more leaves, but settled for quilting some in.

This was free motion quilted on my Singer Patchwork with a mix of Gutterman and Connecting Threads thread.  Batting is Pellon Nature's Touch 90% cotton batting.  Backing is unbleached muslin.

Slow Progress

The morning after my last post, I made a frustrating discovery.  I had been having trouble with alignment on the replacement panels that are marked with 1" instead of 1.5" grid.  The reason turned out to be that I was 1/2" off when cutting the panel.  So 80% of the pieces in the panels I had spent 2 days applying, had to be re-positioned and re-fused.

That is represented on the photo as the big blank spot of sky to the left of the lady. 

I was burnt out on that project, as you might imagine.   I went back to working on "Loud".  It's a quilt I'm making for a friend that has a rather complex floral outer border.  She wants a surprise reveal, so all you get is a sneak peak.  It's back basting needle turn except for the bias stems.  I estimated that there were around 450 pieces to stitch, and I'm down to basting and sewing the last 16 leaves and 16 dots.  I know that I'll be tempted to add more at that point, but will focus on talking myself into adding more details in the quilting.