Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Author Archives: Pam

I made my first quilted item as a visual aid for a math project in 7th grade. Over the next 25 years quilting was hit or miss, but quilting took over all the other crafts I've done in 2003.

Mid-Year Review

July 4, 2010 1:27 am ⋅

It’s July, so time to review how I’m doing on my quilting goals.

  • Keep up with the Sylvia Bridal Sampler Block of the Week 
    • Have made 13 of 26.  I’ve joined another group with a monthly challenge, so hopefully I’ll be able to get caught up.
  • Scraps – Clear Basket
    • Finished processing my scrap basket on 5/27 — and I’ve kept my scraps cut up, not that there been many.  No basket for scraps helps.
  • Finish New Starts
    • This year I’ve started 5 new quilts:  Springtime Flowers which was completed and delivered to my mother for her 70th birthday; Texas Braid, Blue Ridge Beauty, Star Struck and a Red, White & Blue Sampler.  Texas Braid has made it to the top stage. The other 3 were temporarily set aside when I started quilting Dancing Flower.
  • Carolina Christmas Top
    • This Bonnie Hunter mystery top ended up as three quilts. A twin and two baby quilts tops.
  • Quilt & Bind 4-Patch Stripy
    • Finished it and a pillow case to match (ok, it still needs a label, but don’t tell anyone).
  • Double Wedding Ring
    • I finished the quilt top after the first of the year and started the hand quilting.  I have got to get back to it sooner than later if it’s to be finished by November
  • Finish Music Lessons
    • Finished this quilt and it has a label
  • Green & Cream
    • I’m doing quilt as you go on this quilt.  Some of the blocks are on my desk, some on the back side of my sewing table and the backing fabric is on top of one of my fabric boxes.
  • Finish a Baby quilt
    • I’ve got to get a pink baby quilt in the mail soon as the baby girl was born the end of April.  There’s a baby boy coming in August.  Both of the tops are complete, so it’s just the quilting that needs to be done.
  • Quilt a BH Quilt Top
    • In addition to the 4 already mentioned, there are 3 more in my stack of quilt tops: Orange Crush, Old Tobacco Road and Strip Twist.  Would it be cheating if I quilted Texas Braid?
  • Dancing Flowers
    • I’m so close to finishing this.  Maybe a little bit of touch up quilting, then trim the edges, bind and label.  This is the last of my 6 month goals I need to complete.
  • Attend a Guild Workshop
    • I attended both the Texas Braid and Blue Ridge Beauty workshops by Bonnie Hunter — that was 2 new starts that I  need to finish this year.
  • Enter a Quilt in Show
    • I picked two quilts for the show in April — Music Lessons & Springtime Flower.  4-patch Stripy was finished in time, but I didn’t get the hanging sleeve on the quilt — my wrists gave out.
  • Move a UFO to Top or Top to Quilt
    • This was an early accomplishment — I completed my Ladder to the Stars quilt top.

It looks like I’ve completed half of my goals and have partially completed another 4, leaving 3 I haven’t looked at. additionally I’ve also done a few things which weren’t on my list – blocks for a swap, tissue covers,  pincushions, pillow cases and worked on my red work snowmen.  Check back to see if I  accomplish the rest of my goals by the end of the year.

Posted in: goals

What’s On My Design Wall

June 28, 2010 6:00 am ⋅

Dancing Flowers is quilted! At least I think it is. It’s tough quilting with invisible and black thread. I still need to trim the threads on the back and then I’ll know if I did all of the quilting in the cornerstones.

The quilting is not fancy, but I hope it’s effective – 1″ crosshatching behind the applique, stitch in the around each applique piece and stitch in the ditch on the border. I am planning on sewing the hanging pocket on when I stitch on the binding. I hope to get that done this week, but who knows if it will happen or not with everything going on around here.

Check out the links to other design walls over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Dancing Flowers, designwall

Stash Report

June 27, 2010 8:14 am ⋅

Judy has reminded me that this is the halfway mark for the year. So here’s a mid-year view.

This time last year I had used about 1 1/2 yards more fabric than I have this year. On the other hand, I’ve brought 30 yards less fabric into the house this year. Given that both years I’ve been given fabric from other quilters clearing their stash, what impresses me more is that I’ve bought 1/2 as much fabric this year than I did last year. Now If I could use twice as much then I’d actually make a dent in my stash.

This week the only fabric I used was what I needed to finish the Texas Braid. I’ve been working on Dancing Flowers and all of that fabric has been counted (including the binding). No new fabric came into the house by any means.

So here are the numbers:

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 131.511 yards

Fabric Used this Week: .64 yards

Fabric Used to Date: 52.139 yards

Net Stash for 2010: 79.327 yards

Check out the links at Patchwork Times to see how others are doing mid-year.

