I have started a new project.  It’s an older Judy Niemeyer pattern called “Feathered Star”.  I found the fabric kit for it on sale earlier this summer, and the pattern was on sale too.  I’ve been chipping away at each “chapter” of this quilt.  If you’ve never made a Quiltworx pattern, they have a system, and it is very effective, helps you organize and it breaks down each step of their complex patterns.  I find it comforting in a methodical way, but first I have to let go of my need to do it my way.

This week I promised a friend that I would help her make a halloween costume.  She wants to be a magical mushroom.  Yeah, not your typical cape or jump suit costume, It mostly involves a hat, shaped like a mushroom cap.  I am trying to come up with a way to make it light, as no one needs more weight on their head, and she needs to fly with it to NY.  There will be upholstery foam and glue gun work involved.

I finished off the hand sewing on “So She Did”.  The binding, ugh black on black, I used quilting thread.  It’s a full binding, and I knew if I used regular thread, it would pop with the stress.  It worked well, and it was easy to thread the needles.  I also had to sew the hanging sleeve on and make a label with my name and address on it.  I’ve gotten out of the habit of making quilt labels.  I think its because I sign most of them with my initials and date when I long arm.  But most of my quilts are for sale or donations, and no one is interested in that.  I think if I ever make that quilt that is in my head, it’ll have a label on it.

Last week I got the unicorn quilt back on the long arm.  I had taken it off before I started “Sew She Did” and then the Lions club donation had to be quilted.  When I first put the sparkle Minky backing on the frame, I did what I always do with Minky, I pinned the selvedge edges to the leaders.  However I didn’t orient the quilt top so that the long side was parallel to the long side of the Minky.  I  found this out the hard way as I advanced the quilt to the last rows of the pantograph.  The backing was eleven inches too short, Minky is 60 wide, quilt is 71 long.  I was able to cut the extra backing from the side and add it to the bottom.   Thankfully I hadn’t centered the quilt top on the backing, as I wanted to have a decent sized scrap left over when the quilting was done.  One side was 4 inches and the other was 12.  Phew.

I want to start quilting the Christmas figs quilt after the Unicorn is done.  I also saw a quilt that will use up most of the scraps from it.  I drafted it on EQ8, and it is mostly HSTs, squares, and HSTs with one part split into two ( is there a name for them?).  Recently I signed up for an online class with Kari Schell at On Point Quilter to further my knowledge of EQ8.  It’s really helpful so far, Kari is a good teacher, and along with the handout PDFs and videos I feel like I getting a better understanding of the software and what it can do.

 

I finished the RW&B quilt for the Lions club event.  This quilt was a lesson in time management and following/interpreting/reading a pattern.  Well, the latter part isn’t really what I did, because there wasn’t a pattern to read, only a EQ8 picture and drawing.  Measure twice then cut and sew once is my new mantra.  This is the first quilt that I kept a record of the actual time I spent making it and the cost of materials.

Here’s the break down:

Yards of material for top – 11 ($98.00)

Backing – 3 yards ($49.00)

Queen size Batting – $40.00

Thread – $15.00

Cost $202.00 (retail)

Time spent cutting and piecing – 49 ½ hours

Time spent Long arm quilting – 6 3/4 hours

Time spent binding and finishing – 2 hours

Labor rates for my area

13.50 minimum wage – $786.00

25.00 artisan rate/skilled labor – $1456.00

All together it comes to $988.00 or $1658.00.  Obviously, one would like to get the skilled labor rate, but yeah, not gonna happen.  I really should factor in additional costs like wear and tear on equipment, electricity usage, costs for maintaining my studio etc.  But, realistically, the most I could probably get for this quilt is about 450.00.  It’s a labor of love :).

 

 

 

 

 

I got my acceptance letter for “Sew She Did” from PIQF Monday.  I’m excited!  I’m proud of it, and happy to be able to share it with the quilting community.  I really don’t expect to win anything, but getting into a juried show is a prize in itself.

A few people I follow on instagram have been showing quilts from the recent AQS show at Grand Rapids.  Wow. There are/were some beautiful and masterful quilts on display.  Jenny K Lyon was a teacher there and posted a bunch of photos on her blog Quilt Skipper.  A few of those pictured, are works of such creativity that one may forget they are made of fabric.

