Sewing With Sharon

After a super-long hiatus, Sharon and I have finally had a sewing day together and it was wonderful! I honestly could feel myself regaining my quilting mojo as we got into the day. The sound of our machines chugging away, the soft wafting of classical music playing, occasional spring bird calls drifting in through the open window - ahhhh, it was all so very much NEEDED! 

We both have finishes to show for our time, too, which is always the boost one needs to get moving onto the next project. Here's what Sharon finished - a layer cake quilt that she started at retreat a week ago is now a finished quilt top.

 The layer cake was one of the recent French General lines. One can never go wrong with FG fabrics. She simply divided the entire layer cake into pairs, then cut off 2 2.5-inch strips. This left her with a 5.5" square which she surrounded with strips and corners. At retreat she finished this as far as stitching all the blocks into vertical rows. Here on Tuesday morning, she stitched the horizontal rows, and VOILA! a finish!

For my own finish, I finally took the baby quilt off the long arm machine. I loaded it onto the long arm back in mid-September, and had it nearly all quilted. On the last pass across the quilt, I began having issues with the top thread breaking about every 8-10 inches. It was so daggone aggravating. I just left it. And left it. And then Reagan was born, and we had the holidays, and then we left for Florida. Well, you see how things sorta' lagged there for a good, long while.

The quilt was intended to be finished by the end of September when Reagan was to be born. I could not solve the breakage issue, and I already had one quilt ready to give her, so I put off dealing with it. This is a sweet fabric line called Effie's Woods by Deb Strain/Moda. I was gifted a lot of it - including the panels - and I had it sewn up in no time. Here's the post I wrote 4 days prior to Reagan's birth in which you see the quilt on the frame.

I did the last of the quilting Monday evening (yes, I still had breakage) and Tuesday, I bound it. I hope to wrap it around our sweet baby Reagan very, very soon. I'll get a proper picture of the quilt as well as the baby in the quilt, too.

With those two finishes out of the way early on, we both moved on to other projects. Sharon continued with yet another precut project. After her layer cake finish, she pulled out a jelly roll project using Tildas! Oh, that scrumptious fabric! She has a fast and easy design that is a twist on the popular "race" quilt.

After binding the baby quilt, I moved on to a scrappy 4-patch project from last fall. I wrote about it here. I didn't realize I'd made so many 4-patches - I'd separated them into groups of 10 and had about 150 total, so it seemed as good a time as any to begin sewing them together. With Sharon's input, I decided it best to just keep it simple, so with a whole stack of a rather neutral Aboriginal Dots (iykyk; one of the KF designs) I am in the construction phase of a really awesome scrappy 4-patch Kaffe quilt.

 And I'm gonna have to come back with a picture for you. It's dark as I write this and I just know I wouldn't get a good photo in poor lighting. 

Now, about that thread-breakage issue on the long arm . . . I am not yet convinced that it is entirely corrected. I will soon load on another smaller quilt and fiddle with the tension. I do believe minor tension adjustments, a bit of oil, and a new needle will solve my quilting woes.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

A Baby Quilt to Begin the New Year

In 2022, I made and gifted 7 baby quilts - Emery, Boone, Henry, Benjamin, and 3 for Cate. I made 2 more - pink ones - that are still in the flimsy stage. Now, here as we have barely begun 2023, I find that I missed a baby! A new wee lad was born on the 15th (my birthday!) and I hadn't remembered to make him a quilt. His older brother Ben got one, shown below, back in 2020. How I missed making a plan for this baby's quilt, I cannot explain.

New baby Henry (another Henry!) has indeed arrived, and it just so happens that I have a juvenile print layer cake by Emily Winfield Martin for Riley Blake Designs. The line is called The Littlest Family's Big Day and it will make a lovely alternate project for Florida, should my time allow for it.

I had an idea for using 10" blocks, and a couple nights ago I made two test blocks. The fabrics for these samples are from that giant pile I had for all the diamond cutting I did on Tuesday. I am sure this block has been featured in many a layer cake pattern book, but honestly, it doesn't need much explaining. 

Two fabrics for sample blocks.

The thing I love most about this block is that just about all the fabric is used. Only about an inch of waste results. It absolutely kills me to waste fabric from precuts, and this one comes about as close as any I've ever made to using every single bit of the square.

