Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Retreat Flimsy Four

April 23, 2009 6:53 am ⋅

This is the last of the quilt tops I finished at the retreat. This is my husband’s music quilt.

It started innocently enough. On a road trip, I stopped in a quilt shop and saw some music fabric and picked up a couple of FQs back in the Spring of 2003. At the time, I was still knitting, and quilting had not taken over. DH suggested that I make him a quilt, using just music fabrics using a repeat from each fabric. I nodded, the quilter in me wanting to piece, and started collecting music fabric everywhere I went.

Fast forward 5 years and now I have two drawers full of music fabric, only a handful repeated. I continued collecting since I hadn’t started the quilt, and had no idea what I was going to do. DH’s idea was beginning to look better and better.

Then I saw a quilt on the Quilt in a Day forum that someone had posted. She had taken squares of floral print and set them with sashing forming stars. I knew then what I was going to do with my music fabric. I wish I could remember who the quilter was to thank her for the inspiration.

Before I left for retreat, all the sashings were pieced, the top half of the quilt was sewn together and I had two additional rows sewn together, so it came together pretty quickly.

There are 168 different fabrics, no two a like. I even printed my own square, scanning in an original composition my husband hand wrote, Large Egg Rag.

Naturally, this didn’t make a dent in my music fabric, so there is another music quilt in my future some day.

P.S. I just found the link to the inspiration quilt.

Posted in: music quilt, QIAD, retreat

Retreat Flimsy Three

April 23, 2009 6:14 am ⋅

It seems it doesn’t matter how careful I am when I’m packing for a trip, I will always leave something at home. This retreat was no exception.

A week before I left, I pressed and folded all of my border fabrics and quilt tops I was planning on working on. Everything had to fit in my tote bag as there were 3 of us hauling sewing machines, stuff to work on, clothes and bedding to the retreat and it had to fit in my Escape.

Saturday morning I pulled out the Old Tobacco Road and realized I had left the pieced cornerstones at home, but I did have 6 extra flying geese with me. What to do?

Well, I could cut some pinwheels from the extra geese, but that would only give me enough for 2 cornerstones. I ran around bumming yellow fabric, but when I realized how many little pieces went into the cornerstones, I opted to use a single yellow, cutting into the 1/2 yard I purchased on my way to the retreat. Yellow solved. That left the green and purple.

Purple was easy. I had not cut off the ends of the bricks to square the quilt up, so all the pinwheels came from the end bricks. I just had to borrow a ruler. — no I didn’t take my ruler since I was just putting borders on the quilts.

The green turned out to be easy enough as well. I had two choices. I had two different greens with me for the inner border. I could use one of them, or I could go scrappy by pulling apart some of the 2-patches I was sewing into 4-patches as leader/enders. I opted for the 2nd choice.

With the exception of the borders and the aforementioned yellow, this quilt was from my stash. I try not to buy fabric for mystery quilts, so when picking the fabric I had to come up with a color palette from my stash. I picked green, yellow and purple, thinking Mardi Gras, but the quilt doesn’t say that to me. In fact, after I had half of it finished I was wondering about my choices, but as I added each section to the quilt, I decided I liked it better. All I have to do now is pick a name.

I’m thinking something about spring plowing. The purple/lavender reminds me of the blue/purple plant that tends to grow in the fields before they are planted around here.

Posted in: OTR, retreat

Retreat Quilt Flimsy Two

April 22, 2009 7:20 pm ⋅

This is my Stack-n-Whack that I started at the April 2006 Retreat. A couple of months after the retreat, I had about 1/2 of the blocks done and then the quilt was put aside for something else. Last year it was on my list of UFOs to work on. My goal was to get it to the top stage. I took it to the Kansas Troubles Quilters Retreat this past November with the intention of finishing it, but decided it needed something besides the floral border. I tried several fabrics and then someone handed me a dark green paper napkin. It was just the thing to set it off. So then I had to locate the fabric.

I found a pretty green batik, which is next to impossible to see in the picture. There is a 1/2 inch green border separating the floral border from the body of the quilt. That was the easy part. I spent quite a bit of time crawling around on the floor figuring out how to square up the quilt. Fortunately, there were blue and black alternating tiles on the floor which made this much easier. Sure wish I remembered to take my knee pads with me.

Posted in: retreat, Stack-n-Whack

Retreat Quilt Flimsy One

April 22, 2009 6:52 am ⋅

In addition to visiting with friends from across the country (I think the count was 13 states) and meeting new people, my goal was to get the borders on my quilts. I took six quilts — 4 just needed borders, one needed the blocks sewn together and one is a stripy quilt which just needed the strips sewn together. I got 4 done to the top stage. My Black and White Strip Twist was the first quilt top to be finished. I started this quilt Super Bowl Weekend. It’s a Bonnie Hunter/Quiltville.com pattern.

We arrived Thursday afternoon around 2:00 PM. After setting up, I got to work. There was plenty of space to stretch out the quilt to measure it without getting in any one’s way. Has the power not gone out in a ’10 grid’ area, I would have finished it Thursday night. Instead, I went to bed early and got up Friday morning about 5:30 AM. I am NOT a morning person, so this was unusual for me.

