A Bride Gets Her Quilt

It has been a crazy, busy week, and I have not blogged in ages! How can I keep up??

Well, I will just share a couple of pictures from the bridal shower we went to last Saturday for my DD Erin. We had a lovely afternoon, and Erin got many wonderful gifts. Of course, I mentioned in an earlier post that I was planning to give her the Kaffe Fassett Broken Dishes quilt. She was, I think, thrilled to receive it!

Isn't this a great picture? My sister took it and I just can't get over how nice Erin and her red pants look standing in front of the quilt! I am so happy that she wanted this quilt. It's nice when a quilt goes to a home where it's truly wanted.

The Frienzies, several of whom were in attendance, decided to give Erin the quilt top of the blue KF quilt that she requested. She is quite thrilled with it, too, and will be given the finished quilt in May nearer the wedding date.

I will be sure to provide a full picture of it in May.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Broken Dishes

There are two reasons why I pulled Broken Dishes out of the closet a couple of weeks ago and asked Terry to quilt it for me.

First and foremost, my DD1, Erin, said she would like to have it as a bridal shower gift. What?? Yes, you read that correctly. We will be attending a bridal shower for Erin later this month, and I wanted something special to give to her. I asked her if she'd like to  have a quilt, and she said she would. (Good answer!) After examining the virtual contents of the "quilt closet" via the tabs at the top of the blog, she selected two KF quilts. She knows it will be either this one or the other one, and unless she reads about it here, it will be a surprise at the shower.

Second, it is the year of finishing UFOs, and this will qualify.  I started the top maybe 8 years ago, finished it in 2010, and it's been hanging in the closet ever since. It will be gratifying to finally label this UFO as a finish.

So, feast your eyes on the great job Terry did in quilting it. I know it was a challenge, what will all those thick intersections. But by gosh, she persevered and I love the result!

I need to get busy on the binding. The shower will be here before I know it!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Another UFO

The closet in my sewing room is stuffed with quilt tops folded over hangers. Since this is a year of finishing some UFOs, I think I will try to get a few of them quilted, bound and finished. Sounds like a plan, doesn't it?

Here is one I took to Terry last Thursday. It is called Broken Dishes, a pattern by Kaffe Fassett. It is the quilt that made me fall in love with KF fabrics.

 

 

I don't know how far back I'd have to go to figure out when I started the quilt top, but I do know that I finished it in April of 2011. It can be found in the Kaleidoscope of Quilts book. If any of you have ever made KF quilts from his patterns, you know that they are not strip-piecing friendly. He uses templates; consequently, if you want to go with strip-piecing, then you have to do some figuring and planning. I've made several of his quilts, and I've gotten used to doing this, but for a first timer, it could be daunting.

Anyway, Terry has informed me that she has it quilted already! I will get it on Friday when we meet at JoAnn's. I can't wait to see it! And, I will get right to work on binding it, and before you know it, I will have a finish. That will feel mighty good, you know?

I will definitely show you the quilted top on Saturday or Sunday. Stay tuned!

On a housekeeping note, I have finally retired the 2013 Goals list on my sidebar, and have posted my 2014 Goals. It's about time, isn't it?

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Oh, What a Finish!

By gosh, I did it!!

I have actually finished my Broken Dishes quilt!

I am so glad to have it finished.

As of 2 weeks ago, I had not one notion that this quilt would become the focus of my work, much less that it would be finished. It's funny how something that was simply grabbed as a diversion for a day of sewing could become a week-long obsession.

I'm going to try to go back and figure out when I began this quilt, and on some future post I will record the story of Broken Dishes. For now, I can say that it's a pattern in this book:

Kaffe Fassett's A Kaleidoscope of Quilts.

Okay, I've again had 2 days devoted to sewing, and it's been wonderful! Yesterday, I sewed with Sharon at her house. She worked on a new project using layer cakes of Aviary, and I cannot believe that I didn't take a picture of it. I guess I was too wrapped up in myself and my own project! Shame on me.

