Moving on to Building Houses

 I have been making steady progress on my Around the Block quilt and am happy to say that the center is complete and all 3 borders have been added and now I am back to building the houses.  The fun part of this is that you make 2 of each house, but they are all so different.  I have 8 more buildings to build and there are barns, churches and a school house besides 6 different styles of houses.  Then there are trees and fences to add to it.  This quilt looked like it was wall hanging size to me, but it is much larger, right now it is about 66” X 55” and the houses that go all around are 10” each so it will be one of the largest quilts I have made to date.

Yesterday I read on a blog that you should make a list of 10 quilt projects you have in progress and using this list work on each project in 3 hour intervals.  After working on a project for 3 hours stop and go to another project.  The idea is that you start to get bored and probably careless after about 3 hours so you get a whole new project out and get refreshed and before you know it you will be finishing up projects.  Well, it was making sense to me so I have a notebook by my cutting table that I have listed the projects I am working on (and I think I only found 8) and I have them neatly stacked in a box with all their components stored with them.  I should get more art boxes to contain things better, but right now I am using zip lock bags.  This little quilt has so many components and with no 2 alike that it is really keeping my interest.  I was getting bored working on the borders so yesterday I played around with making up misc. blocks to practice some Free motion quilting for the quilting challenge by Sew Cal Gal.  I am also following Leah Day at The Free Motion Quilting Project, who has some great videos and has started the year teaching as though you are a beginner.  If you are new to free motion quilting her blog would be a great place to start, her videos are short and her approach really breaks it down into something doable by any new quilter.  She is posting something new each week.  Sew Cal Gal is having guest posts on a monthly basis so you get to learn from someone new each month.  My goal this year is to practice my quilting and get all my tops done.  I have been surprised when I do get a top quilted by how long it takes…not as long as I thought!

Given that the winter weather is feeling more like Spring I have been doing more work outside than what I usually do at this time of year so my quilting time has been cut down, but I try to fit some time in each evening.  I find it relaxes me and keeps the creative juices flowing.  Today I am planning to go out and wash a few windows, really unseasonable for me, but I am tired of looking out through the dirty window in the kitchen when I am doing dishes. 

A clean, fresh view… a great way to start the new year!

Ferne

Building Fabric Houses

I was ready and willing to jump on the house building bandwagon and sew a little (3”) house block every day for the year, but that is a little unrealistic of a goal for a me and after trying to make just one, I had to give it up.  There must be an easy way to do this, but I haven’t found it yet.  I love house blocks though and remembered that I had a quilt top started last year that had some really fun house blocks.  I have made a few but have about 15 left to do so I pulled the project out during the holiday after all my gifts were made and dusted it of.  After I figured out what I had already done and what I still needed to do I made myself a plan and got to work.  First step is to finish the center section, which I am now more than half done with, then comes 3 borders and finally I can get back to building houses.  The pattern is Around the Block by The Rabbit Factory.  I had admired this on another blog several years ago and ordered the pattern intending to whip it out and hang it on my wall.  Good intentions, but things didn’t quite work that way.  I jumped ahead and started making houses and a church and some trees.  A new project came along and this one got shelved, but I am thrilled with how it is coming out now.  Sometimes you just need some time away to come back with fresh eyes and new ideas.  I believe that having WIPs is beneficial to the finished project.   When you come back to it you have new ideas and more experience, if I push myself to just finish something I don’t put my heart into it I just hurry up and get it done and don’t enjoy the process.   I have a lot of ideas brewing for things I want to do, some are not even sewing projects, where I want to take my time and enjoy the process.  They will get done sooner or later!

Enjoy the process!

Ferne

Advent Calendar with Let it Snow

This is the view I have while working on a little Christmas gift project.  The 2 colors of trim on the shed are me testing paint colors, we will be painting our house this spring and we all know that picking colors is the hardest part.  I love this view especially with the colors on the leaves that are soon to drop, giving me something else to do the next nice day we have.

I am making a couple advent calendars that I thought up in my own little head which means that sometimes things don’t go as smoothly as when you can just follow someone else's directions and there are a few back to the drawing board moments, but this project is making me happy.  I bought a stack of fat quarters of Me & My Sisters fabric line called Ready, Set, Snow and it is such a fun fabric to work with.  I am loving the cheerful colors.

