Design Wall Monday and Stash Report - Squiggle/loop/star

It's Design Wall Monday, but since my sewing corner is under construction at this very moment, all the action is on my Megaquilter setup, where Aunt Maggie's Quilt from last week is being machine-quilted in what is my new favorite quilting pattern, squiggle/loop/star.  I'm really liking how it looks... whimsical yet not inappropriate for the reproduction fabrics and small pieces.  It's about halfway done and it will be a tight squeeze to get it bound before the end of the month, but it should at least be close (it's my UFO for February).

Saturday at my church a small number of ladies showed up for quilting.  I took Quarta along and taught her how to make string blocks:

Of course that's a messy process as you work:

The other ladies had different projects going:

Sandri is meticulously planning quilts for her granddaughters.  She has an artistic eye for detail in color-coordination and she is carefully calculating how to set rectangles fussy-cut from her focus fabric on point.

I don't work that way at all.  I just tend to jump in and hope for the best, and my sewing area while I work is gloriously messy. 

Cute flannel baby quilt.

Dana brought a painting project - a name train for her nephew.  I like that spirit of finishing up UFOs.  I sat and stitched on one of my applique flower blocks for the 1996 Piecemaker's calendar.  It was a nice morning.  Next time I blog about sewing I hope I'll have some pictures of my improved sewing table and maybe it will even be organized!
Stash report:

I was planning not to make a stash report this week because I didn't finish anything.  But then my mother-in-law came over yesterday and brought a bag of fabric with her to give to me.  This makes my stash-flow look bad because I had determined not to buy fabric this year, but it is pretty fabric.

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 20.9 yards
Added this week: 4.5 yards from Grandma
Added year to date: 4.5 yards (all received as gifts, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 16.4  yards

Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: 864 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 492 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 372 yards

WIP Wednesday

Since school just started back up again I'm not really much farther along than when I last posted about the Orca Bay mystery.  I may have sewn a few more units, but that's it.  One of my projects this year is Judy L's UFO challenge: she drew number 5 for this month.  #5 on my list was the 1996 Piecemaker's Calendar quilt: I broke it down into 2 months' worth, each of them being to prepare half of the pieces for the applique in the setting rectangles and triangles.  I brought out my Piecemakers' Calendar quilt so I could assess the amount of work I'll need to do this month.  I am making a twin-sized quilt with fewer blocks: so I will need a total of 6 rectangles and 4 triangles.  The rectangles will need 3 stems, 5 leaves, 3 flower centers, and 12 petals each.  The triangles will need 1 stem, 2 leaves, 1 center and 4 petals each.  So I will need a total of 22 stems, 38 leaves, 22 centers, and 88 petals.  I have some leaves prepared, plus what you can see on my sample block.  I will declare victory if I can make all the stems, and half of the remaining pieces, and lay them out on the backing.  I'm not going to require myself to applique them down, but if I do, it's all to the good!  I use the freezer paper/ spray starch method to prepare applique pieces, and all the bias strips from stems are already cut.  I think it's doable in one month.  But of course I've also got Orca Bay and the Crumbs quilt to finish.

Yesterday I signed the completed Happy Quilting STARS quilt over to Cedar Tree for the auction.  They require you to place a value on it because they are not allowed to do that themselves... so I guessed $300.00.  If any of you have sold quilts at charity auction before, let me know if you think that's a good estimate.  It's really hard to say; it's a balancing act between the work and materials that go into a quilt and what the market will bear. 

In knitting, after my yarn barf episode, I cast on another shawl.  This is Melinda VerMeer's lovely and intriguing Nautilina, and it's autographed because the designer is in my knit group (Hazel Dell Starbucks, every Monday evening!)  Really, how cool is that? The yarn is my handspun, from a batt by Butterfly Girl Designs called "Seashells."  It's got lots of sparkly stuff in it, angelina and firestar, in a base of merino and bamboo.  I'm well into the second section so far.  So fun to knit.  The yarn was just recently washed in Kookaburra wool wash, and I love how it smells!

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Happy Quilting STARS quilt-along: a finish!

It's done!  I applied the binding in a furious rush Saturday morning before we had to leave for a 3-hour car trip to a wedding in Seattle, and hand-stitched it down mostly during that time in the car.  This is the quilt-along from Melissa at Happy Quilting, and I just love the colors, the wonky stars, and the fact that it made a dent in my pink stash.

I had a bit of trouble with the Megaquilter while I was quilting it, but I eventually decided to pick out the variegated thread that was glitching it up, adjusted the tension and used plain eggshell thread, and it worked with a minimum of fuss.  I'm still not all friendly with the Megaquilter again, but we're on coldly formal speaking terms.

