Skype Sewing: More Chicken & Egg

On the weekend I skype sewed with my friend M. On Saturday I made 35 nine patches for a mystery quilt put on by The Mayflower Quilters' Guild which M and I both belong to. Next month we will get the clue for the second block. I'm making the lap size. M was putting her sewing room back together after removing the carpet and installing laminate flooring and a new window.

On Sunday I decided to make a basket and chose a rooster and egg fabric which I lined with another chicken and egg fabric and finished with woven printed handles. I downloaded the 1 hour basket tutorial for free from Craftsy.

M was working on a round robin medallion quilt. The centre medallion was made by the owner of the quilt and it will make it's way to all the members of the bee who will each add more rows.  M is the third to add to it.

It wasn't until I went to write this post that I realized all my weekend sewing revolved around chickens and eggs again... I guess I like them!

3 Finishes for Friday

I got the binding on my two granny square baby quilts.  These will both be given to Mayflower Quilting Guild as Comfort Quilts and will go to one of several charities the Guild supports.

I chose to bind the top quilt by sewing the binding to the front and then flipping it to the back and stitching in the ditch beside the binding from the front to catch it on the back.  For the second quilt I sewed the binding on the back and then flipped it to the front and sewed as close to the edge of the binding as I could on the front through all the layers. I think I prefer the look of the first method, what do you think?

I also quilted and bound my heart log cabin table runner.  I used Brandon Smythe's Nesting Hearts pantograph.  Now I'm ready to decorate for Valentine's Day!

This will be my first time linking to Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts on Finish it up Friday!

Chicken or Egg?

Today I have a quick finish of two pillowcases made of rooster, hen and egg themed fabrics. I use the "burrito" method so all seams are enclosed.

The fabric in the main body of the pillowcase is the same as the backing fabric on the Jacob's Ladder quilt which I finished in October of 2016.  To complete the chicken theme, I also quilted the Jacob's Ladder quilt using a pantograph by Patricia Ritter called Funky Feathers.

Here is another view of the Jacob's Ladder quilt.

Someday I would like to raise laying hens. However, as my father recently pointed out, there are seven days in a week, and not one is someday....

Valentine's Table Runner

This morning I decided to work on something for Valentine's Day as I don't have any Valentine's quilted items. I found a tutorial but didn't follow every step, but it was a good basis: http://quiltingandfood.blogspot.ca/2013/01/log-cabin-heart-quilt-pattern.html

I cut all the strips, mostly from scraps from other projects,

and pieced three log cabin hearts,

and then joined them together with red sashing.

I should have this quilted and bound this week.

Christmas Wall Hanging x cuteness factor of 4

My daughter sent me this ridiculously cute picture of her two cats admiring the Christmas Wall Hanging I made them.  She even supplied the commentary below:

Quincy proclaims after inspecting the texture of the fur.: "It looks just like you Rohy!"

Rohy replies, "No one's ever captured my fluff so exquisitely before!"

Sometimes things just don't go smoothly!

In May of 2016, I pieced 3 identical baby quilts with 8" granny squares and alternating squares of bear fabric. One I finished in June with a flannel backing and bound with the same material as in the granny squares and it was gifted to my daughter's partner's sister who was expecting her second baby.

I bought blue gingham material to back the other two and decided Wednesday this week I was going to get them done.  I started out by piecing left over batting.  My first attempt looked like I was trying to ruffle the batting which is weird because I have done this before and it turned out fine.  Also, I nearly sewed the tablecloth to my batting, not once, but twice.

Out came the stitch ripper and I decided to use safety pins every hand width to keep the batting lined up. The big piece that was all ruffly turned out to be six inches longer out flat.  I will use this method again! I also took the tablecloth off the table.

Then I pinned on all the little bits to give me enough width.  I used 9 different pieces altogether which was a very good use of trimmings from previous quilts.

I then pinned the backing to my quilting frame.  Someday I am going to upgrade to zippers to make this process go faster!  I currently sew in an unfinished basement room which is why you can see the cement wall below.  I plan to take over the rec room shortly. :-)

Then I laid my pieced batting on top and that was where I stopped because everything had taken so much more time than expected that I ran out of time.

