I Might Be On A Roll!

As sporadically as I seem to be with using the Tin Lizzie, I know it's too soon to claim that I'm on a roll. But I like this feeling of getting quilts off the design wall and out of the closets, onto the longarm machine and QUILTED!

So maybe, just maybe, I can begin a habit of quilting the many tops hiding in this quilting room and beyond. 

Autumn Leaves is quilted as of Tuesday, and it all went very well, with no thread breakage or tension troubles. Before the next quilt goes on, I will change the needle, clean out lint, and oil the working parts. I've learned my lessons about ignoring or delaying these essential steps. 

I went straight to work on the binding. I only guesstimated that I would need 7 strips (pshaw! who measures??). I was just a tad shy of having enough. *smh*

I stitched the border on and shared it at quilting with the Frankfort Girls yesterday. 

So let's get a complete look at this quilt. She's all ready for the coming fall season, and you can bet I will use it!

Do you think my backing is perfect? It was a gift I picked up last fall from my friend Jan. She was having a massive sewing room clear-out. As a grateful recipient of her generosity, I knew it'd be perfect for this quilt and backing fabric is so easy. I love how quickly I can get a quilt loaded on when I don't have to piece a backing.

It's super-nice to have a finish. My output of finished quilts has seriously decreased in recent months, unfortunately. I hope to boost my numbers over the next several months. We'll see.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Long Arm in Action!

I am overcoming my timidness toward the long arm quilting machine. In the last week I have loaded on a quilt, begun the quilting, encountered some issues, addressed the issues, and finally -- HAVE FINISHED A QUILT!!!

Loading the machine is getting easier. I have watched a ba-zillion You-Tube videos and IG stories, and I am feeling much more confident. This quilt showed my success as there were no tucks or puckers in the backing. I'd had a few of those issues in some previous efforts, sadly.

My troubles appeared in the stitching mechanics; I don't know enough about the stitch regulator or the speeds. I do know that I was stitching uncontrollably a couple of times and it did not want to stop! I wonder if lint/dust had built up? Anyway, I stopped by unplugging and went back later to make whatever adjustments I could. The job is done, and it is my best effort yet, despite the runaway stitches.

I didn't want to leave the quilt laying around without a binding, so I went straight to work on that last night, and finished it off - I even included a label.

And today, I have taken its official picture spread out on the bed. The quilt is a sampler quilt that I started back in January of 2014. It was a sew-along sponsored by the folks at Jolly Jabber. I stayed on track with the sew-along until about the 10th block, then I stopped. I finished it in 2017, the marathon year of finishing UFOs. In checking back, I see that this was the designated UFO for July '17.

I could spend some time critiquing all sorts of things on this quilt, but I think I won't. I am so pleased to have it done, and the imperfections are not at all deterrents to its beauty.

Are you wondering why I selected this quilt out of all the dozens lined up in the closets awaiting quilting??? Well, my sister requested a quilt, and when she came to "shop" the quilt closets, this is the one she picked. Good taste! 

Hope you are having a lovely day, dear readers! The unseasonably warm, pleasant weather continues today, and I think it's time for some outdoor activity. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Winding Down a Year and a Decade

All over the social medias I am seeing posts about not only the end of 2019, but also of the twenty-teens decade. Whoa. That's giving me lots to reflect on. It had never occurred to me that come midnight tomorrow, we begin a new decade. This will be the 7th decade I have lived in, which sounds like a lot, but I only had three years in my first decade. That means, though, that this decade will see me turning 70! Yikes!

Okay, I am not here today to talk about aging and the passage of time. I come here to talk about quilts, by gosh, and I have one more finish to share before concluding this year.

A long while back, our sweet young friend Caleb handed off a bagful of t-shirts and asked if I would make them into a quilt. We love this boy - he's almost one of our own! - so of course, I was all in.

I made the quilt top back in May, and quilted it in November, and included it here in my November round-up. It was my 2nd quilt completed on the Tin Lizzie.

Finally, yesterday I did the binding. With all the Christmas madness, I just hadn't taken the time to get this final task completed. It was taking up space in my quilting room, however, so it needed to be dealt with.

The back is pieced. I thought I'd bought enough of the black and gold paisley, however, I was not able to stretch it enough to make it work. My solution was to grab the gray and black stripe - it sorta' reminds me of barbed wire - that I used in the cornerstones, for a midsection of the back. Worked like a dream!

And now it is ready to be handed off to Caleb. I think he will love it. That was the last of four t-shirt quilts I made for others this year, and now all are finished.

Remember all those t-shirt quilts??

Number 1 was the Ohio State Quilt I made for my husband's college fraternity alumni to raffle for scholarship money. We just drew the winner on that - one of the alumni won it. Interestingly, his son was a senior on the OSU football team this year. We will be sending it out today or tomorrow.

Numbers 2 and 3 were quilts made for a local friend who gave them as Christmas gifts to her son.

And this one - Caleb's quilt - makes 4. I'm sure we will be seeing him soon.

And now, back to that end of the year/decade business. With just 1 1/2 days to go, I have one more quilt top I'd like to polish off. The quilt-along I worked on through the Quilter's Planner is right on schedule. The December instructions called for completing the quilt top, and I have nearly done it. Only a border to add, so my intention is to go to work on that this afternoon. Easy-peasy. Below is the first block done back in January.

I hope you are finishing your year - and your decade - strong!!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Another Finish

The last of the commission projects that I agreed to do this summer has been finished; I will deliver it later today. Hooray! This project has turned out to be one that is rather special in that it is my very first quilt for which I did my own long-arm quilting! It was a fun day of learning, and I will write more about it tomorrow; today's post is about the quilt and the finish.

The eventual recipient of this t-shirt quilt is Abby, a recent high school grad and current student at the University of Cincinnati. Her grandmother plays bridge in some of the same clubs as my mother, and in this roundabout way, I was commissioned to do this quilt. Strange how those things work, you know? I brought the t-shirts home with me in the spring and finished the binding last night. What a sense of accomplishment - and a sense of freedom! To have all three commissions done feels really good.

The backing and binding fabric is a very nice flannel of red and black plaid on white. Because of its weight, this will be one extremely warm and cozy quilt in the cold days of winter. I can see this being well used in a college dorm or apartment. It is roughly 72" x 88" - more than ample for a dorm bed, I would think. It will serve regardless of the size of her bed.

I took several pictures of it, mostly because I quilted it!!! I stitched those quilting curlicues! And, the customer did a fantastic job of placing the shirts exactly where she wanted them - I always like to have good separation of colors, and that is certainly accomplished here.

Come on back tomorrow for I will share with you all the excitement of my first ever long-arm experience. There might even be a video! (never done that before, so we'll see...)

I am linking with Needle and Thread Thursday; hope you'll skip on over there to see what some other quilters have been working on.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

First Finish for 2017

Last night I attached the borders to my 19th Century Reds quilt. It feels pretty darn good to have something to check off the list so early in the year. Wouldn't it be great if I were to be so industrious in all my endeavors this year?!?

Like I said, it was evening so the lighting is on the darkish side, but I still think you can appreciate this finish. I pressed it after every step and it lays very nicely. With all those pieces in the blocks, I was a bit worried about how it would behave.

This quilt's journey began when I made a hasty last-minute kit purchase at some quilt show I attended. I can only guess that it was perhaps 2010 or 2011. I know I had the kit here in my sewing room for quite a long time. Then in 2015 I took it with me to our retreat, and while there I made all the blocks. Those 12 big blocks measure at 15" - an ample size for sure.

And then those blocks spent the next year and a half folded ever-so-neatly in a storage tub. I'd made a mistake when cutting the reds - I used what was supposed to be the outer border for the sashing strips and inner border. I knew I was going to need to buy an appropriate red for the outer border. I tell you, a little mistake will send a project into storage for a long time. Do you other quilters do this? Avoidance tendencies, right?

I found an acceptable red for the outer border when Terry had her fabric clear-out sale back in September. I was thrilled to find something with enough yardage that I could also use it for the backing. Happy-happy-happy dance!

When we decided that we'd do another UFO challenge for 2017, this quilt definitely made the list. And we drew #4 - it's number on said list.