As we all know, a quilt isn't finished until it has a binding and a label.  So here it is.  Final dimensions are about 61" x 85".  I didn't put a hanging sleeve on because I figured it would almost certainly just be used as a bed quilt.  This quilt is to be donated to the Cedar Tree auction this spring, where I sincerely hope the bidding will get fast and furious and one of my future students will win the prize.

STARS off the frame

I finished the machine quilting on the STARS quilt-along quilt today.  This is a huge mental weight gone, because as you may remember, my Megaquilter has been a bit tetchy of late.  I unpicked the original variegated pink Gutermann thread that I had started with, and threaded back up with the cone of eggshell that I've used for many quilts already.  I will need to get more of that soon, because it seems to be working when nothing else will.  There were only about 4 times that the thread broke on me, and that's within normal operating parameters.  It's when the needle breaks or the thread forms nests on the back that I start ranting. 

I had little patience left by this time, so I quilted in the widest possible meandering with no particular goal other than holding the layers together and not looking too ugly.  It worked!  At a distant glance there are no ugly spots!  Now I just need to trim the edges and apply binding.  It is destined to be another quilt to donate to the Cedar Tree auction coming up.  It's a great color scheme and I'm sure there will be lots of little girls who'd love it on their beds.

On the Christmas front... while I stand by my earlier post distancing myself from all Christmas-themed or Christmas-deadline crafting, reality is beginning to set in.  I will not be joining the 1st OPC quilting party tomorrow... not so much because I don't want to be quilting, but because we are chopping down and decorating the tree tomorrow, and that has to take precedence.  It would also be the logical day for some cookie-baking and, yes, even cleaning.

WIP Wednesday: Pre-Thanksgiving edition

This WIP Wednesday, my two lovely assistants are helping to display my finished top for the Happy Quilting STARS quilt-along.  Which was put together except for the borders weeks ago.  Now I need to get it onto the frame and quilt it.  I think it will be another quilt to donate to the Cedar Tree auction, like the Crumb-Along quilt.

Final dimensions on this are about 61"x 85".  Should be good for a twin bed.  Definitely a girl's quilt!

Other WIPs this week: I finished the Crumb-Along top, as mentioned above; I did 5 more Farmer's Wife blocks, I cleaned my sewing area a little, and now I have it messy again thinking about jumping into the Orca Bay mystery with Bonnie Hunter.  That's an awful lot of cutting and sewing, and I need to get some of these tops quilted, so we'll have to see.  But it looks very fun and scrappy, if you can manage all those tiny triangles.

Right now, I'm more concerned with WIPs in the "food for Thanksgiving" medium.

Pies: 1 apple, 1 blueberry, 2 pumpkin and 1 pumpkin custard.  1 bird, presumably defrosted, 18 pounds; a triple batch of cranberry sauce.  Still to do tonight: saute celery and onions for stuffing, put my feet up and knit for a few hours.  Tomorrow I will be peeling potatoes and actually cooking the bird.

Handy Latin saying for tomorrow: "Da mihi, amabo, plus solanorum tuberosorum tunsorum et iuris!" (*Pass me some more mashed potatoes and gravy, please!)

WIP Wednesday #14

I finished the body of my STARS quilt-along quilt, but still need to decide on and add borders.  I'm debating about making a wonky strip-pieced border, but I'll probably just add a narrow and wider border as the pattern calls for if I have enough of any one fabric.

Farmer's Wife Quilt block #46: Hill and Valley.  Fairly easy except for the small squares at the hilltops: their finished measurement is the square root of 2 (1.41) = 1 3/8" (generous), so they were cut 1 7/8" (generous).  The other triangles are HSTs based on a 3" measurement (cut 3 7/8"), HSTs based on a 2" measurement (cut 2 7/8") and QSTs based on a 2" measurement (cut 3 1/4").

Block # 47: Homemaker.  I had to draw this one out on graph paper (it is based on a 9-patch grid) and then paper pieced the radiating points units.  Then I still had to attach them to the center 2 1/2" square with inset seams.  It is a pretty block, but I'll never make another one like it.

Before making those blocks I did snap a picture of blocks 1-45.  It's getting to be a big bunch!

And these are my current Stashbuster Spirals.  More about them and the Sweet Tomato Heel I'm using on them when they're finished.

WIP Wednesday #13: You Can't Win 'em All

Not all WIP Wednesday posts can be like last week's.  About all the sewing I did in the past seven days (other than helping Primigenitus sew on a button) was on these four blocks for block #5 of the Happy Quilting STARS quilt-along.  I'm not going to meet the deadline on that one, but it will get done.

