Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Gracie’s Progress

October 13, 2015 11:59 pm ⋅

Gracie

Gracie (and Butterscotch) came to live with us just over a year ago — September 27th to be exact. It’s only been in the last month or so that anyone besides my husband or I have seen Gracie except in pictures. Someone knocks on the door or rings the bell and she’s off under the bed and we won’t see her for a while.

Late August friends started coming over for music lessons from my husband. These days, Gracie is out and about in 5 or 10 minutes after they leave. Of course now that I think about it, that is around time for me to feed the cats.

Last week our friends were with my husband at one end of the house for their music lesson and I was at the other end working. I turned around and saw that Gracie was on my quilt. Usually Butterscotch takes up residence on the sewing table. Then it hit me. Gracie wasn’t under the bed and there were people in the house!

As our friends were leaving, I spotted Gracie by the back window. I motioned for the youngest to come peer over the back of the chair, but Gracie ran through the kitchen and around the corner then stopped. She spotted us through the open doorway. So, we had a staring contest for a few moments – she looking at us and we looking at her. It was a cool moment given that she spent the first month or so hiding under our bed even from us.

Posted in: Gracie

Hardware

October 13, 2015 12:44 pm ⋅

hardwaretop
Why is it the simplest of things take the longest?

A friend bought this fabric on a quilt retreat I think in April 2010. A year or so later while her sewing area was ‘under construction’ I got the fabric to quickly put it together. Here we are 5 1/2 years from the purchase.

The top didn’t take me long, but I guess I wasn’t looking forward to mitering the border. I found a solution – skip the miter. Of course it probably took just as long to do the 4 pieced blocks by the time I found enough fabric.

I think this quilt will get a shirting backing with blocks of the border fabric.

Posted in: Uncategorized

What’s On My Design Wall

October 12, 2015 6:34 am ⋅

dw1012-1This weekend I started working on the last shirting backing then I got distracted by a new quilt (it’s on the Crazy Challenge II list so it’s OK). I think I still would have been OK, if I had then focused on one or the other, instead I messed with both and didn’t get either finished.  Since I’m setting aside Tuesday’s to work on Sew Scrappy, I’m not sure what I’m going to do today after work — finish piecing the last two blocks and put the border on the new quilt, finish piecing the backing, start cutting more squares from my shirts to make a quilt backing for the new quilt, or baste one of the Disappearing 9-Patch quilts.  Perhaps a nap is in order.

dw1012-2I’ve got the last two blocks ready to stitch together, shirt squares at the ready and my tumbler L/Es handy.

See what others are working on by hopping over to Patchwork Times.

 

Posted in: designwall, goals, UFOs

Stash Report

October 11, 2015 12:26 am ⋅

Another week where money was spent, but it didn’t include fabric. It’s was 8-cents. Well, it was 8-cents after I used my gift card. I bought a cone of my favorite grey piecing thread and a package of rotary blades both which will be here on Monday.  In the meantime the little bit of piecing I’ve done has been done in whatever thread was handy.

On the fabric front, I get to count the backing, binding and pillowcase for my Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler Swap quilt. I’ve started piecing the last shirt back and hope to get the 2 Disappearing 9-patches basted this week. We’ll see  how things go.

Fabric Added Since Last Report 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 193.198 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 5.75 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 109.628 yards

INCREASE in Stash to Date:  83.51 yards

See how others are doing over at Patchwork Times.

 

Posted in: Stash Busting Report

Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler Swap Quilt is Done

October 10, 2015 8:41 pm ⋅

sbswashed

This quilt is from the Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler Swap Blue &  Brown Swap back in October 2009. Looking black through the blog, it seems I made my blocks that August and September, 6 of 5 different blocks, then I made 2 more after the swap to have enough to complete this layout.  The blocks are from around the world – Australia, Canada, Ireland, The Netherlands, and the USA.

blueandbrownswap

I made the setting blocks at a quilt retreat I went to in April 2012, but it still took me until that November to complete the top.

The backing is a braid/cable print that  I picked up while on a quilt shop run at the retreat.

sbsbacklabel

  • Top Started: 8/4/2009
  • Top Completed: 11/10/12
  • Quilt Completed: 10/7/15
  • Batting: Hobbs Tuscany 100% Bleached Cotton
  • Thread: Cario-quilt 100% cotton #27407 Military Gold
  • Quilted on my Husqvarna Quilt Designer
  • Susie’s Magic Binding
  • Measures 61″ x 76″ after washing

sbscase

This quilt is on my list for the 4th Quarter Finish Along – I’m sending it to Aunt Marti for the UFO Parade. It’s also being sent in for the 2015 UFO Busting over at Field Trips in Fiber.  It is part of the scope creep of the Crazy Challenge II which started August 15th.

Posted in: block swaps, Challenges, Finish-A-Long - 2015, SBS, UFO Busting - 2015

Susie’s Magic Binding

October 8, 2015 1:23 am ⋅

sbsbind

 

I’ve used Susie’s Magic Binding before, and I’ll use it again. I love it. It takes a bit more fabric than traditional binding and a bit longer to make, but once it’s attached to the quilt, it can be stitched down very quickly by machine.

