Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Quilts

What’s on my Design Wall

December 6, 2010 6:27 am ⋅

Thanksgiving weekend I discovered I didn’t have anything really portable to take to a sew in.  I’m working on the Cream & Green quilt, the Double Wedding Ring and No Blue Geese — but currently it’s all in the hand work stage and rather large to tote around.  Not wanting to start anything new, I pulled down my box containing this quilt –well really just the letters and prepped about 1/2 of my letters.    This project can’t be completed until sometime in May, so I’m sporadically working on it.

In the meantime, I’m still working on my Double Wedding Ring —  Started the 6th row last night.  I’m also working on No Blue Geese.  I quilted a large pleat into the backing, so I’m having to stitch it down by hand.  Once I get that done, I’ll put the binding on and post a photo.  The Cream and Green quilt is still waiting on some handwork as well.

Check out other design walls for more inspiration by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Cream & Green Swap Sampler, crossword, designwall, dwr, No Blue Geese

Chain of Stars is Finished

November 27, 2010 8:11 pm ⋅

This is my Red, White & Blue Chain of Stars.  Started in 2007, this was the first mystery quilt pattern I wrote.  I did this scrappy version and a version in Pink & Black using just three fabrics.  The photo is not great, but if tomorrow is as pretty as today was, I’ll take it outside to see if I can get a better picture.

It is quilted with basic straight line quilting on the diagonal, through the blue chains and diagonal sides of the star points.  This extends to the red border. Stitch in the ditch between the red and beige border and then curved stitching in the red border reminiscent  of bunting.  At least that’s what I was trying to do.  I used my favorite khaki thread for the quilting.

The quilt measures approximately 62 x 79 and there are two matching pillow cases.

Although this is not one of the three UFOs I plan on finishing for Finn’s New Year’s Eve UFO Challenge, it was a UFO.

Posted in: Chain of Stars, finish, UFOs

Quilting My Flying Geese

November 25, 2010 9:25 pm ⋅

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.  Today kicks off a week of vacation.  I don’t have to be back at work until the 6th.  I plan to use this time off to make significant progress on several of my quilts which are close to being finished.

Next Tuesday I have time reserved on a long arm.  I’ve decided to take “No  Blue Geese in My Tropical Garden”.  Instead of loading it top to bottom, I’m going to load it side to side as illustrated below:

In the black inner borders and the tropical print, I’m planning on doing a string of feathers.  I know that they will be nearly impossible to see – especially since I plan to use black thread — but since these will be my first feathers, I don’t know that I want them seen.

The geese, I plan on outlining and running a squiggle through.

That leaves the piano key borders and the cornerstones.

I could do the same thing on the cornerstones as the strip of geese — but I haven’t figured out how to do it continuously.

As for the piano keys, I have no idea, so I’m open to suggestion.  And yes, I plan to turn the quilt to get the top and bottom borders.

In the meantime, I’ve got to finish up the quilting and borders on Chain of Stars and put in some time on the Double Wedding Ring.  For that, I’ve borrowed my niece’s Harry Potter video collection to watch/listen to while I’m hand quilting.

Posted in: No Blue Geese

What’s on my Design Wall

November 22, 2010 9:29 am ⋅

Not exactly on my design wall, but this is the quilt I’m working on this week.  Yesterday I bought fabric for the backing.  Tonight I’ll piece the back, sandwich the quilt and start the quilting.

Check out what’s on other design wall by following the links on Patchwork Times.

Posted in: Chain of Stars, designwall

Did I Really Start a New Project?

November 16, 2010 6:00 am ⋅

Last month at Quilt Guild, one of the ladies had a reversible Christmas string quilt.  It was pieced/quilted one block at a time, then sewn together with a thin sashing to cover where the blocks joined.  Although I’m not describing the technique well, it was added to my list to do “some day”.

For the past month, I’ve been telling myself I don’t need to start a new quilt.  I’ve got the Double Wedding Ring, Green & Cream and Compass Lone Star to finish by the end of the year.

So, what did I do this weekend instead of working on the listed projects?  I dug into my batting scraps — and I’m not talking about the 23″ x 45″ piece trimmed off a quilt, but rather the pieces which are weird sizes  – 5″ on one end and then narrow down to 2″ over the course of 40″ in length (how do these weird pieces happen?). Or the 4 – 8″ HST (no idea where those came from).  The bits and pieces which most “normal” people would throw away.

Anyway, i pulled them out and started sewing them together.  I ended up with two  pieces large enough for baby quilts.  Then I started cutting them into 8″ squares to make the String Quilt.

