Feather Pillows - A Lovely Goal for July

Last year, when I made this quilt . . .

I made four extra feather blocks with the intent to make pillow covers. 

My goal for July is to, first find them in the aftermath of my move, and then turn them into pillows. 

I have moved into another "previously owned by an artist" house, this one with wall colors in soft shades of peach, lavender, cream and pale olive. I think this quilt will look great on my bed, a room that is painted peach with olive trim. 

I'm joining the goal-setting party for July (and hoping for a better result for me than the past few months). 

May Goal for a Lovely Finish

I didn't meet my goal in April (though I made a start at it and expect to finish it soon).  I was, in part, overwhelmed by commitments and ... life.

My goal for a lovely finish in May is a bit of a challenge within a challenge.   It will start with this large, in-progress Hawaiian-style appliqué block.

This project came from the estate of a quilter, donated to the local guild and sold, along with some other work-in-progress and lots of fabrics as a fundraiser for the guild at the retreat.

The appliqué was prepared by sewing it to fusible interfacing and turning it to turn under the edges.  It hasn't been stitched down, the interfacing shows in spots.   I suspect the craftsmanship and the choice of fabrics–that really is an in-your-face bright pink background–were the reasons it languished on the table unwanted while quilters scrambled to pick up more conventional (and more complete) projects.  I adopted it at the end of the third day and thought it could become the focus of a Plan B quilt that might be donated to Happy Chemo through the Hands2Help challenge which also has a deadline this month.

Updated to add that it's approximately 25 inches square.

Last night, I pulled out my collection of orphan blocks and chose some that I thought might play together nicely.

Now comes the fun of making some more elements, deciding what's in and what's out, arranging, re-arranging and putting it all together. I think it has possibilities ...

More Strings - My Goal for a Lovely Finish in April

When I finally finished the moldy golden oldie String Star quilt–now known as Then & Now–it felt so good that I decided to pull another string quilt top out of the UFO trunk and make finishing it my goal for a lovely finish in April.

This Liberated Wedding Ring quilt is another from Gwen Marston's book, Liberated String Quilts.

I began making the blocks during a virtual online retreat with the liberated quilters Yahoo group at the end of January, 2010.

These were fun to put together and about a week later, I posted a Progress Report with the completed top, taken in my itty bitty loft in Dallas.

In that 5 year-old blog post, I mentioned how, Gwen's quilt has beautiful, traditional quilting . . . and I plan to attempt the same.  I realize now how the notion of beautiful traditional quilting completely intimidated me and is, in part, the reason this one has been folded up and put away for so long. Here's that inspiring-yet-intimidating image of Gwen Marston's beautifully hand-quilting from the book:

I have ordered some thread and am thinking about how to quilt the top in a way that nods at that beautiful, traditional quilting design but also has some of me in it.  I am thinking of a pieced scrappy backing, so that will be my first task toward finishing my big red liberated wedding ring quilt. 

March's Lovely Finish

The Oak Leaf quilt top been finished for a while, but I realized I never blogged about it before now.  I'm adding it to the list at the Lovely Finishes party.

My goal was to make the additional blocks I needed and to decide on a setting.  I really liked the leaf blocks lined up like marching soldiers, so I went with a simple arrangement with sashing and borders in the same color as the background.  I am still thinking about quilting design (and thread color!) for this one--realistic oak leaves and acorns or something geometric with more triangles? 

Oak Leaf Progress

I felt like I needed a few more scrappy oak leaf blocks for my quilt, but ... it wasn't immediately obvious in what colors I should make them. The first 14 blocks were made in the designated colors of last year's rainbow scraps challenge (with two extra blocks made during the month of black/brown/neutral) which provided me with a pretty good distribution around the color wheel.

I decided I could add a red-violet block, but any other color choice would likely overlap with the colors in an existing block.