This quilt is 65″ x 80″, so I would need 20″ of fabric with a traditional binding (I cut mine 2-1/2″ wide). Using Susie’s Magic Binding, I needed 26″ of fabric – 14″ of the accent fabric and 12″ of the main fabric. But, it only took 30 minutes to stitch it down – primarily because I don’t have to pin it except for the corners.

Next up the coordinating pillowcase (it’s cut) and the label.

Posted in: binding

4th Quarter Finish Along

October 7, 2015 9:54 pm ⋅

2015 FAL at On the Windy Side

It’s the 4th quarter and time to list what I want to finish this quarter. I’m going to start out with the remainder of the items on my Crazy Challenge II list along with the scope creep items.

Crazy Challenge II:

4thQtr

SBS Block Swap, Red Disappearing 9-patch, Black & Bright Swap, Sew Scrappy, Pink & Brown, 5 pillowcases, Cream &  Green Swap, B&W Strip Twist, Christmas Crazy 8 , Christmas Row Quilt, Compass Lone Star, Aiming for Accuracy, Orange Crush, Alphabet BOM, Green Disappearing 9-patch, and Hardware.

With most of the above absolutely needing to be done, I have no business listing anything else as possibility. But on the other hand, Out of the Blue wasn’t on my realistic radar last quarter and it got finished, so here are the rest of the candidates.

I started writing this post about 2 weeks ago, but another quilt has popped up. Fortunately it doesn’t have to be done by the end of the year, but it’s in line ahead of the ones below — in theory.  I need to make a Strip Twist quilt in soothing blues and greens.

StripTwist

To Be Quilted:

tops1

Stack-n-Whack, 2011 Retreat Mystery (Large), 2012 Retreat Mystery, Fairy Frost Sunset, 2011 Retreat Mystery (small), 2008 Retreat Swap, Whitework, Mom’s Stacked 4-patch, Scrap Patch Hearts, Baby B&W, Stacked 4-patch, Raising Case, Estate Dove in the Window, Pink & Black Stacked 4-patch, Christmas BOM, Machine Quilting Sampler, Thangles II, Old Tobacco Row, Moda U Sampler, and B&W Stacked 4-patch.

Works In Progress:

UFO1

Mom’s Thangles BOM, Hancock Stars BOM, Just Takes Two, Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler, Hexie Hand Project, Faux Applique, Postage Stamp L/E, String HST, Candy Sunflower Seeds, Star-A-Day, Lilbet’s Garden, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas II, Tumbler L/E, Redwork Snowmen, Estate DWR, QAYG String Blocks, Sheryl’s Churn Dash, Quilted Sweatshirt, Lee’s Christmas Blocks, Border Class Sampler, QIAD Flying Dutchmen Lotto, Blue Stings, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas I, Lee’s Baskets, Jane’s Hourglass, and Sisters Swap.

Projects In Grocery Sacks:

PIGS

Triangle Frenzy Runner,  “August A”, Squedge Ruler project.

If all goes as expected, most, if not all of the Crazy Challenge II quilts will be done and maybe, just maybe I’ll have something from one of the other lists done as well. Only time will tell.

See all the great projects everyone is working on over at On the Windy Side.

Posted in: Finish-A-Long - 2015

A New UFO Challenge

October 7, 2015 1:37 am ⋅

Jo over at Jo’s County Junction is hosting “finish a UFO before Bonnie’s mystery quilt starts challenge”. One could argue that I have already picked multiple UFOs as part of my Crazy  Challenge II. But I think I’ll use Jo’s challenge to set aside Tuesday to work on Sew Scrappy, a Evelyn Sloppy her book 40 Fabulous Quilt-Cut Quilts and then post my progress on Wednesday.

The quilt is in 2 piles. The one on my desk:

sewscrappydesk

And there’s more of it in a project box near my design wall:

sewscrappybox

Now back to the rest of the UFOs!

 

 

Posted in: Challenges, Sew Scrappy

Ready to Bind

October 7, 2015 1:06 am ⋅

sbsreadyforbinding

Posted in: Challenges, SBS

What’s On My Design Wall

October 5, 2015 12:21 am ⋅

dw1005

As someone said last week, there’s nothing but threads on my design wall. But that’s OK, I’m quilting. For about a week I debated on how I was going to quilt this quilt — the Sylvia Bridal Sampler Blue & Brown Swap. If I quilted in on the long arm, I was leaning toward this design:

sbsquiltdesign

But I didn’t know how I was going to quilt the borders. There’s a lot of ‘negative space’ begging for something cool. Here on the blog, one of my readers suggested since it’s a traditional setting go for traditional quilting and suggested Baptist Fans.  I keyed in on the ‘traditional quilting’ and thought about some of the antique quilts I have and decided even with the ‘negative space’ a grid would be in keeping with the quilt and was something I could manage on my machine here at home.

The grid is completely done in one direction and I’m guessing about 1/3 of the way done in the other direction. My guess is by mid-week I’ll have another finish to report, then I’ll flip back to piecing. That last shirt backing needs to be done and I’d like to baste both Disappearing 9-Patches over the weekend.

See what others are working on over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, SBS