It’s taken 4 years, but the matching pillowcases for my Christmas En Provence are done. And the fabric is put away.
Category Archives: En Provence
En Provence
In all of the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the quilt show, I didn’t get all of my finishes posted. Since the show, I’ve been piecing up a storm as well, resulting in limited blogging as well. Hopefully over the next couple of days I’ll get caught up.
En Provence was the Winter 2016 Quiltville Mystery Quilt. I did fairly well keeping up with the clues finishing the top in February 2017. I did add extra borders so make it larger.
On a roll, I promptly went out and purchased the batting and backing for the quilt, but then I didn’t get in to quilt it until after Thanksgiving.
Did I mention this is a big quilt? 108 inches square. I did not get it finished in the time I had available to me. I pulled it off the frame tossed it in the back of my car where it road around for a few weeks before I brought it in side, tossing it on my ironing board. It became Butterscotch’s favorite spot.
Somewhere along the way she threw a hairball up on the quilt. Yuk. Eventually I moved the quilt. It resided in the 2nd bedroom, the living room and our bedroom before it made it back to the sewing room.
Then when my sister got her long arm quilting machine, I spent about 2 weeks ripping out the quilting I had done. Butterscotch “helped” me.
Eventually I got over to my sister’s and got it quilted. I had lots of help from Butterscotch again putting the binding on.
But eventually I got it done and was able to hang it to take pictures.
I needed an extra wide backing, so picked this because of the color. I don’t think I really saw it until it was hanging.
On my list to do is make some pillow cases. I have a bit of the border fabric, some of the backing, the blue I used for binding and some of the red. I don’t think all of the cases will be exactly alike, but that will be OK.
Here is a bit of the quilting detail. I used a holly E2E design that was pre-loaded on the computer, so I don’t know the name of the design. Buttercup Glide thread was used in the needle and bobbin. The batting is Hobb’s Bleached Tuscany 100% Cotton.
The final size after quilting and washing is about 104 inches.
Started piecing: 11/2/16
Top completed: 2/10/17
Finished: 9/25/18
En Provence Is a Top
Last Saturday I finally got the borders on En Provence. I opted for the nutcrackers to be feet out and put the borders on log cabin style. So with the exception of a future label and/or hanging sleeve, this quilt will have no top or bottom as it finishes at 108″ square.
Now to find or make a wide enough backing. I’m leaning toward THIS from Nancy’s Notions. In the meantime, the top is folded up with the extra blue, red, and nutcracker fabrics.
Edited:
Here’s the final link up for En Provence.
What’s On My Design Wall
Over the weekend I joined another UFO Challenge. It works on a simple principle — saying no new projects until you’ve finished your UFOs is not realistic. Simply pick 4 UFOs you are going to work on this year and report on them. So I picked the following 4 UFOs.
- Green and Blue Strip Twist
- Candy Sunflower Seeds (top only)
- Blue Disappearing 9-Patch
- Green and Cream Swap
Little did I know that I should have put En Provence on my list. I’ve stalled at the borders. The borders that I knew what I was planning to do.
The quilt, as designed, was finished Friday evening, and cat approved. Saturday the blue border and additional round of neutral 4-patches were added. That’s where I got stuck.
The nutcrackers are directional. Do I cut the borders so they all march the same direction, giving the quilt a top and bottom? March the nutcrackers vertically around the quilt counter-clockwise? Have them all stand at attention feet (not that they have any feet) in or feet out? There is only 3 yards of fabric, but still each of these options is an option — but I would like at least two pillowcases to match the quilt.
So, leaning toward feet out, I put the top on the bed and hung the border fabric to see what I thought.
I need the additional width on the quilt. It just hangs over the bottom of the mattress. But I’m not positive this is what I want to do. So, I folded up the quilt top, the nutcracker fabric, the blue, and the red that I used in the top and have set it aside, as I’ve want/need to finish the Disappearing 9-patch.
My main sewing machine was pulled from the table. The treadle machine opened up.
A couple of orphan blocks became a practice piece.
The backing was pulled out and pressed. The dining room table cleared, leaves added and covered. The backing rolled up on my 2 x 8. The batting spread out. That’s when I discovered I didn’t have any basting spray. I thought I did. But it has been a year since I used any. So off to WM we went. In and out with only the basting spray. Probably a first for me.