Posted in: Stash Busting Report

Sky Watch

June 26, 2010 4:32 pm ⋅

This morning I woke up at 3:30 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. I oscillated back and forth between quilting and surfing the web. I found this story and thought — hey I’m up, let’s go watch it.

I wandered back into the bedroom and didn’t try to be quiet, but DH didn’t wake up. Grabbed my camera and the binocular camera and headed to my favorite sky watching location about 20 minutes away. Got there in plenty of time, but misremembered the news article (ok, probably didn’t comprehend it correctly at 4 AM) and started home, just as the eclipse started. Fortunately, I figured this out and turned around to take these pictures. Unfortunately I didn’t have good batteries in the binocular camera so I had to make do with my point and shoot digital camera.

The first of these pictures was taken at 5:26 AM according to my camera (allowing for Day Light Savings Time). The last one was taken at 5:45 AM. All I’ve done to them is roughly crop them to the same landmarks. I moved the car twice as the power pole got in the way as the earth rotated. They will enlarge if you click on them.

After my sky watching, I came home ate breakfast and then crawled back into bed for another 3 hours before resuming work on Dancing Flowers. I hope to have the quilting done tonight.

Posted in: Uncategorized

QA Wednesday

June 23, 2010 11:54 am ⋅

A week has passed, my ankle is better, although not perfect, and I can finally sit at the sewing machine for longer than 10 minutes. As a result I have finished my Texas Braid top. Since my goal was any piecing/quilting I think I can say I accomplished that.

So what’s up for this coming week?

Finish quilting and bind Dancing Flowers. It has to be finished by July 19th.
I want to also get a baby quilt shipped out, but I’ll settle for simply picking which quilt I’m going to send.

There were other things on my list for the month of June, but they just aren’t going to get done. Maybe during the long 4th of July weekend….

See what others are planing by following the links over at Bari’s.

Posted in: goals, Texas Braid

My Husband and My Quilting

June 22, 2010 7:28 pm ⋅

Several people commented on my husband playing on my design wall. I really do enjoy his input – not that I always follow it. 🙂 One of the first things we collaborated on was this quilt which we called “Which Way’s Up?”

Several years ago the gals at Wondercut Ruler did a mystery quilt and we ended up with a pile of split 9-patches. I laid the blocks out on the floor (this was before the design wall) and then the two of us flipped, turned and swapped the blocks until we came up with a design we both liked.

This signature quilt is another project which he had considerable input on. It’s more ‘artsy’ than I normally do and it’s thanks to my husband’s input. He pushed me to work outside of my comfort zone (although I immediately crawled back into it).

Sometimes it’s just a fresh pair of eyes that makes a difference.

In this quilt, I used a fabric that couldn’t make up its mind if it was red or black. It looked weird scattered in the quilt, but since the blocks (and possibly the rows) were already sewn, I wasn’t going to do anything about it. My husband pushed me and he was right. Moving to they came together made the whole quilt look better.

As for the Texas Braid, once he saw pictures of the two options he agreed it didn’t make 2 cents difference which layout I used, so I’m going with the original layout. I hope to have the quilt top finished tomorrow night.

Posted in: Quilts

Texas Braid Options

June 21, 2010 3:56 pm ⋅

Original Layout:

Alternative Layout:

Posted in: Texas Braid

What’s On My Design Wall

June 21, 2010 6:00 am ⋅

Sunday afternoon I finished piecing the braids for Texas Braid. As I trimmed each braid, I hung them on the wall. My husband came in and said he didn’t like it, so he started playing with them. As soon I have 3 1/2 more braids to trim, then I’ll try it out both ways — as designed and as my husband sees it.

At the top are the Star Struck blocks that I was working on at the beginning of the month. I got distracted trying to finish up Texas Braid and haven’t worked on them in a couple of weeks.

Check out other quilts in progress by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, Star Struck, Texas Braid

Stash Report

June 20, 2010 12:50 am ⋅

A repeat of last week’s report. This week a SBS Block and progress on my Texas Braid quilt.

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 131.511 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 2.125 yards

Fabric Used to Date: 51.499 yards

Net Stash for 2010: 80.012 yards

See how others are doing with their stash busing efforts by checking out the links at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Stash Busting Report

SBS Block Due 6/20

June 20, 2010 12:40 am ⋅

K10 – Tumbling Blocks

I worked on this block over a couple of days.  When I had 3 or 4 of the blocks sewn together I held it up and my husband said “Tumbling Blocks”.    Immediately followed by “Sometimes I scare myself with what I know.”

54 of 140

Posted in: SBS