 

The block measures 9 inches (8.5" finished), so if I make 42 blocks, and create a quilt that is 6 blocks wide x 7 blocks long, then I should end up with a quilt approximately 51"x59". Nice size! We shall see as things develop.

If time permits, I will cut this layer cake and have it ready for sewing once we reach our rental in Florida. I am almost more eager to make this baby quilt than I am to make the diamond quilt.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sharon Preps for Christmas

Our Tuesday sewing dates have been super-productive for Sharon lately. Case in point: a week ago she made two entire projects in one day - an entire quilt top that will eventually be given as a Christmas gift and a little table topper.

She had a flannel layer cake of this Holly Taylor fabric from a couple years ago called Through the Winter Woods. It went together so fast, and the colors are just so darned appealing. The recipient is going to love this gift.

With that first project finished, she dived right in to a little pack of 2.5" squares - also by Holly Taylor, but I did not get the name - and made this little quilt. I can imagine this will go on a table top when Sharon is decorating for Christmas.

These two projects just go to show that we don't always have to have the most intricate designs to  make beautiful quilts; the fabric can carry the show, too, when the design is simple.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Catching Up With Sharon

A full week ago, Sharon was here to sew, and was so close to having the center portion of her Lorraine/Old Gold quilt finished that she came back on Wednesday morning to do just that.

So pardon me if I overload on pictures today, as opposed to words. This is one stunning quilt, and is worth a few extra pictures, for sure.

It wouldn't do at all to take just one photo from one angle. I really felt you all needed to see several different perspectives on this, don't you know. It's all in the interest of serving the viewing public. *grin*

The next decision for Sharon is how she will do borders. The pattern gives directions, of course, but I think Sharon's fabric options are limited, so she was going to spend this past week considering the next step. She will be here later this morning and I know she will have something wonderful figured out.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Pre-Cut Project

Right before leaving for the beach, I put together a few blocks of some precuts I'd been dying to use. You can go back to this post to see my initial blocks. I had two charm packs and one jelly roll of fabric all by American Jane of Moda. The charm packs are Savonnerie; the jelly roll is Lorraine. They play oh-so-well together. Just take a look.

The centers are all Savonnerie charm pack squares; the strips surrounding them are Lorraine. Can you tell any difference? Anyone would think these were all from the same line. I am extremely pleased with this project so far. I will set it aside for awhile, though, because I need to get back to work on those commissions I have agreed to do.

When I do come back to this, I have one more charm pack and some ends of the jelly roll left over. I'd like to be able to make this larger, and I will just need to see what I can come up with. Additionally, I have a tub of remnants of an earlier American Jane line called Breath of Avignon. I've checked. Those remnants will play nicely with these fabrics, also. I will figure out a way to incorporate them.

Sharon was here Tuesday and she worked on her Lorraine fabric, too, while I finished the 42 blocks you see above. Tomorrow I will show you what Sharon's plans are.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Sneak Preview

One of the projects I want to complete this month is the quilt using precuts from American Jane - Lorraine and Savonnerie.

Before I left for Myrtle Beach - did I tell you I am on vacation? - I waved to you yesterday as we headed south. I'm with 4 girlfriends for a week of surf, sun and fun. I've scheduled regular posts to appear in my absence.

Back to my sneak peak. I couldn't resist those fabrics any longer, so I cut into them, and stitched a few blocks together.

I'm  planning the most basic quilt with these precuts, and I will have zero waste. I like zero waste. The first step is to cut two 5" strips from each jelly roll fabric. These 5" strips will be randomly matched with a charm square like the photo above shows.

Also from each jelly roll fabric I will cut strips for the other side of the charm squares, as shown above.

These went together oh-so-fast, and I just couldn't stop. Here is a pic of all 4 blocks.

I will be so eager to get back to this when the vacation ends. Maybe it will make leaving paradise a little easier to swallow. Maybe?

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Makin' A List

Seems as though I should have a list pretty well defined by the 11th of January - especially if the list is the goals list for the new year - but I am still considering options, and have a few decisions to make.

Here is what I am pretty sure I will do this year:
1. Wedding quilt for niece's wedding coming up in June.
2. Son-in-law quilt - still considering possibilities.
3. Tag Sale.
4. Swoon.
5. Churn Dash. Monkey Wrench. Hole in the Barn Door. (Choose one; they're all similar.)
6. Select UFOs that didn't quite get finished in 2015.

