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.

Guess What I Found

July 2, 2014 6:35 am ⋅

mat

 

Yes, it’s the silicon mat that went missing earlier this year.  You may remember that in early June I broke down and bought another pressing mat – assuming my original mat would turn up.  It didn’t and I needed to finish Eeyore, so I went ahead opened and used the new mat — which I couldn’t find when I packed for the retreat a week later.

This one surfaced when I dug through a box of “sewing stuff” under my sewing table.  It is now in its usual place in the drawer on the shelf.  I’m sure the second mat will turn up sooner or later. It’s not like I took it anywhere….

Posted in: Uncategorized

Goals for July and the 3rd Qtr Finish Along

July 1, 2014 5:30 pm ⋅

3rdQtr

 

Boy do I think I’m dreaming if I expect to FINISH all of these projects by the end of the 3rd Quarter.  Most of these are recycled from earlier in the year and that’s OK because I am getting things done.  So what’s on the 3rd quarter list?

  • Diamond Links – it is partially quilted
  • Easy As Pie – I haven’t touched this in at least a month
  • Double Wedding Ring — just two corners to quilt and then bind
  • Quilt A – this would be a new quilt
  • Quilt C – this is a new quilt as well
  • Yellow Thangles BOM – needs to be quilted
  • Green & Cream Swap – working on it quilt-as-you-go
  • Hardware – a new start
  • Compass Lone Star – a new start
  • String HST – it’s not very big and needs borders and quilting
  • Jared Takes a Wife – I’d love to get this quilted
  • Eeyore – Must get this quilted
  • Scrappy Trips – needs to be quilted
  • Christmas Row Quilt – needs to be quilted
  • Hancock Stars BOM – working on it quilt-as-you-go

There are other quilt tops in pieces that I want to finish this year but don’t necessarily expect to get quilted. Since the list above is for the 3rd Quarter Finish Along over at The Littlest Thistle – I won’t list them unless I really think I can get them finished by the end of the year. As soon as the linky is up I’ll link to it HERE.

JulyGoals

 

So, realistically what do I think I can get done in July?

  • Quilt and finish Eeyore – it’s up first
  • Quilt and finish Scrappy Trips on the treadle
  • Quilt, by hand, one of the two remaining corners of the Double Wedding Ring
  • Finish Candy Sunflower seeds (that’s one of the borders)
  • Make the “R” and the “S” blocks for the Alphabet BOM

To the best of my knowledge I have not forgotten to make any quilts. I do have to finish sewing a hanging sleeve,  but I should be able to knock that out tonight. I might just get everything done this month.

Posted in: goals

June’s Results

July 1, 2014 12:15 pm ⋅

JuneAccomplishments

 

I may not have gotten everything on my list for June done, but I’m please with what I did get done – whether it was on my list or not.

  • Bound Ladder to the Stars II
  • Finished the Eeyore top
  • Made the backing for the Eeyore quilt (jelly roll quilt)
  • Started & completed the “forgotten quilt”
  • Finished Jared Takes a Wife top
  • Quilted, bound and labeled the Purple Thangles BOM
  • Worked on the Candy Sunflower Seed borders

Now to figure out what I want/need to get done in July.

Posted in: goals

What’s On My Design Wall

June 30, 2014 7:53 am ⋅

giftwrapped-dw

 

I can’t show much this week.  I’m still working on the forgotten quilt.  I spent 6 hours Saturday quilting — a combination of a pantograph and custom quilting. Now I’m tidying things up. I ran out of bobbin thread and the 1st CD finished of the book I’m listening to, so I decided it’s time to quit for the night.

Hop over to Patchwork Times to find out what others are working on.

Posted in: designwall

Stash Report

June 29, 2014 9:51 am ⋅

I have been busy since the last stash report two weeks ago.  There was no report last week as I was at a quilt retreat and was reminded of a quilt with a hard deadline that I had completely forgotten about.  So, between buying fabrics for the forgotten quilt and general shop hopping that comes when traveling to a quilt retreat the stash has grown.

On the other hand, I finished that huge backing from my stash, I finished the JTAW top and the completely forgotten quilt (Sorry, no pictures until November).  This means my numbers actually came out ahead of the game, which really surprised me.

Fabric Added Since Last Report (2 weeks): 24.295 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 146.734 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report (2 weeks): 27.005 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 84.985 yards

Net Increase in Stash to Date:  61.749 yards

See how others are doing with their stash by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

 

Posted in: Stash Busting Report

Jared Takes A Wife is a Quilt Top

June 26, 2014 12:15 pm ⋅

JTAWtop

 

This is my Jared Takes a Wife quilt top. It’s a free pattern from Bonnie Hunter.

I started making black and white 4-patches as leader/enders back in November with the intent of making Bricks and Stepping Stones, another free pattern from Bonnie. However, on the Facebook group Quiltville Open Studio, a quilt-a-long was suggested for JTAW and I repurposed my 4-patches.

I started with my border fabric and found the pink and green to use for star points and center squares. The intent was to finish the top by the end of April, but I had to set it aside a couple of times as I worked on other quilts.

The other day I found a cool variegated thread which I want to quilt this with, so now I need to find a backing.

Thanks, Bonnie for a great pattern!

