I finished my Santa hat quilt top yesterday. I had sewn the letter blocks the day before and sewed the rows together, but just couldn’t get to the last five rows of stitching. About half way through I realized I didn’t web the top, but that’s okay, it’s done. The blocks are supposed to be 10 ½ square. Since I didn’t do paper foundation piecing, mine were a few different sizes. I rounded them all down to 10 1/4 inches square. They look pretty cute, I think I’m going to use a string light panto that I have.

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One of the first paper pantographs I bought when I first got my long arm, was Christmas lights on a string. I thought it would be cute for a few Christmas quilts I was doing, ha, not quite as easy as it looked. The bulbs turned out really wonky, the socket parts didn’t line up with the bulbs, and the connecting wires didn’t really meander. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do more than one row of them, which was promptly removed. Now, with the Q-matic system, any design is possible, I just need to make sure there’re enough hours in the day in which to quilt it.

After getting that top together, I started on the November edition of the BOM Botanica. Lots of flying geese, 72 of them, practically a flock. I’m excited to see this quilt done, next month is the final border.

This months blocks make up the chevron and dark blue border, and the thinner light green one with the geese around the corners. This quilt is actually a medallion layout, but the way its broken up into blocks makes it easier to piece. It’s sort of a puzzle like approach to piecing the top.

I really want to finish the quilting on the teddy bear quilt. I have two more rows on that one, but I need to “hover quilt” it. Which means standing over it and make sure none of the stitching goes over the appliqués, and deal with the stops and starts. The first few rows went well. The other hard part of that job is psyching myself up to go into the room. The heating system in there is ancient, and I am having a mini-split put in Monday (Yay!). Until then it is a bit chilly in there, usually around 55 degrees. I have a mini electric heater in there, but I feel like I have to stand in front of it to get warmed up. Good thing I have a few sweaters around I can wear.

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Yesterday, was a work day for me. I got a lot done in the sewing room and three loads of laundry. I finished the Medallion quilt Sunday afternoon and there was enough backing and batting left on the frame to add another baby quilt. I used 108 wide backing with the selvedges pinned to the leaders, so the medallion was only 60 inches square, which left about 45 inches of backing. I’m not sure if this is going to stay a square or be a round quilt, so I can’t bind it yet.

I quilted the second Irish chain baby quilt with the sleepy bear pantograph I want to use on the appliquéd Irish chain quilt.

Plus there was enough room to add on this little square of extra blocks, for a pillow top. I was even able to bind the ICQ to push it into the finished column.

After dinner last night, I worked on ten more Santa hats for that quilt. I had all the pieces cut, so they went together pretty quickly. Just keep sewing.

The only project I didn’t work on was the Nieve sweater. It had been languishing for the past few months, waiting for a sleeve. I re-started it a few weeks ago, now that its cool enough to have a sweater on ones lap. This pattern has you make most of the torso, then make the sleeves, then attach them to the top and knit the shoulders and neck line in the round. It results in raglan sleeves, which I like, and very few ends to weave in. Plus knitting in the round is much easier.

Today is a windy day, with rain expected in a few hours, officially a stay inside day. I should bake something, but the sourdough starter isn’t fed. I want to get the appliqué quilt on the frame and start that. It’s a little more involved with the computer, I need to mask the bears, so the stitching doesn’t go through them. It creates a lot of stops and starts, which translates to many snip thread/pull up bobbin thread actions. The bear panto is big enough that it won’t be too much trouble.

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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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