As I looked through the existing blocks, I thought about how adding the dark, neutral black and brown leaf blocks at the end of last year had made the colors in the other blocks pop which lead me to think about adding some pale, low-volume Oak Leaf blocks to the pile.

I made these two, then auditioned them with on the design wall with the rest.


The exercise reminded me of my personal scrap quilt mantra: Light, Bright, Dull, Dark.  I realized that I hadn't been thinking of this as a scrap quilt, but, of course, it certainly is (and the leaf blocks have literally been constructed from scraps ... doh!)

When I feel stuck when asking "what color," the answer is often found by considering characteristics other than hue and thinking about a balance of "light, bright, dull, dark."

I thought the two low volume oak leaf blocks worked with the rest, so I kept going and made one more in pale blues.  I also made that red-violet block that seemed to be missing ... then I spent a lot of time arranging, re-arranging, taking photos, converting them to black and white, and re-arranging them again.

Below is the final arrangement of the 16 blocks on my design wall. I am joining the list for Design Wall Monday on Patchwork Times.

March Goal for a Lovely Finish

Remember these Oak Leaf blocks - made last year as part of the Rainbow Scraps Challenge?

This month, my goal is to turn them into a finished quilt top. I am joining the March Goal-Setting Party and the list of lovely quilters declaring their own goals.

February's Lovely Finish - A Kitten's Work is Never Done

When my computer was first down and then in the shop and the prognosis was unsure, I linked a photo from Flickr to the Lovely Finishes February party but wasn't able to blog about it. When I was working on the quilt, I imagined a photo on this weathered coyote fence in my neighborhood. The reality, a photo taken on a snowy gray day, didn't quite match my vision.

Here's a better look at the quilt itself in a photo taken inside ... it goes without saying (I hope) that the quilt really isn't as wonky and wavy as it appears here.

The quilt is approximately 54-inches square.

The Kitty Homemaker redwork patterns are from Nancy Martin's book, Kitties to Stitch & Quilt: 15 Redwork Designs, that was gifted to me just after I moved to Michigan to be close to my dad when he was ill in 2001. The gift was much appreciated as it gave me something to do while I sat with him in the hospital, during transfusions.

Here are detail photos of each of the two types of blocks in this quilt:

Doing things in a new way (while my computer was in the shop) was interesting.  Using a combination of digital camera and iPad looked like it was going to work and, in fact, the WordPress app  DID work and I was able to share this quilt (with January's Lotto Block pattern used for the double 9-patch blocks) on Blocklotto.com but ... BlogPress or otherwise posting here?  Not so much.

UPDATE

I have mentioned in the in-progress posts about this quilt that it was a nice bit of serendipity that when I pulled out the fabrics put aside for this golden oldie UFO, that the happened to be Pantone's color of the year, marsala.   It was good food-for-thought to think about how color trends repeat, change and morph. 

I'm updating this blogpost to join the 2015 Pantone Quilt Challenge. 

February Goal - Redwork and Marsala

I shared this old UFO yesterday ... today, in spite of a major oopsy, I am designating it as my goal for a lovely finish in February.


Along with the 12 redwork squares and fabrics I shared yesterday, I now also have 115 small three-inch 9-patch blocks--33 of which were made with a reversed placement of lights and darks (the oopsy mentioned above) ... this may lead me to make a larger quilt or an interesting pieced back or a second project.

As I was cutting and sewing yesterday, I realized that the dull reds in this fabric line are Pantone's color of the year: Marsala ... I guess everything old does come back in style again.

There was some confusion in my post yesterday. I didn't mean that this project was a contender for the fundraiser wall quilt for the retreat, in competition with those bright log cabins.


These redwork stitches were made as I passed time with my father during transfusions and hospital stays during the last year of his life. Often, the fabrics were cut and patterns transferred in a rush and some are a bit off-center as a result.  They contain a lot of reminders of the emotional roller-coaster we rode during that period of time. They are bittersweet reminders. They have made me too sad for me for a long time, but now I feel ready to turn them into a beautiful reminder of that time spent with my dad.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Lovely Day, A Lovely January Finish

I finished stitching down the binding on the plaid zig-zag mystery quilt Sunday night and it was such a beautiful sunny day on Monday, I thought to take it outside for a photo.