I am also working on a few more of those scarves from my last post and I just keep thinking of more people who would enjoy these so I think I need to make about 6 of them.  I bought 2 yards of Minkee so I might be able to squeeze that many out of them.  I can’t seem to find the directions on the scarf so that I can give credit here, but the original had a zippered pocket to keep your cell phone in and I chose to not do zippers and made a pocket on each end because I found that a 60” scarf put those pockets at just the right spot to put cold hands in.  I lined the pockets in minkee so they were soft to boot.  I have a few more sewing projects for the holidays that I would like to get to, but we will have to see how it goes…everyone knows how the holidays get busy and homemade gifts don’t always get done, but I have some good intentions and if the weather stays like this I will have a lot of time inside for sewing…

Let the count down begin!

Enjoy the process…

Ferne 

 

Piecing with Minkee Tips

A few months ago I bought a bag of scraps at a local quilt shop and it had several pieces of  Minkee in it.  I saw this cute scarf pattern that I thought would be perfect for giving it a try, but I was not prepared for how difficult it could be to sew small pieces of Minkee together.  Suddenly I was having flash backs of sewing some bridesmaids dresses years ago from velvet…not fun.  So I am going to share some tips that I learned as I played around with this project. 

1.  Look closely at the nap.  You need to know which direction it is going and make sure that when you put your pieces together the nap is going the same direction in each piece. I did this by rubbing it and seeing which way was smooth and which way resisted my touch.  No amount of pins will hold it in place if the nap is not going the same direction on each piece.

2.  Use pins.  I don’t use pins very often and when I do I tend to only pin at crucial meeting points because I find I can ease the rest of the fabric in easier this way, but on this project I was sewing a mere 8 inches across and I used 3 pins the first one right in the center and then 2 about 1/2 inch in on each end.  You could do even more, but this worked for me as long as I first made sure the nap was right.

3.  Cut your project larger than you will need it to be by an inch or two.  It is so hard to get this precise so you will want to have room for a fudge factor.  I could have made things easier on myself and just used one solid piece of Minkee, but I really wanted to use those scraps and the colors all went well with my front fabrics.

I am also working on a table topper for the holidays that I bought at the quilt show in Iowa.  The project came in a metal cup with all the fabric, very cute.  I somehow couldn’t wrap my mind around the directions though and it was a simple log cabin, must have been all the excitement of the trip.  I made it at night in my hotel room.  I am playing around with the quilting on this and having some fun.  I need a lot more practice on my free  motion quilting so this is adding to that.  I quilted ear muffs on the snowmen and I will add some buttons for the eyes later.  I have a pattern for free motion that I am practicing drawing first, it has mittens and snowflakes in the design so after I draw them a few more times and practice on my practice piece I will add them in.  I am using a yellow variegated thread because I like the way it shows up on these dark colors, but that also shows mistakes.  I am finding though, that after I wash my pieces the quilting always looks good like it washes out the mistakes and the long stitches.  I am having fun learning this technique and it is helping me to get my quilts done.  This will be the third project I have finished this month and I have 3 more sitting waiting to be quilted.  It would be nice to have everything I have pieced this year finished for the new year and all done by me!  I have a problem sending my tops out to be quilted by someone else, I just want to be able to say I made it all the way from beginning to end.

I ordered some Christmas fabric from the Fat Quarter shop that is coming tomorrow so I will be busy with some holiday sewing that want to share next week I hope.  I have an advent calendar idea that I have been working on in my mind and paper and I can’t wait to share it.

Happily I sew along…

Ferne

Bloggers Quilt Festival Entry

 

I am currently sewing the binding on a special little quilt that will be given to a special new addition to our family.  This little girl will be making the man in my life a Great Grandfather…not sure he will want to be called “Great Grandpa”, but I am sure that all his grandchildren think that he is exactly that A Great Grandpa.
I had a lot of fun making this quilt because it gave me the opportunity to teach a young lady to sew.  The sister of the mother-to-be got to help me piece the half-square triangles that went into the center and she helped me pick out the fabrics.  I also got the opportunity to practice my free motion quilting a little more.  I am not sure just how many hours practice I need to meet my expectations, but my quilting is looking quite a bit better with every quilt I finish.  Working on this was so much fun that I immediately pulled out a quilt that I had put away last year because the quilting was getting too difficult and now I think I can tackle that and actually enjoy the process. 
I am linking this post up to the Bloggers Quilt Festival over at Amy’s Creative Side.  Be sure to check out all the quilts that have been entered, there are some real beauties there!

Thanks Amy for giving us a place to share!

Ferne