One Monthly Goal in June

 My goal for May is was to bind my hemisphere hexagons, but although I wrote the post I forgot to post it!

As I didn't touch any of these projects all month here they are again! This first one remains the priority.

Hemisphere quilt: pattern: @mystery quilter

Also waiting for action are:

• to add hand quilting:

rainbow beads curtain

and

Staying positive: pattern: Brigitte Heitland

•  to assemble:
  

These last are the March blocks from the Comfort Circle of Do Good Stitches. The idea was shamelessly lifted from Cathy, whose prodigious scrap quilts for charity are an inspiration.

There are 30 days, so that means on average one project per week. It should be possible but some tasks require more time than others and I do have other thing to do with my time! I'll give binding the Hemisphere quilt the priority. Here's hoping!

I'm linking this post to

 

Click on the button to see other participants' projects.

Happy sewing

Marly.

One November goal

 My monthly goal for November is to trim and bind my Pluses throw: "Staying Positive". I made this last month during a QAL with Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic; it's one of her patterns.

I quilted it during a long-arm quilting lesson with Elly Prins a week or so ago. At her suggestion I used a meander motif, and I left the pluses unquilted. I'm considering doing some straight line hand quilting in them, but haven't made up my mind yet. What do you think?

I'm linking up to One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Monthly goal in September

Having failed to meet my goals in June and July, I've taken a rest from the Do. Good stitches quilting for the Comfort Circle. I've been steadily working on it, but progress has been very slow. 

In August I started a new project: the "Pluses Quilt" quilt along, organised by Brigitte Heitland and using her pattern of the same name. My goal is to produce a completed top by the end of September. At the moment I've sewn all the pluses for the throw and have laid out the the first three rows with the background fabric. 

 

The little labels on the background fabric give the code name, as few background pieces are identical. This is Brigitte's idea, and it really works; having initially cut and labelled all the background pieces locating them in the quilt becomes easy. Once they are sewn together the labels will go, of course!

This way of working is new to me. This is the first time I've used a Zen Chic pattern and I had always thought Brigitte's quilts were improv. Far from it! This is carefully calculated cutting. I'm going to try this approach myself in future, although I'm afraid the maths will do my head in!

I'm linking up to Elm Street Quilts for

Click on the link to see more  quilters' goals.

Keep safe and healthy

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 in May

 

 

Last week I showed the finished top of the Comfort Circle's March quilt for DO. good stitches. 

My goal for May is to quilt it. 

I'm linking this to 

 

Click on the button to see more handwork aspirations.

Happy sewing

Marly.

DO. good stitches Comfort Circle March quilt

 

My one monthly goal for April was to assemble, and possibly quilt, the quilt my bee mates in the Comfort Circle contributed to in March. The last four crumb blocks arrived this Wednesday (there have been problems with postal deliveries from the UK recently) and I could add them to the rest that already had sashing added. I'm grateful to my friends in the Comfort Circle, most of whom I've never met, for making these crumb blocks. Some of them had never made them before, and one confessed to never saving her scraps! Well done all!

I won't get it quilted this month, that I know! I have finished the top, however. 

I spent some time contemplating these two layouts: ⬆dancing squares,

 

Dancing squares layout

or, ⬇ straight sashing.

Straight sashing layout

I'm not a great fan of sashing, but in this case the sashing provides the only "resting points" in the whole quilt. Dancing squares was my original idea, even before the blocks started arriving. It's not original in the sense of unique; I saw it first on Bonnie Hunter's Dancing Nine Patch free pattern, and I've used it several times. It was original in the sense of "my first idea", but when I tried with the first dozen or so blocks I found it rather chaotic and rearranged them in the more usual straight sashing formation.  

Once all the blocks were in, I finally decided on the dancing squares layout.

The borders are 2" wide which has brought the top up to 60" x 52"

Backing fabric has been chosen from my stash so next month's goal will be to add the label and to quilt and deliver this quilt.