Posted in: Jared Takes a Wife

It’s Beginning To Look Like A Quilt Top

June 25, 2014 6:30 am ⋅

jtawcenter

 

This is the center of Jared Takes a Wife, a free pattern from Bonnie Hunter. It was at the top of my list of quilts to work on at the retreat. The blocks just needed two seams each and the cornerstones were cut.  But then I discovered I completely forgot a quilt which a “real” deadline, so that quilt went to the top of the list, so I didn’t pull JTAW out until either Friday or Saturday mid-morning.

Anyway after the blocks were finished and the sashing sewn to one edge, it was time to figure out which cornerstone went where and I discovered I was 5 short and now it’s Saturday evening and there are no open quilt shops.  One of the retreaters had a piece of black fabric and I decided I could put matching cornerstones in the corners and the center and it would be OK.

As I started sewing the sashing on to the last row of blocks I realized I was really short 10 cornerstones and I really didn’t want matching stones on the bottom of the quilt. So, this got tucked away and I worked on something else.

Last night I dug through my fabric and found 10 more black fabrics for cornerstones.  I replaced the two on the top row, leaving the one in the “center” so I  now have 30 unique cornerstones. Who knew I had that many black fabrics.

All that is left now is a narrow pink inner border and then the wide paisley border.  Perhaps I’ll get that done tomorrow, but I do need to make the backing for the forgotten quilt and sandwich Eeyore so I can start to quilt it.

Posted in: Jared Takes a Wife

A New Finish

June 24, 2014 12:30 pm ⋅

PurpleThanglesBOM

 

Monday afternoon I rented time on the long arm and quilted this little quilt.  After washing it measures about 39″ square.  The pieced blocks were part of a Thangles BOM that I started in 2008. I only used 5 of the 12 blocks because I didn’t think all 12 of them went together well.  Another 5 are in another quilt and there are two which I suspect will end up in the orphan block box.

The batting is Hobbs Bleached Tuscany.  I used Superior’s Omni Thread in Verbena on the top and a lavender pre-wound bobbin in the bottom. For quilting, I did a “feathery” fill in the red squares, 1/2 feathers and echo around the pieced blocks, curved outlining of the black pieces in the blocks and attempted a circular filler in the borders.

I found a printed plaid in my stash that worked well for the backing.

PurpleThanglesBOMBacking

 

This quilt is on several of my UFO goal lists for the year, including the 2014 Finish Along sponsored by The Littlest Thistle. I’ll update the link when I  link up.

Here’s the link to the 2nd Quarter Finish Party over at The Littlest Thistle and my 2nd Qtr list.

Posted in: 2014 Finish Along, finish, UFOs

What Happens at Retreat…

June 24, 2014 1:45 am ⋅

roadtripfabric

 

There’s a saying “What Happens at Retreat Stays at Retreat”.  Due to the projects I was working on I can’t show anything yet. But it was all not sewing. There was the shopping.

Starting at the bottom center and working clockwise:  Several Kansas Troubles Patterns, a 20 piece charm pack of KTQ lights, a spool of thread that works well with KTQ fabrics, 9 – F8 of KTQ fabrics a stack of KTQ scraps, Perfect Circles (the smaller ones), a light FQ, backing for a secret project, a yard of a cool cat/music fabric, a FQ of a music/Halloween fabric, fabric that I’m not using for the secret project and fabric to make a tie for my husband.  I just realized that I don’t have the ruler that I bought in the picture. Oh well.

I sewed, completing a quilt top start to finish with only one sewing mistake and one cutting error. Then I started working on Jared Takes a Wife with the intention of finishing it. Either I can’t count, or I simply didn’t finish cutting the cornerstones for the quilt because I came up 10 short.  As I worked on these two projects my leader/ender was the 4-patches for the border of Candy Sunflower Seeds. By the time I realized I couldn’t finish JTAW, I was too tired to think through finishing Candy Sunflower Seeds.

So naturally, I pulled out my applique project. It was pretty straight forward. Cut along the dotted line – so to speak – and then fuse into place. At that point I called it a night. The next morning, I figured out the cutting plan for the quilt which will be my next leader/ender project and then stitched one length of thread on the red work snowmen.

After I pulled out the machine today, I had to give the machine a bit of a cleaning…

retreatfuzz1

It was a bit fuzzy.  This is what I pulled out of the machine before I started sewing on the binding to my latest finish:

retreatfuzz2

 

Stay tuned to see my latest finish in the next post.

Posted in: Candy Sunflower Seeds, Jared Takes a Wife, red work, retreat, scraps, shopping

What’s On My Design Wall

June 16, 2014 1:08 am ⋅

backingdone

I thought I would never get this quilt backing done.  For three days I cut 2-1/2″ strips from my stash of music fabric. While I was at it I also cut 5″ charms.  

backing

Then I sewed them end to end, occasionally throwing in mitered seam if I was joining two longer pieces together.  When I got through this pile I only had 3318″, but it wasn’t enough. So, I cut more strips and charms. In the end I had approximately 4500″.

It took me 3 hours to get that first seam sewn.  The second seam took at least 2 – I only kind of timed it.  They really did get faster then – the last 4 seams only took 1-1/2 hours — not including time to press each seam after stitching.  Having made a jelly roll quilt w/o pressing and one w/pressing, I think it came out much better having pressed the seams.

backingDW

The piece currently measures 70″ x 128″ — way longer than I need but I wanted 68″ in width without having to put a border on it.  The excess length will become the starting point of another quilt which I will call “Accidental”.

Oh — and my music stash?  It’s 8 yards smaller now. Admittedly the two drawers weren’t stuffed when I started but they both were “full”.

musicstash

To see what others are up to hop over to Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall