Quilting Underway

I've had a good start to 2024. 

My number one priority is quilting!!! After six days of working on my latest quilt top in the frame, I have figured out what I am stitching in all places on the quilt top. Deciding what to stitch is always the hardest part. I know from experience, the more regular I am at quilting the easier it is. 

Just loading the quilt onto the frame was a little bit of a nail biter. The top is 104-inches square and of course I bought a wide backing for it. Once all the fabric was washed...and squared up...that backing was a tight fit. I had about an inch on the front of the quilt and maybe two-inches on the bottom. I basted the entire quilt which is what I like to do most of the time because I like to jump around when quilting certain motifs or changing thread colors. 

 

I am giving a thumbs up to running the batting on the steam setting of my dryer to relax the wrinkles from packaging. If the batting shrunk it wasn't noticeable to me but it was 120-inches square so I had way more than I needed.

With the patchwork border a nice cross hatch pattern looks great and is super easy. The snow flakes in the white inner border are pretty easy too. I just have to mark the center line.

Alas...I did spend a full day ripping our some areas. I decided to create an outline border around the white stars. I had only stitched two border stars and setting blocks but had to rip those out to make that change. Never fun but I happier with the change. This border layout is on all four sides. Sometimes I let a block or area stay as initially stitched if I change my mind but I plan to use the quilt on my bed next winter so it will get looked at a lot. 

I finished my first Bucilla project of the year. 

This was a re-release of a previous design which I just realized today...rummaging through my stash of kits...I have the original release from 2002. Wow...it's been over 20 years...no wonder I forgot I had the kit! I wouldn't mind making it again. It would make a nice gift.

I wanted to have a Bucilla kit plan for the coming year. I do find when I have a plan...I get more done. 

I've picked two dimensional kits and a wall hanging that will be a nice little challenge. Noah's Ark and a biggie-sized polar bear and set of penguins. Not a lot of embroidery on those two kits...it's just the awkwardness of working with a 3-D piece that makes them challenging. The Snowflake Santa wall hanging is a Mary Engelbreit design and will be a big embroidery laden project. 

I had opened an ornament set of mice last year and just never got back to finishing it. I don't like mice. I have to deal with shrews and mice living in a rural area. But...those ornaments would make really great gifts for my sons and their families. 

I also want to make more ornaments for friends...like the other grandmother of my granddaughters, She is a fantastic cookie decorator so she is getting some Christmas cookie ornaments.  And my grandson needs a stocking!!! His dad says a stocking with an airplane would be best....I just happen to have one in my stash. I actually bought a couple of these kits for my stash since so many pilots are in our family and friends' circle.

More stockings are needed for my granddaughters. Kate is outgrowing the Llama stocking and since she has taken a few horseback riding lessons, we agreed on the Santa on a horse. It has a companion ornament set with six gorgeous horse ornaments. 

And Kara needs a stocking at her other grandma's house so the Christmas cookie theme is being continued. Santa's Sweet Shop is a kit from 2009. It also has a companion ornament set. 

Finally, a little update on my current cross stitch project. I've finished the three darkest blue colors of floss in the kit. I'm working on the light blue floss. The last color of floss with be white and since this is a full coverage piece...there will be a lot of white stitching. Lots of pretty beads to also add. 

My February quilt retreat is getting closer. What will I work on that weekend???

More planning needed.

Welcome 2024

Happy New Year!

So exciting to get a fresh start once a year. 

Though I have spent the past week trying to plan projects for 2024, I've been horribly overwhelmed! But in looking through my projects I realized I'd like better documentation of my work. This blog is a great place to do that since I annually get a book made from the blog. And I refer to those books very often. 

So here is my first resolution: more blogging with details. 

I snuck in a couple of finishes the last week of 2023. 

My oldest granddaughter, Kate, who is turning 4 in a week, asked me to add butterfly patches to a denim dress. She requested multiple colors of butterflies. 

It was such a fun and pretty quick project to tackle. I found a rainbow colored batik and cut all my butterflies from that fat quarter from my stash. I used the fusible applique method with Steam-A-Seam Lite 2. 

I stitched around the outer edge with a tight zigzag stitch instead of a full satin stitch.

It was one of her gifts on Christmas morning. 

My second finish was a rather quick project from beginning to end. Amazing for me!

I started the cross stitch about a week before Christmas. It was so fun to have tiny little sections to finish every night. It is Big-Hearted Tiny Town from Heart in Hand Designs. 

I used the DMC flosses listed on the pattern. My fabric was a hand-dyed fabric from 123 Stitch, a 16-count Aida, called Opal. Kind of a pink tinged taupe. 

