NewFO Challenge January, 2014

Last weekend I joined another BOM (now many people are probably saying "Are you nuts!!" - the answer is yes) but this one is easy!!!  It's the 2014 NewFO Challenge, and the rules are simple:

Each month, I start something new, at least one thing and I don't have to worry if it's a big project or a small one.  As long as you start it (you don't have to complete it) and then keep on updating CatPatch how the project is going.  You don't have to ever finish it....

You can put the link on CatPatch to your blog entry where your project is explained.  So here is my blog entry and I'm waiting for the "linky party" is up and going, and I'll add it.

So here it is, the project I started this month.  The pattern is called Harmony Rose Quilt From Red Rooster Quilts (Free Pattern)  and although I liked the look of it, I found the instructions a little hard to follow, so I started with the idea, used my own material for Valentine's Day.  From this pattern picture:

To this...

The flowers are made with Clover yoyo maker.  With Clover these yoyos are easy as heck, can make a number of them in an hour, but looks like I'll need more.  Want to add some to the right side.  I tacked each one on, so they're three dimentional.  The vines I made with bias material and double stitched it on.

You can't see it but eh red border has small gold hearts on it.  Perfect for Valentine's Day.  The quilt is a large laptop quilt at this point, perfectly square (it may grow, I seem to like making large quilts.).  The background is a combination of off whites, with the outer border just plain tan.   I have used applique for the centre heart using the pattern's heart, but decided to piece the hearts on the 2nd border.  I'm not sure I'm happy with it yet.  

I also finished a quilt that I started before Christmas.  It's from the winter Issue fromQuilter's World.  The angels are embroidered - red work - but the rest is pieced work.  The squares are "X" quilted, with red thread on the diamonds but the squares are crossed with white.

I did not do any fancy quilting around the angels, I wanted the embroidery to stand out on its' own but after looking at the actual pattern, think I'll try my free-style quilting skills, and do some quilting around them. The pattern has a lot of circle free style. I still love how my pattern looks.

Able to quilt again... Quilt Along

Three weeks ago the rotary blade attacked me and I lost a bit of my finger.  My left index finger has been wrapped up and mending.  Painkillers have helped with sleeping, and a new cutter (see older blog entry) helped me overcome the fear of cutting fabric.

Last night I cut out the material for the Free Motion Quilting Project for the New Building Blocks Quilt

BOM

Along.  It is suppose to be two colour, found some Batik with pink, purple, and grey.  The plain color is pink.  My thread is maroon, and will really stand out.

I've already been practising and I have found that if I move the tension to 4 and of course drop the feeder feet it works better.

Sample of first quilting - getting use to it.

Made the first 3 blocks. Before quilting the first block I made sure to practise.  I can do the straight lines, that's what I've been doing for most of my quilts, but I wanted to watch the tension when free styling.  That takes practise to have the same amount of space between the stitches.  Leah Day has movies to show you how to do the quilting.  She also answers questions on her blog.  Her blog is excellent.  What do you think of my work?


The first block is squares.  There are three of them.  I've only done two but as you can see form the sample piece above, doing a number of the same block is fine because it's the quilting on the block that changes what they look like.  There will be 42 squares in total.  I'm also learning "quilting as you go", a first for me.  Each block will be 9 - 10 inches to be cut down to 8 inches.

First try, I'm not happy with this, need to redo.

2nd try

Not bad - lines are somewhat straight.

I've got another one to do but I've lost the light to do my tracing.  I love the colour of this quilt and the green fabric is the backing.  I got over 6 meters for it.  Should be fine.

I'll continue on with this next week.  I'm just happy to start.  And I need to practise more.

Note:  from the booklet that you purchase there are some corrections but the instructions are excellent and easy to understand.

Finger update and new Challenge

Things are going better now with my little finger accident (my rotary blade attacking me).  A friend is re-wrapping my finger tomorrow and we're checking it out.  