The school year has started in earnest, and I'm remembering why I call myself Carpe Lanam... when these exhausting days are finally over, I just want to crawl into a comfortable seat, grab some wool, and start knitting.  The hyper-frenetic creative activity of quilting just does not nourish the stressed soul the way knitting does.  If I wasn't teaching every day, I'd probably be quilting every day AND have a much cleaner house.  As it is, I'm knitting about every other day, quilting a tiny bit, and the house is better left unnoticed.  I did finish some socks this week, and immediately cast on another pair.

Someday maybe I will be retired and have as much time to work on quilts as my mother-in-law, who brought this quilt top over for me to pin.  Cute, isn't it?  It's not mine.  Sigh.

Link-up party going on over at Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wednesday #12: Progress! Real Progress!

No linkup party, but I do have a finished object to show this week.  At least, it's finished for me!  This is my MIL's Japanese Lanterns quilt which I've been working on quilting on the Megaquilter, finished and ready to be bound.  It's a QUEEN sized quilt.  I worked on it several hours on Saturday and finally got it done.  I'm pleased with my work on it overall, but at the time I was working it was frustrating because I simply COULD NOT stay on the marked lines.

A closeup of the squiggles I quilted (in variegated colored thread, no less) on those massive white blocks.

Here's a process shot: I used water-soluble marking pen and a homemade template (inspired by the store-bought one) to mark the corner designs, I eyeballed the little squiggles in the bands of the lanterns, and I quilted through the designs marked on tracing paper for the center medallions.  Removing the tracing paper afterwards was a little harder than removing the marking pen, but I saved a bunch of time in the marking process, which I hate.  It will be a long time before I do any quilting that requires special marking again.

This is Grandma's next quilt, loaded onto the frame now.  It needs to be done for a charity event this fall... fortunately, it's only lap-sized and the quilting should be simple.

I'm (almost) finished with block 4 of the Happy Quilting STARS quilt-along.  I have blocks 5 and 6 still to go, four of each block, and then assembling the finished top.  I seriously begin to doubt I will have the top finished by the 29th of September which is the deadline for the drawing for free fabric, but I hardly need more fabric.  But you never know... nothing inspires me like a deadline.

Farmer's Wife Quilt block #43: Garden Path.  I played with the purple and green color combination, which I like but would probably never make an entire quilt of.  This is primarily a 6x6 grid, so all the squares and triangles are based off of a 1" or 2" finished size - except the strips, which were cut 1 1/4" wide and unfortunately, I had to miter those corners with the Y-seams.

Block #44: Gentleman's Fancy.  I happened to be piecing this one on Sept. 19, which as you no doubt know is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  And what could be more to a gentleman's fancy than piracy?  So I used scraps from previous boxer shorts projects to piece it, and I hope it blends in with all the sweet and nostalgic blocks I've made when the quilt is all done.

Block #45: Grape Basket. Back to the sweet and nostalgic with scraps from my grandmother's vintage apron.  Based on a 5x5 grid, the basic finished measurement is 1 1/4" (scant).

WIP Wednesday #9: Progress on 2 out of 3 quilts

I'm mostly finished with block 3 of the STARS quilt-along from Melissa at Happy Quilting.  I'm making 4 of each block for a twin-sized quilt.  I'm going to have to start repeating fabrics soon.  I'm also thinking I need a bigger design wall.

The Farmer's Wife blocks won't fit on much longer, either.  I have 30 of them now - made 4 this week.  I still have 3 to blog about individually but that can wait until tomorrow. 

No progress to report on my MIL's quilt that I'm machine quilting.  Hope to get a little more done this week.

Progress has been made on the scary  basement organization project, too.  I bought a couple of wire storage shelves at Target and some pegboard at Home Depot for the tools.  (There was a second picture too, on the other side of the doorway, of the painting supplies on a shelf with more pegboard.  But it was sideways and when I rotated the picture, it vanished, never to be found again.  Why in the world does it do that?! You'll just have to take my word for it that I did 2 shelves and 2 areas of pegboard).

See that white stuff painted around the ductwork?  That's my DIY asbestos mitigation.  Four years ago we had the very old furnace replaced and the professionals took off the asbestos around it; but there was still the asbestos tape around the old ductwork, and they left us a little jar of rubbery stuff to paint over it and just leave it in place.  I just this last week got around to doing that, in the areas that I could reach.  There are plenty of areas I consider out of my reach in the crawl space around the other side of the brickwork; only the cats go there.  And they're probably not going to sue me for any asbestos-related illnesses they might incur.  Although you never know, these days.

As usual, the link-up party is going on over at Freshly Pieced.