The last physical Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF) took place from July 24 to July 27, 2024, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California.

Today, while reading through some old blogs of mine I realized that this week was the usual PIQF weekend. Gemini found the above quote from somewhere. I feel sad that I didn’t attend the last show, probably because I was disappointed in the one the previous year. Anyway, I think I could use a quilt show outing about now. I have been keeping busy with friends and family for the past few weeks. Next week I am going to South Carolina to visit more family. I may have to look up some Quilty things in the area.

Work continues on the Thameside Ramble quilt, I got the center block together. I’m working on prepping the 84 leaves that get appliquéd on. I prepped all the bias stems the other day with the ½ inch clover bias tape maker – no burnt fingers. I have a memory of a tape maker that you could insert wonder under tape into and in one motion make the fabric folds and attach the tape/glue. I should look for it, these stems a wide enough that they can be pinned, but they are long. Maybe some glue stick or Roxannes, I wonder if I still have any around here. I found a good panto to use for this quilt, it’s called Strawberry Thief by Bit of Orange. This month their clubs include many Morris themed motifs. Since I have all these kits to make up with the Original Morris fabric lines, I ended up signing up for the Saffron club. I really do not need any more digital designs, but Bit of Orange has a different style than most other companies I use.

I have not touched the Enchanted Stars quilt since 10/7. I pass by it every day, and want it to be done. It may rain tomorrow, so I can work on it a bit. Speaking of never ending projects, I finished appliquéing the 16 diamond with dots blocks for the Message in a Bottle quilt.I want to make up the 16 alternate blocks to take with me on my trip. Handwork that doesn’t take up a lot of space in my carry-on.

Knitting on the lobster sweater is progressing, the body and right sleeve are done, and I started on the left one. Then it’s a few rows to make the funnel neck and on to the fun part, duplicate stitching the crustacean.

Be kind.

A little let up and a little let down, that’s how this week is progressing. I didn’t finish the Enchanted Stars quilting in time for the gifting. A substitute was made and everyone was happy. I was a little let down, but it really would have been a push to finish it, and I am glad I didn’t force myself. Creativity as well as process suffer when forced, not to mention things like wrists and thumbs. My mouse set up for my longarm system is not really ergonomically set up. The pad is on a cabinet and I use the mouse while standing in front of the screen. With this quilt design I have to manipulate each piece to fit in its spot. Map out the specific area, rotate/flip the design, increase or decrease size, link them, order them and finally stitch them. The largest compass has thirty points, but it’s done now. I have thought about doing some of it manually, like the points that have a quick V shape in them. Those are easy to do with a ruler, but the curlicues are hard to make look the same consistently. The quilts construction with all its intersecting seams and seam allowances is also countrary to smoothness. This quilt is mine, it will be displayed, eventually, in my house, and hopefully I’ll finish it soon.

Today the heat wave we’ve been experiencing has broken. We had a similar one in October 2024, a week of 90+ degree days. The AC was running all day and night, and it was conducive to indoor activities like sewing.

I have been steadily working on the Thameside Ramble quilt top. I got the four small and one large (34″) compasses done. The technique and ruler system is easy to use and putting all the points and angles together is easy-ish. There are no inset seams, and the units go together because they are all cut to the same size. No paper foundations to tear off, even though it looks like they are PPF pieced. I ended up ordering another piece of pink/blush colored print for the center backing behind the main compass. The pattern calls for a piece that is 42 and ½ inches square, my piece is 36 inches by 42 ½. The fabric print really pulls the piece together, and I thought I could substitute with a different one from the Original Morris line. It is a little too wimpy looking though, I found another, called Small Pimpernel, which might work better. If it doesn’t work, I may do an insert of a 6 ½ inch wide strip. I think I can do it with the fabric from the center of the square, since it is cut away from behind the compass. I’ll cut two pieces shaped like square “U”s and join them with the 6 ½” strip at the legs of the U. No one will ever know, lol.

Lobster sweater number one is coming along, the raglan shaping was slow going, but now the body and soon the sleeves will be done. Hands and thumbs are okay with knitting, when I get tired I stop for the day. The last time I picked up the piece to knit, I noticed about ten purl stitches that had snuck in there, I must have dozed off and made them, because this piece is all knit stitches (in the round) my unconscious self switched to purl for variety I guess.

I keep meaning to add photos to this post, but life has been busy lately. I am going to post it as is, otherwise it will always be a draft. Plus I have made a little progress on these projects.

Be Kind.

I tried to smooth out the Blooming Beauty top and it just wasn’t working. I decided that if I removed the outer borders, it may give a bit of breathing room. Since I had quilted 5/8ths of it already I could only rip up the sides about a foot or so. Taking the bottom borders off helped a lot, I have to add about 2 inches across the bottom, and an inch to the sides, but it really helped with the fullness. The whole bottom third sort of relaxed, like when you unbutton your trousers after a big meal. This quilt is no longer square, but it is only for my personal use, and unless I point it out, no one will notice. Now I have to take the unfinished quilt off the frame fix the borders, remount it and finish quilting it. I will probably wait until after the Enchanted stars quilt is done, as that is the one with a deadline.

I have been working on ES for what seems an eternity at this point. Finished the piecing last Wednesday, and pinned it up to look at, promptly saw a problem area and fixed it. I put the backing on the frame and realized that I needed a black batting, and I didn’t have the rainbow colored thread I wanted to use. Ordered both from amazon and it was delayed a day, it got here on Saturday and I have been quilting it for what seems like hours. The custom quilting package(85 design pieces) is from Wasatch, and it is easy to use, just a lot of turning and resizing and placement. The pebbling looks really good though and I am happy I went with charcoal thread instead of black.

