Tick, tick, tick...

Last night, I removed all the basting pins, snipped all the threads, and trimmed the edges.... after I took photos.

Colors are "off" and dark since I turned off the overhead light so you could see the quilting.

Tonight, I'll work on cutting and sewing the binding strip together... and then on the quilt!

Quilting the Border

I decided to quilt a diamond pattern on the border of the Smokey Mtn Stars quilt I'm working on.   Took a little math and some measuring but I'm liking the way it's turning out...

...plus the quilting is going much faster than the body of the quilt!

The Christmas Clock is Ticking!

While not a Christmas gift, this quilt needs to be finished by New Year's Day so I can present it to my nephew at the extended family get together.    I need to mark the outside border so I can quilt a diamond pattern.

I plan to finish the quilting and get the binding sewn on so I can hand stitch the binding down this coming Friday evening, which is part 2 of this month's FNSI!

Hopefully by Saturday morning, I'll have another project crossed off my "to finish up this year" list.

Quilting

Yesterday morning, I finished Cowabunga Florabunda and popped it into the wash... it's now line-drying.  Wonder how long it will take to dry completely?

After cleaning and oiling my machine, I started quilting Smoky Mtn Stars yesterday afternoon...

...the plan is to finish quilting by next weekend!  Any bets?

Pin Basting

Now that CF is off at the LAQ spa, I have no excuses not to work on assembling quilt sandwiches...

...got the hard work done yesterday evening and will pin this evening.

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Can't leave you with a couple of photos of my grandbaby...

...who is six!   How did that happen?

For her party, the attendees stuffed their own animals, decorated a t-shirt for their newly stuff animals, and got to take them home!

Yes, that is a mound of stuffing and yes, it did stick to the carpet!  

Friday Night Sew In: Results

For last night's FNSI, I finished putting on the last borders of the Smokey Mountain Stars quilt top.

A Bonnie Hunter pattern, I like the way it turned out....  it's scrappy-ness is cool!

Smokey Mountain Stars Update

You know you're feeling better when you feel like doing a little sewing.  A bad asthma attack last week, followed by a reaction to one of the meds prescribed to help... certainly threw a monkey wrench into the works.  However, this afternoon I thought a little sewing would be a good thing.

So, I finished sewing the columns of the Smokey Mountain Stars quilt top together.

Hope to get the first border on tomorrow evening....   I'll get 'er done!

Learning to "Web the Top"

I read Bonnie Hunter's post on "Webbing The Top" of a quilt and thought I would try to figure it out with the Smokey Mountain Stars quilt. I was concerned about the almost 200 blocks for which the exact orientation of each block was crucial to the quilt design.

 Photo from Bonnie Hunter's website here.

I couldn't see dealing with all the blocks webbed together as I tried to figure all this out... so worked in sections where the first two columns of adjacent blocks were chain-sewn together from top to bottom.  Then the each two-block set was sewn together with the two-block set directly below the first.  

I figured that if this method didn't work for me I'd go back to my old, time-consuming, and error-prone way of sewing blocks together.   Surprisingly, it worked AND was easy...   

Arrows point to the threads connecting the two sets of blocks.

When all three of the adjacent blocks were sewn together, it was on to sewing these blocks to each other.

With this method, there was no doubt about what side of one set of blocks to sew to which side of the next set of blocks.

Using this method, only one set of two blocks were not sewn correctly and that was because I did not have them in the "to sew" stack in the right orientation.  I caught the error at the next stage when it was easily corrected (only one seam to unsew).

Next, I need to sew the columns together and then move on to the sashing!  I'm glad I tried the "Webbing the Top" method... I know it saved me endless grief!

Thursday Update

Yesterday, I managed to sew 6 columns of totally unconnected squares together into 3 columns...

...there would have been more sewn together except for a CERTAIN BLOGGER who shall remain nameless (initials are D.J.) who sent me URLs to three blogs about decluttering and organizing.  Since I am decluttering, the tips I picked up were great....  but reading the blogs did cut into my sewing time today.  *lol*

But that's okay... tomorrow is another day!

Design Wall Wednesday

I was good yesterday and didn't even turn on my sewing machine!  Two of the blogs I follow are posting about decluttering and I was inspired to start tackling my dump house.  Paraphrasing one post, all this STUFF didn't appear overnight and it won't go away overnight.... I'll just keep working on decluttering and it will get done eventually!

I did get all the Smokey Mountain Stars blocks up on the design wall...

 

For a big piece o' flannel held up by skirt hangers over a hall closet, I have to say my improvised design wall does pretty good....  only one block fell off all day.

Chain-pieced Out

Chain piecing has its own kind of zone... once you're there, you can sew forever it appears.

I don't think there will be any sewing done today... I need a break.

I may play with the completed squares on the design wall however...

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A Give-away!

Julie of Me and My Stitches is giving away one of her gorgeous pieces of quilt block jewelry.  The drawing is Monday morning, July 25th. 

Photo from Me and My Stitches website

 

You get to pick out the piece of jewelry you'd like from her shop... a very hard decision!  So many great choices!

 

 

Adventures in Plaids

Two years ago, I made a quilt for my niece who was graduating from college.  This was my first quilt and started me on the quilting road.  

One small problem... I have two nieces and two nephews who have graduated from college with no quilt from their aunt and another who graduates from college this year.  So, this year's challenge is The Niece and Nephew Quilt Project.

I have been collecting homespun plaids to use with Bonnie Hunter's Smokey Mountain Stars quilt pattern, along with two Moda Bella solids from my stash.  One of the solids is parchment and I don't recall what the other is... just that it's about the same value as the parchment but a little more golden.

Photo by Bonnie Hunter from her website

I cut out all the fabrics on Friday...

...and yesterday, I started sewing!  

Bonnie "double sews" blocks and saves the corners for another project.  I have no idea of how or what to use all those HSTs that will finish at 1.5" but I decided to give it a go.

It turns out that it's not as fiddle-y as I thought... and was actually easier than sewing a smaller square to a larger square because the two squares were already attached and all the big squares were chained pieced and still together.

After all the plaid squares were sewn to the 26 solid squares...

I moved on to the plaids...

The 42 plaid squares have two squares attached so it took a while but was do-able in one session.

Yup... lots and lots of fraying threads with homespuns!

I'm not sure what I'll do with all the little HSTs... I'll have 304 of those puppies when I'm done... but I'm sure I'll think of something!

Today I will be working on the 97 solid squares that get two of the small plaid squares.  

I think that will be enough for one day, don't you?