Almost done with the Botanica quilt. I left off last night with the last outer top side border. I will be so happy to finish this quilt. It is an intensely quilted piece. Each block has multiple parts and placements, thankfully I didn’t use more than two thread colors. The q-matic upgrade makes it a bit easier to do, but at times it’s just tedious. There are the fill leaves, that are for 2 inch square blocks, which have to be flipped and spun depending on where they go. This map, supplied (thankfully) by Wasatch Quilting helps a lot. I am so ready to be done. I just want to do a quilt with a simple end to end pantograph next.

The current cross stitch project, Heaven and Nature, got a few more motifs this week. I worked on the house steps and door, the flower border and a bird on the roof. Speaking of, we were awoken this morning by the sound of these two landing on the roof, not the usual scampering squirrel sounds.

I did get all the sashing and rows put together for the queen size Aegean quilt yesterday. Now just five long seams until it’s a top. Might make this one the next long arm job. But I may just have to quilt the Reunion or A Ribbon Runs Through it quilt. Like I said above, some mindless set it up, and let it run for a row type quilting. I haven’t decided on a quilting motif for Aegean yet, I was thinking of something owl related. Of course, this would entail shopping, as I have no owls in my collection. I did get 75 new digital quilting designs from Bernina when I updated. I’ll have to look through those, there are some interesting full block ones. I have an idea to use three different ones on the three different block styles. Then the two inch wide sashing would have to have something in it. Must ruminate more.

Time to move.

Be Kind.

I’ve been working on the queen size Aegean quilt blocks this week. Lots of piecing, I am proud of myself for figuring out how to cut the right size chisel pieces and HSTs for the Tulip block. I avoided the dreaded extra HSTs and fabric waste. I used my large Easy Angle ruler, by lining up the lower fabric strip edge with the finished block size measuring line of the piece. The 3 ½ by 8 inch blocks were made with a 3 ½ inch wide strip with the ruler lined up with the 8 inch line along the lower edge. This left the appropriate length on the top edge and a diagonal cut to add the separately cut HST. Flipping the ruler, and lining up the diagonal and the lower edge again, I was able to cut the pieces I needed from strips. All the while having wrong sides together, creating a left and a right leaning piece. I finished all the blocks, 49, yesterday, I’d like to get them together this weekend and start another quilt top.

I got brave yesterday, and up-dated the software on my longarm. The bravery part was doing it during a rain storm. California has been experiencing record rain this year, and frequent power outages caused by falling trees and ancient equipment. In fact, two of the four utility poles that supply my home with electricity were damaged just last week. It took only two days for them to be replaced, I was amazed at this quick response, as there are so many other issues that were in dire need of fixing. I figured that since the worst thing that could happen during an upgrade would be a power outage, and since that already happened, now would be a good time to do it. Things went smoothly, and the computer and machine are working together. Now if I could only get the quilt, Botanica, finished as quickly.

The Heaven and Nature cross stitch project is coming along. I was a little nervous about running out of floss colors, especially the browns, red and greens. The house eats thread by the yard lol. I ordered a few more skeins, and a chart jumped into my cart as well. I have been looking at one from Luminous Fiber Arts, called Gathering Stitches, since it came out at Nashville earlier this month. I have made Gathering Berries, and have the chart for Gathering Snowflakes, but I really like the stitches one. I want to use some of the Sulky 12wt threads I have to stitch it. These smalls are relatively quick to stitch, although the Stitches one looks to have some “other” types of stitches.

Off to sew.

Be Kind.

Our second day of spring contains rain, all day rain. Nothing to do here but stay inside and sew. I realized this morning that I haven’t blogged in a few weeks. I have been busy though. The sewing room window-redo project was finished last Wednesday. I moved back in there and got to work on the Sparrow QAL. Although this is a six week long thing, I needed to get started on a bigger project, so I got all the blocks done in the first week and a half. Not being able to use my machine for a few weeks was rough, and I got back into it with lots of chain piecing. There are 24 sparrow blocks, 12 face left and 12 face right. Each one has 22 pieces, most of which have a folded corner technique, which creates a bonus HST. I have a bunch of 3 ½ ” HST’s that coordinate with this quilt top. I may have to use them on the back, or a border. For now though, these blocks are cleared away for the next round of custom quilts.