Here is what I started with yesterday - 2 piles of quilt blocks and my trusty diagram.

At the end of the day, I had 5 of the 9 rows constructed.

Today, at Terry's, a group of ladies met for more sewing. This same group met last Wednesday in Grove City when we sewed at Mary's barn. Terry worked on a little project with tiny pieces, Milton's Musket Balls from Civil War Legacies.

This is her first block. One down, 11 more to go!!

Mary had a neat project involving the Civil War, too. Her project is from A Path to the Civil War.

Just look at her beautiful blocks! She was bummed because she didn't have all the pieces cut that she thought she did, but what she did get finished sure looks great!

Cherie and Monica worked on the same projects they had going last week. Cherie continued with her black and white blocks, while Monica was churning out basket blocks.

Cherie's 16-patch blocks. She has a beautiful assortment of  fabrics.

 Monica's basket blocks look amazing. I wish I could get my triangles to look as perfect as hers do!

And Sheryll, who was under the weather last week, worked on some handquilting for a special anniversary in her family.

Sheryll does beautiful handwork. The guests at an upcoming party will be signing this wall hanging - a signature quilt commemorating a golden wedding anniversary. Won't the recipients love it?

And I finished Broken Dishes. Wow. What a job. Let's do the math on how many pieces are in this guy. There are 42 center blocks which have 64 pieces in each block; that comes to 2688 pieces. The border has 30 blocks each consisting of 16 pieces which comes to 480. So added all up we get 3168 pieces. Wow. 

That makes my brain hurt.

But I'm glad it's done. I really, really am.

Broken Dishes Progress

It feels good to say that I've really had some good, quality sewing time lately. After those busy weeks with Emma's school stuff and having very little time for sewing, I'm starting a 2nd week now with much time set aside for working on quilting projects.

Last Wednesday and Thursday, I sewed with girlfriends, working both days on Broken Dishes, a quilt I started approximately 4 years ago. I was making really good progress, so I kept it going on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with steady work on those blocks. The quilt requires 42 interior blocks and 30 border blocks. Here's an interior block, all 64 pieces of it!!

There is much stitching in a single block for this quilt, and it's easy to get discouraged. I am sure that is why I've worked on it in fits and starts over these past few years. I seem to be inspired to work on it when I have an opportunity for a sewing day with friends, or some such event. Now that I am close to having all the blocks done, and can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, I am motivated to finish it without delay! Hoorayyy!

I've played around a bit with the possible layout of those interior blocks.

I've placed them randomly on the family room floor. There are so many colors, I really don't think there is going to be a "wrong" layout;  more than likely I will just go with what looks pleasing to me at the time I'm ready to do the rows.

This is Gracie. Doesn't she look like a perfect angel? Cats can be very sneaky. Just prior to this picture, she was frolicking on my quilt squares.

No harm done, I suppose.

I'll close by backtracking a bit to the labor-intensive nature of the construction process of this quilt. The many steps involved in making a single block of this quilt is somewhat illustrated here. The first step is to sew together 8 pairs of fabrics on the diagonal, cut them apart, and press them open. I have 3 stacks of squares at this point in this photo. Each triangle needs to have the points clipped, so you see my little pile of "ears" in the bottom left of the  pic. The next step is to join 2 HST blocks on the diagonal, clip those apart, cut off more points, and press open. This produces the QST blocks that comprise the block shown at the top of this pic. Whew. It seems like a lot of work.

On the bright side, though, my points are matching up pretty well, all in all. I've got a few "duds,: but I am pleased overall with the results. I've not resewn very many. I hope to be creating rows on Tuesday when I meet with Sharon for a day of sewing together.

Too Many Starts!

QDD. That's what one blogger calls it--Quilter's Distraction Disorder. The symptoms are an inability to finish a project before beginning another, and another, and another. I suffer from QDD, and to my knowlege, there is no known cure.

