I started cutting out the squares from this panel, The Hungry Animal Alphabet sampler, to make a throw quilt. I saw the free pattern on Just Let Me Quilt, back in November and I really liked the character of the animals pictured, so I bought a panel. Then some yardage fell into my cart from this Riley Blake line, and the rest is history.

The panel squares are all the same size, the pattern calls for cutting them to 7 ½ inches square, but I want to use as much of them as possible, so I cut them to 8 inches square. Look how cute the S block is, Sheep, suitcases, sunflowers, snow, saddle shoes etc.

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I got all the green sashing cut, but I am waiting on the yellow for the corner stones. It should be here next week. I put everything in a bag and pulled out the panel of Savannah animals, the charm pack that goes with it and the pattern I thought I was going to use. Well, the pattern seems to go with a different panel from this line, as the main animal blocks are not the same size as those in the pattern. To make it more fun, the giraffe is a tall rectangle. I decided to do some improv piecing and practice my partial seams. Its working out pretty well.

This Cat head cross stitch was in the same bin as the floral one I completed in November. I have been stitching on it everyday. I wish I had a before picture, but when I restarted it, there was only one eye, no nose and very little fill of the left ear. It’s also a piece done on linen, lots of shading, even colors with two different strands of floss. It reminds me of my cat, Sharkie, who has been gone for a long time now. I think I started this piece in 1995, as that’s when the magazine is dated from. It’s a Mary Hickmont pattern, she used to publish a magazine called New Stitches. She is on Facebook now, and the magazine ended with issue 261. This cat is from issue 51. She is still making and selling her cross stitch designs on Etsy at MaryHickmottDesigns She has really lovely designs, also Black work and Hardinger. I have a bunch of old magazines that I saved. I should go through them and re-find the ones I like.

I got the Farm charm top together, I’m just waiting for a yard of the strawberry color to come in, and I’ll add borders. The other Farm Charm quilt top needs a border too. Speaking of borders, I got the final installment of the Botanica BOM quilt yesterday. I also got the first installment of the Holiday square BOM, and notification that the Halloween figs December block has been shipped (I still have one block left from November to do). I went from a clear plate to overflowing. Let’s not forget clue 4 for the Bonnie Hunter Grassy Creek quilt is out tomorrow.

Just Keep Sewing, just keep sewing.

Be Kind

This week I am working on the Farm Charm top. It started with the panel, a honey bun and the scraps from the other farm charm top. The pattern I am basing this top on looked pretty easy, 8 assorted blocks, 4 blocks using the smaller panel pieces and 4 blocks of just panel pieces.

This is where the backwards part comes in. I looked at the quilt and figured out that I should start with the size of the large panel blocks, I *assume* they are 12 x 12, as that would make sense with the finished size of the quilt. Plus, even numbers are easier to divide up into common block sizes and measurements. Those nine inch blocks can be a PITA. I laid it out in EQ8, simple, drew out the pieced blocks and went to get started cutting.

The panel is printed with cut lines, dashes, between the motifs. None of the large motifs are 12 inches square. and the smaller ones are more like 5″ x 7″. Damn. I carefully measure the large chicken, and find that I can fit it into a 10 ½ inch square. This is the new block size for the quilt. Back to EQ8 to re-do (edit) the block sizes. The next hurdle is working with the scraps and pieces to make the blocks. The simple nine patch took me two hours, as I kept making the pieces too small, big, or wrong. The next few went together easier, the pig block did cause some irritation though. Putting it on point in the surrounding triangles was ‘fun’, note the little triangle inserts and narrow borders. I am hoping to finish the blocks today. The moral of the story is one should start with a ‘constant’ first, meaning the unchangeable panel prints, and work forward through the variables from there.

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I started quilting the Santa hat quilt yesterday. The Christmas light design takes a bit of time to do, luckily I realized this before the stitching started and re-did the layout making it larger. The rows are 13 inches wide, up from 8, so there are only 5 rows to quilt. I am using a red and green variegated Superior King Tut thread, which I’m not sure if I really like. I could have stayed on the safe side and gone with white, but maybe once it’s done, I’ll like it better.

Off to sew.

Be Kind

I worked this week on finishing the Christmas table runner, the Bonnie Hunter Grassy Creek clue, more napkins, and a little tidying up the sewing room.

The table runner was a bit of a challenge, because of the age of it. Luckily when I put it away, I folded up the embroidery design spec sheets and some of the fabrics I used for the appliqué ornaments. The paper patterns have a date of 12/31/2006 on them. I think that was around the time I had a different brand machine and I know it was different software (Embird). So this gave me a time frame in which to look for the designs, and they were on one of the CDs I have. I even labeled the folder “ornaments”, so organized back then. One other stroke of luck was that the designs were in a format which my current machine recognizes. Once all that was figured and the designs loaded on to the machine, it was easy to finish the runner. It needs a little pressing and a bit more of the stabilized removed and its good to go.

While I had the embroidery unit set up I made another set of napkins for our house. These are a little bit fancier than the ones I made for my son, they have hemstitching. My DH was a little skeptical about using them, so I gave him the eco-friendly spiel and he’s on board now. I found this basket hanging around in my sewing room, looking for another job, and it seems the perfect size to keep on the sideboard to hold all the napkins. I recently saw a tutorial on the We All Sew blog, on how to make a basket liner. This weekend I may just make it up fancy.

The second Grassy Creek clue was finished up at 8pm last night. Lots of trimming, but they are square and in their sets. This weeks clue is do-able, time to put away the gold and break out the reds.

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I did a bit of tidying up, I am trying to do a drawer or a shelf a day. My wire drawers are stuffed and hard to remove, so I started with a batik collection in one of them. Took it all out, refolded some, culled the cut scraps and did a general mental inventory of what’s in there. The top of this drawer unit has a collection of books and patterns and magazines on it, it’s a little more organized now too. I need to put up some more artwork above it now :).

Linking up today, with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for “Can I get A Whoop Whoop?” today.

Be Kind

Yesterday I set up my 790 to embroider. I bought a bunch of cotton napkins a few months ago, thinking that they would be a good gift for my son and fiancé. They have an apartment together in Boston, and I thought the napkins would be an eco-conscious gift they would use. I then had to “design” a monogram that looked good, a C and a J with an ampersand. There was a bit of resizing and turning and placement, but eventually I got something that looked balanced. I have the biggest hoop Bernina makes for my machine, so I was able to stitch out four napkins on each hooping of stabilizer. I’m waiting for the purple pen to fade, then they will be wrapped and sent. I have 12 more napkins to make for my house, I may do them today. They are a bit easier, only one initial. My son was also asking for a table runner, I remembered this one, a UFO from the way back.

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I thought I remembered where I got the embroidery designs from, but I have no clue. I am hoping to find them on a CD I have of all my “old” designs. Luckily my older Mac has a CD drive and it is the one with the embroidery software on it. I still have a pile of floppy discs with designs on them too. I guess it’s time to recycle those, as I no longer have a computer that’ll read them. Obsolete, all those hours I spent collecting and categorizing the designs. Remember when everyone was just getting started with home machine embroidery? There were Linky parties and freebees everywhere. The designs were crude, or simple, but it was fun to find them and dream of the perfect project for them. It was a stash that fit on a floppy or CD.

I got to use my L890, I hemmed a pair of sweatpants. The three needle overstitch was a dream to use. On my former machine, I would struggle for hours, to get it threaded and working, to do a ten minute hem. The L890 has step by step guides to help you, right on the screen. It knows which threads are in it and how its threaded, and the air threading is so neat to watch. If you have ever struggled with a tweezer, or threader to get the loopers threaded, it’s a game changer. This machine/computer holds my hand and makes me like serging again. There is even a help screen, with pictures, of what can go wrong and how to fix it. I may even make a pair of pajamas this week.

The clue for the Grassy Creek mystery is halfway done, I should get those together this week. They remind me of chandelier earrings hanging on my design wall.

Christmas decorating should continue this week too. I want to put up my tree, but first I have to move the furniture around, vacuum, dust and while I’m at it wash the floor. I put up a string of lights outside, it’s festive, I have a wreath up, my Christmas quilts are hanging and the amaryllis is blooming. I should go get a few poinsettias, maybe that’ll spark some cheer.

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Be Kind

According to WordPress, it is my 13th anniversary with them. I was a bit confused by this, since my first post here was November 7th 2012. Maybe it’s the thirteenth year of following on WordPress, that makes much more sense. This blog started it out as a sort of journal to record my quilting projects. The first few years there were sporadic posts, but now I seem to have a rhythm going, this is my 308th post.

I have another thing to celebrate today. I finished stitching this cross stitch project, started in late 1995, so 25 years in the making. It still needs to be blocked and pressed, but it’s done. Now to get it framed. I think I am going to get a round cut mat, maybe green and a square wooden frame. I did “find” two other UFO cross stitch projects recently, but I had promised myself that when I finished the floral wreath, I could work on the “Pet all the Dogs” sampler. I may not get to it until January though.

On the design wall this week was the Farm Charm quilt I made. I had a honey bun, a layer cake, a panel and a few yards of the collection Farm Charm by Gingiber/Moda. I saw this quilt kit over at the Fatquarter shop, and I thought it would work for these fabrics too.

I didn’t do the red center squares, but used 6″ squares of prints. I liked the secondary designs made by the blue, green and pink. So I subbed in the turquoise for the green and red for the pink, and used the floral print for the blue. I had a bunch of Marshmallow white that matched the white in the Farm Charm, so it worked out.

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Notice in the top right photo, a bit of ripping and re-sewing was required. I think it needs some borders, maybe a three inch floral, to contain all the HSTs. I have the honey bun left over and a good portion on the layer cake left. I looked through the other patterns posted for this line, there were a few that would work to use up the rest. Especially the panel, which is all different sized animals.

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I also saw this quilt, as I have a panel and charm pack from this line, Savanna, too. I like the elongated geese in the center, maybe I could use the charm squares. It looks to me like they are geese with two squares sewn on each end. I could cut each 5 inch square into four half square triangles and two 2 ½ inch squares.

Then all I would have left in the Gingiber pile of stash, would be the cats. The Cat panel is a lot like the ones from the Thicket line. I don’t think they would make a very good baby quilt, as cats aren’t really on the top of anyones nursery theme list. While looking through the many Thicket quilt examples on Pinterest, I came across this one, by Ruth at Ye Olde Sweatshop . (Great blog name:)

She uses an African print, some of the Thicket line fabrics and HST’s to frame the animal squares, I really like the way it makes it seem more adult worthy. I have a print that might work in my stash.

One last exciting (?) thing for this week, I picked up my L890 Bernina serger/coverstitch machine yesterday. I haven’t sewn with it yet, but got it all set up and plugged in. It is ready to go, I think the first thing I’m going to make is pajamas, maybe even later today.

Linking up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict today for Can I get a Whoop Whoop Friday. She just finished a giant postage stamp Christmas quilt for her own bed, it’s so pretty.

Be Kind