My client found the fabric line Nocturnal by Gingiber, and really liked it. Boxes of fabric started showing up here, I had it all laid out on my dining table to sort. There must be close to 50 yards of it, all so pretty and coordinating. I worked with her and picked out 6 different patterns and will be making 8 quilts over the next few months. There was a lot of math involved and I made a few spread sheets, but I am confident that there will be enough fabric to complete the job. I just hope that I don’t get sick of the fabric line. I still like like the Halloween and Christmas figs and Julie Paschkis lines, both of which I have made multiple quilts from. I am still drawn to their color ways, and the timeless designs. I started on a queen size version of the pattern Aegean, by Nancy Rink.

I have been making a lot of progress on the Heaven and Nature cross stitch piece. I finished the lower three pages, and I am starting the next row of pages which includes the house. The mother of all houses, I think it may be larger than the one in the Pet All the Dogs sampler. My DH calls the red houses ‘the Led Zeppelin Houses’, because they remind him of the album cover from Physical Graffiti. They remind me of the middle school I went to, called Lindell school for the avenue it was on. It was built in 1940, lots of bricks, and a beautiful view of the bay. You can see the NYC skyline clearly from the play yards. I had a tip from another stitcher who finished H&N as to stitching the house. It was to use up any red thread pieces, that weren’t finished in other parts of the design, in stitching the house. Also outlining the house is very helpful.

Not much progress on the Message in a Bottle (a few leaves and berries) or Simple Pleasures. Sadly no quilting was accomplished on the Botanica quilt either. I am very excited that Bernina is updating the software for the Q-Matic system, tomorrow is the day it releases to the public. There are many improvements, a big one is going from 32 bit to 64 bit. Hopefully this will correct the “ever spinning wheel of waiting” issue while loading complex designs. There are also editing features that I wish I had when I started Botanica.

Off to sew.

Be Kind.

It seems as if the font has been changed by WordPress, again. I am going to try “Cormorant”. The window replacement in the sewing room isn’t finished yet. Just need the paneling, trim, and some paint, it’s never that easy though. The wood paneling in the room is original to the house and 60 years ago, they used seven inch wide planks, which aren’t standard anymore. Isn’t that the way of remodeling though?

I have been stitching on the Heaven and Nature cross stitch piece, and got a bit done on block four of simple pleasures. I may have to dig out the Message in a Bottle blocks and work on that, this months installment is on the way.

I also signed up for the Sparrows Quilt-A-long at Pen and Paper patterns. The fabric is here, the pattern is downloaded, but there is no room to cut and sew in. It starts on the 10th. Truthfully, I could get the cutting done this week, as the cutting table is just covered in plastic sheeting.

I did work a lot on the Botanica Park quilt. It has been back on the frame for about a month. I had taken it off to fix the errant blocks back in September 2022. I re-mounted it in February, after I finished quilting The Berties Year quilt. I had quilted about a third more, when I realized I had another block out of place. It was in the border, one of the diamonds was turned the wrong way. I couldn’t fix it on my machine, so I carefully removed the stitching and then carefully restitched the block into place with needle and thread. It was a bit awkward, but I managed it. I finished the quilting on it last night, took the quilt off the rollers and turned it. Now I have two more borders and a final check for any missed parts. This is a heavily quilted piece, every inch has a motif in/on it. Each motif needs to be re-sized, flipped, placed, or combined before stitching it. It’s good practice though, and I feel much more able to use my software effectively now. The other Wing and a Prayer quilt I have made, Forest Floor, was similarly quilted and finished 3/01/19. I thought that one was involved, LOL, it is really pretty though, and it gets its chance on the bed for a few weeks a year.

Be Kind.

Started on January 24th 2022, on 32 count lugana using 12wt Aurifil 6738 Peacock blue (356 yards). I used about 1 and ½ spools. Started on scroll frame, but switched to hoop with stand because it was easier to start and tie off threads.

I had planned that this would be my main project, and I would be able to stitch smalls ones when I got bored with the monochromatic Pilgrim. I did stitch and finish seven others while doing this one. I feel like this is the largest (23″x18″) cross stitch piece I have done to date, others have been more intricate, but this one held my interest over the past thirteen months.

When I restarted my cross stitch habit, in July 2020, I thought I would finish a few UFOs, that had been in a drawer since the mid nineties, pictured below. I had seen a bunch of new designs I wanted to start, but “made” myself do the UFO’s first. My rational was, if I really wanted to restart this craft, I could get the two UFOs done and see if I still wanted to do more. I quickly realized that cross stitch supplies had greatly increased in cost over the 25 year hiatus I had taken. Although I had been buying DMC floss for hand stitching projects, the linen and hand dyed flosses seemed pricey. Chart prices have increased too, understandably, as it is a product that requires a lot of hours to produce and market, for little profit. I appreciate the move to PDF patterns, and have pattern reader software that helps immensely.

Be Kind.