At one point last week, I had 5 projects strewn about at the same time. And that's not counting my Broken Dishes blocks which are always out! And I haven't made a new Broken Dishes block in over a month, I'll wager.With all the chaos of these various projects, it was getting to the point that I had no useable workspace to do anything!

First, I had my April Schnibbles going. Since it only needed its borders, I went ahead and finished it.

After getting all the Schnibbles remains out of the way, I started working on Americana Rose, and finished off the 5 blocks with the gazillion-pieced little stars.

Not a very prettty shot, but there are 5 of these buggers. I thought I'd never get those stars made!

Now, for some time I've been telling my daughters that I'd make us some pretty bags. I've collected a few patterns, both purchased and in magazines. Plus, I have loads of Kaffe Fassett fabrics just perfect for a bag. And it only makes sense that if I'm going to make one bag, then why not do 2? I mean really, cut it out in duplicate. Construct them in assembly line fashion. Well, that would work if one had a clean work space... here is as far as I've gotten on bags:

Then, I decided I wanted to make a few more blocks from the Farmer's Wife Sampler book. I have uber-QDD when it comes to deciding which block to make! I haven't printed off all the templates, so I needed to select a block from the templates I had available. That led to just listing the blocks I still want to make along with the templates I needed to print. I also created a list of blocks that could be made from the templates I already had. (You got all that, right?) In some odd free minutes on Saturday, I made these:

Contrary Wife

Puss in the Corner

Rail Fence

Spool

And last night I made this beast:

It's called Morning Star, and it was a doozie! I spent a good portion of my effort picking out stitches. Please don't inspect too closely; there are some very uneven edges and unmatched joints.

Farmer's Wife Sampler is perfect for a sufferer of QDD. I was able to whet my apetite for variety; nothing took overly long to make; I made my work space even messier; and I think I now can return to one of the other projects with the focus required to get it done!

Today, I have worked on Americana Rose again. Since the hard blocks were done, it seemed relatively easy to get the remaining blocks whipped up. I will share pics of these tomorrow!

TTFN!
Jayne

Sewing and Snow

I'll show the snow parts first. Here is our dog Steve frolicking in the 10" of snow we had on Friday. Thankfully, our power has stayed on, and we have been able to get out of our driveway. We are situated on a rural piece of land and have a very long driveway, one in which we frequently get stuck if we have any significant snowfalls. To prevent that, we bought our first 4WD vehicle last month; well-timed purchase, I'd say.

Here's a shot looking down our driveway:

And a shot of the woods around our house:

Okay, enough of that; let's get back to the important stuff: sewing and quilting progress!

Miss Bernina is a happy, humming machine once again. It took a trip to Columbus and a 4-hour session with Beth's Creative Stitchery in order to get her back to pristine condition, but it was so, so worth it.

I've been steadily working on two projects. The Kaffe Fassett Broken Dishes quilt continues to keep me captivated with all the interesting combinations of fabrics. Here's the one that's under construction right now:

And, because of the down time without my machine, I spent more focused time on Cheddar Cheese and Crackers, which I'm hand-piecing. I've finished all the interior cheese blocks, and nearly all the border blocks.

In between ball games today, I hope to get this doll quilt top close to finished. I'll finish off the triangle cheese blocks, and I'll machine piece the 4-patch blocks.

Right now I'm watching my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes and later, of course, there's the Super Bowl. I don't have a favorite in this one; I'll just enjoy a good  game.

Sick Bernina

Last evening, I was all good. Supper was over, kitchen cleaned up, husband off to a meeting, daughter upstairs doing homework (texting), and I was on a roll with my broken dishes construction. I had the Cavaliers-Grizzlies game on tv, listening as I stitched, and I was motivated to get several blocks finished off!

So, there I was, just stitching away on my hour-glass blocks, when right in the middle of a seam the fabric stops feeding through. What the heck?!?! Nooo! This can't be! I rethread the machne, re-insert the bobbin, brush out the fuzz and blow it clean, and still no-go.