I have started my quilting challenge (see the Building Block Quilt along button on the left side).  I'll be posting some of my blocks that I finished.  There are 42, and I've done only 2 but it's started, I have the material and I'm happy.  This is the first time I'm using a free-style quilting foot and I'm still getting use to it, but the material is all there, and I can already see an improvement.  You'll see it soon, in the next entry.  I am starting something new thought that I would like to share.  It's the 2014 NewFO Challenge and I'm happy with the concept.

Here's what the group will be doing:   Each month, at least one new quilt will be started up.  It can be anything I like from bags to potholders or mug rugs to king-sized bed quilts.  I don't have to complete any project  during the year, just start it.  All I need to do to participate is start something new during any given month.  On the last day of the month, write a blog post about my new project and link up to the linky party on the blog from Barbara from Cat Patch.  As the year progresses, I update my previous months' NewFO projects on my blog and link in the patch.  I can also put it on the FlickR Group  I joined here.  Sounds simple and I have the button below.  It's added to my BOMs now.  What's one more?!!!  ;)

Another BOM... This one a bit of a mystery.

Last year Quilt Doodle Designs  put on a quilting party with gorgeous designs.  This link takes you to some of their pictures are at this link...  It's wonderful and I regret not joining last year.  As they say "An opportunity missed is an opportunity regrets".

So this year I've joined even though I'm busy with other ones.  This year I'll be part of it and I've done another peomise that I'll keep up!!!

Already went through all my fabric and found what I need to start, going to cut in two minutes and will add the picture of my work.  So excited!!!  

My background is a combination of black and blue with stars,

part of the Star Trek Series of fabrics by Camelot Fabrics.  The white I made sure was a little off, so as it was not too much of a contrast.  I love the method of putting all your 2 1/2 inch pieces on this interfacing piece but as you can see you don't have to match the squares on the piece below with the marking of your interface, so why not just use plain interfacing?  

 It's cheaper. That's what I do now, but I did have a piece left over from the first time I learned this method of piecing.In the end it's best not to forget to clip the corners before you sew your horizontal lines.  It's also very easy to do a scant 1/4 inch with this method.

The final results?  Something that I love.  I did two things different from most other people, I used shiny small buttons for the eyes, and I appliquéd the noses on the snowmen. 

This was as fun as I imagined it would be and I can't wait for the next one. Here's the results.

FUN!!!!

Getting my stash down

While procrastinating yesterday to avoid doing school work I decided to clean my closet and organize my material. As has happened to most people, I am sure, I stumbled across a stash of lose fabric but it did match.... Loved the colors, and a pattern came to mind. So here's the results, and this mug rug I'm keeping this one (sorry about the lighting, used my IPad for the picture.



The pattern I came up is below, using 2 1/2 inch squares and 1 inch squares in the corner to make the ribbons on the sides. Added 1 1/2 inch bars of pink in between to add to the length since I wanted the mug rug bigger for snacking. What do you think?



Nicole Painchaud

Finger moving along....

Well, after the doctor's visit, I have a new bandage and instructions to keep the bandage on for two weeks to a month.  The finger will grow back, no nerve damage, I'm OK with the pain....

 

I didn't want to go with simple, white, I wanted something different.  I got the strange idea of doing a modern quilt with antique looking material. The background color is a dusty pink.  The brown material has tan and blue flowers working with the other material and the green match with the leaves in it.   They all go together.

So with the first Vise Versa is below.  What do you think?  I love how the colors pop and yet still compliment...  The dusty pink is different and I hope in the end all will play well together.

I've tried out a new cutting tool from Sew Easy.  Bought it from Wineberry Fabric Store.  

The red part is a cover over the blade.  To cut you measure with the attached ruler, move your palm over top of the red section, push down and move over fabric.

It has changed with many advantages:

• Longer length to cut the width of a standard bolt of quilters muslin without having to move your ruler.

• Easily cuts up to 8 layers of cotton homespun. No problem with it.

• For safety, only the edge of blade is exposed during cutting and blade retracts when not in use . The metal piece before the track stops your hand from sliding into the blade (what happened to me.

• Ideal for use when strip piecing.

• Left or right handed use.  I'm left handed.

• Fixed cutting depth guards against deep cuts into the mat and reduces wear on the blade.

• Quick change blade with magnetic system - makes it easy.

Monica Poole demonstrates the Sew Easy Roller Cutter on a Moda Video below.   This cutter took some of the fear out of using a quilting cutter again.  It took some time to get use to it, but I can see how safe it is, so I'm ready to take the time to be safe.   

Just joined a great block of the month group...

One of my goals this year was to join a couple of BOM and meet some online friends who like to quilt. So far I have joined two. Here's one that I am totally excited about...

The generation X quilt will challenge me, as well as looking so great! I can't seem to make lap quilts so I'm going for the larger one... I have to set up my flickr account to join in the sharing online....  So many people have already started and here I need to choose my fabric.  It's a fantastic idea, as you can see there are two matching blocks that are the inverse of each other, which makes this a very unique quilt.  Any blocks that don't work out, you just use on the back for quilting.  Great idea.  In the end the quilt can be a lap quilt but I'm making the large twin quilt (74.5" x 74.5").  Love the final set up of the quilt.  very unique.  It's no surprise the end results and I'm OK with that.

The Vice Versa BOM contains:

• An Introduction - All Important Information and Guide to Choosing Fabrics
• Instructions for cutting larger background negative space and sashing
• 9 Block Patterns (1 each month emailed to me)
• Instructions for Assembling the Quilt Top - On-point setting
• Suggestions for quilting the quilt

I already got the intro to the BOM, fabric requirements and frequently asked questions. (it was posted online).  
I'm so excited.

The second one is all about quilting although there us some piecing. It's from Free Motion Quilt site and I already have the PDF file for it.

It's smaller then Vice Versa (48" x 56") but I think it's the quilting styles that will really make this quilt shine.   With these two plus one through the mail I'm ready and crazy to start...

 Will gather up my material for both quilts.  Vice Versa will need a number of colors, but New Building Blocks Quilt Along will only be two colors.  They are so different, learning so much with both.  Just hope the hand will be in shape.  Will post my colors for both soon under tag names:

Vice Versa - viceversa
Building Block Quilt Along - BBQA

Hope my finger can keep up.  Thanks mom for the christmas gift this year!  ;)

Nicole Painchaud

Update on injury

Still can't believe I did that.  Cut a part of my finger off.  Was going to fast,did not place my hands right to cut fabric withtherottatycutter.  That will teach me to rush.  And off goes a slice of my finger. It doesn't look that bad but it hurts likethedevilandI'mnot getting much sleep.  Pain keeps me awake.  But the hard part is that I'm missing my sewing and I'm terrified of using my rotary cutter again.  Hope to get over the feeling.  Seeing the doctor Friday.  Will  feel better when I see it.

Darn, can't quilt for a while...

I've been on a roll, finished 2 quilts this Christmas holiday, started the Secret Santa quilt I got before the holidays (half way through it, all the cutting is done), finished the initial outline of an appliqué quilt I was working on, and was almost finished my angel appliqué I started before Christmas, when it happened....  I cut myself....

Has this happened to anyone else or am I the only dumb smuck who cut off the tip of her finger while rotary cutting the binding for my quilt...  Lot of blood, lost the corner tip.  In Surrey BC when you go to emergency hospital you're looking at 2 - 3 hours, so I blinded it up with the help of my husband (and an hour of lecturing that I cut too fast), stopped the bleeding, lost the tip of my finger that I cut off, and I'll go to the walk in clinic tomorrow to make sure it won't get infected.  Won't be cutting for a while until I get my nerves up to use the rotary blade again. Can't sew for a while, finger too painful.  Darn, and I was so close to finishing another one.  Looks like I'm back to hand stitching, thank goodness I'm ambidextrous!


N. Painchaud