Finish Along 2019 Q4

This is my list for the Finish along in the fourth quarter of 2019. As usual rather optimistic, but several items are nearing completion.

1.   Overlapping Octagons - for the UandUQAL hosted by Sujata Shah. The challenge is to reproduce a quilt from a photo in Roderick Kiracofe's book, "Unconventional and Unexpected, American Quilts under the radar". I have about one quarter of the quilting done.

2.   Pullover - The sleeves and neckline are done; I'm now weaving in the threads.

3.   Bow ties - inspired by a pattern in "Make Modern". My 2019 project for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge
(The mistake below has now been corrected!)

4.    For the Boys - pattern by Jen Kingwell, published in her book "Quilt Lovely". This I will start as soon as the Overlapping Octagons and the Bow Ties are finished.


5.   Dwellings - appliqué wall hanging - pattern by  bjdesignsandpatterns.com

I'm linking to Sandra at Studio Sew of Course:

 

Click on the button to see more projected finishes.

 Happy sewing

Marly.

One montly goal for August

This month I hope to make progress on quilting my Circles Quilt, made during the Quilty 365 QAL hosted by Audrey in 2016. I didn't make 365 ( i.e. one a day) circles, as I ran out of room on my design wall in the middle of August, and decided it was large enough. Up until then I had been adding circle to square using the needle turn appliqué technique every evening. The first, on 1 January 2016, took me 3 hours to complete; the last, on 17 August less than half an hour. Practice makes perfect! and quicker!

180 4" (finished) blocks joined in three sections ready for quilting.
Photo from August 2016.

As the circles are all appliquéd by hand I decided to hand-quilt it too. It's taking forever! That's not really surprising as I've only being working on it one evening every two months at the Bee meeting. So far I've only quilted a dozen or so blocks.

although I did stabilise the quilt by machine quilting in the ditch first.

So this month will see a blitz on this quilt. Let's hope practice makes perfect in the hand quilting department too. It's rather too warm at the moment to sit with so much fabric on my lap but I intend to persevere, if necessary sitting on the balcony with the weight of the quilt on the bench next to me. At least the light is good there.

I'm linking to

Click on the button to see more August goals.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Blogger: no way to answer comments!

This is super frustrating!

I hadn't posted for over a month and now I discover that I can't reply to the comments my friends left on my post of yesterday.
Perusing the Blogger forum reveals that I'm not the only one; this issue has been around for over a month, and, as far as I can see, Blogger/Google seems to think it's been fixed!

I'm seriously looking into the options for changing to another blog provider. 

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Update 29 June 16:45 CEST

The issue is solved!

I just received some email notification of comments to this post. So I'm no longer thinking of moving my blog. Everything seems to be as it was.

I'm very grateful to the people who helped me with this today. All the useful answers came form other bloggers. The authorities at Blogger were not at all helpful.

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Here is my reply to your comments of yesterday:

I'm grateful for your comments and have seriously considered your advice.

Circles it is, but with a change of scale.

And so to sew, but first rip off that plain white border and then add more print border. As the weather is beautifully warm I shall be appliquéing circles while sitting outside on my balcony this afternoon.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Quilty 365: Circles in August

Audrey had the brilliant idea of appliquéing a circle onto a square of cotton every day for a whole year. Never having done needle-turn appliqué I liked the idea and decided almost immediately to join in. All went well until I spent a few days in hospital in the second week in June; I had kept on schedule and my needle turning skills improved enormously. The first five months I could report a full batch, in June half a batch, and in July I also managed to make one a day.

It was one-a-day too during the first half of August:

Oops! There were 16!

There were 16 in August, but one clearly got away!

Then on 16 August I wondered if I had enough for a lap quilt - we don't have quilts on beds around here - so I put all the blocks up on the design wall. I had been picking the fabrics at random so wondered if I could get a balanced layout, or if I should maybe concentrate in future on a particular colour.

My design wall wasn't big enough! I'm afraid I forgot to take a photo, but I got them all in there somehow, with a lot of overlapping.I had clearly enough for a lap quilt, so decided to call it a day! I still have about 20 in a box, that didn't make it into this project.

