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.

Twisting Star Magnolia

April 1, 2023 7:40 pm ⋅

 

I’ve finished the Twisting Star Magnolia. Years ago, I made another one of these for my mother. The fabric was found on the road trip to Iowa – 3 days and 3 nights, 13 shops. We left Friday after everyone got off from work and spent the night at a hotel on the interstate closest to our first shop.  Shopped all day Saturday. Managed to hit a few shops which were open on Sunday. Stayed another night and hit a few more stores before heading back to Kansas City.  Anyway, I think it was the shop in Ames, Iowa which had this on display and I had to make it for my mother as she was decorating her new home with magnolias. This was my mom’s. I now have it.

 

 

A few years later my friends and I shop hopped our way to St. Louis so I could meet my first great-nephew and I spotted the magnolia fabric in one of the stores.  I bought enough to make 4 more toppers, 1 for each of my husband’s sisters, my aunt, and myself. I did not have the dragonfly fabric, and got 3 of the 4 made.

 

Somewhere along the way I found more the dragonfly fabric in the original wall hanging, but after my mom passed, it came back to me, to the fabric for my quilt has been sitting in my stash as a PIG. I started to send the whole mess to my sister, but decided I’d just make another one to give her. Now that it is done, I’ve put the rest of the fabric back in the stash. It’s off my PIGs list and on my DONE list. Now I just have to remember to take it with me when I travel to Kansas City in a few weeks.

Oh, it’s the first of the month, so I need to do my stash report.

Posted in: Magnolia Wall Hanging, PIGS, Stash Busting Report

Teahouse Garden

March 24, 2023 10:40 pm ⋅

Last week I started cleaning up my the flat surfaces in the Quilt Studio, starting with the cut off backing and batting from the past 6 months of quilts. Among the finds was a length of Teahouse Garden which was long enough and wide enough to make 18 5″ finished 4-patch kaleidoscope blocks.

In addition to the cut off scraps, I dug around for the rest of the fabric and discovered I had just enough fabric  to make a total of 48 blocks — half cut as 4-patches and half cut as hour-glass units.  I had more more yard left so, it became the backing of this unplanned quilt.

Thursday afternoon I loaded it on the longarm and started quilting.  With just 2 half motifs left to quilt, my phone rang and I paused the machine so I could hear.

It was a now retired co-worker with devastating news. She has Stage 4 Lung Cancer and the prognosis is grim.

After getting off the phone I did what quilters do – looked for a quilt to send her. Nothing seemed right in my stack of recently finished quilts, so I went back to finish up Teahouse Gardens and realized I had been working on Anne’s quilt for the past week. Anne loves Bonsai.  In my mind I had just found Anne’s quilt.

It’s packed up to ship out in the morning and I totally forgot to get the final measurements.  But here are the rest of the stats.

  • Started 3/16/2023
  • Finished 3/24/2023
  • Size before washing: 47 x 59
  • Thread: Glide 40wt in Biscotti – 2 bobbins 12 SPI
  • Quilting Motif: Flowers Spirals.  Lengthened to 18″ with a -3 Row Gap
  • Batting: Legacy 80/20
Posted in: Teahouse Gardens

Chilhowie is Finished!

March 23, 2023 9:36 am ⋅

I finished Chilhowie over the weekend. Chilhowie was the 2022-2023 Quiltville Mystery Quilt.  This year there were 7 clues.  I kept up with the piecing through Clue 6, but when the assembly instructions came out in Clue 7 I needed to circle back to make 4 additional blocks. As I was pushing to finish the log cabin quilt, Chilhowie got set aside.

I found a backing in my stash that was perfect for this quilt.

  • Started:  11/25/22
  • Finished : 3/19/23
  • E2E: Fresco Feathers, resized to 16″ with an offset of -4.5
  • Glide 40 wt in Strawberry Blond – 3 bobbins
  • Legacy 80/20 batting
  • Washed Size: 73 3/4 x 90 1/4
Posted in: Uncategorized

Chilhowie is Ready to Quilt

March 18, 2023 12:09 pm ⋅

I’m ready to load Chilhowie on the longarm. I just need to figure out how I’m going to quilt it. It is one row longer than Bonnie’s quilt as I want to put it on a bed. After attaching the last border, I put away all of the fabric processing the bits and pieces into my Scrap Users System. The only fabric left out is yardage for the binding and a matching pillowcase.

 

My leader/ender project this year is Rivanna. Started in August, I’m about 2/5 of from finishing all of the HST I need.

 

Meanwhile, last weekend I decided to go on a road trip to Monroe, Louisiana.  I went specifically to look at the Husqvarna sewing machines. But of course that was in a quilt shop, so a few FQ came home with me.  Eight of those pictured above are from Material Things. The other 8 are from Quilt ‘n Stitch in West Monroe.

Some yardage also came home with me.

Now off to load Chilhowie.

Posted in: Chilhowie, Rivanna, Stash

Chilhowie Ready to Assemble

March 6, 2023 12:31 am ⋅

This past week, I’ve worked on Chilhowie, the 2022-2023 Quiltville Mystery Quilt.  I kept up with the mystery this year, right up until the reveal came out in early January. That’s when I decided I needed 4 more blocks to make the quilt work for me.  But I was distracted finishing some UFOs and starting & finishing a few other projects and Chilhowie was ignored for a couple of months. But now I have the extra blocks made, along with all of the parts and pieces so it is ready to assemble.