Of course, Johnny protested that I was outside in his territory without him.



It was perfectly calm UNTIL I hung the quilt over the wall of the upstairs deck ... I waited until the wind died down enough for the quilt to become mostly flat again. Here it is again, from a different perspective.

I'll be linking this post to the finishes party for A Lovely Year of Finishes later this month. 

I'm Still Quilting

Things in my studio pretty much look the same as last weekend ... I'm still quilting the flannel plaid zig-zag quilt.

Here's a detail of the motif in the plaid squares.

Soon after I started quilting this on a new machine, I knew this project would become an opportunity to become familiar with free motion quilting on this machine and ... practice, practice, practice.

For the borders, I decided to try two of the designs from Angela Waters' books ... why not try something new since I'm climbing the learning curve with this quilt?  And now, the end is in sight.  I'm working on the outer border now.  You can see all four designs used in quilting this quilt here, from the back of the quilt:

I have been so focused on quilting this flannel monster that there has been anything much up on my design wall, except the first of my January blocks for the Block Lotto.  We're making 9-inch Double 9-Patch blocks in black and white.

This year we'll be making 9-inch squares and 4 1/2 by 18-inch rectangles. As usual, there will be a mix of styles and techniques. This block is a great one to learn how to work with strip sets and practice those 1/4-inch seams. 

Rockin' the Golden Oldies for a Lovely Finish

While other quilters are finishing up their January mystery quilts from yesterday, I have pulled out one of my golden oldie UFOs today–a New Year's Day mystery from quite a few years ago made from woven plaid flannels.

I have pulled out the quilt top and the pieced back with a plan to quilt it this month–my January goal for a Lovely Finish.

I had an idea of how I would quilt it (unmarked, free motion quilting designs), but after I pulled it out and actually looked at it for the first time in a long time, I see the proportions are different than I remembered them and I'm thinking my original plan ... I'm sure I'll have made a decision by the time I get it basted.

This is just a piece of it, photographed on top of my work table under the skylight while I have some good light in the studio. The quilt top is approximately 84 inches square.

Lovely Finishes and Failures in 2014

As part of A Lovely Year of Finishes, I set 10 monthly goals and mostly met them.  But whether the goal was accomplished or not, I made progress.  Here are my 2014 Lovely Finishes (and failures).

In January, I completed the last of the hand-pieced blocks from an old UFO.

These blocks were begun as a Quilt-along in 2010. I was living in Dallas then and, after putting them aside, two moves later, I picked them up again, discovered I didn't have one of the patterns, had no luck getting a copy from the designer and so created my own.

Figuring out how to design blocks like this was a great experience and led me to design more "sunflower" block patterns later in the year.

I blogged about my January lovely finish here.

I goofed and didn't declare a Lovely Finish goal in early February, but I had a redwork project in mind and completed this pair of designs for a pair of pillows–I still haven't done anything with these beyond the stitching ... look for them to become an 2015 Lovely goal.

I didn't blog about my March finish (just linked from the photo on Flickr), probably because I expected to completely finish my Tea Towel challenge (a goal for the challenge), but I did meet my Lovely Finish goal for March by finishing the top. 

This challenge quilt ended up being much larger than planned and, I confess, my idea for how I wanted to quilt it intimidated me a little ... which is probably why it is still unquilted.

(I am such a scaredy cat sometimes).

In April, I had another built-in Lovely goal, because of a Spring Challenge on the 15 Minutes of Play blog.


The 14 inch square pillow I made for the Spring Challenge is Blogged here: April's Lovely Finish - A Spring Challenge Pillow.

I joined the local quilt guild in May, and set a lovely goal of making a kids charity quilt for their May meeting.