Anyway the one that got away is in here somewhere:

180 4" (finished) blocks joined in three sections ready for quilting.

I started the layout with red in one corner and blue in the opposite corner (would you believe I have never been to a boxing match in my life?!) Then added green and purple in the other two corners. I wanted  a rainbow effect, but also wanted to have the lighter fabrics in the middle. So yellow went in the middle and then it was a question of filling in the spaces while keeping the colour gradation as much as possible. This took the next 10 days or so! Not helped by all those overlapping blocks falling off the wall!

I made a few more light green blocks to put between yellow and blue (and forgot to take a photo; I was so absorbed in my layout!). For some reason I had enough orange, so on the red side the problem didn't arise.

I joined the blocks into 12 rows of 15 blocks each, and then joined the rows together in groups of four. I shall be quilting them with the walking foot, and then joining them by a QAYG method that I used before here.

I'm pleased with the result so far, and hope I can get it quilted by the end of the year!

I'm linking up to   

       

Hop over there to see more lovely on-going projects.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Quilty 365 July progress and some improv

I started on 1 January so I should now have 213 appliqué circles for the Quilty 365 project hosted by Audrey at Quilty Folk. "Should have" because the aim is to appliqué a circle each day. July is all present and correct, well, nearly correct:

July: 30 of the 31 circles in chronological order, going down the columns from top left to bottom right

There was only one milestone circle this month: my DH and I celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary. This is the only block with a white background, representing my dress, and a larger orange circle, representing my bouquet of orange lilies - 1970's remember!

Since taking the photo I've finished Saturday's and Sunday's (for the space bottom right) is prepared, but not yet sewn down.

and here's number 31

Unfortunately I haven't caught up with any more of June's blocks. I think that may just be a few lost weeks. I have, on the other hand started joining squares with the same background colour in twos as leaders and enders.

Not the same background fabric, but both red. The one on the right will be a transition block between reds

I don't think that will upset the final layout. If it does, then I see unpicking ahead!

The last few days have been entirely taken up by another project of a totally different order: the Cut Cross QAL to be found on Instagram @crosscutquiltalong (sorry I can't install Instagram on my computer otherwise I'd have made that a link) hosted by Debbie at A Quilter's Table . You can see loads of other projects there on Instagram, and you're not to late to join in.

Chopped Sticks

This is my version of the mini quilt (24"square), as it was a couple to days ago. It's now quilted with the binding almost completely sewn down. It has really been a fun project making a really easy mini quilt with an improv dimension.

Now to the binding and to make a start on August's circles!

I'm linking to:

so pop in there to see many more circles (and some non-circular appliqué) 

in various styles and colours.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Quilty 365 May circles

Since 1 January I have participated in the Quilty 365 Challenge set by Audrey at Quilty Folk. On the first of each month, a group of quilters world-wide share their circle blocks of the previous month.

My May circles in chronological order: not all sewn down yet.

The circles are appliquéd onto squares, and there are no rules about the type of fabric we use, nor the appliqué method we use. Some of my circles are just one fabric, but many now are randomly pieced form my scrap bin. Most of the circles are 3" in diameter, and yet one has 21 pieces!

Until May I didn't have much trouble in keeping up, but this last month I somehow didn't manage. One evening last week I was so tired I fell asleep with the needle in my hand, and woke up with a start when I dropped the needle. Fortunately, I was still holding the thread! Definitely a sign that it was time to call it a day!

I've chosen to do needle-turn; a technique I'd never tried before. The only preparation I do is to draw a circle on a piece of fabric, cut approximately 1/8 to1/4 of an inch around it, and then sew! As I go round the circle I turn the next 1/4" under (up to the circle line) with my needle, hence needle-turn, and sew it down with an invisible ladder stitch about 1/16" long. At first that was very laborious, but I find it much easier now. I learnt how to needle-turn following a Google search and watching several videos. What would we do without the Internet?!

What would we do without the Internet? Not much new I suspect. Aside from the fact that I'm going to publish this on the Internet and someone, I hope, is going to read it, there wouldn't be anything to write about if it weren't for Audrey and her challenge, and her decision to do her circles using the needle-turn technique. Her decisions triggered me to take part and learn a new skill. You're never too old to learn, and there's nothing like a challenge for beating old age!

