Erin's Diamonds - Progress Update

Even though I have not blogged much about my continued hand quilting on Erin's Diamonds, I am continuing to make slow but steady progress. I've more accurately calculated that there are around 360 diamonds in this quilt plus all the half-diamonds that create the border. I estimate that I have quilted around 144 diamonds. I don't profess to be a mathematician, but that is getting pretty darn close to half, right?

This picture shows the antique frame in our dining area. The bay window affords me just enough space for the frame and still access the garage door on the opposite wall. The bay window also provides wonderful natural light for daytime stitching. I accomplish so much more when I quilt in the daytime, as opposed to the evening. I ought to fetch my Ott light from upstairs and use it in the evenings.

The photo above was take several days ago as I was just beginning to fill in that bit of purple. It is finished now, and Thursday evening I rolled the bars to a new section. I will set my chair on the left side - where the bright reds and oranges are - and work my way across.

This closer picture shows some progress on the purple. Actually, the rows on either side of the pastel purple were also only partial quilted. That 6-8" section across the quilt was just too far out of reach from either side of the frame.

If I could arrange to do 2 hours of quilting on this every day for a week, I think I could finish it. That is not very realistic, however, because this weekend we will be away from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. Perhaps I can make up for those missed hours and still try to finish by next weekend. The painter - DH - is moving right along with his work in the front room and will soon be breathing down my neck to have access to this space! I must push myself to get it done!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Slow Sunday

Here we are again at the beginning of a new week and still, the task of hand-quilting is taking center stage.

On Friday, I attended our Frankfort Girls sew-along over at Sheryll's house. What a dreary day it was, but the warmth and coziness of freshly-made coffee cake and coffee combined with dear friends and stitching made it just as pleasant as ever.

I brought out a project that I "sandwiched" for History Day. I did quite a bit on it that day, and worked again on it the last time we girls met. So, basically, every two weeks, this quilt gets about 3 hours of stitching. Since it is a rather a small quilt, I won't need many more days to finish it. The backing is pieced with two pretty fabrics the details of which you can read about here.

I need to give this quilt a name. Generally, I refer to it as the paper-pieced quilt. I went back through old blogposts and found 3 occasions where I either mentioned or worked on it. Just for the sake of pulling related material together, I will link them here, and you can enjoy if you like. (2012 mention; 2013 mention; 2014 mention.) This quilt truly has been a multi-year project.

My other hand-quilting project, of course, is Erin's Diamonds. It takes up most of the dining area, as the picture above illustrates; I so want to get this monster frame out of the way before DH is ready to come this way with his painting. I estimate that I am 25% finished with it. Most days I do get at least an hour of stitching in, oftentimes more. The picture above is from the very beginning, but I can use it to explain my process thus far: I started on the blue side - those tips of yellow are the bottom border. I quilted up to almost the light purple row. Then we lifted the frame and turned it 180-degrees, so now the orange-y pink-red rows are nearly finished. Again, I can reach to almost the light purple row. I hope that by day's end I will be ready to roll up the finished side and begin new rows (and maybe zip across that unquilted purple row, too).

While I quilt like crazy on my diamonds quilt, a close friend is just getting started. Frienzie Kay is the original fan of Kaffe Fassett fabrics; she introduced these fabrics to me way back about 10 years ago. Anyway, she is in the cutting phase of making her own diamond quilt. Because she has asked me several questions about how I cut this quilt out, I went back through the archives and uncovered a post that explained those details. If you were ever thinking you couldn't do a quilt with so many bias edges, think again. This quilt was a dream to cut and sew. Click back on the link to read all about it.

About the painting job that DH is progressing on. The formal dining room is nearly completed. I know he will be very happy to have one room done - as he said the other day "I need closure!" He's not the only one, either! *wink*

Next he will move to the front room. I will do all I can to return the dining room to "normal" and still keep up the pace on Erin's Diamonds, because when the front room is finished, he will have a small, easy entry hall and then - oh boy - the main living area will become his final area. I need to be out of his way, for sure. Nothing like a little pressure, is there??

I hope you have a pleasant Sunday. Maybe some slow stitching is in your plans? I am linking to Slow Sunday Stitching; hope you go there and have a look around.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Slow Stitchin'

I snapped this picture yesterday as we were heading out to the screened-in porch to sit for a spell - it's nice to sip a glass of wine while enjoying the cool of the evening. Those are some long shadows cast across my quilt frame which is set up in the bay window overlooking the back yard.