I had such a blast playing with novelty charms in my stash when I made the quilt below, that I am planning to do it again this year.

I blogged about my May finish here: A Finish and a Plan for a Friday Night Sew-In.

This was my second attempt at spiral quilting–which went pretty well–and at trying the faux-piped binding technique–which wasn't very successful.

I would give that faux piped binding thing one more try in the project that was my June lovely goal.

That quilt, which I called Pinwheel HSTeria was made from the bonus triangle squares from the charity quilt as well as some smaller ones from another project and some string fabric borders made from novelty fabric that I found in my fabric bin with the novelty charms–it felt like a little quilt made from nothing but leftovers.



I had thought to add small buttons in the center of the small lavender pinwheel blocks (to hide the mis-matched seams) and Hilda kindly even sent me some itty bitty dark buttons for that purpose, but the wonkly little blocks grew on me and I ended up leaving them as is.

I blogged about this finish here: Pinwheel HSTeria–June's Lovely Finish.

(My third effort at making that faux piped binding went much better, but it still isn't my favorite way to make piped binding.)

In July, I put together a bunch of Silly String blocks made by friends at the Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild in Las Vegas (NM) at a workshop I led there.


My original plan was to make a tote ... but the blocks insisted they wanted to become a small quilt which I call String Theory.

This is another project that is still not quilted ... maybe next year? I considered it a lovely failure because I didn't get to "done done."

I blogged about it here: July's Lovely ... Failure. 

In August, work became a priority and I decided to take a lovely break.

I was having a hard time getting back to the habit of quilting and balancing my time between work and studio.

In September, I set a lovely goal to quilt the quilt below ... but only got it layered and basted and just barely started on the quilting.

I had to withdraw it from the guild show ... so humiliating.


To find my way back to FINISHING things, I worked with a local long-armer to quilt the quilts I finished for my October and November Lovely Finishes (shown below).

Sophie's Featherbed, my lovely finish for October  was finished in time for the local show ... and even won a ribbon.

I blogged about it here: A Shocking Finish.

I worked hard in November to finish my goal and, in spite of being hit by a car (while walking across the street) and having to move out of my house for a week when the boiler cracked, I managed to make the remaining blocks and assemble my Mod-Mod-sampler in time to enter it for QuiltCon.  (It is among the hundreds of rejected quilts.)

I blogged about my November finish here: An 11th Hour Finish for the 11th Month of a Year of Lovely Finishes.

December's finish was a sweet one: I finally finished all the blocks I needed to put together this Rainbow Scraps Challenge project ... begun almost 4 years ago.  I blogged about it here, last weekend: December's Lovely Finish. 

December's Lovely Finish

My goal for December was to make the 21 scrappy orange blocks I needed to sew 121 of the blocks together into a top ... and here it is–ready to be quilted:

I began making these blocks during the first month I discovered Angela's Rainbow scraps challenge, in January 2011. I took a year off after I really used up nearly all my scraps the first year, and let these blocks wait another year ... but I started this year really wanting to finish these blocks and make the quilt.

I started with blue scraps and some inspiration from a photo of Charm Stars Quilt by Mary Carol Sternitzky of Garfield, Arkansas which I found in the book, Quick and Easy Scrap Quilts.

My quilt is made from smaller blocks and won't have borders. The top measures 88 inches square.

It's interesting to see how the lack of white fabrics in my blocks results in a much more color-saturated design ... or perhaps it's because there is very little yellow and orange in Mary Carol's quilt.

I'm joining the Lovely December Finishes' party and the last Scrap Happy Saturday of 2014 for the Rainbow Scraps Challenge.

The Weekend after the FNSI

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange you going to blog about the results of your Friday Night Sew In?

On Friday, I finished cutting almost 800 orange triangles ... and I spent some time over the weekend sewing together triangle squares and making broken dishes blocks. It was a whole lot of chain sewing and pressing ...

These are twelve of the 21 blocks I'm making.