The amazing part is I didn't just stick the stitched piece in a box hoping the finishing fairy would take care of it by Valentine's Day. I got myself in gear and finished it. 

I watched two YouTube videos on Drum Pincushion finishes. One from Vonna Pfeiffer and one from Helen D. I did my own version that was kind of a cross between their techniques.

I was trying to get two squares between the ends of the design. Three squares look perfect! 

I did add interfacing, Pellon SF101 ShapeFlex which is the interfacing By Annie bag patterns use so I had lots of it in my stash. I think it was perfect. I cut the interfacing to be the height and width of the finished size so I would have a nice sharp edge on the top and bottom.

Vonna presses her seam to one side...hard to get a nice even finish on the top and bottom edge if one side has more bulk in the seam so I pressed it open and ran a tiny bead of Aleene's glue down the center of the seam to help give it strength and keep the ground walnut shells from seeping out. 

Like Vonna and Helen, I  did a layering of descending sizes of batting in the top to create the puff for some pins. Like Vonna, I stuffed the top half of the drum body with fiber fill and then added some crushed walnut shells. Then I finished stuffing with fiber fill. It took so much fiber fill for the that tiny pin cushion. I'm so thankful for YouTube videos. 

I think Vonna and Helen said it took them about an hour to make their drums. I'm sure it took me at least four hours...but it was my first one. 

My next start right before Christmas was a Bucilla kit for a Snowman Door Stopper. I made a lot of changes to this kit. 

First, I used felt to make the face features instead of satin stitching. The black eye centers, cheeks and carrot nose are felt.

I also added a felt backing piece to the blue scarf. I will add tassels to the scarf ends tonight. It has a cup of beans in a baggie at the base of the body. I wish the bottom had an actual base piece. But it will work as a display in my bookcase so I'm not going to rework that part of the design.

I have soooo many cross stitch pieces kitted up and ready to stitch...many are Mill Hill kits. 

I get into situations where I think I need to stitch a series...so I have three more kits with a blue and white winter theme waiting to be stitched. I wanted to stitch this last year with a goal of doing one a year in the series. I skipped it last year. 

I already have two completed Mill Hill kits in this series displayed in my bedroom.

My major goal for today was to get a quilt top loaded on my frame. 

I have the backing fabric loaded and prepped the batting but now I am thinking I want to pop the batting in my dryer. 

My washing machine died in October so we made a major purchase and bought an all-in-one washer dryer. I'm still surprised we did that but so far I am loving it. It has a steam dryer cycle to remove wrinkles. I'm going to try it on my batting before I load it on the frame. I'll let you know how it goes.

No critter photos...though we did have a moose hanging around our yard for a couple of days. We have soooo much snow around the house, I couldn't get a photo of him...my view was blocked.

So another tidbit to share about my life. We had at least four-feet of snow sitting on our metal roof. This year, our snow has been very heavy as opposed to last year's light and fluffy snow. We also had some ice damming...areas where the snow melts and then freezes up. It's very bad for your roof. 

So...for the first time...I hired a crew to remove the snow from our roof. It was just too scary to be only halfway through our snow season and have so much snow on the roof. We have been breaking all kinds of weather records the past couple of years. 

During the process of removing the snow, our deck got pretty covered in mounds of snow.

The crew removed it all with shovels and snow blower. Soooo Much Work. That day, the high temperature at our house was 4-degrees. I was very happy to be inside my warm house with roof that is no longer in danger of leaking due to ice dams.

Wrapping Up 2023

It's always great to look back at my photos and see how much I've accomplished since my last blog post.  I finished the top, "Grand Isle," which is a Whirligig Designs pattern. 

All Tonga batiks from Timeless Treasures. I bought this as a kit from Hancocks of Paducah. 

I used the Creative Grids specialty ruler to create the Cat's Cradle block. I really gave me accurately pieced blocks so I had lots of nice points when putting the blocks together.

In the evenings, I worked on handwork for several UFOs.

Power cords on irons...

Pins in tomato pin cushions. Tiny buttons will be the pin heads.

And needles were added to the sewing machines. 

All ready for me to quilt. 

Then I tackled a Nancy Halvorsen quilt design.  Not much embroidery needed on these blocks. Hopefully I will get these blocks into a setting in 2024.

And I finished stitching all the names of the chickens and the feet for the chicks.

I'll need to figure how I will set these blocks. Another project for 2024.

Then I did a little kit prep on some Kaffe Fassett fabrics I just had to buy after seeing so many great Kaffe quilts at the Houston Quilt Festival.

I paired a Kaffe jelly roll with some Indah batiks in my stash. 