Fabrics I have a strong desire to work with:

1. Roman Holiday Remnants
2. French General Remnants
3. Pom Pom de Paris FQ Pack
4. Red, Red, Red - my tub of red fabric is overflowing
5. Blue, Blue, Blue - see #4
6. Precuts - my gosh, look at how many I have:

Charm Packs

Jelly Rolls

Options. A quilter needs options, I suppose. I will firm up my plans by month's end, and get busy with the cuttin', stitchin', and creatin'.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Charm Pack Quilts

Once upon a time I was adamantly opposed to buying precuts. When they first came out however many years ago, I viewed precuts as just a gimmick designed to catch quilters and their hard-earned dollars.

I did a decent job of avoiding them for quite a long time, too. But somewhere along the line, I purchased one. And then another. Before long, I was buying precuts like my life depended on it. Layer Cakes. Charm Packs. Jelly Rolls. Fat Eighths.

The big problem I encountered was that I would buy them and then not use them, so I was amassing quite a precut stash. I tried a couple of projects eventually, especially when I discovered Schnibbles. I disliked wasting any part of a precut, though, and it seemed that for nearly every pattern I used there would be precut fabric in the waste basket when finished.

I set about to remedy that dilemma this week, and in the process I have made two quilt tops with some of these Charm Packs, and I didn't waste a bit. Success!

My immediate need was twofold. First, I needed a baby quilt for a soon-to-be-born baby girl. Second, I needed an easy quilt to teach for the beginning quilters who have expressed a desire for such a project.

The first quilt was the baby girl quilt. I had two Charm Packs of Lily & Will fabric by Bunny Hill Designs. I decided to make a square quilt with 64 of these 5" charm squares sewn together in random fashion. Then I would find a cream in my stash to use for a narrow inner border. Finally, I would take the remaining charm squares, cut them in half and create a piano key border.

Creating a project as you sew leads to learning a few things along the way. First, and most importantly, I learned that I would have done better with three Charm Packs rather than two. I had to resort to cutting additional 5" squares from some stash fabric that melded nicely into the colors. I used a stash white-on-white for the inner border, and I added that into the piano key borders, too.  I decided to use corner blocks for the outer border, and that made making the borders fit a much easier process that I was expecting.

Time of construction for this baby quilt, which measures at right around 50" square, was just a few hours. It was extremely satisfying to finish it so fast, and be so pleased with the results. I was pumped to make another one.

Since I want to teach this in a class for beginners, it seemed like a good idea to produce a second quilt in something other than baby quilt fabrics. People need to see the variety of possibilities, especially beginners. With that goal in mind, I returned to the Charm Pack stash and pulled out three packs - all Barbara Brackman lines: two of Civil War Jubilee and one of Civil War Homefront.

I tried streamlining a few steps, and made notes along the way to use when I teach the class. It came together just as easily as the first, and I am again loving the result. I am calling this project Triple Charm, as it requires three Charm Packs. (There will be a few leftover pieces; I will show students how to use them so they don't feel they've wasted fabric.)

Easy, right? Straight sewing; no triangles; no cutting for the center; simple inner border cut at a standard 2.5". The only complex part of this project is the outer border. Cutting all the 5" blocks into 2.5" halves, sewing together in a random fashion using an accurate quarter-inch seam will be good practice for beginning students.

Now I need to set a couple of dates, and get the word out.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Fabric, Anyone?

I will have a few questions for you today. Mostly of the rhetorical variety, but answer them if  you like.

Just because I am not getting very much sewn or quilted in my sewing room doesn't mean that I can't buy more fabric, now does it? (Question 1)

I have had 2 shopping opportunities in recent weeks, and while I am supposed to be using from the stash, I figure some additional precuts really isn't that much more fabric. Is this not logical? (Question 2)

I bought this single jelly roll of Indigo Crossing on that recent trip to the Granville quilt show.

And yesterday, I stopped in at Old Town Fabrics and just had to treat myself to these delectable charm packs.

French General fabrics are nearly always irresistible, and those Midwinter Reds from Minnick and Simpson were very appealing, too, so I got 2 of each. That should be a fast "someday" project, right? (Question 3)

Well, off to class!
Happy Quilting, Friends!