Giraffes

The giraffe quilt is almost finished. I could consider it finished but I plan to add a few (very few) embellishments. I consulted with the embellishment maven when the Basement Divas met on Saturday and she gave me  some advice; now I have to do some shopping for embellishments.


I went ahead and finished the binding and the hanging sleeves and buried all the thread tales. I didn't want to end up setting this aside again due to all the odds and end of finishing.  Below are a few close up shots of the quilting.









After I had several rows of echo quilting I didn't like the way it was starting to look and I brought it with me to Friendship group last Tuesday. Laura suggested I use the chevron or zig zag pattern from one of the borders and I tried  it and I liked it. I had to take out some of the echo stitching but I was happy to do that as I didn't like it. On the last border I  used the blind hem stitch sewed in pairs from 2 directions and then the # 4 Bernina stitch between. It doesn't show up a lot but that's fine with me. It flattens out the border and gives a little texture.
It is 34 x 37 inches and hangs nice and flat. All in all I am pleased with it and happy to finally have it finished (almost). It has been hanging there in the back of my mind for a long time.

Blocks

I finished my Friendship blocks yesterday. Two sets of red and white positive/negative blocks. It is a simple pattern but it requires precision. All it all it went together pretty easily, only a few sessions with the seam ripper. If these are going to be set block to block, I am glad that it will not be me putting them together; a lot of points there to match.




The sun is shining today and the view from my sewing room is cheerful with the yellow leaves against the bright blue sky.  The view from the living room is not quite so colorful; more bare branches on the other side of the tree. All summer we have much more privacy as no one can really see in our windows from the other buildings. The tree also hides the view of the parking lot for the other building in the summer and gives us shade which makes the AC more efficient. The bright side is now there will be much more light in our apartment which will be a nice change in the winter.

Rearranging my closet........and

I started going through my closet this morning; I was taking out the summer things and empty hangers, that somehow find themselves between the hanging things, and rearranging everything.

I took everything out and piled on my bed the stuff to fold up or put in a different place. I changed  some things to different kinds of hangers.









When I took this out of my closet it felt heavy. Guess what!

Yes it was my phone. I knew I would find it! Jack just laughed at me and told me I was getting expensive in my old  age. We probably would have waited to get a new phone if  I had been happy with the one I had. There were issues with a few things that were always cumbersome and I complained about it a lot. We took a little more time to do some research before we shopped this time. One thing I need is one that has a high rating for hearing  aids. We also do not have a contract but buy minutes so we don't always have a lot of choices.  




So here we are. My new phone is on the right. Now I have a camera and a touch screen and everything seems easy to use, so far no issues.
In the center is the phone I just found again and on the left is the phone I lost last January and found the very minute Jack got off the phone after transferring my number and my minutes.

 I was absolutely sure I had check every piece of clothing that had a pocket, obviously I did not. I think that I found my phone in the same pocket last time and I must have gone through everything at least 4 or 5 times. I even checked things in the laundry basket. In my defense I must say that I have never put my phone in the washer. I guess I need a system to keep track of things. Maybe I should check my phone, my keys, my hearing aids, etc. every night before I go to bed; I might remember if it wasn't 3 days later. Maybe I should pay attention to what I am doing instead of thinking of the next three things I want to do.

I don't think I am going to change my ways at this stage of my life;

 maybe I should just never turn off my phone.

No Sewing

I haven't been doing any sewing for a couple of days. I have been busy catching up with things that need to be done. sometimes that is a good thing because while I am doing other things my subconscious mind is busy mulling over the things that I am not sure about in my quilting.

Just so I have something to show, I  am posting a picture of an old fall wall hanging that is hanging from September until the Christmas quilts come out. I made this a long time ago when I was making color wash quilts. Probably 20 some years ago. I keep saying I do not like brown but I guess that is not really true because this is one of my favorite quilts and I do have a fair amount of brown around the place.