I have been pretty steady about quilting, if I do say so myself. I generally quilt 5-7 needles' worth a day, so it is going at a pretty good pace. I do have some mighty tender fingers at the moment, so I may back off a bit today. I have provided background on this quilt which you can read about here and here.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy some slow stitching; it sure is a great way to pass the time.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hand Quilting

It has been a slow and lazy Sunday here at the homestead. We had baseball on television - Tribe vs. Orioles (Tribe lost) - this afternoon, so I took the opportunity to get in some good quality quilting time.

Even with a ballgame on, I still find my mind wandering as I stitch; and these particular stitches reminded me of dimples. I like dimply quilts, and I am fortunate to own several. Grandma hand quilted quite a few that are upstairs in the closet or the cupboard. Some she pieced for me; some she pieced for others; some I pieced, but she hand quilted nearly everything.

This particular quilt I am currently working on has not had a single machine touch it, unless you count an iron. I hand pieced the entire quilt top, beginning way back in the late 1990s when I needed hand projects for road trips to cross country and track meets. After I had all the stars made, I decided to attach them to one another with the muslin diamonds. That gave me more hand work to do. Over time, I had a quilt top on my hands, and I had no idea of how to finish it because of the uneven edges. That's when it went into a decade-long hibernation. In late 2014, I decided to bite the bullet and make the remaining bits to finish off the quilt top; I remember the excruciating decision to c-c-c-cut some star points off just to have a squared-up quilt. (It was not as hard as I imagined.)

I began hand quilting last November; I put it away over Christmas and brought it out again this spring. I decided that I could quilt while watching Final Four, MLB and NBA. I have been relatively productive, and I find myself now having to deal with edges.

I wonder if you can figure out what I've got going on there on the right-hand side of the quilt? It's a trick learned from Grandma when she quilted at her old quilting frame. I adapted it to my Q-Snap frame. Come on back tomorrow and I will explain.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hand Quilting Update

Lest you think I have not been tending to the hand quilting project I took downstairs about a week ago, let me assure you that I have been working steadily on it. I have the calloused fingers to show for it, too.

Last time I wrote about resuming this project, I mentioned that I was close to moving to a new section, as that current section was nearly entirely quilted. I have now done that, and surprisingly, I find that I am tooling right along on this new section. Yesterday, for example, I loaded 10 needles and quilted all of them! Now, this was not done all in one sitting, but when I set a goal of a certain number of needles to quilt, then I find that I stay on task better.

 One block quilted. I don't mark my quilting lines, so some lines are a bit crooked and some are not as "on" the quarter-inch line as I would like, but when it's all finished, no one will notice or care.

 My tools. I went shopping for a new thimble earlier in the week, but couldn't find this kind in the stores I visited. I did buy those rubber needle grippers (the pink and blue things). These help me pull the needle out when I've loaded on too many stitches.

Today I am meeting a high school classmate for lunch in Chillicothe. She and her husband live in Pennsylvania and will be in town for an archaeological seminar at our Hopewell Mound site. It will be wonderful to linger over a bowl of hot potato soup and a steaming cuppa' jo and catch up with her!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Leisurely Stitching

I have no deadlines to meet with the two little projects I am currently working on, therefore I am taking a leisurely approach to finishing them. I now have a baker's dozen itty-bitty stars made for the Pincushion Quilt I showed you earlier (click here to see it).

A dozen makes a nice picture, so have a look at my little wonders. I have begun adding in some variety in the background fabrics, and I think I am going to like that haphazard look, so I will continue. I took a close up picture of the 13th star, since it was odd-man out.

With each star that I complete, I am surprised by the result that the combinations offer. I want the quilt to have an old-fashioned, primitive feel; I hope I am achieving that.

While watching wildcard football games last evening (omg - those Bengals!) , I did quite a lot of hand quilting on the little navy and beige Churn Dash quilt. It will very soon be ready for binding. With 2 more wildcard games today and some freakishly cold weather (our first real bout with winter!), I think time with needle and thread is just what I need today.