The backing is now attached to the batting and the top is pressed.
But I ran out of steam. Tonight I’ll finish basting the quilt and then start quilting it.
See what others are working on over at Patchwork Times.
What’s On My Design Wall
Yes, it’s En Provence, the Bonnie Hunter mystery. The pattern is still available HERE.
For two weeks I’ve been telling myself that over the 3 day weekend I would pull out the Blue Disappearing 9-Patch and quilt it. But, I just can’t move away from En Provence. I can’t decide if it is because I’m afraid it will be months before I get back to it or because I’m so close to finishing it. Although “so close” in this instance is realistically close to 10 hours. At least for the first couple of blocks they were taking me about an hour each to make.
There are two more up on the design wall.
Of course they may go faster now that I have gone through and pulled all of the pieces for each block so I don’t have to make that decision before starting to sew a block.
I’ve also swapped out my leader/ender project for the border. For a brief time, I was sewing 1-1/2″ squares together for the postage stamp quilt.
Then I switched back to pieces for En Provence. I’m now sewing 4-patches together for the borders. I hope that by the time I have the center finished, I’ll have the extra border pieced together.
I’ve tried webbing blocks together in the past, but have not had much luck. It’s working this time, and I’m convinced that it is making these blocks go together quicker than my usual assembly process. This is the bottom left corner block, so I have the bottom sashing attached.
As for the Blue Disappearing 9-patch? Perhaps next weekend.
See what others are working on over at Patchwork Times.
3280 Units
It’s taken 7 weeks, but all of the parts for En Provence, the Bonnie Hunter Mystery, (instructions are still available until the end of the month HERE) are completed and trimmed, including the extra neutral 4-patches to enlarge the quilt.
I’ve even have completed 2 blocks with sashing!
I’m not a big fan of ‘webbing’ quilt tops — it get’s too unwieldy for me. But I tried it for this 6 x 6 block. Other than one piece being turned wrong it worked out pretty well.
I see now why I had one piece turned wrong in my first block — it was wrong on the flannel board. The first time I pressed after the entire block was sewn together. For the second block I pressed the seams for each row before sewing the rows together and I think the block went together better.
Now that the units are made, this is going together quickly. Who knows, I might end up with a quilt top before the month is out — but I really need to stop and quilt the Disappearing 9-patch this weekend. There is the thread of ice, which may mean we will lose power. So, maybe I’ll keep working on En Provence until that happens, then work on the DP9 — the plan is to quilt it on the treadle.
What’s On My Design Wall – En Provence – Final Link Up
Today is the final link up for the Bonnie Hunter’s Free En Provence Mystery Quilt. The pattern is still available HERE until the end of the month.
I had great hopes of finishing the top, or at least getting all of the units completed, but this cold/crud that showed up after Christmas has kept me sitting at the sewing machine for very long. The picture above is all of the units I’ve completed — except for the ones up on the design wall.
Once the reveal was made, I finished cutting the fabric for the remaining units. I stitch some on each unit, then press, and trim. Up next are the parts for 10 hourglass units, 10 hour glasses and 10 4-patches.
I still have the hourglass units from the last batch left to trim.
In theory this keeps me from sitting for hours, getting tired of just trimming and keeps the quilt moving forward. I have a few more rounds to go.
In the meantime, I’ve put up some of the pieces on the design wall, along with my border fabric. I’d like the quilt to fit my king size mattress, so I need to have the quilt finish around 95″ x 106″ without a pillow tuck. Needless to say the final layout is up in the air. 
Making the quilt 5 x 5 blocks then adding the nutcracker fabric brings the quilt size up to 117″ square, which is really larger than I’d like. On the other hand this might work:
This design will require another 124 neutral 4-patches and the quilt will finish at 106″ square, which will allow for a pillow tuck. As much as I’d like to push through and finish the top, I need to quilt the Blue Disappearing 9-Patch before the end of the month. Once I stitch up what I currently have cut, I’ll box it up, along with nutcracker, blue and neutral fabrics for a decision later in the year.
Check out the Mystery Link Up and Design Wall Monday.