I picked out all but one of the fabrics for this quilt on a road trip with our quilt guild. It was October and I am sure I was influenced by all of the glorious fall Ohio foliage.

You would not guess from this shot, taken this morning, of our tree that it is fall in NE Ohio.
The leaves are getting more sparse but still a lot of green on this tree from our window.







What has been keeping me from sewing has to do with my cell phone. I was searching everywhere for it and I made a few phone calls and send an email to my friends to determine if anyone had found it or if it somehow found it's way into someone's things.  I have been complaining about that phone ever since I got it last January 27 when I misplaced my last cell phone (which I found the minute my husband got off the phone setting up my new phone and transferring my minutes). So yesterday we went out and got a new phone and I  have been busy learning how to do everything and entering all my contacts. I have not found my old phone but I expect it will turn up any time now. In case you are wondering, I did try calling my cell phone but I had turned it off in church on Sunday and I am pretty sure I never turned it back on. The bright side is that since the last time we when through this Tracfon has improved the way one communicates with them and it took a few minutes on the computer and a one minute phone call to accomplish the change to the new phone instead of 2 hours and much frustration.
This is a good reminder of how patient Jack is. He doesn't complain when we have to search for my keys or phone. Because I don't always hear well on the phone he has to make all the phone calls to get my phone stuff straightened out. I guess he is just used to resigned to it as I have been this way all my life.

Friendship blocks etc

Friendship group was on Tuesday and it was my turn to receive blocks. I had chosen the Anvil block from "made fabric" and had asked for two 12 inch  blocks, one with a blue background and one with a lighter orange/yellow/gold background.
 I had asked for half of the blocks with blue backgrounds so I could send them to Victoria (Bumblebeans) for the quilts she makes with donated blocks for people recently diagnosed with cancer. I love these blocks. I especially find the block in the upper left corner endearing. It reminds me of myself; I will fix it before I send it. I didn't get blocks from everyone  this month, it was a very busy month for everyone. I will wait to get them all before I send them to Victoria.









Theses are the blocks in the other colorway and I love them just as much. I will  be keeping these to make a throw size quilt. I have one or two of my own somewhere but I didn't look for them because I won't be  putting these together for a while.

I have been quilting the giraffe quilt and it is on hold right now while I decide what I want to do with the background around the giraffes. I am not entirely happy with the echo quilting and I want to add something to it. That may require some unstitching. I took it with me to Friendship Tuesday and asked for suggestions. One of them was to repeat the chevron stitching from the zig zag fabric. I drew a pattern in one corner with my white Sewline Fabric Pencil (I love that pencil). I am still not sure what I will  do.

As I sit here and ponder what to do, this is the view from my sewing room window on this rainy overcast day. In real life the leaves are a bit more yellow. Those blue blurry spots are the raindrops on my window. There is NO blue in the sky today.

 This is the view from the living room of our second floor apartment. That close up view of the green leaves shows the leaves that come up and brush our window when the wind blows. There is much more yellow on the other side of the tree and the other maple trees around are all yellow, it must be the proximity to the building that makes the difference.

 This carpet of leaves under the tree is much thicker that it was earlier when I shot these pictures. It is quite breezy and all the branches are waving and the leaves are coming down like rain. Soon the trees will be bare and the lawn people will come and gather up all the leaves.
I will miss them.

"Peak" color was late this year in our area of NE Ohio. We thought that this year the color would be nice but more subdued, then, last Thursday, everything seemed to burst into glorious color overnight. Who would have expected peak to come the first weekend in November?

Collaboration

The quilt and I got together and we agree that the patch had to go.
I do not know why all the of photos are different colors. I shot them in the same place with the same light and auto setting.  Ah well that is not the point of the photo collage (not this time anyway).


On the Left is the offending patch, not really terrible but it doesn't seem right in the overall picture.
Center is the hole where the patch was removed. I am getting good at removing small  pieces without taking out whole seams.
On the Right is the new patch.

Voila, the whole flimsy, finished, yes it is. The quilt has stopped asking for anything more.





































When I thought it over I came to the conclusion that I did not need to change anything on the lower right side of that border because it had the zig zag fabric on the right in the next border.
I had made the decision in the first border around the giraffe panel to have all the zig zag  fabric in the piece oriented in the same direction. Kind of like it was a background and everything was laying on top of it. I didn't know at the time how or where I would use the fabric again or even if I would use it again. I think I made the right decision but right or wrong it is done.

It is what it is!



Giraffes Redo

Yesterday I thought I had a finished flimsy. Not so! When I looked at it this morning I admitted that there was something about the left side that I didn't like. The quilt tried to tell me that yesterday but I refused to acknowledge it. This morning I knew I had to fix it. Where to begin? When all the borders are different, with each side added in a different order; it needs to be analyzed before taking up the seam ripper.
So, this was yesterday when I tried to tell myself it was finished.










This is the area that bothered me.
 On the left is where I started and I took out the seams back to the black border.
In the center , I had added another of the bright batik and separated the motifs with strips of the zigzag fabric. Still not quite right.
On the right, I had changed the bottom leaf motif for a more colorful patch from the same fabric and added the zig zag strip. What!!!
I added a strip going in the wrong direction.

So I took up the seam ripper again and fixed it. I considered adding a zig zag strip to the top of that border strip in place of that hot pink section above the leaf motif. I had not added one to the right end of the horizontal border strip with the same fabrics and I don't want that zig zag fabric at that end next to the same fabric in the next border on the right. The jury is still out, I might add that strip at the top after all. I will wait till tomorrow to see what the quilt tells me to do.

Let me tell you, this has been one bossy quilt. Every decision I've made about what comes next has gotten an argument from the quilt; and the quilt has won every time. I am about ready to tell this piece that I am the boss.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Giraffes coming along

I started this early last week and I worked on it on and off as far as actual sewing goes but I had it percolating in my mind all the time. This has been improvisational all the way so there has been a lot of stopping and thinking with each piece I cut and stitched. All of the borders are different widths and the border fabrics do not follow in a four sides the same order. Many decisions here, I guess that I what improve is.
The spotted fabric borders on the top and left are going to be trimmed  to about 3 inches (I think). I cut them 5 inches  but that is too wide. The bright fabric shows up true to color here but everything else looks washed out which is not how it really looks.

After I got his far I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for the binding. I have to know what I want to do before I cut it all up as there is not enough of the bright batik fabric to experiment. I scanned all my fabrics and sent them to EQ7 and worked out the quilt in EQ the way I had put it together. This EQ version looks a lot more straight than the piece on my design wall looks although it actually is nice and straight.

I decided that I am going to use the right batik for the binding on two sides and black on the other 2 sides and add some prairie points in the lower right corner to brighten up the zigzag stripes.
the colors all show up better here in the fabric that was scanned than in my photo of the quilt. The prairie points are too small to show up the other colors in EQ but I will make sure I cut my squares to get the purple and hot pink as well as the orange. I do not plan to add any prairie points in the upper left but I colored a couple triangles there to see how they look and forgot to change them. Who knows though, I have changed my mind from one addition to the next several times. I am ready to layer this and quilt it right after I decide on a backing;  I can save the decisions about the binding and prairie points till last.

Bloggers Quilt Festival

It's time again for Bloggers Quilt Festival. Be sure to check it out at Amyscreativeside.com  or click on the button on the sidebar.

This entry in the Baby quilt Category is my interpretation of the Falling Charms quilt in a Missouri Star tutorial. I made my blocks 5 inches and they finished 4 1/2 inches. In the tutorial Jenny used a 5 inch charm pack and 2 1/2 inch strips from an all white "Jelly roll". I used 2 1/2 inch strips of Kona Bone, which is a favorite of mine.

44 x 50 inches

I have been sewing scraps of fabric together to make blocks for a long time. At least 15 years ago I made a quilt with blocks made from scraps as an example of quilts we could make for our quilt guild Linus Project. It was just a straight set with sashing  I used a pretty floral print with pink and yellow roses on a blue background for the sashing, borders and backing. It was pretty and kind of quiet and nothing like this one. I wish I had a photo but it is one of many for which there is no photo.

More recently, I started "making fabric"  after being inspired by Bumblebeans "15 Minutes of Play". Most of the time, I prefer to "make fabric" about the size of the blocks I want and trim to the size I want, instead of a making a larger piece to cut up into blocks.


Close up of 5 inch blocks showing some of the quilting
in the light patches and stitching on the binding.

For "made fabric" blocks I don't like to use a paper foundation. I prefer to add a strip and press it and trim the seam allowance to 1/4 inch. I like to trim the edges straight that I am going to sew as I find that I am more likely to have a nice straight seam when I do. I usually work on 3 to 5 blocks at a time, adding pieces and chain sewing and then press and trim and add the next addition to all five at a sitting.

I always try to keep some semblance of order when I make fabric but the truth is I am messy. I might have things in order when I start but in the end I end up with it all tangled together. I probably spend way too much time trying to maintain order.

I like to keep all the pieces up on the design wall and on my design boards, along with strips and other pieces I want to incorporate somewhere. I helps me to keep track of what I need to add for balance.

Piano key borders are my favorite for scrappy quilts. Some people like to "calm down" the quilt with one fabric but every time I audition a single fabric for the border it seems to lack something. I make strips sets with 5 or 6 random width strips that are long enough to make 2 or 3 cuts the width of border. I sew the sections together with one or two different fabric strips between. I have to make more strip sets than if I used longer strips and sewed my sets wider but I like to keep things as random as possible. If I have a piece at the end of the strip set than is too small for a border section I  trim it and turn it sideways and insert it between sections as in the top section next to the bright blue strip. 

I quilted in the ditch around all the blocks. I also ditch stitched around the patches inside the blocks because it needed more stitching to lay flat.


Close up of the quilting in the solid light fabric

I use cotton quilting thread in primary colors with the #4 stitch on my Bernina for the quilting in the solid light patches. I considered feathers or something fancier but in the end opted for lines that followed the stair step pattern in the quilt, with the lines crossing at the ends of the steps. I wasn't really very happy the way the seams showed up in the solid light fabric but the variegated thread in the wavy pattern helped to minimize that.

I used a solid yellow for that back and Kona bone for the binding. I sewed the binding to the back and turned it to the front and finished it with the #4 stitch. I think the #4 stitch is in keeping with the informal whimsical nature of the quilt.


Close up of stitching on binding and inner border

Now hop on over to Amyscreativeside.com and check out all the rest of the quilts.



Giraffes - A start

This start has been a long time coming. After I finished the T shirt quilt I cleaned up and cleared off all the horizontal surfaces and dug out these fabrics.  I've had this 18 x 19 batik panel for at least 3 years. It's another one of those fabrics that I was so excited about when I bought it that I could hardly wait to get home to start. I  am not sure why my enthusiasm waned.  I bought this at the NQA Quilt Show and2 fat quarters of the bright batik fabric, on the right. That was all they had and though I looked everywhere on line I never found more.
I must have brought it to a quilt guild meeting once because one of the members asks me every time I see her if I have started something . Lately she has been telling me I should sell it to her if I am not going to use it.

I pulled two of these fabrics from my stash and I bought the spotted gold fabric yesterday

 I also found some pieces of the fabric on the right, that I intend to use but I will have to be creative with it as it has been chopped up and these are the two largest pieces; there are mostly small pieces left. Maybe I will have to "make fabric" for the border.




Here I have 2 border strips sewed on. For some reason I thought the zigzag striped fabric would look good turned cross wise on the top and bottom and I took great pains t make the corners match. I don't like it and intend to take it off and put the zigzag stripes going the other way. I am not sure if I will leave that print in place where it is or not. I had to go out again last evening and buy some solid black to go in there too.