Since I don't really have any new stuff to share, allow me to mention another blog that I enjoy following called Sew'n Wild Oaks. I have her blog listed over on the sidebar along with lots of others; I click on hers regularly. I am totally infatuated with a quilt that she has designed called Lil' Orphan Scrappy; I have have had it on my to-do list for over a year. Well, I am finally going to break down and buy the pattern (even though I have sworn off new patterns!). She just keeps tempting me with these gorgeous stars and I simply must make this scrappy quilt. Fun, right?

In the blog-o-sphere, one click leads to another and another and another, and before you know you have made your way to heaven-only-knows how many more blogs. That is what I've done this morning, and I eventually happened upon a blog that celebrates hand quilting. As I, too, enjoy hand quilting, I checked it out and thought I'd share it here. Kathy's Quilts has a link-up party on Sundays, so I have linked to her today. Linking to other blogs exposes you up to even more quilting blogs - it's a massive place, this quilt blog universe.

Well, enjoy your travels through the world of quilting blogs and as always,
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Just Plugging Away

I have been working somewhat steadily on making more itty-bitty stars for the little quilt.

I like the pops of red that are going to be in this quilt, and I want to be sure to have pops of yellow and blue, too. I have a rather sizable tub of pure scraps from which I've managed to make a lot of these stars - further proof that no piece is too small to throw away.

When I'm not making these stars, I have been hand quilting the wall-hanging I made back in November or December. I work on this while we watch the Cavaliers or Buckeyes on television. I also took it yesterday to quilting at Jan's - the Frankfort girls' regular day of stitching together.

Classes begin at OU-C on Monday, so I need to be putting the finishing touches on my syllabi. I also have all my Christmas to take down and put away. Looks like I have a full weekend ahead of me.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Quilting Goal

What is it about humans that setting goals works so well? We make New Year's Resolutions. We begin that diet on Monday. (Well, maybe those don't work so well.) Quilters have UFO Challenges, and even though the chances of my getting through my entire list for this year's challenge is somewhere between slim and none, I still got several things finished that I would otherwise have ignored.

I wouldn't have gone into all that business if I didn't have a goal.  For the month of November I have  pledged to sit at my quilting frame and work on the 6-pointed star quilt for at least an hour every day. So far, we are 4 days in and I'm 100% on that goal. My callouses are returning, but aren't too sore.

 I'm not doing anything elaborate with my quilting. I decided I would simply outline each shape and be done with it. I put this quilt in the frame sometime back around the beginning of October and took it to work on at History Day in Greenfield. I have not touched it since, sadly. This is why I needed to set a goal for myself. 

 When I am finished each day, I load up three or four needles to be ready to go when I sit down to work the following day. I can usually quilt this amount in an hour's time, so it also helps to keep me going.

Other than this hour of quilting each day, my work has consisted of getting the last of the bazaar sewing done. I will have a bit more sewing to do today, and then it's time to pull everything together and get the car loaded up. Set up is Friday evening.

Have you put of voting in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival? Today is the last day, so if  you've not taken the time to check out all the entries, time is running out! I would love it if you'd give a little love to my Long Road Home quilt in the Hand Quilted Category. This is what it looks like. Thanks for voting!

Have a great Thursday!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Too Busy To Blog

Retirement is just not supposed to keep me this busy. Honestly, though, the calendar has been full these past few days. I have just enough time to post a picture of the quilt I am going to demonstrate hand quilting on at the annual History Day festivities tomorrow.

Pretty, isn't it? I came across it in my recent sewing room clean-out of the previous week. I will provide more complete details about it soon. Today I am off to the Nutter Center in Dayton for Ohio One Stop - a quilt show. Yes, I plan to take pics. Please pray that the spending bug stays away!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

The Quilting Is Finished!

I am so very happy to tell you that I have finally - FINALLY! - finished my quilting on Long Road Home.

Looks pretty nice on the bed, if I do say so myself. Let's look at some additional views.

I just can't get enough of looking at it! After I finished the quilting late yesterday afternoon, I immediately took it off the frame and headed for the sewing room for a trimming. I decided right then that I wanted to get the binding on, so I dug around and found a fabric that suited me. I cut the strips, stitched them together, pressed them in half, and sewed it to the quilt. I even put a label on it.

I decided that I wanted to hand-stitch the binding, so that will give me something to do in the evenings this week.

Here's a look at the backing. I had to piece two different blue fabrics, and I think it looks decent.