I'm linking to 

 

Hop over there by clicking on the button, and see the great variety of 

styles and materials that are being used in this challenge.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Improvisation progress in May

This week I did a little work on my improvised quilt inspired by Piet Mondriaan's "Composition in Red, Yellow and Blue".

Last month I showed some red half rectangle triangles I wasn't satisfied with. This month I sewed the red triangles together along the short side; that really did seem to be the best arrangement. The yellow and blue I cut as flying geese right from the start. I didn't manage to work out how much extra I needed to cut for the seam allowance, as a result most of the geese have been beheaded!

This week I'm going to make two more blue "geese" and continue to make my Mondriaan inspired block. Then it'll be time to think about the other corners - more triangles? more squares? And it needs more fabric on the left hand side, probably empty space, but I just don't know yet.

I've been trying to make a circle a day in the Quilty 365 project, but I've fallen behind. Here are this month's improvised circles as of last Wednesday. I'll be showing all May's circles here on Tuesday.

I've recently learnt how to make free-hand curves; I bet you'd never have guessed! Even so, this one, with all straight lines, is my favourite:

with 21 pieces. cut-offs from various farmer's wife blocks, and they are tiny pieces to start with! Although it will look better after pressing, it's not a very circular circle!

I'm linking to the Ad hoc improvised quilting link up hosted by Kaya and Ann

Click on the button to see more improvised patchwork quilts.

Happy sewing

Marly.

More Quilty circles

Audrey at Quilty Folk started a project towards the end of last year to appliqué a circle onto a square each day. At the end of the year you have 365 (or, actually 366 this year) squares with a circle: Quilty 365.
I have, contrary to my own expectations, managed to stick to it for three months since I started on 1 January. I find it addictive, and my needle turn appliqué has improved no end!
Here are my March blocks:

The squares are all solid fabric and measure 4.5"; most of the circles measure 3" in diameter, but there are a couple of slightly larger circles on special days. It depends on how much time I have whether or not I piece the circle from scraps, some of which are really small.

circle 88: Monday 28 March 2016, made of the results of cutting mistakes of a very frustrating paper-pieced Farmer's Wife block which I posted about on Saturday. Every cloud has a silver lining!

I have now made 92 circles (that includes today's) and this quilt promises to be enormous!

You can still join in this project; there is no particular starting date. The only rule is to make 365 circle blocks in one year.

I'm linking up to 

so click on the button and see more appliqué circles, some of which are really spectacular. Maybe you'll feel inspired to sew along with us.

Happy sewing

Marly

January progress

 The first couple of weeks of January I spent catching up with Allietare! (click for information on the button to the left).  I chose to make a slightly smaller version than the official one  but after the reveal on 1 January discovered I hadn't made enough; now I'm making the setting triangles. I posted here about not having a suitable grey, but fortunately managed to pick it up the following day. I thought I had a photo on my phone, but I haven't got even one photo of the completed blocks. I'll remedy that soon when I'm ready to start joining the rows.

On 1 January I started with the Quilty 365 project which I had read about in November in  blog post from Deb. This project is being organised by Audrey at Quilty Folk and you can read about it here.
I decided then to wait and start symbolically in the New Year and to appliqué each circle using the needle-turn technique. This is a technique I'd never tried before, but after some You Tube tuition I felt confident enough to start! The first block took me 3 hours! Number 31 took 55 minutes! We're moving in the right direction! I really like the result so far.

January's blocks in chronological order, which will probably not be the final order.

At the start I thought I'd make the circles larger on "special" days; the first two (1 and 2 January) are larger circles: one for New Year, and one for my youngest Grandson's birthday.
At first I just picked matching pieces of roughly the right size from the scrap bin, but after about 10 days decided:

• to cut some solid squares in different colours to make the daily choosing-ritual easier (and faster!),
• to glue the circles with a smear of Sew Line glue in the centre,
• to alternate light and dark backgrounds in the final layout (medium backgrounds will count as light or dark, depending on their neighbours),
• and to experiment with colour.

