Staying Positive is finished!

My latest finish, "Staying Positive", from Brigitte Heitland's "Pluses Quilt" pattern is ready to go! This was my OMG for November.

This quilt was made during the Pluses Quilts QAL earlier this year. I quilted it myself on one of Elly Prins's long-arm machines at the end of October. This is the throw size, but as you can see in the photo above, it's almost large enough for a double bed.

This was my first time using a long arm machine and, although my result is far from perfect, I'm satisfied with it, and I learnt a lot that day.

The fabrics in the pluses are from my stash, and the background fabric and binding is Kona "Storm".

I'm linking to Elm Street Quilts for the One Monthly Goal link up.

Happy sewing

Marly.

July: new month - old OMG

 

Unfortunately I didn't achieve my goal of finishing quilting the Do. good stitches quilt last month.  

 

So it has carried over into July; my goal this month is to move this quilt on further. 

I just haven't been able to settle to it. I have been finding recently that manoeuvring the quilt during FMQ puts strain on my hands so I can't do more than about 15 minutes in one stretch. The recent high humidity doesn't seem to help. My machine is due for servicing so I think I'll make an appointment with the dealer this week and give myself an enforced rest from FMQ!

So what did I do to this quilt in the last month? I finished the "wishbone" motif on the sashing and quilted a few hearts on the blue crumb squares. I've decided to do a simple motif in every square, giving squares of the same colour the same motif.

We'll have to see how far this project advances in the next month.

I'm linking to:

 

Click on the button above to see more patchwork and quilting aspirations.

Happy sewing 

Marly

June's monthly goal

Unfortunately I didn't make much progress with my goal in May. I started quilting but strained my right shoulder and have stopped again for the moment. My goal for this month is the same as for last - to quilt the Do Good Stitches quilt the Comfort Circle group made in March.

Proof of progress: 

assembled, layered, pinned and partly quilted.

I'm quilting the sashing with, supposedly, a wishbone motif but the loops are turning out too rounded when I'm moving the quilt away from or towards me. I only seem to get it right when sewing from right to left. Still, it looks quite pretty the way it is.

It's not perfect; I blame the shoulder! However, more practice wouldn't go amiss!

I'm linking up to Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal in June.

Happy sewing,

Marly.

One Monthly Goal for June

June's goal for Patty's challenge at Elm Street Quilts is to finish this small version of "Follow your own path", the Quilt Along held recently at mmmquilts. 

All it needs is the quilting.

I started free motion quilting it with the stitch regulator on Friday, but the result was DREADFUL! (Sorry, no photo) It absolutely did not enhance the piecing. Yesterday morning I spent some time unpicking three lines of quilting. Maybe you can see a trace of them in the fourth row, between the yellow and green arrows. Unpicking quilting is normally something I just don't do. Unless the tension is so off that I have loops on the back (happened once!) I leave it be; the chances are that I'm the only one who'd notice. but now: regulated nothing! Some of the stitches were more than a quarter of an inch long, and others less than one sixteenth. 

I haven't used the stitch regulator for some time as I've been following Lori Kennedy's online course in FMQ, and chose to do the course using my darning foot. Now, with the darning foot my stitches are not always the same length either, but are much better than this was, and I feel more in control of the machine.

So my goal is to get this labelled, quilted an bound before the end of the month. Let's hope a trip to the dealer for a machine service doesn't throw a spanner in the works!

I'm linking this to:

Click on the button for links to more June goals.

Stay safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

Free Motion Quilting improvement

My goal for April was to practise and improve my FMQ with Lori Kennedy's QAL. This has now been going for 6 weeks, and I've been quilting every day, well, almost every day for the last four. Some days I spent so much time doodling motifs that I didn't get to doing the real thing! According to Lori, doodling is an important prelude to quilting, and I agree! (Who am I to disagree?) 

I didn't set a landmark date for this goal as the course is due to continue for another couple of months and I plan on continuing the course right to the end, even if it takes all year! For this month I have achieved what I set out to do: improve my FMQ

I'll spare you the doodles, but here are my quilting attempts so far, in chronological order:

1.  starting point: no lessons yet, just quilting and tension check (31/03).