When I saw the Tapestry quilt pattern in Kaffe fabrics I bought some sale fabrics on Hancocks to make that top. The two blocks that make up the design are actually pieced on a paper foundation. It required some fancy cutting which was easily done wrong if you forgot to angle the fabric just right. Yes...I made that mistake several times but had enough fabric to get it all cut out. I even made one of each block to ensure I was correct.

I'm planning to give the Kaffe quilts as gifts.

Speaking of gifts. The Material Girls group I am in had a Christmas luncheon and gift exchange. I made a project bag with some quilting themed fabric I've had for many years. I'm got enough fabric to make five more.

In my stash I also had the perfect sewing themed fabric that worked great for the back side that has a large mesh pocket.

I did manage to finish the 2023 set of Mill Hill Santa ornaments, Down Under Santas. 

I have to mention the biggest news of 2023. My husband retired in November from FedEx. He had been a pilot with them for 37 years. Below is him landing an MD-ll for the last time in Anchorage.

No major plans upon hubby's retirement. A new phase in life we will have to navigate through.

Wrapping up November Happenings

 The highlight of November was getting to meet up with my dear friend Cecile who traveled from France for the Houston Quilt Festival.

Cecile has a blog, Patchwork Inspirations and an instagram page, patchwork_inspirtations. She is also an ambassador for the magazine, Quilt Mania. She’s very busy! 

I wanted to share my love of By Annie patterns by making Cecile a set of project bags. I had planned to make two bags but it turned out I had enough fabric to make four bags which gave her a couple to pass onto another of our friends who was not at the show.

I’m planning to make a lot more of these…for myself and friends. I think they make a great gift. I made myself a bag last year and really like using it.

The Houston festival was so much smaller than when I started going to it in the 1990s. I’m sure the advantage of online shopping has a lot to do with the shrinking size of the vendor section. Even the quilt show seemed smaller.  Very little batik to be found there. I bought one kit that had a funky template.

By Annie had a wonderful booth and I did buy some bag making supplies and a few patterns. I also spent a minute talking to Annie. She is such a lovely person and the story behind her company is so inspirational. 

One of her new releases was a wallet-purse. I bought some navy blue cork fabric at the show for it. Still searching my batik stash for a coordinating fabric for the lining. 

On the last day of the show, Sunday, the vendor section is absolutely empty of shoppers. There is also a lot less to buy.  I stopped in Scott Flanagan’s booth and talked with him for a few minutes. If he has a design in a magazine it is an automatic buy for me. He works in mostly batiks so that’s part of the draw for me. He has a great blog where he shares a free quilt pattern in a sew-along format during the summer. You know I don’t get much sewing done in the summer but I always print up the weekly pattern releases. He has at least three books he has published with Annie’s Quilting. I already had, “Charming Jelly Roll Quilts.” I picked up a signed copy of one of he new releases, “Jelly Roll Quilts for All Season.”

I did make some progress in November on my Grand Isle quilt. All the blocks are done and waiting patiently on my design wall for me to make them into rows. I think that’s my least favorite part of quilt construction. 

I finished both the Bucilla stockings I wanted to get done for this Christmas season. I made one to hang at my house for 3-year-old Kate. 

The background fabric is also the fabric for the lining of the stocking. It’s probably close in “age,” to the Bucilla kit from 1996.

Kate’s sister, Kara, is 10-months old and I finished the stocking to hang at their house, “Santa’s Unicorn,” from 2020. 

I had a great metallic batik in my stash for the lining of the Unicorn stocking. 

I’m working a little every day to get all my Christmas decorations in place. I have such an emotional attachment to every piece…slows me down but I really enjoy getting everything out. 

Here are nine of the 66 stockings from Bucilla kits I have hanging around the house.

I have a small tree for the set of 50 animals paired up as male and female for Noah’s Ark. I keep tweaking this tree every year. 

So I know there are 50 Bucilla ornaments on the Noah’s Ark tree. But I haven’t counted the Bucilla ornaments on our 9-foot tree.

Thought I would share a little “Day in the Life,” photos. We have had a nice bit of snow so far. There are always warming trends to wreak havock on the roads. It’s a bummer when your driving home and at the bottom of the mountain…and the only road up our mountain…you are stopped by this.

Apparently this truck pulling a trailer was driving up the mountain when it started sliding backwards and jack-knifed to block the road. It created about a 30 minute delay before they finally got the truck unhitched and opened one lane. 

Too much drama with winter driving!

The only critter I’ve captured on the camera is this spruce grouse just outside the kennel fence.

On one of my walks while staying in Houston I was treated to a blue heron sighting.

Time to get off the computer and tackle more decorating.