Pumpkin Finish

My previous post told of my assembly of twelve pumpkin quilt blocks I won. This week I sandwiched the top with bamboo batting and barn backing and was decisive about an FMQ pattern. Although I am not good with meandering I wanted the effect of curling vines around each pumpkin. I practiced on a plastic overlay. Sometimes the loops looked graceful and sometimes they looked really wonky and created kinks in the meandering line. I studied it before I learned what was the difference. If I treated the vine just as a meander and inserted a loop all was good. If I tried to changed the direction of the vine too soon after inserting a loop it was awkward. I own a lot of training books on how to FMQ but sometimes these little innuendos of how to make a pattern look like the picture need to be learned on your own. I focused on reminding myself to exit a loop in a continuation of the direction in which I had entered it.

I also thought out what my path would be to go in and among the pumpkins. I copied a photo of the assembled top into Power Point file and played with different routes. It turns out that going midway up or down between the pumpkins worked out to be pretty efficient.

A closeup up of my "vines" shows that when I maintained the direction of the main line after inserting a loop and waited to change direction the results were smoother! I did the vines in a green variegated thread. I liked the way it turned out but my husband did not like how the vines would "disappear". Oh, well. To each his own. There is another disadvantage to using variegated thread. If the tension is not perfect, little bobs of color are more likely to show especially when a dark portion of the lower thread happens to occur where a light portion of the upper thread is or vice versa. I used the variegated thread for both the upper and bobbin threads. On the borders I did channel quilting using a ruler and following the diagonal piecing line of the two border colors at 45°.

I used a light coral thread on the orange/burgundy borders and the thread lines are double stitched. I went up and back along the same line before moving the ruler. I learned in a class that retracing is the preferred way to do a piano key border. Rather than a motion that is "up, move the ruler, down, move the ruler", I'd go "up and down, and then move the ruler". These are the tools I used – the straight edge of this 8" scallop ruler and the center pink ½" size echo foot

The parallel lines in the border and pumpkins came out looking more tidy than if I had free-handed them. Plus, I got a lot of ruler practice. I liked the effect of this diagonally pieced border from fat quarters. The concept may have been a success because the two colors were a close blend and not sharply contrasting. I think I may use the concept and contents drawn from my stash like this again.

A view from the back shows up the quilting lines since I used relatively light colored thread and the backing was dark. I like the barn print and thought it was worth piecing to use it.

The back of the quilt looks like this. Even though I had to piece the length, I think the extension fabric is pretty well camouflaged because all of the channel work serves as a distraction. My binding is sewn on by machine rather than by hand. On this quilt there is no grosgrain label as is my norm. I put my initials and the date on the front with black pigment marker where it would show on the light fabric. I've spent only a little over a week on this "free" experiment. This was meant to be a quick project, remember?

The finished quilt measures 31" x 39". I completed it on Halloween and it is ready to add to my holiday decor for the Thanksgiving season. Now I will link up to Let's Bee Social #201.

Pumpkins!

I was the winner of the block of the month drawing at my guild meeting and came home with twelve pumpkin blocks. I knew they were destined to be a UFO unless I made them up into something soon. As in any event of this type, they were slightly different sizes but I measured the smallest and trimmed the others accordingly. On closer inspection I also noted that some blocks had a different background fabric – similar in color but different in imprinted pattern. This is something I would never do, being kind of self-restricting in my own choices, but in this case I decided to let it be and go with the flow. It adds to the informality.

Since the blocks are approximately 8" square, a 3 x 4 arrangement does not yield a very large quilt. I considered a 5 x 2 arrangement for a wide, short wall hanging, or a 2 x 5 arrangement for a tall, skinny wall hanging. Either configuration could alternatively be used as a long table runner. For a table runner, I then realized I would have to decide how to orient the pumpkins so they would be right side up at least half the time as viewed from each side of the table. I then considered adding sashing between the blocks. Maybe the sashing intersections should be another fabric? Whoa! This decision making was getting complicated and violating my "make it up soon" intention. I chose my simplest first choice, the 3 x 4 configuration, and  decided to enlarge the finished quilt by adding a border around the outside edge. Rather than scrounge in my stash for enough of one border fabric I instead used two fat quarters. The border width was decided by how many widths I could get from a fat quarter. Seaming them on the diagonal in alternating fabrics gave me this result.

The trimmings from those diagonal seams on the fat quarters left me sixteen triangles that I sewed into eight HSTs to use someplace else on a different future project.

I needed to choose a background fabric. I had only one yard of deep-toned barn fabric, not quite enough length for the backing. I could piece upper and lower extensions on it. Or I could use the pixellated check fabric. I had 2½ yards of it and its colors went well. But somehow I did not want to cut into that 2½ yardage.  

