This and That

Somehow I managed to stay busy all weekend quilting without really having much to show for it.

I hand pieced a few more of these blocks from the fabric that Nadine sent while watching Saturday morning cooking shows.  I'm up to 16 and will be making 25.

When my fingers got tired from sewing, I cut out a few more hexies from fabric I bought on the Epic Road Trip, and glue basted this stack.

But that got boring, so I drafted more state blocks on the computer.

And hand pieced North Wind for Illinois.

Farmer's Daughter for Nebraska.

( I finally got brave and used a red Pigma pen to write the block name and state on all the finished blocks. )

And Cowboy Star for Wyoming.

(I'm quite proud of the fussy cutting on this one. The fabric says "Ranch Raised"  "Hey Cowboy" "Ropes" and "Boots". )


But then Guitar Girl took over my computer for her on-line class so I decided to move on to another project.

Which involved sewing the back for the Joseph's Coat quilt out of these fabrics.

And pulling the quilt frame out of its hiding place and setting it up.  Unfortunately, I didn't find the directions along with the pieces and parts. Although I managed to get the frame together correctly, I knew at the time that I hadn't put the quilt on the frame quite right...and the solution didn't come to me until I was in the shower the next morning.   I need to swap the location of the back and middle bars, which will be fairly easy to do w/o removing the fabric as long as there are 4 people involved in the process.

Done At Last!!!

Finally! The Joseph's Coat quilt top is finished.  I thought I was going to be done a week ago but there were many distractions.  And then I discovered that I was missing 2 of the 5-petal filler blocks.  And then I realized I had a bunch of outer petals to add.  It only took 9 months and a couple hundred hours to finish this top.  Ah...but it still needs to be quilted.

Progress & Give Away

Guitar Girl graduates in August, so I decided I better get back to this Joseph's Coat project and get it finished.  I've been doing this as a quilt-along that Kellie organized at Don't Look Now.  As you can see, I'm still arranging, and re-arranging to try to distribute the colors.  I left the final 4 blocks without their outer row so that when I'm happy with the rest of the lay-out, I can custom place colors on a few blocks.  In case you haven't been following my blog...scrap quilts make me anxious.  I really like to have control of the colors, so this project has been a real challenge to me.

I actually had a great batik collection before I started this quilt.  Some of my favorite smaller pieces got used up.  Some of the bigger pieces I'm really tired of.  My goal is to finish the top by the end of May and then celebrate the way that real bloggers do, with a GIVE AWAY!  I'm going to cut 5" charm squares from the remaining fabrics (and throw in a few I've collected recently).  Leave a comment on this post by June 7th describing what you would do with a packet of batik charm squares in these colors.  Blog & link to this post and/or join as a follower for extra chances to win.  And to keep your odds high, I'll add charm packs to the prize vault as the number of entries increase.

Boy & Skirt

After multiple delays, I've managed to get a couple days worth of this project done.  To make me feel better about the progress I did an estimate and I've fused about 3216 squares into place.  That made me so accomplished until I discovered that I'm only 1/2 done.  However, the remaining sections are sky and umbrella, so I anticipate that they will go much faster than the sections I've finished that have 30 or more different colors to place.

This section is the boy in the background and the lady's skirt on the right, with grass and flowers in the foreground.  I ended up replacing the background around the boy's face to give more contrast.  I substituted some blues in his shirt for contrast as well.  As I was working on the lower portions of the skirt, I took to making multiple substitutions.  I ran out of 3 of the grey-greens and 2 of the light blues.  So much for all that careful planning.  I may have to go back and swap out some of the new colors on the finished panels for the sake of continuity.  There is also a blue in the sky that I think has too much contrast (see the dark spots above the boy's head).  Fortunately, I didn't use a super hot iron when fusing these in place, so most of the squares for replacement come up without much fuss.  Of course, this new need to check and potentially replace color placement means that I can't start sewing the panels until everything is fused.  The other challenge is finding a space large enough to lay it all out.  Since they are 1.5" squares butted up to one another, my 108" finished length is 13.5 ft in the lay-out form.

Oh, and last night when I couldn't stand this project any longer, I finished up Joseph's Coat block #43.  I have  4 outer petals to sew to finish blocks 44 & 45.  The last 4 blocks, I only placed the center petals, figuring that I might want to have some unfinished for when I do the final lay-out.  Hopefully I can get that done this weekend.

New Goal

I've set a new cut-off goal for myself.  The last petal count that I attempted seemed to overwhelming, so I'm looking now at just the petals on the final 17 blocks.  That's 204 petals.  I was able to sneak in a little stitching at a meeting I was attending, so I'm up to 70 done, 134 to go. OK.  That doesn't make me feel better.  Must be too many years in school that makes 34% feel like a failing grade, rather than 1/3 finished.

Progress

I finished the black & white columbine quilt and am quite pleased with the result.  Am quite glad I took the time to hand quilt the white section, as the textural difference b/w that and the machine quilting is quite pleasing.  I haven't found the right lighting situation that really captures the quilting, but will keep trying and will post final pics when that happens.

I have been working on the Joseph's Coat again.  Partially, that's b/c I can applique even when my hands are tired from quilting.  The other part, is that summer is sneaking up and the daughter for whom I'm making it graduates in August.  I've  changed my mind on the pieced back and DD thinks that purple may be the answer.

Even though I only have 3 more blocks to the next goal cut-off, I've decided to work on the remaining 17 at the same time.  In an attempt to make myself feel better about progress...I started considering my progress in petals rather than blocks.  If I'm counting right, there are 637 petals in the entire quilt (including the joining 1/2 blocks and the fill-ins on the side). I have 461 finished (72%).  Honestly, I was wishing this percentage was higher.  Only another 50-60 hours to finish up this quilt top.

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

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.

Needle Turn Saga Part 2

Sorry, these posts are out of order, I was having trouble uploading the pictures, so I posted what I had done, upgraded the software and now will finish up. Scroll down the page for the starting steps, then come back here.

Here are some tricks I discovered about stitchinig down those raw edges to the new filler strips.

First off, I found that it works much better to be working on a flat surface.  This allowed me to turn under about 1/3 of the petal then finger-press. 

Pin the finger pressed section in place then stitch. 

As you approach the outer edge of the petal, stop about 1 1/2 inches from the end and tuck under the point.  Give it a good pinch to finger press a sharp point. 

Use the needle to smooth the edge from the point to where you paused...then stitch to the point and secure your stitches on the back. 

Finish the opposing petal from the outside-in. 

Have those center points "kiss". Tack them in place and finish the raw edges on the left and right as with the previous trio.

Josephs Coat Joining - The Needle Turn Saga

Kellie warned me before I started that doing needle-turn was going to be difficult when we started joining the squares together. Subsequently, I've been stressing about this step for months. It actually went well, although fairly slow. Here are some things that I figured out that might be helpful if you are trying this approach. First, I borrowed an idea posted by someone who was using a dark background. I took a blank overhead-projector transparency and copied the pattern with a Sharpie:

I followed Kellie's joining instructions through step 5, but using the clear template on top to make sure that all the finished petals were lined up.

It's a little hard to see, but the pink and blue petals in the center are finished and the 4 raw edges are touching across the horizontal axis. The pink lines from the clear template line up along the finished edges of the blue petal (maybe not quite so well on the black/green petal and pretty well on the finished edge of the purple/pink).

In this picture, I'm holding the raw edges of the green and purple blocks together to snug up the blue finished petals to "kiss".  Pin well.  Then I used standard needle-turn technique to stitch from the center out.