The Final Countdown – Task Three
Shelly over at Prairie Moon Quilts is again hosting the Final Countdown — a set of tasks to clear the deck so to speak to get us ready to quilt in the new year.
It’s a good thing she’s given us until the 6th to do this. As weird as last year was I really haven’t given it much thought and it doesn’t look like I was committed to anything. Blogging was minimal, no ‘quilt’ finishes, although I did make a bunch of zipper pouches and a Bionic Gear Bag — that was back in the summer and the fabric is STILL sitting out on my flat surfaces — you know the ones that were part of Task Two?
My UFO count – both tops needing to be quilted and tops I’m still piecing has gone up – by a total of 5 — if my notes are correct. Bottomline there are 25 quilt tops in the queue and another 32 quilts I’m still piecing, including En Provence which I started Thanksgiving weekend.
Scraps and fabric is all over the place — I have piles of fabric from both Allietare and En Provence sitting about as neither quilt top is completed. The fabric from the BGB is still sitting out as I planned to make some accessories to go with it. Shoot, my bag from the quilt retreat is still half packed.
Last year I started off in numerous challenges, but in the end I dropped out. So this year I’m going to commit to the following:
- Complete the En Provence Mystery Quilt top – I’m working on the last two clues now.
- Quilt the Blue Disappearing 9-patch. The top was finished in January and the pieced backing sometime the first half of the year. I’ve dug out the backing and removed the cat hair. Now both the top and backing need to be pressed and sandwiched together so I can quilt it.
- The Green and Cream quilt. This was a Christmas 2015 UFO! I unearthed it while working on the space between the cutting board and the designwall.
- The blue and green Strip Twist.
- Process the boxes of fabric scraps into the Scrap Users System. This will need to be a long-term project as I have the equivalent of 4 or 5 book boxes (if not more) worth of scraps and my pre-cut scraps are getting thin. This task also includes putting away the fabric that is laying out and about.
- Determine what I’m going to do with the upholstery samples I picked up off of CraigsList. There are 3 boxes in the garage and in the stack by the design wall. At first glance these are not as usable as the one I made the zipper bags from last summer.
If I can stay focused and get these six tasks done I will be thrilled. Stay tuned.
What’s On My Design Wall – En Provence Edition Part 5
Part five of Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery quilt came out late Thursday night. It’s still not too late to join. The instructions can be found HERE.
Even with the hustle and bustle surrounding Christmas, I finished the clue – admittedly early Monday morning – but it’s the first clue I’ve finished between the release of the instructions and the link-up.
More progress was made on clue # 1. If I’ve counted correctly, I have enough pairs of 2-patches to complete the clue. I’ve been sewing a single pair of 2-patches into a 4-patch as my leader/ender.
I sewed 8 of the half square triangle units followed by 20 dark/light green (remember my colors have been swapped out) 2-patches for Clue # 3 then got up to press and trim.
So now, I have Clues # 2, #4, and #5 complete.
I don’t go back to work until Wednesday, so I have 2 more days to sew. I have 2 projects I need to work on — getting last year’s mystery off the design wall and quilting a top that I finished in January. Who knows which one I’ll work on this week.
In the meantime, I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday and the Mystery Link-up.
What’s on My Design Wall – En Provence Edition Part 4
Part three four of Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery quilt came out on Friday. It’s not too late to join. The instructions can be found HERE.
No, the first picture is not of part 4, but rather the completed Clue # 2! I swapped the magenta out and used royal blue for my Christmas colored quilt. That’s not to say that I didn’t make progress on Clue # 4.
Friday evening all I got done was cutting Clue # 4. That’s the dark green in the picture above. I’m subbing dark and light green for purple and lavender. When I took this picture I thought the pile of neutral squares was short compared to the greens, but since I had already stitched a few 2-patches as my leader and enders, I thought that explained the difference. It wasn’t until I had the 2-patches paired up that I realized I don’t have enough neutral squares cut.
But that’s OK — It’s not a race, I’m on PTO this week and I need a leader/ender project to finish up a couple of projects.
This morning I stitched up 10 of Clue #4.
I see more sewing in my future this week between decorating and baking.
I’m linking up to the Mystery Link Up and Design Wall Monday.