On a separate note, I have decided to track my fabric usage like I did when I first started blogging.  Last summer I said I would, and well, that didn’t really happen. But because I spent so much money on fabric and supplies last year when I tallied it after the fact, I’m determined to do better. I want/need to use my stash.  It’s really less about the money and more about using what I have. I have dozens of projects waiting to be made or finished – most with everything  I need to complete the project. I thought I was in a better position, but then realized I had not recorded my San Antonio purchases, which included a kit.

 

 

 

 

Posted in: Chilhowie, Stash Busting Report

The Fabric Did All the Work

February 28, 2023 10:45 am ⋅

I’m calling this Bohemia Twilight Feathers in a nod to both the pattern name — Bohemia, and the fabrics Kaffe Feathers in Cool, and Stonehenge Twilight Ombre.  The binding is Grunge Basics in Tori, and the backing is Groovy Garden Colors in Purple. Truly the fabrics did all the work.

This was a quick start/finish for me.  I bought the fabric for the top and backing Friday afternoon and had a quilt top by Saturday night.  Once I had part of the top done Saturday morning, I ran out and picked up the binding fabric.

Clearly the purples in the quilt are on the blue side and the wall color is on the red side. The first picture is closer to the real colors.

Quilt Stats:

  • Pattern:  Bohemia from Villa Rosa Designs
  • Fabrics: Kaffe Feathers – Cool, Stonehenge – Twilight Ombre, Grunge Basics – Tori,  Groovy Garden Colors – Purple
  • Legacy 80/20 batting
  • Thread: Glide 40 wt Eggplant (2 1/2 bobbins)
  • Edge-to-Edge Design – Feather Wave with -1.75 gap
  • Stitch Length: 12
  • Stitch Count: 95,404
  • Machine Running Time: 2 hours 12 minutes
  • Total time to piece, quilt, trim & bind quilt 13 1/2 hours
  • Washed size 54 1/4 x 70 1/2
Posted in: Bohemia

A 6 Hour Quilt Top

February 26, 2023 1:02 am ⋅

Friday afternoon I drove down to McComb to deliver the Log Cabin quilt to my cousin.  On my way home I stopped in at Gardensong Fabrics in Brookhaven.  Did I need any fabric? No.  But since it is the largest shop around and a little over an hour away from my house, I stopped anyway.  I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, then I remembered Bohemia, a Villa Rosa Design that  I picked up in San Antonio last month.

I stepped outside to get reception on my phone and looked up the pattern to see the requirements. I then asked about ombre fabric.  They had several colors of Stonehenge.

I liked these two, so began looking for a print to go with them.

For the teal I found this Kaffe Chrysanthemum. I think this would be very striking.

For the purple/blue I found this Kaffe feather print.  I ended up choosing the feather.

I picked up 4 yards of this fabric to use for the backing. Although not a perfect match, it was on sale.  I decided to hold off on binding fabric until I saw the quilt top.

Now to get it quilted.

 

 

Posted in: Bohemia

Raising Cane

February 23, 2023 12:56 am ⋅

Raising Cane is now finished.  I sewed the binding on Wednesday night and popped it into the washer.  This is another UFO I can cross off my list.

 

Posted in: Raising Cane, UFOs

Napkins

February 22, 2023 7:51 am ⋅

Cloth napkins have been on my radar for a few months, but I didn’t know what fabric to use. I didn’t want to spend “good money” to buy new fabric and I couldn’t decide on what fabric to “sacrifice” from my stash.  I still wouldn’t have a set of napkins if it hadn’t been for 2 things.  1 – I went over to my SILs house to help her figure out the napkin pattern so she could make some and 2 – I finished the quilting on Raising Cane.

I read the instructions she had. I watched 2 different videos – multiple times.  We folded, pinned, and stitched – multiple times.  My guess is I  spent an hour trying to figure out those mitered corners, but we eventually figured it out.  Then I came home to started cleaning up the Quilt Studio.  I realized there was enough of the backing fabric left from Raising Cane to make 6 napkins — assuming I could find coordinating fabric. I pulled fabric from the FQ boxes. That probably took longer than actually making the napkins.

Eventually after I get my kitchen remodeled, I’ll make some more.

 

Posted in: Napkins

Progress Report

February 20, 2023 9:49 am ⋅

It’s nearly complete.  This is Raising Cane, a Dorothy Young mystery quilt from 2009.  I started quilting it shortly after I got the longarm with no idea of where I was going with it. Then it got pulled off the frame to be completed later.  Later was this weekend.  Is it perfect? No. Is it done? Yes. Well, it still needs to be bound and washed, but that shouldn’t take that long.  The binding is already made.

Also this weekend I attempted to make a reversible napkin with mitered corners. The instructions I started with made absolutely no sense to me, so I watched a couple of videos  Finally figured it out. I have enough of the yellow left over from the backing of Raising Cane to make 6 napkins.  The insides will all be different — whatever I can find in my stash. But nothing will happen until I put my sewing machine back together.

I noticed skipped stitches on the napkin, so I pulled the needle plate off the machine to clean it.  When I put the last screw back in I realized I left the bobbin case out. So, I called it a night.

 

Posted in: Raising Cane ⋅ Tagged: