Back to School Quilting

 With work resuming the time spent on quilts and quilting is small, but I'm still trying to get in some creativity time.  Now my quilting has changed from creativity to a stress releaser.  Two cases reported in our school and we continue to work.  School is two blocks a day with lectures of 2 1/2 hours a session.  I prep 4 classes in total (2 different classes in each of my blocks) and prepping for all.  Marking is piling up, but exhaustion is bigger.  I don't know if I can keep up this pace but quilting does help to release the stress.

But I did get my September's goal for OMG completed.    Hanging with pride.  Here's my initial blog entry saying I was going to try to get it done....

The pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman.  It's called Dwight the Deer.  I'm calling it Oh Deer!!  since it was done during the Corvid era of going back to school with this.  The pattern is easy, but label all your parts because there are a lot of pieces.  But it makes a good size block.  This one is 56 by 56 in the end.  It's already earmarked for someone for Christmas.  But I am considering another one for a pillow for Christmas.  They're cute.  All her patterns are adorable.  Check them out here.  I have the clock, the sasquatch, and a couple of others.  When I'll get this done I don't know....

I'm going to hook up to Elm Street Quilts to enter for the OMG One Monthly Goal completion .  Pleased with it.

This is also the August quilt for the All People's Quilt Challenge so it was a two for one!!!

And I'm still plugging along with my Row by Row queen size quilt.  I have 18 completed and I'm making one large block for the middle to bring it all together because three rows of row by rows is too hard on the eyes.  I should be done that in October (My October goal of the month) but I had this one, and I got it at Prescott AZ in a small quilt shop there.  It was a souvenir of a 2015 trip to the Grand Canyon, so on the way we got this one.  The French wedding.  (I can say that because I'm french by birth, and people have called me a french frog every once in a while.).  Anyways, both my husband and I wanted this as a table topper for our buffet, so that's where it is.  You have to take a closer look at this one.

All the members of the wedding party.

The parents of the groom

The bride's side of the family.  A little different. Dad is hung over

And the bride and groom.  Veil included.

I had fun with that one but I had even more fun with this one.  I took a 2nd class of Quilting with Rulers by Silly Moon Quilting Co.  This is my second class and this one is with half circles.  It's amazing what you can do with 4 of these rulers which make 8 different sizes.  And the patterns you can do, check it out below.  At the end of the course, you're almost completed the table runner.  Took about 2 more hours to finish the end thing.  And I love it considering it my first time using these rulers.  Take a look....  I highly recommend it.  The class is online.  You buy the rulers online, they send it and then they send you the pattern to make the top first, and the session on Zoom for 4 hours quilts that quilt top.

Can see where I backtracked but not on all of them.

My favorite above

The edge work - there are four edges she teaches you.  This is one that I wanted done.  Had fun with this.

So for a month, this is not bad, partly finished another one, then all of this.  Is it my usual amount of quilting?  No but as I said I'm back at school and I have some finishes.  So I'm happy.  

How's your quilting going?  Getting anything done besides masks?  (I've done 14 more.....  )

Where I'm at for the 2nd Quarter

Well, it's the end of the quarter and below was all I said I would do.....  Lets sum it up what I've completed as I'm hooking up to Red Letter Quilts for OMG and She Can Quilt 2016 Finish Along (see at the end of this blog for the links).  All goals that are completed are in bold.

Here's what I started with....

 0 - My row by row.  Well, out of the 58 that I have (and I started collecting for this year's theme Home Sweet Home), I've done two from last year.  I did collect 10 more rows for this year....  I think I'm doing that wrong   :)  Here are the two but that was my goal.

1.   A quilt for a very good friend of mine - tea time.  It's done, now it needs quilting.  My goal for the next quarter?!!  For sure.

2 - Tulips paper piecing.  Small project and I love the look of it. I traced the pattern but never got to it.  Darn....

3 - My modern quilt - red of green.  Worked on it for 6 month.  The quilting is crazy.  Below is a sample of the quilting.  It's all done and it's quilted like crazy...

4.  A panel wall hanging.  got it while travelling around Manitoba for the Row by Row.  That's right, a year old.  It's cut, and I started sewing... but not completed.

5.  A large lap quilt I call the garden (From Aurifill) that is 2 years old. I never even took it out of it's container.  This needs to go back on the list.

6.  My sunflower pixulated quilt.  Again....  darn.

7.  I finished one of the "Home Tweet Home" blocks  that my friend gave to me.  And she gave me another one. So that will make 3 down and another one to do next month.

8.  A queen size quilt that is beautiful.  All quilted (very light quilting) for the summer time. It's on my bed right now.  Take a look.  It's on the right.  The colors are great and I enjoyed the flowers that I quilted along the edge.  I started with the rulers, but then started doing it free style.  See the diagram below

9 & 10   This was for my OMG challenge from Red Letter Quilt.  I have the table top from the School Book by Sew Sisters completed but I'm not crazy about it.  The size is wrong for my buffet.  So I'm going to add some side panels and make it into a lap quilt

My goal is by the end of the year to do all the grades in it with the exception of one.  But I won't tell you which one.  I promised to do two and I only got one done and even then I'm changing it a bit.  Sorry, not done.

11.  I got all the blocks caught up for the Canadian Mystery Quilt by Shania Sunga.  I've caught up with the last two.  See them below.

12.  I've started the pixelated quilt of Spock for my Trekkie mother.  I did not realize that it's the 50th Anniversary of the original Star Trek so this works out fine.  Got the pattern made up and I also have the material, and have started to cut out the pieces.  Will have this one started with a friend at the end of June.  My friend is coming over for a sew day in July so this works great.

13. Still waiting for this Craftsy quilt to be quilted....  Next quarter I'm looking at finishing all my UFO quilting quilts (there are at least 5 of them).  To the right is a picture of what the quilt looks like.  I have three of the blocks quilted, that means eight to go  :)   

14.  I really love Zen Chic and I love this quilt.  It's very easy to do, it's the quilting that takes time because of the negative space.  So this goes onto next quarter's list.

That makes 5 goals all quilted and completed out of 14.    Not bad for this quarter - 2 of them are queen size quilts and I've caught up with 2 BOMs for this year which always feels good.

Extra

And how about some extras that took my fancy?  Here's a few:

a.  My landscape from my mother's house - to get out my father's death in November.  I finally got it done after my brother passed away in May.

b)  Two months of the BOM of the Midnight Garden completed.  See below.   I plan to have two a month done every month.

c)  I started to catch up with the Splendid Quilting from Pat Sloan.  Completed five of them.  Don't ask how many there are.  Check it out for yourself.

My cousin asked for a quilt and I got one completed but not quilted.  The design is from Siobhan Rogers from the book "By the Block".  Unfortunately I think the quilt top is more for a girl than a boy, so I'll start a new one for him, but the quilting of this one goes into this month's OMG listing. 😉

The picture does not do it justice.  The background is a very light baby blue.  But no matter how many pictures I take, the colors will not come out.

And finally, a block using fabric markers for design.  I had fun with this one.  The markers change the color of the ribbons that went around each piece.  It also has some crystals around it.

Hooked up with two for this entry:

Just under the wire...

Well, it's hard to miss when I posted my November's entry for what I wanted to complete in the November's "Lovely Year of Finishes (it was my last entry), but I did it, I did complete one of my goals.  I am not making excuses but it's been a very bad month for me this month, and very trying.  I won't go into it with details but I'm sure many of you out there have gone through bad times and needed quilting to get through it.  In all honesty, I only had two weekends to complete my goals and I'm very happy that I was able to do one of them.    I started from this (all the material saved up).

To this......

Who doesn't love a Christmas quilt.
The quilting was spiral with fillers in between and I love the final results.

 

The pattern was free from Jolly Jabber.  It's called Little Joys and all the patterns are free here.  It was a block of the month (short one), but absolutely beautiful, simple, and easy to do.  For those of you interested in doing a similar one and has more options click on this link for a Christmas "Deck the Halls".  

As I said previously, many things happened to me this month, most of them very trying, and painful.  I didn't do much sewing at all, and truthfully, in the last two days it's been my salvation, to get my mind back.  I'm sure we all have times in our life like this, but I'm still working through some trouble times, and it's coming out in my sewing.

Although this other quilt was not the one that I said I would complete this month I did receive as therapy a pack of fat quarters that were Halloween in style.  Now I know, Halloween is over with, but I still wanted (no needed) to sew, so I started the blocks, added some black and here are the results.  The quilt is made of 12 inch squares, with lighter orange around each one, and then dark orange borders.  But it looked too plain so I thought I would add some applique.  And the results are the pumpkins and the leaves around the quilt for interest sake.

So this is the results....

That's it.  I did make one goal and I'm submitting this to a Lovely Year of Finishes....

A Lovely Year of Finishes - Going Simple.

I'm getting really strict with myself. I have one goal and here it is:

The online class by Leah Day "Free Motion Quilting a Quilt" finishes/quilts the quilt I have made by Amy Gibson "Craftsy Block of the Month 2012"  Loved the block of the month class and really learning in Leah's class as well.  But the videos take about an hour and then there is the practise to do before doing it on your quilt.  So last month  I only got one block down of the quilt, but I did free style stitch in the ditch the entire quilt, and I'm on my way to learning over 14 different styles of free motion quilting.

Here is one block that was done last month.  

One section done.

Close up - learned paisley

And so I'm saying that I'll get this quilt done by the end of April (or at least half done!! - Just kidding).

That's it, and that simple.  I need to learn all these styles of free motion quilting in order to complete my sunflower pixelated quilt (see last posting) and to complete about 3 other quilts that are waiting for quilting.

Wish me luck.  The list is small and everything else will be a bonus, but the plan is to have 4 blocks a weeek completed so it gets done.

Here is a sample of what happens when I learn something new (I use it in other new things).

Completed using only scraps

Note the quilting

Just have the eye to embroider.  Like how I'm getting use to my machine and I'm beginning to thread stitch.  Lets hope my goal this month helps even more.  Ready to learn.

Busy Weekend.

I got a number of projects that have been sitting there completed.  Place mats for my sister.  She's been asking for this.  Used the Improv manner to make the circles.  Quilted with echo quilting.  They look beautiful.

Did a couple of BOM blocks for February.  Quilt doodle block which was really fun:

and then there was the Animal zoo that I've been working on.  Completed the penguin.  The body has silver in it.

Then, the great thing is that I finished two wall hangings.  These quilts were amazingly quilted with my new Janome sewing machine.  Check it out.  First one is "Whooooooooo's there?"

leaf motif

Feathering.

Leaves.  White on white.

And then this one which is "Scraps of Fall."  This one was in thread that changed from white, to light blue to dark blue.  Make it look like the wind going through the leaves.  Check it out.

The quilt - notice leaf blocks.

See the birdies?

Quilting went through tree
and some leaves.

Was really amazed at this one.  Very happy that it worked out.  The owl one is a house warming gift.  But the "Scraps of Fall" is here  ;)

Showing it to the Guild tomorrow.