A Month of New Starts

I am late on my June UFO updates mainly because I had nothing to share - at least not for the APQ and Patchwork Times UFOs.  I spent most of my sewing time in May binding quilts and putting sleeves on them for our guild's quilt show.  I finally finished and returned to "fun" stitching last weekend. One of these years I am going to learn not to leave binding until the last minute!

I spent the first weekend of June in my very favorite place - Wooly Woolens (Janice Johnson's).  A group of ladies from Arkansas joined us this year and we had a fantastic time.  The food was incredible as always and I am definitely going to use one of the dessert recipes the next time I host bee.

Here's Leah hard at work on her rug.  See the cabinet of wool behind her? Janice said she found it on a recent trip. It looks so good filled with wool!

Another picture of the studio with Janice busy teaching.

And a few pictures of my new rug - another one that is a little too long to photograph easily:

I love my little sheep so much that I might have to replace the cow in the pattern with another sheep. It's a fun pattern with a lot of different things to hook.  I've made a little more progress on it since I returned home, mostly hooking background since I hate to leave it until the end.

Below is my Celtic Solstace quilt, finally finished, hanging in our quilt show.

And Winter Stars - not counting this one finished yet, though.  As I was binding it for the show I noticed that the end design on about three rows of quilting had tension issues so I plan to take them out and try to re-quilt in those spaces before crossing it off my list and giving it to my daughter.

I had two other quilts in the show, my Farmhouse and My Garden Album quilts. I was really surprised that one of them won a ribbon - I definitely didn't expect that!

June 7th was like Christmas at my house - my first shipment of the Primitive Gatherings Summer Block of the Week arrived in the mail.

I couldn't wait to get started!  There's tons of piecing in this one, both in the wool and the pieced projects. Lisa calls for starching all of your fabrics before you begin and I am starting to believe that it helps with piecing accuracy (still a little reluctant to completely but in as it is a lot of extra work!). I came up with a better system for starching - I was previously laying my charm squares on a towel on the floor and spraying them. An old coated wire shelf balanced over the tub works really well - they dry super fast and the overspray can be rinsed down the drain.

I filled the rack four times just to starch the fabrics for the first week. There is a lot of fabric in these kits!

I made a decent start on week one. Neither of the wool blocks are stitched yet.  The nine patches are part of the pieced version. I also prepped a bunch of hexies for the EPP project. I am only about half way done with the week one prep and already went through a whole glue pen.  I definitely need to pick up more refills at the KC show next weekend.

I have also managed to keep up fairly well with the Triangle Gatherings blocks. The last bunch of HSTs I prepped were from a Miniature Gatherings charm pack and are all blacks and browns so not all that exciting.

I have one more block to make to catch up completely but have to prep more squares.  I starched up a bunch of reds, greens and blues this weekend to add more color.

I'm off to the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival this weekend.  My goal is to avoid picking up any more new projects!

Grand Illusion Week One

It's that time of year again - let the mystery begin!  I was very excited that I was able to get the last border on my Celtic Solstice top on Wednesday.  My goal was to have it completed before starting Grand Illusion and I made it just in time!

I really should have removed all of the junk from my husband's night stand prior to taking the picture...  I am really happy with the colors and how it turned out.  The challenge now will be finding someone to quilt it. The awesome quilter that I have been relying on for years has decided to retire at the beginning of next year.  Definitely sad news for me!

I got a start on this year's mystery, Grand Illusion, on Friday afternoon.  With a completely open weekend I expected I would be able to finish the first step before returning to work this morning but sadly that wasn't the case.  Too many distractions with the girls at home...lots of shopping and cooking. I'm hoping that I can still find a couple of hours after work this week to finish up before step two is posted.

I don't think that the colors came across all that well in this picture.  I am using Bonnie's colors this year. I was able to pull most from my stash...except the pinks.  I have quite the crazy assortment of fabrics - most of the pinks I am using are Civil War reproductions, while the teals are batiks and an assortment of odds and ends - Fossil Fern, a piece from a Christmas collection a few years back, etc. The other colors are all over the place as well. 