Here is the history on Long Road Home. I first saw this quilt made up when Sheryll showed us her finished top back in February of 2011. I was already working on piecing mine. Click here to see my first mention of it. I finished the piecing at Quilt Camp 2011 when we were still at CHS. It hung in the closet for a good while. I put it in the quilt frame in October of 2012 when I needed a quilt to demonstrate for History Day, the annual fall event of the Greenfield Historical Society. Here is the post on that. Not only did I quilt Long Road Home at the 2012 History Day, but I brought it back for 2013 and 2014, as well! I tell you, this is a long, long road!

I will have to find a different quilt for 2015's History Day, because this baby is DONE! Well, it's quilted. It will be done when I finish up with the binding. Easy-peasy. ;)

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Added October 24, 2015: I've submitted this quilt (and this post) in the Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's Creative Side, so I thought it would be helpful to provide a link back.
 

Long Road Home Update

February is ending and I figured I should do one more post to finish out the month. I have been hand quilting, which makes for precious little interesting material to blog about. The pictures all look the same; the fingers and thumb are sore, so I could whine, but that gets old, too.

I am close to moving it again in the quilting frame, and it occurred to me that I ought to check things out to see just how close I am to finally finishing this seemingly never-ending quilt. Certainly, I ought to be finding myself near the end - it sure seems like it.

Here, I have unfolded the quilted part and stretched it out to see how far I've come. I have to say, it is quite satisfying to see this view. It gives me the 'oomph' I need to keep going.

A couple more views. It is going to look mighty nice finished and spread out on a bed. I like how scrappy I made it. That was something I was not sure of when I was making it; the pattern called for more neutrals. Since I am using from the stash, I opted for more color. I had more color than neutrals, so that drove my decision. It's going to be fine, too. *wink*

The back is interesting, too. I pieced the backing. There is a large dark blue print down the middle, with two lighter blue prints on either side. This trend of piecing the backs is working nicely for those of us who are trying to use from the stash.

My thumb is aching - there is actually a split in the skin, so a few days off from hand quilting will be necessary. In the meantime, I intend to cut out the Snowbird project, finish making the kits I need for the SPARK! class I will begin teaching on Tuesday, and machine quilt a baby quilt for a wee one who is due in mere weeks - mid-March, I think.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

This Is Whining

My fingers and thumb hurt! I have spent a good bit of this past month on hand quilting, and I'm now paying the price for it. The sensation one has in one's fingers and thumb after repeated needle-pricks is a constant throbbing. Then take those hands and plunge them into a sink of hot, soapy dishwater, and the throbbing intensifies. Waa-waaa! What a quandary--dishes or quilting?? No, there's no quandary at all, is there? *wink*

That Saturday at History Day earlier this month renewed my interest in getting The Long Road Home project off my to-do list. Plus, I'd already been working on Cheddar and Crackers, as well. The gears have definitely been ratcheted up a few notches on hand-quilting. 

 The quilting is rather straightforward, but it's getting the job done. I love sitting at the frame and looking at the vast array of fabrics that I used. I just love a scrappy-looking quilt!

I will be taking a break from stitching today. I have a full day at OUC, and then a Frienzie dinner afterwards. That should give my fingers time to heal a bit. Maybe one of these days, I will actually have a finish to show off!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hand Quilting

It is a sorry state of affairs right now in my sewing room. After all the good stuff I got done over the spring and summer, I am barely touching a needle or a cutter or a sewing machine this fall.
The little that I have been doing has been on my Long Road Home quilt. I took it last week to History Day, and have spent a bit more time this week working on it.



The picture looks somewhat fuzzy, but I think you can see a grid beginning to form on this section. I enjoy hand quilting, so I am going to try to work an hour minimum on it each day. Some days, that will be an effort, but others, I might get 2 or 3 hours to work on it.
Hope you have been getting more done than I have!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Tagalong Quilted

Way, way back in April of 2010, I made a Schnibbles called Tagalong. On Fridays when I get together with my group for quilting, I have been working on hand-quilting it.

This week, I finished it! How about that? *big cheesy grin*

Feels good to report a finish! I have so many quilt tops from small, like this, to huge queen- and king-sized. It'll be awhile before everything gets quilted.

I need to be more committed to hand-quilting some of them.

Happy Quilting, Friends!