Posted in: retreat, Strip Twist

Stash Report Week # 16

April 21, 2009 7:27 pm ⋅

This report is a couple of days late as I didn’t get back from my quilt retreat until Monday evening and then I collapsed! Too much fun and then too much driving. I finished four quilt tops (3 only needed borders and the 4th just needed the blocks sewn together) over the weekend, and got the inner border added to a 5th quilt. The side bars have been updated, and I’ll get pictures added later this week.

I did not stay out of the quit stores though, so the report is mixed.

Fabric Added this Week: 11.75 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 112.5 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 8.5 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 35.83 yards

Net Stash: +76.67 yards

My machine is in the shop for a check up/cleaning, so there won’t be much used up this week.

Posted in: Stash Busting Report

Stash Report Week #15

April 12, 2009 8:55 am ⋅

This past week I made a gift for a secret sister exchange, the Decadent Victorian Jacket and the Kansas Troubles Stash Society binder cover.

Fabric bought includes the binding fabric for the jacket – I wanted long unpieced bias strips, so that was a yard – most of which ended up in the stash, a music themed FQ, and FQs for a gift. Technically, the gift FQs aren’t going into my stash, but I didn’t setup my spreadsheet to track gift purchases separately.

Fabric Added this Week: 2.75 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 100.75 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 5.25 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 27.33 yards

Net Stash: +73.42 yards

Posted in: DV Sweatshirt, finish, KTS, Stash Busting Report

Decadent Victorian Jacket

April 11, 2009 8:38 am ⋅

The jacket is finished. I used most of a jelly roll and charm pack of Decadent Victorian which I purchased a couple of years ago.

Posted in: finish

Where has the Week Gone?

April 9, 2009 4:03 pm ⋅

Here it is Thursday and I’m trying to figure out what I’ve done this week.

Monday – A bit of cleaning to uncover my big board. Then I pressed and carefully folded the fabric I need for the borders of the quilts I’m taking to retreat. I also started ripping the ribbing off of a sweatshirt. Yes, a new project is born and the race is on to see if I can finish it before I leave for retreat next week. I’m using a jelly roll and a charm pack of Decadent Victorian.

Tuesday – I don’t want to repeat Tuesday. I dropped my car off at the repair shop. When he called me back he started the converstion with “You need new tires on top of this amount I’m about to tell you.” Picked up the car and drove straight to the tire shop. Got home late and then started chopping up the Decadent Victorian.

Wednesday – Sewed the chopped up pieced back into strips and got two strips sewn to the sweatshirt. I’m hoping I make more progress this evening.

Posted in: cleaning, DV Sweatshirt

Stash Report Week #14

April 5, 2009 9:04 am ⋅


No dent in my stash this week, although I did get my geese sewn together and one more row sewn together on the music quilt.

On the other hand, I did bring fabric into the house. Last Sunday, when Sandra, the list mom from Stashbusters, was in town, we got together for a visit. She gave me a couple of potholders she made (and I’ve enjoyed using this week) and a yard of pretty green fabric.

Friday morning I picked up the yardage for the borders to OTR. Saturday another 1 1/2 yards for a bag I’m making for a gift. But it was Saturday afternoon which really caused my stash to grow.

A friend of a friend had fabric from her mother’s or grandmother’s estate. The boxes contained a little of everything, about 1/2 of it cotton. Of the cotton I brought home 13 pieces. I just finished measuring it. There’s 48 1/4 yards there — but it’s all 36″ wide. I did some fancy math to figure out what the works out to in 42″ wide fabric on the theory that if a pattern today calls for 1 yard of fabric, 1 yard of this vintage fabric won’t be enough — I’ll need about 42″.

Fabric Added this Week: 47.75 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 98 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 22.08 yards

Net Stash: +75.92 yards

Posted in: music quilt, OTR, Stash Busting Report, vintage fabric

Can I Stop Cleaning?

April 3, 2009 9:43 pm ⋅

In two weeks I’m going to a 4 day quilt retreat. Invariatebly, I take way more than I can accomplish, but I like a variety of projects so I don’t get bored. Not finishing what I take is not an issue for me (if it was, my UFO list wouldn’t have 33 partially completed tops on it). Anyway, this year I’m going to focus on borders. – Note to self, find knee pads for crawling around on cement floor.

However, working or borders all weekend will get boring, so I’m going to take atleast one PIG (project in grocery sack). I easily have a dozen to choose from, but decided I wanted to work on Springtime at Heritage which is the kit pictured above.

I bought it in Septemeber and it’s been kicking around in my sewing room ever since. The only problem was I couldn’t find it.

My sewing room is divided into two main spaces — a u-shaped area with my personal computer, work computer and sewing table and the rest of the room where I hope someday to have two casual chairs and an occassional table. Or where I can set up a couple of tables and have friends over for a sew-a-thon. On the wall are shelving units with my fabric, completed tops, ufos and pigs. That’s the only area which is really well organized. The u-shaped area is messy but functional and the other half of the room needs cleaning.

So, for the last couple of days I’ve been “cleaning at” the other side of the room a couple of minutes at a time looking for the fabric kit. Tonight I finally found it. So can I stop cleaning?

Oh, click here for the quilt pattern I’m using.

Posted in: Springtime, UFOs