Backing and Ready to Quilt

I'm ready to quilt my Friendship Churn dash. I sewed the borders on early in February and then went on to finish other things. This is one of the UFOs I listed as a first quarter finish for the 2018 Finish Along. Last week, when I was working on the Dresden Rings, I thought I wouldn't get around to finishing this after all. I didn't even have the backing for it.
Yesterday I finally got out to shop and after making a quick stop at Joann's, where I found nothing, I went to the quilt shop and found several choices.  Yes, I know..... I should have gone to the quilt shop first but I had a coupon and I was going to get batting (I didn't get that either).





I  decided in this large floral print and I am so happy to have decided on this instead of  one of the others I considered. The quilt top is 48 inches wide and the fabric is 43 inches wide without the selvages. I bought enough to piece the back but I didn't want to fuss around matching the print  so I looked through my fabric stash to see what I might use to insert  2 long strips. I was not having any luck until I looked in my recently sorted scraps and found 5 inch wide strips of the border fabric and YES!!! I had enough. I pieced the backing and layered and pin basted the quilt and I am ready to get it finished.

 I have about 1 1/4 yard of the floral print left; maybe I will start rebuilding my stash of floral prints. In 2010 when Melody Johnson had a "Quilt Along with Melody" I joined and my goal was to use up all the floral prints that I had collected when I was making  "colorwash " quilts. I've made a lot of quilts with the floral prints since that time and really pared down my floral stash to almost nothing (nothing that I like much, I should say). I like all of the quilts I made using those fabrics and I realize that I miss them in my stash. On the other hand, I am not so sure I want to accumulate a large stash of fabric again; maybe I will just start buying floral fabric for what I am going to make. I guess we'll see how that goes.
 For now, I am going to move some furniture and set up to quilt.

Yellow Scrap Blocks

After I finished the Dresden Rings and cleaned up,  I guess I just couldn't stand a clean room so I tackled the yellow scrap bag. I saved it for last because I have more yellow scraps than anything else. I went through everything in the bag and sorted it so all the large pieces and the smaller scraps of the same fabric were together. I then made a pile of usable pieces that were either loners or just 2 or three smallish pieces and  I sent a bunch of small pieces to the dog bed bag. I did  this over 2 days, taking breaks when I got bored . Then I cleaned it all up again.

Before I put it all away I thought I might as well make a few blocks, that clean room syndrome again I guess. I only made 3 - 8 1/2 inch blocks.

I intended to make the blocks all yellow. but I always seem to get off track when I try to work with one color. The closest I came is the one on the left. I thought of fixing the one on the right by cutting through the wide green strip on the right side and adding a yellow strip but I am leaving the blocks as they are. I didn't make these to use at this time so who knows what I will want to do when I get around to using them or even if I will ever get around to using them. For now they will stay on my wall so I can look at them, when I need the space maybe they will go into the odd blocks box and maybe someday..............

We'll see!

Dresden rings EtC.

I finished Dresden rings yesterday It measures 24 x 43, it is nice and straight, hangs, flat and it  ready to hang on the wall. I copied Melissa Cory's quilting although I thought about doing some free motion quilting. The truth is, I really hate marking the quilting lines but in the end I bit the bullet and did the marking with my pizza cutter and tiny dots using a Sewline marking pen. I am happy to say all of the marks a gone and did not reappear when I used a hot iron. I did not use the multi color binding I thought I would, the quilt told me to use the orange fabric that I had purchased on Friday for something else. Good thing I bought enough extra.

Here is a link to Melissa Cory's tutorial. She has many free tutorials and also patterns for sale and there is always something new and fun to see on her blog. It is worth a look around.








This is not one of the UFO's that I listed to finish but when I came across the rings by chance they said SPRING to me and I sure am ready for spring. When I pinned them on the background and showed it to Jack he told me to finish it and hang it by the front door where I had that black thing.


Here are three shots of the "black thing" (I guess Jack doesn't care for this a lot).  BTW it is navy blue, not black.

On the left is a shot showing all three sections. I had to stand outside my door to shoot this so this is the best I could do. The center shot shows a closeup of the Japanese Ikat. I quilted around the flowers and did some sashiko quilting and filled in the background with free motion echo quilting in navy thread.  The end panels are "made Fabric" made with woven strips of fabric, which I fused to a base fabric after I wove it. The narrow fuchsia and yellow strips are faux piping. The piece is 14 x 52. I made this a long time ago and it has resided in a cedar chest all those years. I like it but it never really fit in with anything else. I have a lot of things like that. I am inspired to try a technique or use a particular fabric or group of colors and it has no place to go when it is finished.  So.......every so often I give things to my family, other times I put quilts from the closet or cedar chest up on my design wall for a time.
It is probably time to give some things away again. My cedar chest is full, there are quilts on 2 shelves of a large cabinet and taking up space in two closets.

