I got my monthly BOM installments yesterday, the Halloween Figs and the Botanica quilts. This months is the 11th month for Botanica. I’m excited to finish this one, as I have a whole set of pretty digital quilting designs for it from Wasatch designs. I used a similar set to quilt the Forest Floor (below also by Wing and a Prayer designs) and I really like the results and the quilt turned out beautifully.

I was thinking about the finishing of the Botanica top, when I got an email from the place I get the BOM from, Stitchin’ Heaven. They are starting a new Christmas BOM in December, called Holiday Snow Village. It’s an older pattern from Pat Bono, and it is appliqué. I think it’ll be an good way for me to pick up the hand stitching again. I really enjoyed making Pearl Pereira’s Baltimore Christmas and Halloween quilts. I think that I made them pre- blog, yeah, this photo is from 2012.

I think it’s a little plain looking in this photo, but lots of room for embellishments.

I worked all day Saturday to get the bears sewn on the Irish chain baby quilt. I used freezer paper templates and school glue. I used the glue to hold the fabric edges of the pieces to the paper. This proved to be a bit too sticky, as it wasn’t easy to get the papers out. I sewed them to the quilt with a zig zag, and hand embroidered the eyes and details with 2 strands of floss. The nose was a bit of a problem, too big to embroider and too small to machine stitch on. I resorted to hand appliqué, which looks good. After I finished the three bears, I realized it was a bit off balance and I made the fourth bear in the corner. That one I re-used the freezer templates and skipped the glue, just ironed the edges down and sewed them on. Now to finish the medallion quilt and get this baby quilt done.

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I finished the Irish Chain tops earlier this week, just had to wait for the fabric I ordered to come by mail. I didn’t have the right color brown for the bears. FatQuarter Shop had a brown called teddy bear brown, so I went with that. I think it’ll work. I am still not sure how I want to do this appliqué. Raw edge with straight stitch or zig-zag, turned edge with invisible edge stitch, use fusible or not. I (think) I want to do an all over panto of teddy bears, but should I mask out the bear faces or just let it sew over them? I could quilt them and then hand appliqué them – no. Part of the problem is the Minky backing, its not very forgiving. I am wondering how it would look if I quilted the top to it and then zig-zagged the appliqué on to it. How would the back look? Would straight stitches blend more? hmm, elongated zig-zag? Experimenting will happen today.

This is my inspiration clip art for the bears.

Here is my inspiration quilt and my pattern pieces.

I got a notice today that Connecting threads was shipping an order to me. I had ordered some fabric from them in July, and a sale kit that I had picked was back ordered. I figured since it was a clearance sale, they were out of stock and it was canceled. Well I guess they found one, it should be here Monday. It is a pretty quilt, pink and browns, it’s the Panama Star pattern by Nancy Rink. I think it’ll be a good project to do while putting the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt together. I won’t be mixing up the fabrics, that’s for sure.

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I started a new quilt, it’s a QAL with Mellisa at The Polka Dot Chair The QAL started on November 4th, but the real sewing starts today. I am a day ahead, but I’ve only made 6 whole hat blocks so far. There are 28 in total, and I am using up some yardage that’s been in stash for a few years. I want to make “option 1”, pictured below.

It finishes at 60″ square. My hats are a mix of green and red prints, with a constant WoW holly print for the fur trim and pompom. This pattern is for both paper foundation pieced blocks or traditionally pieced blocks. I opted for the no paper pieced version. My past two projects, the secret one and Appalachian Autumn, have been paper foundation pieced. I am still finding little scraps of paper in my sewing room, and they seem to be attracted to the dogs.

The medallion table topper quilt is progressing too, I got to the middle yesterday. It is a digital print from Hoffman, like the big dream dahlia panels. The quilting pantograph I picked is called swirls and pearls (or something like that). Each row takes about 45 minutes for the computer to stitch out. When I first got my automation system, I thought I would be able to do a few small quilts a day, or one large one in a few hours. This is proving not to be the case. I sometimes think that free motion and ruler work is faster. Or maybe it’s just that I choose very dense designs, or I make more work for myself than necessary. Like placing designs in the blocks individually, or borders and having to turn the quilt on the frame. I think I have gotten more proficient at creating designs and using them with in the program. Setting up the digital quilt can be time consuming, and I have gotten to the point where I save things when I should. Sometimes while stitching there will be a machine error and, if you haven’t saved, your design is gone, or changed, not in a good way. I do appreciate the quality of the stitching and the consistency of the designs though, that’s what keeps me going.

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Friday I started cutting the pieces for the small Irish chain quilt I have an order for. Our power was turned off at 9 am, (grr) for PG&E to do some tree trimming on a road that is a quarter mile away. I thought I could use the new 2 ½” strip accuquilt die I got recently to cut the strips. With this die, I can cut 9 WOF strips at a time. After cutting the yardage into 8 ½” wide strips, I tried to put it on the die, they were a little creased, so I walked over to iron them. Drat. It was kinda like that reaction when you try to turn on the closet light, even though you know the power is out. I’ll admit, I did try to cut one set, and it turned out okay, but the strips needed to be recut with a ruler and rotary cutter. Which cancels out any convenience of using the Accuquilt cutter.

Our power was restored at around 2 pm, and I was able to iron and cut the rest of the strips. I sewed them into sets, and cut them into columns with the rotary cutter. There is a way to do it using the strip cutting die, but I didn’t want to experiment with this project. I am making 12 blocks, with 5 columns of 5, 2 ½” squares. I made one block, put it on the design wall and then cut the rest of the columns. After dinner I sewed all 12 blocks together, for a total of thirteen. While making and counting all the parts, I forgot the one on the wall, I guess that’s better than finding it stuck to my back or on the floor.

Saturday I was back to the cutting table, for the “B” blocks. I got the pieces cut and started to chain piece the blue squares and white rectangles. Hmm, why did I run out of blue squares? I rechecked my math, 13 blocks with four blue squares in each, makes for 52 squares. Yup, and 52 rectangles. Ugh, then it occurred to me, only 26 of the rectangles get blue squares on each end. I un-sewed the wrong ones and made them correctly. Once that was done, the blocks went together quickly.

Up on the design wall, things looked okay, but I thought I had worked out in EQ8 that there would be five columns of five blocks. The four column version on the wall was looking a little big for a baby quilt. Back to look at the EQ8 version, oh, that size version has 9 inch finished blocks, I made 10 inch blocks. Mmm. Now I have extra blocks, not enough to make another quilt though. I can’t put them on the back either, as it is supposed to have minky on the back. I guess I’ll make some more and have another to sell. This quilt has been a lesson on the importance of making a plan and clearly following the steps. But it is much more fun to wing it, and hey, I have another quilt top.

Going to get it all together today, and add a border or two.

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I finished my Appalachian Autumn quilt top. This went together really fast, and I didn’t buy any new fabric for it. All from stash and mostly scraps at that.

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The funny thing was is that I thought it was bigger than it really was. It’s 56 and ½ inches square, not huge, a good lap blanket though. I would like to get it quilted and use it for November. I have a halloween quilt on my chair for now.

I also bound two quilts. I still need to sew down the hanging sleeve on the Costumers Ball quilt. That one is pretty large, shown here on a full size bed. A little bit of ruler and template work, free hand around the figures and computer guided borders. A hybrid so to speak.

The Peppermint Poinsettia quilt got a binding to match its backing. I really like how the pearls in the white inner border turned out.

In other news, my DH asked me if he could use one of my quilts as a back drop for his court appearance (he’s an attorney) tomorrow. I set up my ‘Sew She Did’ quilt behind his chair in his office. I told him to tell anyone who asks, that it’s an award winning quilt. He didn’t think anyone would notice, but you never know😊.

I found an inspirational picture for the baby quilt I need to make. The Childs name is Theodore, so teddy bears are in order. I like the way this quilt has the bears peeking out of the chain pattern. I’m going to do a double Irish Chain and appliqué the bears in the squares. I found a few clip art bears that I like, so I’ll be drawing them out this week. I want to get started on this little quilt soon.

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