I have been continuing the piecing of the Free spirit Melody quilt.  I received my needed yardage and got all the pieces cut for the Flying Dutchman block.  Along with printing the foundation papers.  Wouldn’t you know that both printers were out of ink?  A trip to the office supply store was needed too.  I discovered I had an AccuQuilt cutting die that was the right size for the triangles of this block.  That made cutting the 208 white triangles a bit easier.  I got one block done that day, only 12 more to go.  The picture on the right shows how the FD block combines with the sawtooth and big goose to form the secondary design.

I should be able to make some headway into this construction this weekend.  Linking up with Denise at For the Love of Geese for Put Your Foot Down #17 today.

 

 

Got back from vacation last Thursday and started back in on the donation quilt.  Its called “Free Spirt Medley” and the pattern is part of a Judy Martin pattern add on for EQ8.  I have always liked Judy Martins patterns and her way of writing/laying them out.  They are very logical with piece counts and yardages, units needed etc.  The EQ8 version isn’t all that, I have a few issues with it, and thankfully, I can deal with them, but I feel that another person with perhaps less experience, wouldn’t cope as well.

This is the quilt.

The first issue was/is with the yardage needed.  EQ8 has a option that will tell you how much fabric you need for a design.  The requirement for the red in this quilt was 2 ½ yards.  I should have checked that before I ordered it.  I have just finished the red pinwheel with stripes border – 36 blocks.  I have less than ½ yard of red left.  I ordered more red and blue, just in case.  Next up, the white and blue saw tooth blocks in the center section.  They are actually a sashing surrounding the Flying Dutchman blocks.  Each one has a large flying goose on the top and bottom of the saw tooth to combine with the FD block to form the blue outline around it.  These blocks are in the pattern as 3″ x 3″ squares.  If you’ve worked with EQ8, there is a a function it does that will morph the block you’re inserting in a quilt to the right size.  It’ll let you put a 3″ x 3″ block in a 6″ x 3″ space and make it “look” right.  The issue is that when looking at the block sizes to make, it shows the 3″x 3″ should be made, not the 6″x3″. Luckily I caught that one before making those.  The next blocks I have to make are the Flying Dutchman.  Not too complicated, except that they are on point, and the flying geese aren’t a common size.  They are 2 1/3 high.  The program does give foundation paper patterns to make these, but doesn’t really tell you which method to use as there are options for templates and rotary cutting too.   I’m planning on finishing the pinwheels today and moving on to the Dutchman blocks.

My design wall is looking pretty sparse.

Linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday today.

I finally finished the quilting on “Sew She Did” yesterday morning.  I had a quilting marathon this past weekend I think I clocked 10 or more hours.  Yesterday I did a final check of the quilt before unpinning it from the frame, and found a few places I had missed.  I brought it in to the sewing room and squared it up and got ready to bind it. Then, for some reason, I felt that I needed to check the registration form, and there I saw that it was due the 27th, not the 28th.  Oh NO! But Oh Good! at the same time.  I came up with a plan.  I sewed the binding on to the front and was going to glue baste it to the back. This way I could take the two photos I needed and then finish the binding and hanging sleeve at leisure.  The glue thing was a fiasco, first, this quilt has two layers of batting, cotton with wool on top.  Second, I cut my binding to fit tightly, and the glue couldn’t hold it to the backing well enough.  So I pinned it, with many pins.  I set up my quilt rack and got the pictures and filled out the form and sent it in (digitally).  By 4:30pm I was done.  I really though I would have finished this quilt last week and had an early-ish entry, but the stars weren’t aligned for me this year.  Between a vacation, a house guest and even a day without electricity, time was not on my side.  I started this quilt on June 24th, and semi finished August 26th, nine weeks.  I wish I could get paid by the hour😏

Just have to wait until 9/9 to hear back if I’m in for PIQF 2019.

I have a new deadline to meet October 19th.  I agreed to donate a quilt for a Lions Club auction to benefit veterans.  I am going to make Judy Martins “Free Spirit Melody” from her Star Power quilts collection on EQ8.  It’s red white and blue, doesn’t look too tedious, and thankfully I can do a panto on it, no more custom quilting for a bit.  I need to recover  from “Sew She Did”.  Fabric is ordered and I’m ready to get started, after a quick vacation – insert eye roll -.