I'm linking up to:

                               

Click on the buttons to see more happy handwork.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Kawandi Finish

 

 My goal for this month was to finish the Kawandi quilt I started at the end of February. And I did! Here it is: 

It is just 38 x 38 cm, and made from a bag of scraps from other members of the Dutch Modern Quilt Guild. The rules of the challenge were to use scraps from the bag to make something and to only use two fabrics from your own stash. Apart from the backing and wadding I only used one fabric - the purple frame and the corners to the centrepiece; all the rest was from the bag.

I used Aurifil no. 12 cotton throughout, except for the French knots in the centrepiece which are two strands of DMC stranded cotton. 

Centrepiece quilted with embroidery: stem stitch, running stitch and French knots.

I posted earlier about this project: here and here . In the second of these posts I described the process. 

Although the process is not difficult I found this slow going at the beginning. Not surprising as I had to find a way to anchor the side edges of the pieces as I added them, and the lines of stitching are obviously longer on the outside of the piece. This was intended as a sampler, a practice piece; I knew it wouldn't be perfect and yet I'm satisfied with the result. I learnt a lot in the making!

I am linking up to: 

• One Monthly Goal Finish:  https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2022/03/OMGMarch22finish.html
• Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More: https://wendysquiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2022/03/my-very-first-prairie-schooler-santa.html
  

 Click on the link to see what others have been up to.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Kawandi update.

 Two weeks ago I posted this photo of my mini Kawandi project:

Kawandi is the name for quilt in the dialect of the Siddi people in India. I've never been to India, but saw a few videos about these quilts while wandering around YouTube. As I'd never made a quilt using this technique I thought the Dutch MQG challenge to make something from other members' scraps would be the perfect opportunity to start.

Now it looks like this. The sewing together is finished. It measures 29 cm square and I just have to decorate the centre and make the "tassels" on the corners. Finishing this is my one monthly goal.

 

Characteristic of kawandi is the construction from the outside inwards using only two tools: a pair of scissors and a needle.

• Starting with a foundation (I used a layer of backing and of wadding) the quilter folds the edges of the foundation in by about a quarter of an inch. 
• The bottom of each piece to be added is first folded under, along with one of the ends - I'm right-handed, sew from right to left so I folded the right hand edge under. 
• The piece is joined to the foundation by a line of running stitches close to the edge, enclosing the raw edges. 
• Pieces are added, overlapping the previous one, until the edge of the foundation is completely covered. 
• More rows are added in the same way until the whole foundation is completely covered.
  

Not using an iron or a rotary cutter gives a wonky effect. I think the puckering has come from hand sewing through three layers, compressing the wadding in the process. While I moved on to the next few stitches the wadding sprung back into place. But this is just my idea, if anyone has another explanation, other than that I'm rubbish at hand quilting, please let me know. 

The women in India who use this technique simply sew the pieces to a single foundation layer. When they have finished they add the backing, leaving a small opening on the fourth side through which they fill the kawandi with cotton waste. I'll try something like that next time (!) but substitute wadding for the cotton waste, and sew it onto the top together with the backing. Unfortunately that will also require quilting, and to be honest I've done enough hand quilting over the last three weeks to last me for the rest of the year!

Happy sewing

Marly.

Kawandi mini project

 

The Dutch Modern Quilt Guild issued a challenge for last year to make something from a collection of scraps. Not any old scraps, but a bag that would be coming in the post. There was just one bag that circulated each month and the idea was that everyone would take what she needed during a month, make something, and send the bag on to the next on the list after making up the weight from her own scraps. Mine was due in December but arrived some two months late.

I had just been watching some interviews with Margaret Fabrizio on YouTube, talking about kawandi (an Indian word for "quilt") so the scraps came at just the right moment. My project became "making a kawandi sampler".

This was my progress at the beginning of February but I've done very little since so I have to get a move on! I don't know how I could have avoided the wadding puckering, short of gluing it down; something I dislike doing indoors and the weather over the last two months has been very gloomy and windy. It wasn't gluing weather at all. That wadding will need to be trimmed, but I'm leaving trimming until it's impossible to go further. 

It's an interesting technique, starting on the outside and working inwards. The Indian Sidi women usually start with a border strip going right around the edge, but my scrap bag from the guild didn't include such long pieces. This has been improvisation from the word go.

My one monthly goal for this month is to finish making this little quilt. At least, with this technique, finished is well and truly finished!

I'm linking with

Click on the button to see what other contributors are planning to do this month.

Happy sewing

Marly.

OMG November is finished!

My November goal was to quilt the orange table runner I made in September for the Rainbow Scrap / Table Scraps Challenge. The orange squares have been made not only from scraps, but from crumbs!

Here it is, not only quilted, but bound too!

Crumby Orange Table Runner

I quilted the main part and the outside border with randomly spaced parallel straight lines, mostly in navy but also a few orange for some variation. The navy thread is exactly the same shade as the navy fabric; is that difficult to see when quilting! The shark's teeth (arrows) which I cut freehand I quilted free motion. As someone in an earlier post suggested they looked like flames, I stitched a flame-like motif on them.

A couple more photos because I took so many!

I'm linking to:

     

 

 

Click on the buttons to see more finishes and works-in-progress.

 

Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

OMG for November

My one monthly goal for November is to quilt this table runner that I made in September.

I'll be using orange and navy blue thread, but haven't decided on a quilting design yet.

~~~~~~~~~~

Unfortunately it's been rather quiet in my sewing room during October. I didn't reach my goal to quilt the bead quilt, which had also been my goal for September (sigh!) I did make progress, sewing round the coloured squares in the ditch, and then quilted between the lines of squares with freehand wavy lines. 

 

All was going well (I'd finished half of them) and I thought I would get them all done last week, but continued too long on Monday, strained a tendon in my left thumb, and had to sit and nurse it for the rest of the week! More haste, less speed! I also thought it would be a good plan to quilt the "beads" by hand - a mammoth task - but will make a good handwork project for the winter evenings, I hope. In any case this won't be finished any time soon!

I'm linking to :

Click on the button to see more handwork goals for this month.

Keep safe and healthy

Happy sewing

Marly.

Progress on my One Monthly Goal

My One Monthly Goal for October is to quilt my Rainbow Beads Curtain quilt, which was my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project in 2020.

This was also my goal for September, but I didn't get further than layering and pinning.

Now I'm quilting in the ditch around the "beads" with the walking foot and have finished two of the nine columns. 

I can only do one column a day as there is a lot of fabric to manoeuvre through the throat every time I change direction, and I'm trying to go easy on my shoulders. It's slow, but its progress!

I'm linking this weekend to:

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation on Thursday,

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More on Friday,

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at Soscrappy on Saturday,

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday.

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt on Monday

Stay healthy and safe.

Happy sewing

Marly

One monthly goal for October

In October I aim to finish my Bead Curtain Quilt that I was layering at the end of September. Although it had been my goal for September I just did not have enough handwork time to get it quilted.

October is set to be a less hectic month than September was, so here's hoping for more progress.

I'm linking to

Click on the button to see more aspirations for October.

Stay safe, stay healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.

My one monthly goal for September

 wasn't met! 😒 I wanted to quilt my beads quilt this month, but I'm still pinning it!

At the beginning of this month I wrote that I had reservations about finishing it. A difficult situation occurred in my extended family about four months ago, and I have had lengthy phone calls with my brother in the UK since (thank goodness for Skype). I thought I might have to go to the UK myself this month, but as my little part of the World was coloured dark red on the WHO Covid new infections chart, travelling was out of the question. I got some handwork done, but while handwork is my relaxation I found it difficult to settle to it.

I'm confident that this quilt will be finished in October, now the family situation in the UK has been resolved, not happily, but we are moving on. 

I don't think this qualifies as a September goal achieved, but I wanted to share my progress.

I'm linking to 

         

 Click on the buttons to see lots of goals achieved this month

 and works in progress.

Keep safe and healthy.

Happy sewing

Marly.