This quilt is small, 53″ square. I am wondering if my client will like it, as we had originally talked of it being a bed sized one. I guess they could use it as a throw, or hang it up.

I made a little progress on the baby sweater, made it through the German short rows and I am about three quarters through the raglan shoulder shaping. I may just do the lobster motif as a duplicate stitch after the sweater is done. I am having to concentrate on the shaping so much, that I fear adding another element into the works. Once the ES quilt is done I will have a bit more brain power to add to this project.

Oh yeah, while waiting for the batting to be delivered, I started the Thameside Ramble quilt. The pattern and booklet and rulers by Robin Ruth Designs are easy to work with and once you get the ruler use down, it goes fairly quickly. I made the first sunflower and then made the next three all together, I have the large center medallion cut and ready to sew. It will probably get done in October, as we have company arriving at the end of this week and there is cleaning and preparations to be done. I feel good about the start, and I am excited about this technique of strip piecing compasses rather than paper foundation piecing. So much so, that I bought another kit, for a tree skirt. In my defense, it was on sale 😉

Be Kind.

I have hit a speed bump, encountered a problem, got waylaid – how else can I say it? It’s frustrating because I have a deadline, and have to wait for fabric to finish one quilt and deal with a problem I created to finish another.

The Enchanting stars quilt top is problem number one. After trying to squeeze all the templates for the background onto the correct fabric print I realized I never had enough to start with. The entity that cut and packaged the kit mixed up two of the black prints, so I had too much of one and not enough of the other. I figured I’d contact the shop and see if they had any of the shorted print left, but they have gone out of business. I then found the print for sale in a shop on the east coast and ordered two yards (just to be safe). That was five days ago, so I am hoping that it will be here soon. I then tried to put the pieces of the top together, those that I could, but each block builds on the next and I was missing two pieces in the first section. I have cut all the rest of the background pieces though, so when I get the replacement fabric, I will be ready to get it done. I am itching to start something else, but I’m showing restraint, as this project requires a lot of space for laying out and piecing.

My other issue is my BOM “Blooming Beauty”. I figured I would get it done in a few days while I waited for fabric delivery. I had a 108″ wide backing, and batting ready to go. Got it all set to quilt, and decided to do a pretty E2E rather than individual motifs on the blocks, borders and sashings. I got started and noticed some fluffiness in the center piece. The whole center is on point, surrounded by sash and then set into four large pieced corners. SO MANY bias edges. I am glad that this is my personal quilt and not a custom, as I only have myself to chastise for the stretching and puckering. I’m glad I don’t have to explain to said client that they messed up and I will do my best to make it look okay. It is disheartening though, after working on this BOM for so long and being so careful with squaring up the blocks and making countless quarter squares, that I have a less that perfect top. I am carefully massaging each area as the longarm stitches, trying not to get any obvious wrinkles or pleats. It’ll quilt out, but its a slow go.

I am making progress on the MinaB appliqué blocks, I have thirteen done and only 19 more to go – woohoo! I did end up putting the Mermaid cross stitch away. I cleaned up my hand stitching area too, dusted and vacuumed, and only have the appliqué supplies there. The yarn I ordered for the lobster sweater trio should be here today, so that might be housed there too. I got the book last Friday, and I have the patterns, so I am ready to start.

Be Kind.

It wasn’t a rock, it was a rock lobster. Lobstah, pinchy, langoustine, sea bug, Homarus Americanus. I am embarking on a sweater commission for sweaters with a lobster on the front. Two adult sweaters and one child. The patterns are quite simple, and worked from the top down in the round. The sticky part is that I have to learn intarsia in the round. I watched a Youtube video today and it looks pretty simple. The YouTuber recommended a book to help, and I found one at Abe Books relatively inexpensively. I want to use a different graph/chart that this pattern has, so I will combine the two below. the sweater on the left with the graphic on the right.

I really wanted to finish the Coneflower quilting this week, and free up the longarm frame for a custom order. I managed to do that earlier today. It is such a good feeling, when you find the perfect pantograph, and it works/sews out really well. Plus it was from my stash, so it’s like it’s free (lol). I was able to add on the Halloween table runner to the extra backing after the Coneflower. That’s a free project too, all the fabrics were extras from a quilt kit, the batting was a cut-off and the backing would have been a cut off too. The only thing I paid for was the panto, which I bought by accident, for another quilt, it was only $5.00 such a deal.

I got all the Halloween quilts posted to the store on the 2nd, a day late but still okay. Now I can focus on the quilt I have been ignoring all summer, because I have about three weeks to finish it. I got the pieces cut for the “D” sections, and have spent the past two nights making this motif/block. it has 120 pieces, that is (place, sew, fold, cut, press X 120). I really thought this quilt would be easy/quick to finish when I got the kit, but it is time consuming. The difference between it and the Judy Niemeyer quilts is that every motif is different. The JN quilts usually have six or eight parts that are the same. I feel challenged, so that’s good as it also keeps me interested, that and a deadline.

Some nights I finish an appliqué square or two for the Message in a Bottle quilt top. Slow stitching there, I may just put the mermaid cross stitch away for the rest of the year. I just don’t want to stitch on it, and I am tired of moving it to do the MiaB and it is under a skylight that refuses to close. I really need to get that fixed before the weather changes, we had some rain last night, but it was gentle with no wind.

Be Kind.