I finished all of my HSTs and assembled 26 of the 100 broken dishes blocks. These are definitely color combinations outside of my norm!  I am a big fan of the Grand Hotel, though, and love the fact that these colors were inspired by the decor there.  I have very vague memories of my parents taking me there when I was young (I think I was three?) and "Somewhere in Time" has always been one of my favorite movies.  Reading all of Bonnie's posts and seeing all of the beautiful pictures makes me want to go back.  I can't wait to see where this goes!

Visit the Mystery Monday Link-Up post on Bonnie Hunter's blog to see how others are progressing with step one. I am so envious of the ladies in Chandler, Arizona - the kick-off party looks like it was a blast!

Projects New and Old

Hard to believe that it's been nearly a month since my last post - this year is really flying by!  The past few weeks have been fairly productive - I've made progress on a couple of old projects and started (or prepared to start) a few new ones.  First, a finish - I finally completed my Vines and Flowers rug from Anita's class last November.

My Tulip Cross rug is keeping my frame occupied until I head to Janice's for a workshop next month. I've hooked a little on it but it is tough getting back into a project after a 5+ year hiatus. I really need to stick with it and finish that rug. It is still one of my favorite projects. If only there wasn't SO much border!

I also finished a few more 6" LeMoyne Stars. I am getting very close to having all of these blocks completed.   I'm thinking I should get on a quilter's list for February to force myself to finish up.  I always do better when I have a deadline!

I attended a local retreat a couple of weekends ago and spent all three days working on my Celtic Solstice.  My goal is to have the top finished before the next one begins Nov 28. I am getting very close - the center is together and I started piecing the borders over the weekend. My plan is take over the family room and get the borders on when the hubby heads to Florida.

I've decided to stick with Bonnie's colors for this year's mystery.  I thought I would go Civil War, but I like the colors she went with and seem to have almost everything I need in my stash.  Here's what I have so far:

I need to add a couple more fat quarters of pink and black.  I didn't have much of either in my stash, but I have all of the other colors well covered.  It's always exciting to be able to use up 10+ yards of stash!

I didn't spend my entire weekend in the sewing room.  On Friday night I drove down to Rolla to see Home Free perform.  It was a fantastic show - so much fun!  They are incredibly talented. I'm completely bummed that they won't be coming anywhere close to St. Louis on their Christmas tour.  I would love to see them again!

And speaking of Christmas (shudder!), I started another new project over the weekend - a block of the month tree skirt in wool. I've been wanting to make a tree skirt for years and this pattern is adorable.  It's wool applique, too - much more "do-able" than the Judy Niemeyer pattern I've been considering for years.  Here's the first prepped section...no sewing done yet:

It didn't occur to me until after I had pressed the fusible onto the wool that I forgot to reverse the pattern.  Oh well... No one will ever know, right???

Retreat Time!

I had a fantastic time retreating in Paducah with a few friends last weekend.  We stayed at the relatively new Quilt in a Day Retreat Center. Despite a couple of issues (spotty wireless and a leaky ceiling in one bedroom), the place was fabulous!  The sewing area is spacious and well-lit and there are so many wonderful places to eat.  We thoroughly enjoyed the food! It is difficult to get a good picture of the place because it is really long, but here's the view from my table...

I was able to get a lot of sewing done - not as much as I had hoped, of course, but I am very pleased with my progress. I managed to finally finish piecing my Orion's Star.

As luck would have it, they had the perfect batik for my backing in the Quilt in a Day store (and it was only $8 per yard - a steal for batiks these days!).

I'm hoping to be able to drop this one off with the quilter at the beginning of July along with my Easy Street top which has been laying in my sewing room floor for ages.

My second project for the weekend was my Celtic Solstice.  I started by piecing the 40 blocks with the 4 patches.

I managed to finish all of these and then moved on to finishing my chevron pieces for the alternate blocks.  I did take a break to lay out the two setting options and gather opinions from my friends.