There's Miss Bernina, still sitting on the dining table (after Friday's marathon day with Sharon), light off, and surrounded by myriad hour-glass blocks all marked and pressed and ready for action. But, no action. I can tell when I attempt to adust the stitch length knob (3rd one down) that it isn't "catching" whatever mechanism inside there that completes the feed dog function.

Miss Bernina and I will be off a little later this morning to a repair shop for what I hope will be a quick fix.

I'm wondering how many machines serious quilters need to have for situations like this. I've never had more than one machine at a time. I do have several quilting girlfriends, though, who have three, or even four. It has never seemed essential for me to have more than one - and I've been supremely happy with mine. She's near 20 years old, possibly older. I bought her brand new and at a drastically reduced price when a local quilt shop was going out of business. Back in July, she just had a serious cleaning and check-up when my daughter was finishing up her 4-H project. As a result, Miss Bernina was performing beautifully.

Hopefully soon, I will get back to my blocks. Aren't they pretty?

In the meantime, I will return to hand-stitching the Cheddar Cheese and Crackers doll quilt. I don't mean to sound like I'm disappointed in doing that, because I truly do like hand-stitching, and the doll quilt is such a fun little project to work on.

Clarifying my Terminology

In my quilting vocabulary, when I refer to using Kaffe Fassett fabrics, I am actually referring to the family of Westminster fabrics of Fassett, Mably, Jacobs and Nagley. From the very beginning of my infatuation with these fabrics, I've always just called them "Kaffe fabrics." I suppose if I owned or worked in a quilt shop, I would be more apt to make the proper distinctions. Well, why-ever I do it,  here on this blog, I have repeatedly referred to the fabrics inaccurately.

The current project coming together in my sewing room is a Kaffe Fassett design called Broken Dishes from the book Kaleidoscope of Quilts.

 I've had my eye on this quilt for over 2 years, maybe 3, as a result of this quilt's being featured in all the magazines for a thread adverstisement. I'm sure many of you remember it. The more I saw it, the more it called to me.

I began the collecting of fabrics, and before I knew it, I was out of control. I bought about 6 fat quarter packs from an on-line store to start with, and in no time, I had a tub so full, I can't lift it! (Stash building at its finest!!)

I continue to work on my Broken Dishes, slow but steady. I find myself doing the work in steps, i.e. mark the diagonal lines on all the half-square triangles, or press all the seams open, etc. There are so many small pieces that it becomes overwhelming to think about all of it.

Maybe I will switch things up a bit today. I'm thinking about making a few of the border blocks; they consist of larger - and fewer - pieces.

Finishing Strong in January

January is over! My, that sure was fast. I've ended the month getting a lot of sewing completed on the Broken Dishes blocks. Rather than to describe it all, pictures will do...

Squares are placed right sides together and a diagonal line is drawn - to guide 1/4-in. stitching and for cutting.

Next, I complete the quarter-square blocks. Another diagonal line has to be drawn. It is a big job when so many are needed.

After pressing the blocks open, arrange them in a pleasing arrangement to be sewn. You might be able to see the clear 12"-square ruler under there. After pressing, I have been putting them on the ruler to transport them from ironing board to sewing machine.

Here is my growing stack of broken dishes blocks. All Kaffe Fassett fabrics, as it's a pattern featured in  his book, Kaleidscope of Quilts.

These blocks are laid out on my kitchen counter. That blue one in the upper left is what the border is made of - larger quarter-squares than the interior. I am about half  done with all the interior blocks. I don't have any great driving urge to have this done quickly, so it's hard to say if I will stay at this for awhile or not. I may, or I may get motivated to do some other project. If that occurs, I will at some point come back to continue working on this.

Do any of you blogger friends work with such little purpose? I think I ought to get more done, and I probably would if I had more drive and determination. Oh well...