The real fun is coming ... when the orange blocks are done, I'll add them to the yellow, green, blue, purple and red ones and start playing on the design wall.

Finish This! My Goal for a Lovely Finish in December

Remember this one?



My goal for December is to make the missing scrappy orange blocks, decide upon an arrangement and sew the 121 blocks together into a quilt top.

For those curious about my personal saga, no, I still don't have heat at my house.  A replacement heating system was delivered and installed today, but ... it doesn't work. An electrical expert came and had no more luck and, at the end of a long day, I was told, "you have a broken boiler."  Which is exactly what I had before ... but different.

As a result of having the garage door at one of the studio open all afternoon and part of the evening as they ripped out the old (broken) system and installed the new (DOA) system is that the house is cooling down even faster ... I spent the day at the other end of the studio, huddled by an electric heater and my hands and feet are more like ice cubes than physical appendages now ... can I have some cheese with this wine?

An 11th Hour Finish for the 11th Month of A Year of Lovely Finishes

When I fled the house with cats, all their stuff, all my stuff, etc., friends suggested I be sure to take some hand work.

I'm sure I sounded like a whiny baby when I explained that I couldn't stand the physical pain of carrying one more bag or the process of putting together a project to bring to the hotel.

Yesterday, I did manage to trim a quilt, make binding, sew it on, and pack up everything I needed to stitch it down in the hotel last night.  The electric heater that the heating service guy loaned me made it possible ... until I turned on the iron and blew the circuit in the studio ...

I have a bit more stitching until I'm completely done (and I'll finish today for my Slow Stitch Sunday project).  Last night I noticed that the colors of the quilt worked well with the decor of my hotel room and couldn't resist spreading it out over the king-size bed for a photo.

The lighting isn't great, but ... good enough for me to share this Lovely Finish.

I'll have more details to share later, but I couldn't wait to share my November Finish (and the first EVER Block Lotto sampler quilt I've finished in the same year as we made the blocks that are in it.)

Update - here's the finished quilt hanging in my VERY COLD studio.

This one was also long arm quilted by Lynn Horpedahl. 

My S-T-R-E-T-C-H Goal for a Lovely Finish in November

I have fallen a couple months behind on the Mod-Mod QAL ... and it's my design and my quilt-along. Life has taken some crazy turns lately (new job, a carbon monoxide leak at my house) and slowed down my creative life, but it's still a little embarrassing.

These are the blocks for January through August for my full/queen-sized quilt.  

My goal for a Lovely Finish in November is to redeem myself and finish ALL the blogs for the year so I can share it on the Block Lotto blog on December 1.

The sad truth is that when I choose a set of block designs each year for the Block Lotto, I always have some sort of design for a sampler quilt using those block patterns and usually start a sampler project ... though most remain in the WIP stage.  I am determined to finish THIS one.

A Shocking Finish

You may be shocked because I actually finished (early!) and met my October goal for a lovely finish.

I was shocked to learn tonight at the reception before the show begins tomorrow that it had won a ribbon–second Place in the category Large Pieced Quilts made by two or more quilters.  I credit the lovely Long arm quilting by blogless Lynne Horpedal of Late Night Quilts.

At the beginning of the year, I double DARED myself to, among other things, enter a quilt in a show.  (Yep, believe it or not, this is a first for me).

I loved the punny name of Anna Maria Horner's Feather Bed Quilt Pattern and couldn't resist adding more feathers in the quilting design.

Here is a detail of both types of feather quilting.

And, below, a closer look at the piped binding–the piping was made from the scraps of fabric pieced for the feather blocks.

I'll be back with more photos from the Northern New Mexico Quilt Guild show later this weekend. It's a lovely show.


I updated this post to link to the Lovely Finishes for October.  I hope to finish a pair of Feather pillow covers by month's end, too.  In the meantime, I'm sharing this shocking finish on these lists:

Finish it Up Friday 

Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

Link a Finish Friday

TGIFFF