I took it to Terry's on Tuesday to try to finish the quilt top. I got as far as having all the sashing strips and cornerstones attached, and all the central quilt top together minus the bottom row.

Above is the picture showing what I accomplished on Tuesday. At the bottom of the picture you can see that I have the sashing row attached but not pressed down. One more row would be added here. Below, I have added that last row as well as the inner border.

And now the first week of January is in the books and I have a brand new quilt top and a UFO checked off the list. How nice!

I am so very pleased with how this looks. My "new" outer border fits really well with the rest of the fabrics (even though it's not a 19th C. red). The finished quilt top measures 74"x58" and may very well find itself quilted before year's end. This could definitely enhance next year's Christmas decorations.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Final Finish for 2016

Mid-afternoon yesterday, I finished binding Erin's Diamonds. Whoo-hoo! I thought I'd be all celebratory and cheering and dancing and carrying on. But, I actually felt sort of lost! It was the way I feel when I finish a really amazing book, and then wonder what in the world I will do now that it's over.

Weird.

Let's look at some pics. I took lots. *smile*

The quilt is from the Kaffe Fassett book called Kaleidoscope of Quilts (2006). Erin picked it out in February of 2013, and I made the quilt top that year. Then for all of 2014 and 2015, it hung in my closet. Did you know that quilts never get finished if you never work on them? It's true! So the hand-quilting began in October. To quilt this 108x93-inch quilt in 3 months is speedy for me. Once upon a time, this would have been incomprehensible.

I have written about this quilt frequently and have always referred to it as Erin's Diamonds, even though the original quilt is called Hot Diamonds.
Click here to see my first post, when Erin selected the fabrics from the stash.
Click here to see me trying to figure out his very brief directions.
Click here to see a post about sewing the quilt top.
Click here to see it on the antique quilting frame.
For more posts, just enter Erin's Diamonds into the search box located in the sidebar.

And this concludes my posting for 2016. Number 250 for the year. We will be hosting our friends the Schmidts and Everharts tonight. Reveling is set to begin at 8 or so. We have a big football game to watch, too - GO BUCKEYES!! BEAT CLEMSON!!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

The BEAST Is Finished!

Beast. Behemoth. Hulk. Colossus. Any word you can think of that connotes something huge, then that would work if describing this finish. And, it's not just the size of the quilt I'm referring to. Over time, the size of the commission became just as huge, largely by my own creation - but that's a story for later.

For now, let's just enjoy the finish! Working to accomplish this finish accounts for my absence from blogging these last couple of days.

Copied from Pinterest - or Facebook - or Instagram - unsure of origin!

"The hills are alive, with the sound of . . .  relief! Gee whiz, but I sure dragged my feet on this quilt.

Yes, I have finished Elisa's quilt and will be delivering it later today. We are going to unfurl it on the bed it was made for, and I will surely take pictures. (Elisa is an artist; maybe I ought to have her take pics.)

The bed in these pictures is a double bed, consequently this king-size quilt hangs off at the bottom and on both sides.

I have worked most furiously this last week. I finally had some sort of epiphany about working toward a finish and not toward perfection. This ah-ha moment gave me the push I needed to buckle down and get to work. And, of course, it was much easier than I'd been imagining. It just took lots and lots of time.

I have written about this quilt in previous posts, but just to quickly recap: Even though I'd never previously used the quilt-as-you-go method, I would say this qualifies as just that. After sewing all the strips together in long vertical sections, I machine quilted each section vertically in random distances. I tried to keep the stitching straight, but I didn't obsess about it if there were wiggly parts. I had to mentally think about how I would close the back after I'd sewn the front together, and this caused me lots of consternation. I eventually figured it out, and I am happy with the results. I will put together a post later to explain the process more fully.

Click here to read about the beginning of this quilt's journey. Here are a couple of posts from the work done over the summer - the piecing and the quilting.

Added Sunday, September 25: I am entering this quilt in Amy Ellis' Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Check out the Modern Quilts category and the Original Design category. While you're there, go ahead and vote for me! Thanks!

Happy Quilting, Friends!