After I had a stack of batting squares I should have stopped and put them away, but no, I pulled out my floral fabrics – light, red and greeen – and started cutting 8″ squares of backing fabric.  I don’t have all the backing fabric cut, but as some point I decided I might only want to make a baby quilt instead of a twin.

Perhaps now that I’ve got 4 blocks up on my Design Wall, I’ll get back to business and work on the quilts which I need to finish by the end of the year.

Posted in: String Quilt

What’s on my Design Wall

November 14, 2010 11:47 pm ⋅

Yesterday I promised I’d show my progress on the Cream & Green Swap quilt. This is one of my quilts which is on several of my UFO challenge lists, including the New Year’s Eve UFO Challenge which Finn is hosting.  This weekend I got about halfway through putting two rows together.

I still need to stitch down the seam allowance on the back, and then stitch in the ditch between the sashing and first row.

Follow the links over at Patchwork Times for other inspiration.

Posted in: Cream & Green Swap Sampler, designwall

Oops Repaired

November 9, 2010 9:08 pm ⋅

Several people commented that they couldn’t see the problem on my Blue Ridge Beauty. Pictured here it is the before (left) and after (right) I fixed it. Still needs borders, but I’m pretty sure that’s going to require a run to the LQS.

Posted in: Blue Ridge Beauty

What’s on my Design Wall

November 7, 2010 11:37 pm ⋅

Very little quilting was accomplished this weekend. After working all night Friday night/Saturday morning, I didn’t get going good until, well, I’m still not going good Sunday evening. I did get out of the house Saturday afternoon for the quilt show, then when I got home, we turned around (after a 2 hour nap on my part) and took my niece to dinner. Sunday we were out all day – church and then shopping — at a MALL. And I had new heels on. That’s a story for another time. Anyway, we finally got home about 3:30 and I put my feet up.

I worked some more on the on Double Wedding Ring, but I still have a melon, two arcs and the cornerstones and before I’ll be done with the 4th ring on the 5th row, with three more rings to get done before Wednesday. Check back Wednesday to see if I get it done.

Briefly I worked on the Cream & Green blocks — the first row is put together and I’ve got two blocks on the second row together, the backing just needs stitching down. Before long I’ll have to make a border decision.

When I bought the sashing and cornerstone fabric, I bought enough for borders and binding. I just don’t remember if I was planning on design #1 or design #2:

Option # 1


Option # 2

Both of these options makes the quilt a full size quilt. However, if I leave the borders off and just bind it in green, it will be twin size — not to mention I’ll have enough of the sashing fabric to make the body of pillow case (probably have enough to make the cuff if I go with a larger quilt).

Option # 3

This quilt doesn’t have a destination — yet — so I can’t use that as my guide. Right now I’m leaning toward no borders, but that may be because I’m tired. At least I don’t have to make that decision immediately.

Follow the links over at Patchwork Times to see what others have on their design wall.

Posted in: Cream & Green Swap Sampler, designwall, dwr

Progress and Procrastination

November 4, 2010 11:29 pm ⋅

This week I wanted to get 4 of the Cream & Green swap blocks quilted, 2 rows of Blue Ridge Beauty assembled and finish quilting the 5th row of the Double Wedding Ring. Here it is Friday morning and I’ve finish assembling the center of Blue Ridge Beauty (admittedly I need to do a bit of ripping to fix it, but still…) and I’ve done the quilting on not 4 but 7 of the Cream & Green swap blocks (bringing my total to 12 of 20).

The good news is that the Cream & Green quilt is on my list for the New Year’s Eve UFO Challenge Finn is hosting, but all this work does mean I’ve been procrastinating on the Double Wedding Ring. But I have figured out what part of the reason is.

A couple of days ago I opened up a new package of needles. I’m not sure if it’s the older needles or the newer needles, but my fingers on the left hand are getting beat up this week — which is odd since I’m quilting with a stab stitch. Regardless of my stuck fingers, I need to get on the ball and make some progress this weekend. Check back with me next week to see if I get this 5th row quilted by Wednesday.

Posted in: Cream & Green Swap Sampler

Oops

November 4, 2010 4:00 am ⋅

This week I wanted to get two more rows of blocks sewn together. I got on a roll and finished up all the rows and started sewing the rows together. I even turned the two center blocks on the top row. Once I sewed the last seam I hung it up to photograph it.

Oops! That doesn’t look right.

Took me a minute but I figured it out. I had the top in two halves — that center seam was the last seam sewed. Apparently I sewed the top to the middle. Ugh! I see ripping in my future.

Upon closer look, the last block on the 3rd row appears to be turned as well. Fiddlesticks.

Does anyone see anything else?

Posted in: Blue Ridge Beauty