2.  1st assignments: loops and scallops. Also general practice for following assignments.

3.  Assignment: Sailing boat sampler. This took several days; 2 rows per day

4.  A posey, in a frame with text (W.H.Davies)

I see some progression between 1. and 4. What the photos don't show is that I no longer finish a row with my shoulders hunched up by my ears; that's progress too.

Anyone who is not satisfied with their attempts at FMQ should definitely try following this course, for free on Lori's blog. She also explains a lot about related topics, like choice of needle, adjusting tension, choice of thread, and, most importantly, she explains why they contribute to a good result.

I'm linking to

Click on the button above to see more goals achieved.

Stay safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

Fishing for blue

This month my blue scraps are going into a fishy table runner. The inspiration is from Nicholas Ball's book, "Inspiring Improv".

A couple more tails needed here, and the rest of the shoal.

I haven't caught many fish yet, but there are plenty more fish in the sea blue and light scraps where that came from.

blue scrap basket from a previous RSC project

Meanwhile most of my sewing energy is going into Lori Kennedy's current FMQ QAL.

(dreadful mistake in the bottom line there!)

 

This is nowhere near good enough yet, but I'm hoping, "Practice makes perfect"!

 

I'm linking to:

    

Click on the buttons to see more handwork in action.

Stay safe and healthy. 

Happy sewing

Marly.

One Monthly Goal in April

My goal for April is a change of focus from my year-plan. My plan for this year, as expressed in January, is to focus on shifting UFOs, either finish them or re-purpose them. March's goal hasn't moved anywhere, but January and February have both seen completed tops reaching the "waiting to be quilted" pile. There are quite a few more UFOs in that pile, so this month I'm deviating from my year plan.

I'm participating in Lori Kennedy's QAL based on her book "25 days to better Machine Quilting" and have decided that my goal for April is to focus at least 20 minutes per day on practising free motion quilting. 

Progress in my first week.

 

The stitches at the beginning were really uneven, but at the bottom they are a lot better, but still far from perfect. I certainly have more control, and I have learnt to adjust the top tension - never knew that - and the right tension has made a lot of difference. This was also my first try at FMQ using the darning foot and not my Bernina Stitch Regulator, which means I have to do more myself, matching the speed of my hands to that of my foot on the pedal.

With any luck, and enough practice, by the end of the month I'll be up to the challenge of dealing with UFOs again. With very little to distract me this month this looks achievable. 

I'm linking to:

 

Click on the button to see more monthly goals.

Stay safe and healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Monthly goal for March - not reached

unsuccessful fabric trials

My goal for March was to work on a WIP, and I did, and I tried to create a background for my gypsy dancer collage, but have absolutely nothing permanent to show for it.  

Despite working on it I'm no further than I was at the beginning of the month. I failed to create a suitable background.

After about a week of frustration I turned my attention elsewhere in the hope that moving away from the problem would free my mind to find a solution. 

I sewed strings for an Ad Hoc Improv Quilters challenge:

I sewed trees for the Table Scraps challenge:

I practised free motion quilting in Lori Kennedy's QAL:

(definitely more practice needed!)

Together with friends at a distance I sewed some I-spy blocks for a secret baby quilt (secret! 😀):

Practice block

 

I even knitted the greater part of a sock:

Unfortunately, none of them helped, and the background to my gypsy dancer is still empty!

I shan't be spending any more time on it until the lockdown is lifted and the second part of this workshop (originally scheduled for April last year) can take place. I've come to the conclusion that I can't go it alone, and need some support from an expert.

So my goal for next month will not be the same as this month, although it may be one of these projects above. Whatever it will be, I hope to achieve more towards reaching my goal than this month.

I'm linking, even though I finished nothing, to

  

Click on the button to see other people's achievements this month.

Stay healthy and safe.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Shoo Fly Blue is finished, ... and a goal for January

 Happy New Year everyone!