The last photo has border strips auditioned on the side and bottom. I am still  not sure where this is going. I still like the batik panel but I need to look at it and think about it for  a while. Once I cut up those left over scraps I will be committed and that is the one fabric I am sure I want in there somewhere

T Shirt Quilt

Sometime after Christmas I cut the fronts from all the T shirts my daughter in law gave me and put them in this box. They stayed there until August when I took them off the shelf and shot this photo. I think that was when I ironed the interfacing to the backs. at first it was on again - off again working on it as there were more interesting things to play with.

I worked this out in my Electric Quilt program and I followed it pretty closely. the striped fabric here was one of the stripes in the program but it represents the actual fabric well enough for design purposes. I ordered backing fabric and when it came I decided to use it for the borders also and I cut down the striped fabric on the side borders and eliminated the stripes on the top and bottom borders.

I used the stripes cut on the bias for the binding.

I constructed the top and quilted it in sections. the right and left sections included the borders and the center section included the sashings. I was undecided about including the more narrow top and bottom borders in the sections and in the end I left them off and added them after everything else was done. At some point I neglected to remember (in other words I forgot) that I considered adding them to the sections and went ahead and layered each section up. after I stitch the sections together on the machine I finish on the back with hand  I could have saved myself having to hand stitch those 2 long seams.

 

Here is the quilt almost finished, the binding is not on yet. That's me on the side. Some of the T shirts I was given were not in good shape but Jack had some brand new T shirts from motorcycle events they had attended together and he offered them for the quilt.

I gave it to John yesterday but didn't get a picture of him with the quilt.

 I think he likes it.

 

 

256 HST's

I finished quilting the baby quilt for the church closet. the next one I make with HST's will have larger pieces.  I quilted this in the ditch and to me it looks like there is too much quilting. I  am also not too happy with the quilting in the borders.  Maybe it was too few pins or the poly batting but it starts out nice and flat at the beginning of each side but it is rippled after about the center. I am not going to fix anything because this is not going to hang on a wall and will probably end up on the floor or in a playpen and no doubt it will be washed often.
When I decided on the border and backing fabric I found that I had cut out a small chunk of it for something and I would have to do some piecing to stretch the backing. That's what happens when you have something for a long time and after every audition you put it back on the shelf; eventually you cut a piece of it for something. Very soon after doing that you will decide it just the thing you need and it WONT be enough. These two shots show the backing . I found another fabric that I had for awhile and had auditioned many times but never used and though they were from different designers and bought several years apart I think they are a perfect fit.

These two shots above show the front and back of the binding. (I still need to clean up the stray shreds of thread  which are hard to see sometimes but they sure show up in a photo close up).
I really have a hard time doing a lot of hand stitching anymore so I do my binding completely on the machine. I used to stitch it to the back and turn it to the front and finish with the machine on the front. Recently I started to stitch the binding to the front and then press it toward the binding and turn it over and press the  binding down and use 1/4 inch stitch witchery to hold it in place. I finish it from the front by stitching in the ditch along the edge of the binding or on children's quilts or something whimsical I use the #4 stitch on the Bernina, as I did here.

Front                            Back               

These photos on the right are showing the front and back of a corner of the binding, stitched in the ditch, on the T shirt quilt. I finished it on Sunday and I will post a photo soon, after I have given it to the recipient.

I guess that when I shop I tend to get what I came to get and don't look around. That is probably because Jack is usually waiting in the car for me.
I had no idea that stitch witchery came in 1/4 inch width until I ran out of the 1/2 inch and had to buy some more. I had been cutting the width in half; before that I was using strips of Wonder Under cut 1/4 inch wide. I got the whole idea from something Melody Johnson said on her blog and something Mari from The Quilting Edge wrote (probably from someone else too). Someone was using glue to hold the binding down until  it was stitched but I hate getting glue on my fingers and then sticking to everything. I think this works pretty well and it is so much easier for me than using pins. It works better on fabric that is not black or navy blue or dark brown.