My favourite block is number 15 (middle of the left-hand column): two purple fabrics joined in a curve on the machine, WITHOUT pins!!! You can probably imagine my surprise when it laid flat immediately! I learnt to do this from Leanne's video on sewing Drunkard's path blocks. It's brilliant!

As if this wasn't enough of a new project in January, I've also joined the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters (button on the right). This group has been going for about six months, so I'm a late starter, but have read up on improvised quilting on the sites of Kaya and Ann. Although I haven't started an improv project, I think the following three blocks could count as improv piecing.

As I'm not sure where the whole Quilty 365 project is going, maybe the whole project can be called "improv" too.

In total contrast to improvised patchwork I joined a club at my local quilt shop to make the blocks of the "Farmer's Wife 1930's sampler quilt". This is old style precision cutting and sewing, although I'm experimenting with colour here again.

top row: November, 2nd row: December (still 3 blocks to do), 3rd row: January (but it's not over yet!)

We are adding setting triangles and quilting as we  go, in theory. Everyone else is, so I shall have to cut the backing, wadding and setting triangles soon! I have until Tuesday week to fill these rows!

I'm linking up to:

    

Happy sewing

Marly.

Quilty 365 January link up

This is the first day of my new project:

to create one block per day by appliquéing a circle onto a 4½" neutral block.  And to stick at it for ONE WHOLE YEAR!

I wan't entirely sure about using neutral, and have decided since the above photo to change to different coloured backgrounds. So here is my new first block, prepared and ready to go.

Another first is I shall be trying my hand at needle turn appliqué. I don't have any hand-sewing on the go at the moment, so this will be a good project for the evenings.

Why don't you join the growing group of quilters on this project? The great thing about this project is you can start whenever you like, just keep going for a year.

Pop over to the linky-party now and see what the others have been doing.

click on the image for the link

Happy sewing

Marly.

The Toadstool House has finally become a book cover!

This is my fifth finish for Finish Along 2015 Q2:

Hooray!

Finally I've finished that appliqué panel I started nearly two years ago and made it into something!

The original plan was to make a mini quilt wall hanging, but after I'd quilted the panel I decided I didn't want it hanging on the wall. My daughter suggested making it into a cushion, but I know that some of those appliqué seam allowances turned out very small, and wouldn't survive long as a cushion. Then I thought of a book cover to hide my former employer's logo on my pattern file (see earlier post). That is what the panel has become.

The finishing top and bottom is rather unconventional.

Because the panel was already quilted I couldn't make the cover in the usual way: add the wadding and lining, turn right side out, close the gap and then quilt - almost as the last step - before adjusting the flaps and top stitching all round to finish off. I considered binding, but then decided to zig-zag across the top and bottom to hold the layers together and finish the raw edges. Binding would have been neater but now it's finished!

I am linking up to

I shall be linking up to Adrianne at On the Windy Side at the beginning of the third quarter.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

RSC week 12: crumby yellow

Each month Angela at Soscrappy, who is hosting the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, gives a colour to use, and a lot of people world-wide use their scraps in that colour to make Angela's sampler, or anything else that takes their fancy. This month's colour is yellow, and having made my sampler blocks a few weeks ago, I've turned to sewing crumbs.

Crumbs no more!

Many of these pieces were only an inch wide, some strange shapes left from cutting hexagons. This whole piece is now about 9"wide; I can get one 4" square or two 3" squares out of it and use the leftovers to start the next piece of made fabric. I shan't though, yet. I don't have any more crumbs, except a few solids, and anything larger than 2.5" square I'm saving for the alternate blocks in the sampler. I wonder how small a cut-off has to be to be too small to reuse. I'd love to hear your ideas.

I also made my first sewing machine a very pale yellow, for the Quilt Doodle quilt along. The machine wasn't really yellow, more beige, but there's no beige in my stash, so yellow it has become.

My first sewing machine:
a Helvetia my mother bought in the mid 1950's

I need to embellish it more using buttons for the controls, but I'll only add those when I quilt it, and I think there should be some thread coming off the reel, don't you?

So that's all my yellow for this week.

I'm linking up to Soscrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Hop over there for more of this week's yellow happiness.

Happy sewing

Marly.