I hope we will soon have shooed the covid pandemic into submission, and that the world has become a safer place.

My one monthly goal for December at Elm Street Quilts was to finish my Shoo Fly Blue quilt. Unfortunately I didn't finish completely, but stopped at 23:50 h. on New Years Eve.

The situation at 23:50 h on 31/12/2020! So near and yet so far!

Yesterday another 30 minutes had the last yard of binding sewn down, and finished. It is now labelled, quilted and bound! And even washed!

 

It measures 49" square, and is made from scraps in response to Bonnie Hunter's Leaders and Enders Challenge 2019-2020. The sashing, triangles and binding fabric is Stof, basic in blue.

For the Quilting I was greatly helped by the tips given in two books I bought recently: 

• Stitching Pathways by Wendy Sheppard and 
• 25 Days to Better Machine Quilting by Lori Kennedy

From the first I learnt the importance of stopping frequently to look round and decide which direction to go next, and from the second good hand positions, and why.  I'd seen how to position the fingers on the quilt before, but no-one had ever given a reason, so I never fixed it in my memory. There is much more in both books; I still have to work through them thoroughly, and am looking forward to more improvement.     

For January my goal is to sort through my boxes of UFO's and make a plan of action for them. Some pieces will be destined to be finished as originally planned, and some to be repurposed. I am still resolved to start nothing new this year, until I've had UFO -> WIP -> FINISHED + empty boxes!

In addition, as my quilting goal for January, I hope to finish making the blocks of the bead curtain throw I was making for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year. I have to go back to some of the colours as my scrap bins didn't have enough to make more blocks in the relevant months. With any luck I'll get them sewn into a top, complete with setting triangles. 

I'm linking to:

           

    

Click on the buttons to see more works in progress.

Stay healthy and safe.

Happy sewing 

Marly.

Rainbow Bow Ties is finished.

             


Click on the buttons above for my posts about these projected finishes.

My third finish for the 2019 Q4 Finish A-Long is Rainbow Bow Ties, my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2019. This is also my OMG goal for January 2020.

At something like the eleventh hour I finished sewing the binding down. I spread quilting the swirls over the previous two days. I used the design "swirls" from the book, "Stitching Pathways" by Wendy Sheppard. I found her technique of stitching a short distance and stopping to decide where to go next a real help and an eye-opener: "Why didn't I think of doing that?" instead of just letting the machine run on into increasingly  more hopeless places. This became a relaxed and interesting experience.

Close up of swirls; some more swirly than others, but we're getting there!

The idea for this quilt came from "Make Modern" magazine in 2018.

Fabric from stash, with some new neutral additions

Wadding 100 % cotton

Thread for piecing Aurifil 50 wt assorted colours

Thread for quilting Aurifil 50 wt colour 5011 (light khaki) 

I'm linking to

       

                                    

Click on the buttons to visit the link ups.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Mini Wonders table runner.

              

My Mini Wonders Table Runner is finished and in use on the dining table. This is my first finish for the 2019 Q2 Finish Along list, and was also my one monthly goal for May.

The pattern is by Sheila Christensen and was published in instalments in six issues of "Make Modern". This design looks as if it might be EPP, but in fact it's ordinary piecing; all the pieces are cut from strips using a 60 degree ruler. The strips are either 1.5" or 2.5".

I quilted the border sections and the white pieces in the large hexagons with the walking foot and the setting triangles free motion.

 Fabric

The coloured hexagons are made using two fabrics in each of six colours. I used Alison Glass fabrics from various series.
The borders are white and three shades of grey.
For the binding I cut 2" strips of several of the fabrics used in the table runner,
The backing is "Basicgrey compositions" from Moda (the second word may be something else - it is so faint)
I both pieced and quilted with Aurifil 50wt. colour 2600, dove grey.

I'm linking this week to:

    
Click on the buttons above to view more new quilts.

I'm linking to "One Monthly Goal" at Elm Street Quilts,

and to 2019 Finish Along at Studio sew of course at the end of June.
Then you'll be able to view other people's progress by clicking on these links.

Happy sewing

Marly.