Design Wall and Dresden Progress

I have been lamenting the lack of access to my design wall. I was so pleased to get all the panels up   on the wall and to be able to put something up on them but it has not worked out well for a working wall. I have my sewing machine in front of it and a 4 foot Lifetime table beside my machine. I have been using large flannel covered foam core poster boards, which are not great except for a few blocks and small pieces. I just didn't see any good wall space because of furniture lining the perimeter of the room.  When I wanted  to take a photograph of my Dresden Rings I put a foam panel flat on top of my bookcase and pinned the quilt to the edge. I started thinking about how I might fashion a way to put my design boards up on the front of the bookcase (which would not have been any better than using them the way I have been).  Oh wait, what if I move the bookcase?  Yes! It fits! I moved it to the opposite wall next to my sewing machine and I used the flannel covered panels I already had taking up space in my closet. I now have a 7 ft. high by 4 ft. wide design wall and there is another 25 inches behind the door to put up more flannel covered panels.

Here is the new design wall. I put my Klimt panel and my "Happy Days" panel up for inspiration. If I am looking  at something often, it will tell me what to do. The other things are 2 blocks my great granddaughter in law  made for a Disappearing 9 Patch  quilt, one little seasonal March quilt and some fabric squares that make me happy when I look at them . In the lower right corner is the table that is about 3 feet away and next to my sewing machine.















Here is the bookcase around the corner from my not so usable for a working design wall.  I still have access to the two bottom shelves  which hold notebooks and magazine holders that I seldom use. My plastic drawers with my thread fit nicely there right next to my machine and move easily on wheels.









I am making progress quilting  the Dresden Rings. I have done echo quilting around the rings and partial rings and now I am working on the spaces where the echo quilting form one intersects with one or two other lines of echo quilting. I marked the points, where I change directions, with a "Sewline" marker. I just use a tiny faint dot and when I get one area finished I spray it with water and remove the marks. I use a bath towel to soak up some of the water and wait for it to dry before moving on. I was apprehensive about using the marker but it is working out OK. I did some testing before I used it on the quilt. I made sure my marks would not reappear if I pressed with a hot iron. Yes, I do block and steam press wallhangings after they are quilted.  I hope I can get this finished and hung this weekend, Spring will be here Tuesday and I want to be ready.

Dresden Rings

Dresden Rings is layered and pinned and ready to quilt. I wasn't sure how I wanted to attach the rings, hand applique was out and I thought of fusing but discarded that idea. Fusing isn't easily fixed if something goes wrong and fusing a round  ring seemed like the perfect opportunity to foul it up. So I smoothed and pinned the living daylights out of the rings and stitched them with bobbin thread right next to the edge and I am very happy with the results. I plan on quilting in the ditch between each blade so I am not concerned about the strength of the fine bobbin thread.

You can see I also pin basted the living daylights out of this layered piece. I should be able to remove some of the pins after I get the rings all quilted. I am prepared to deal with the hassle of working with the pins.

I will be trimming the edges after quilting to leave the half and quarter rings right up to the edge under the binding. I don't want a border but I plan on a bright multi color binding.

I put one extra blade in the lower "quarter" ring. I wanted it to be a little larger that the five blades When the edge is trimmed and bound it will be OK.  Who is going to check my plane geometry or my drafting?

Lake Farmpark Quilt Show

I went to the local quilt show with quilting friends yesterday. The weather looked iffy the night before with a big winter storm but the sun was shining when I got up in the morning and we were able to get to the show. I have only seen these friends once since we moved in October so it was good to see them and see the quilt show with them.

It was a nice show with a lot of interesting quilts with a wide variety of styles. Some years there have been many quilts using the same techniques or patterns. While they were beautiful and well done the wider variety makes a more interesting show. Sorry, no photos, I was too busy looking and talking.

This is vendors week end and though I restrained myself to only a few purchases I think the vendors were outstanding this year.

I did  buy a Robert Kaufman panel from  the Gustav Klimt line. The Polka Dot Pincushion quilt shop had a quilt sample with the panel that spoke my language. It is from Klimt's "Tree of Life" painting. I didn't take a photo of the quilt because I didn't want to be overly influenced and end up making a copy.
I came home and put it up where I can look at it and the ideas are swirling around in my head. I'm not in a  hurry because I want to put this on a wall just inside my front door and I need to give it some thought.






















So, while my creative juices were starting to flow, I spotted something I came across when I was putting things away after my scrap sorting project. I found these Dresden Rings in my "Odd Blocks" box.  I think they were leftovers from the Basement Diva's circle challenge. I saw something on Melissa Corey's Happy Quilting blog and started this but never got around to doing anything more. The 2 complete rings and the half ring were sewed together and there were more wedges and I made 2 quarter wedges.  My yellow scraps came in handy to make one more wedge to replace one that was way too skinny to use but just the right fabric. This is similar to the layout I will use but I need to cut the background base and arrange things so they are balanced better than this.





I feel as though my creative self has been absent for a while. Too much time spent at home because of bad weather and short daylight hours. After getting out to the quilt show and visiting all the vendors and spending time with friends I feel revitalized. I hope it lasts.