On Thursday I programmed Patricia Ritter's Flower Power Panto to quilt 72" long and 4.5" deep as I was going to quilt both baby quilts side by side at the same time.  I ran out of bobbin thread about a third of the way across the first row.  I had expected it because I didn't have any empty bobbins to wind a full one so needed to use a partial one up.  I got a full bobbin wound and finished the first row without any issues getting caught up where one quilt ended and the next started which was my only concern.

Little did I know.....from row number 2 to row 8 is where the problems arose, and there were many of them:

• On row 2 one of my fingers got too close to the needle which nicked an outer layer of skin off  - not enough to bleed, but still hurt.  Plus it broke the needle.
• I had no quilting needles left so put in a universal needle.  The machine hated it and broke it too.
• I took a quilting needle off another machine and put it in.  It didn't break but the machine was making funny clicking noises.  I took off the throat plate and cleaned under it, changed the foot, and oiled a few spots.  It sounded happy again and I continued to quilt.
• Because I was paying more attention to listening to the machine, I forgot to pay attention to helping it over the gap between the two quilts and the foot went under the 2nd quilt and before I could hit the stop button, the circular foot was sewn between the layers. I should have taken a picture of this, but was not in the mood at the time!  This took awhile to rip out without making a hole in the edge of the quilt.  I finally got it freed up and finished the row.
• On row 3, I got half way across and QBOT went berserk and was not stitching the programmed daisies.  I think I had to start and stop so many times already that it couldn't handle it!  I had to shut off QBOT and set it up to quilt the pattern again.  I had to let it run the pattern with the presser foot up so it wouldn't sew until it caught up with where I had ended and then continue the row.
• Row 4 and 5 went OK.  I ran out of bobbin thread again at some point and had to put in a new bobbin but that is normal.
• Row 6 started and after maybe three inches of pattern, QBOT went berserk again and wouldn't even pay attention to the stop button, I had to turn the power off.  At this point I took the dog and went for a long walk....
• Refreshed from my walk and fuelled from lunch I once again restarted QBOT. QBOT behaved, but my thread did not.  For some unexplained reason, as nothing had changed from the morning, my upper thread broke 3 times and of course just before I finished row 8, I had to change the bobbin again, but the eighth and final row was complete.

I have never been so challenged by just 8 rows of quilting and am so happy to have finished.  I was going to bind these quilts too, but that will have to wait until another day.

Fat Quarter Shop 2017 Patchwork Quilt Along

I have decided to join the 2017 Patchwork Quilt Along sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop in support of Make-A-Wish.

fatquartershop.blogspot.ca/p/patchwork-quilt-along

Here are the Souvenir of Friendshop blocks I have made for the first month..  I have decided to make a red/green quilt and have pulled the following fabrics from my stash.

This is my first web quilt along and I'm looking forward to it.

RETIRED!!! Now I can quilt full time!

WOW! I can't believe that after more than 35 years of working, today is the first full weekday of my retired life! I plan to do way more quilting for my family, charities and anyone else who might ask me. I also knit and crochet and have done some cross stitch, embroidery, tatting, smocking and macrame. I have also sewn clothing, Halloween costumes, stuffies and Christmas ornaments. But my favourite craft by far is quilting. After reading quilting blogs for several years, I have decided to set up my own blog to chronicle my own quilting adventures.

Last year I made Christmas stockings for my son and daughter and their partners. This year I made coordinating tree skirts and wall hangings. The tree skirts were made using a ten degree Dresden plate wedge and I cut 36 wedges out of wof strip pieced fabric. I sewed them together using the quilt as you go method and then stitched in the ditch around the rings and bound the edges.

For the owl wall hanging I photocopied an owl from the material and enlarged it to create the appliqué pattern which I glue basted and machine appliquéd. I machine stitched around all the appliqué pieces and then echo quilted the background. For the cat wall hanging I drew a cat shape and cut mirror image cats and fused them with their tails entwined and put ribbon under their necks so I could tie bows. The only quilting I did was grids behind the cats to make it look like they were looking out the window at a snow storm.