Three votes for option one, one for option two (the original layout).  I'm still torn...I really don't like the lack of contrast in the center of the stars in the first option so I am leaning toward option two.  I suppose I still time - I still have 150 chevrons to make before I need to make a decision.  I know what I am working on at the next retreat!

Celtic Solstice Update

I'm not sure if it is Blogger or my internet that isn't functioning well this morning, but this post has taken me much longer than it should to complete!  Perhaps it's the fact that it is -6 degrees this morning...nothing wants to work when it is that cold!

Here's where I stand on my CS project:

Step 1 - Complete

Step 2 - 15 of 244 completed

Step 3 - 61 pinwheels completed

Step 4 - 228 of 300 completed 

Step 5 - 70 of 244 completed

Still a long way to go, but I am making progress.  I think I am still working toward making the king rather than scaling it back to a queen.  The last couple of queen-sized quilts that I have made seem a bit too small on my bed.

The other decision I need to make is how to set the blocks.  Several very creative people have opted to turn their chevron units around for a slight variation in the setting.  I can't decide which look I like best - both are pretty cool.  Here are a few blocks arranged in the original setting:

And here is a mock-up with the chevrons turned around:

 

I'm not sure that my colors have enough contrast to go with the second look.  The piecing is a bit muddled in the centers.  I do like the "star" look, but I think I am leaning toward the original layout to better highlight the piecing.  Decisions, decisions!

Check this week's Monday link-up on Bonnie's blog to how everyone's quilts are coming together.  They are all beautiful!

Word for 2014

Despite my disdain for resolutions and my inability to follow through with a list of personal goals, words of the year, etc., I just can't help myself!  Perhaps one of these years my efforts will pay off. (It's funny how much harder it is to stick to your goals when you have no one holding you accountable. I never have this problem in my professional life!)  So here it is - my word for 2014: Reduce.  Not a very glamorous word, to be sure...but something I really, really need to do.  I see many applications - weight, stress, my ever-growing pile of UFOs, my stash and the general clutter around the house for a start. The word came to me when I was thinking of making a resolution (don't worry, I got over it) to clean out something at least once a month this year. We have lived in our house for nearly 14 years now and we've accumulated so many things we need to get rid of!  Just the other day I was trying to find a place to store a new toy I received for Christmas and came across a combination portable radio/CD player/B&W television that I don't think I have ever seen before!  I have no idea where it came from...and it certainly isn't useful now! The clutter is truly out of control.

I managed to get quite a bit of sewing done over the holidays. I had a bit of a set-back on Celtic Solstice - I realized I used the wrong color fabric for the 48 units I completed for Step 5. It's a good thing I didn't finish the entire clue before making that discovery!  I have fixed 28 of them and have the other 20 ripped and ready to re-sew.  I also finished my pinwheels, made a bunch more HSTs, and made a few more 4 patches since my Monday post.

Bonnie posted the reveal at midnight New Year's Eve. The quilt is gorgeous! I made a mock-up of the blocks in my fabrics. My four patches aren't going the right direction in the photo but you get the general idea.  The good news is that I can use the extra 3.5" strips I cut of the wrong color in my outer border.

One of my Facebook friends posted "New year = New project" on her wall yesterday. I usually do just that...I usually love to start new projects while I am off over the holidays. This year, however, is different. I have so many beautiful projects I have already started that I really want to finish.  It's sad to see how many years some of my UFOs have been abandoned (some for many, many years!).

I thought about trying to pick two or three that I would concentrate on finishing before moving on to any others but can't make myself choose just yet - it's like choosing a favorite child!  A couple that are high on my list are my LeMoyne Stars and my 2013 BOTP class project.  I managed to finish another LeMoyne Star block over the holidays.  That leaves three 12" blocks and seven 6" blocks to go.

I spent a little time yesterday prepping a couple more pieces for my BOTP block.  Here's where that one currently stands:

I have several other projects I would really love to get back to in 2014.  One of my favorites is the Prairie Peony quilt.  I only have four blocks pieced and two partially appliqued - I have a long way to go on that one.

My goal for January will be to progress my Celtic Solstice, LeMoyne Star and BOTP projects.  I will try to overcome temptation and stay away from the other projects that are calling my name (including my wool applique and English paper piecing) until I've made significant progress on these.  (Notice I didn't say 'finish"...baby steps!)

Celtic Solstice Part 5

I had to laugh a little when I saw the instructions for Step 5 indicating we needed to use the  "leftover" pieces from Step 3.  I suppose that might work of I had actually completed Step 3!  Nonetheless, I managed to finish 48 of these over the weekend.

I keep thinking about Edyta Sitar's advice to always do all of one step in a project before moving to the next - she believes the repetition creates muscle memory and helps to minimize mistakes while improving accuracy. I almost feel guilty jumping around from step to step but it certainly keeps me interested!  I made a little progress on pinwheels and four patches and sewed quite a few more HSTs.  I am starting to worry about running out of mauve/pink so I figured I had better start working in some of the brighter, pinker fabrics. There is definitely a lot of pink in this quilt!

So here is where I stand as of this evening:

Step 1 - complete

Step 2 - 13 of 244 completed

Step 3 - 22 of 61 pinwheels completed

Step 4 - 158 of 400 completed

Step 5 - 48 of 244 completed 

I have such a long way to go!  I haven't been trying to solve the mystery and haven't paid close attention to those who have, but I have to believe we are getting close to beginning the assembly.  This thing has a lot of pieces!

Check out Bonnie's Mystery Monday Link-Up to see how others are progressing on their projects. I am really loving all the color variations!

Too Much Pink!

I had a brief moment of panic this weekend when I realized that I had mixed up my color substitutions from the very beginning.  I thought I was so careful - I even made a point of crossing out Bonnie's colors in her instructions and writing in my own rather than working from memory. It would have worked had I actually written the right color down!  I somehow confused the mauve and brown - I intended to use mauve for yellow and brown for orange but was wrong right out of the gate...I used mauve in my tri-recs pieces. Thankfully I didn't read all that closely and accidentally got my chevrons right. The mix-up did impact my pinwheels, but thankfully I had only sewn one together so far and I caught the mistake before cutting for step 4 so there wasn't much harm done. I am a little bummed that the quilt will now have twice as much pink in it as I intended, but better to live with that than to redo all those tri-recs blocks!

I managed to get 120 four patches sewn over the weekend.

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Funny that we consider a step that involves sewing 1200 pieces of fabric together to be "easy"!  I am hoping to have time to finish the other 180 before Friday...and then to go back to steps 2 and 3.  I'm looking forward to the reveal, but hope it doesn't come too soon.  I have so much catching up to do!

Check out this week's Link-Up to see how everyone else is coming along on their CS projects. The colors are fabulous!

Triangle Troubles

I had big plans for getting a lot of sewing done last week but Christmas shopping and a quick trip to New York got in the way.  I braved the cold on Thursday evening to make my annual trek to Rockefeller Center for a picture of the tree. It was much colder than it has been the last few years!

I am very happy to report that I did manage to finish step one of Celtic Solstice over the weekend.

I had serious issues with counting when I cut these. I was happily sewing my way through the remaining neutral/purple blocks when I realized I was running out of purple pieces. I was pretty sure that after the initial cutting snafu I had finally cut enough of the purple, so I decided I had better count the neutrals. Turns out I had cut about two dozen extra "tri" pieces!  How does that happen??  Luckily I caught the mistake before any ripping was required!

I started on my half-square triangles for step 3.  I decided to try Bonnie's method using the Easy Angle ruler.  It was very frustrating at first - I kept cutting the pieces too small.  After screwing up three or four I realized that the markings on the Easy Angle ruler are very confusing.  Maybe it's just me - but to me it looks like the 2" marks are the horizontal and vertical lines that intersect with the number "2", not the line above the "2". The ruler in Bonnie's pictures has dotted lines rather than solid for those "in between" markings.  I think that would make the cutting a lot easier.

I finally managed to cut a few correctly.

I finished one pinwheel (yep, 1 down, 60 more to go!)

I decided to put away the sewing in favor of getting the Christmas tree up yesterday afternoon.  My oldest daughter and I came up with the slightly hair-brained idea of getting a live tree this year.  They always look a lot smaller when they are in the tree lot!  It seemed a lot larger (and heavier!) when we got it home. We somehow managed to get the thing set up and decorated.  Ace found the entire process very interesting - he even posed for a holiday picture!

Visit Bonnie's website to see the fabulous progress others are making on their projects - most are much farther along than me!

Fun with Chevrons!

This week's mystery fun began with the arrival of supplemental fabrics from one of my very favorite shops - Batik's Plus. It is always hard to get an exact read on colors when shopping online, but I think everything will work.  A couple of the mauve fabrics are a little closer to pink but they seem to blend pretty well with the others.

The past week has been a bit busy with quite a few early Christmas festivities, so I didn't get as far as I had hoped.  I did manage to finish the part of step one I had cut (half of the units for the king). I was anxious to see how the chevrons would look so I decided to try a few before finishing off step one.  

I didn't get very far - only four complete chevrons and a half dozen parts sewn - but I love them!  I am really enjoying these colors!  I started out marking lines on the back of the 2" squares (definitely not one of my favorite tasks!) but then was reminded of the technique of using a line in front of the needle by one of the many wonderful quilters in the CS Facebook group. I have a template-thingy that is intended for that purpose somewhere in my sewing room but of course couldn't find it, so I opted instead for a piece of tape. I'm so thankful for the suggestion - it is much faster and easier than marking!  I will be using this method to finish the rest...all 244 of them!

Be sure to visit Bonnie's page to see how the rest of the "Bonniacs" are progressing!

The Mystery Begins...

It's that time of year again - Bonnie Hunter released the first clue for this year's mystery quilt on Friday!  It took me a while to decide on fabrics this year.  I didn't really have the colors Bonnie is using in my stash so I had to come up with another combination that would work. After trying numerous combinations, I found inspiration in a fat quarter bundle that was given to me by a friend a couple of years ago. I had quite a bit of these colors in my stash, including more than 5 yards of a batik to use for background. I had to order a couple of yards to supplement the mauve colorway - my stash is a bit short on anything that vaguely resembles pink - but I was able to cover the rest (about 18 yards). Probably a good thing since these colors don't seem to be "in" these days!

I spent Black Friday working on wool applique at Nola's, so I didn't get started on cutting for the first clue until Saturday.  Nola's BF event was wonderful!  She helped me come up with a color plan for the new pattern I picked up from Anita.  I am going with a deep red background - I can't wait to get started on it!

I finished my cutting by Saturday afternoon and then sat down to start sewing.  I didn't get very far on Saturday - had to take a break to do a little Christmas shopping - but all was going well.  My finished blocks measured 3.5" square - whew! 

I resumed my position at the sewing machine on Sunday, determined to finish step one.  I felt like I was making fantastic progress when it suddenly occurred to me that the purple "recs" pieces seemed to be disappearing much more rapidly than the mauve and background "tri" counterparts. A quick mental review of my cutting math revealed that I omitted the fact that I needed two "recs" per "tri" in my calculation. Argh!  So I now need to cut 95 more pairs of purple pieces.I decided to save that fun for later in the week and just kept sewing.  I didn't get nearly as far as I hoped, but I made a lot of progress.

Rather than returning to the sewing room after dinner last night, I decided to spend a little more time on my Vines & Flowers rug that I started a couple of weeks ago with Anita White. The background did prove to be a bit of a challenge in color planning, but I am really liking the way it is turning out.  It is actually kind of nice to have a background to hook after spending a year and a half on a geometric!
 

It's such a bummer to have to return to work this week!  I would love to get back to the sewing room to finish up step one...I hate when I fall behind from the very beginning! 

Be sure to check Bonnie's page to see how everyone else is progressing on week one of the Celtic Solstice project!