I added extensions to the barn fabric. The back looks like this on the top and bottom. I was  conscientious and made up my binding right away from a ½ yard remnant I had. The binding fabric will complement both the front and the back, not really contrasting with either.

I sandwiched the top for FMQing with a scrap from my supply of bamboo batting and hope to get to the FMQ in the next couple of days. I am going to try to keep it simple but I still need to decide what that "simple" will be. I seem to like diagonal furrows and may do them in the border. Those pumpkin stripes call out to be stitched in the ditch. The background... maybe meander or perhaps loopy vines...? For now I am linking up to Let's Bee Social #200.

Halloween Houses

I'd assembled two house blocks and two tree blocks a couple weeks ago and blogged about them in my post for 10/11/17. Now it was time to join them and FMQ the resulting wall hanging. The blue swirl fabric for the night sky begged to be quilted in swirls. I am terrible with swirls so this was an opportunity on a small scale to practice them and get better. I doodled them and saved the marked plastic as a visual reminder of my goal. I chose a light blue thread and I did OK.

The green I'd chosen for the lawn area in front of the houses was not wide enough and so had to be pieced. To hide the piecing I'd originally wanted to make diagonal paths from the doorways of the houses as brown inserts. A simple task of inserts at 45°... and did it wrong four times! Aargh. Once I got it right I decided I did not like the way it looked anyway and preferred just piecing the green. Well by this point, after my flubs and extra cutting, piecing that green was my only remaining option. I joined it on the diagonal like for a sashing so it would be less conspicuous, and then decided to further camouflage it by quilting diagonal parallel lines in the lawn area. I used a rule which was time consuming but gave me practice and the results looked crisp. My swirls in the sky looked OK after all my fretting and my trees were acceptable with a simple 1/4" away echo even though I did not use a ruler for them. The pale grey/blue thread blended in.

For the houses however, I was lazy and in a hurry and did not use a ruler. They came out terrible! You know how as you start something and don't like it, but somehow stubbornly stupidly think if you do more, it will get better? It doesn't. I intend to in the future remove the house stitching, do it again with a ruler and possibly in a different color thread that does not contrast so much. The area of the wallhanging is small enough that perhaps I will use my domestic instead of my mid-arm to echo stitch the doors and windows. For now I chose to leave the ghastly stitching in place, forge ahead, and finish the wallhanging. This was to be a small project, not intended to consume a lot of time and most certainly not to become a UFO. I machine, rather than hand, stitched the binding on and to my surprise it came out quite reasonably well.

This is the fabric I chose for the backing. The words pumpkins appears to be upside but I made the majority of the scarecrows right side up. Doing both was not possible and since the scarecrows appeared most dominant, I gave them priority.

Here is the completed wallhanging in a state acceptable for viewing from a galloping horse from a great distance. It measures 28" by 16".

An activity for me, while watching TV, will be to pick out the ugly crooked stitches in the houses. I will add an update to this post once I have improved those houses. Consider it a home renovation project. For now I will be linking up to Sew Fresh Quilts's Let's Bee Social #199.

UPDATE 10/23/17:
What I thought would be a little picking away at stitches while watching TV turned out to be over two, almost three, hours of intense surgery deploying tweezers, seam ripper, and curved pointed scissors, sitting at the kitchen table with extra lighting and a soft cushion under my tush for the duration. My failed FMQ attempts have a way of making my stitches so tiny and often on top of themselves that their removal is a challenge.

I resigned myself to the task but made a new playlist on iTunes and set the volume pretty high on my computer about ten feet away. With no TV plot and old favorite songs of mine playing, I plucked away, one stinkin' stitch by one stinkin' stitch. The diversion worked. Thankfully I was able to lose track of time instead of losing track of the plot of some show. Here are my houses, stitch-free and steamed as best I could to camouflage the crooked trail of needle holes.

Now, how to FMQ the houses? I considered close together vertical lines in the triangular shaped gables. I considered fish tail scallops on the gold house. I considered a brick pattern on the brick colored house. Then the acronym KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid – hit me like a lead brick. I'd consider myself an idiot if I put in something so complicated I would be ripping it all out again. I switched to my domestic Pfaff and straight stitched lines both ⅛" inside and ⅛" outside the doors and windows. I also added straight lines outlining the house itself. Yes, I did need to do a fair amount of turning, but that turning took me far less time to put in, than those first crooked lines took me to take out. So that the stitch lines did not look too plain, I kept with my choice of the slate blue thread I had used everywhere else. The seam lines looked a bit like the decorative top stitching on jeans and I was pleased with the effect.

I am much happier with the final wallhanging. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do what makes you happy – advice about "visibility from a galloping horse" be damned.

Burp Cloths for Baby Girl No. 6

So far in 2017 I have sewn 34 burp cloths for five babies - all girls! Except for one pair of twins, all were born to a random assortment of friends and acquaintances totally unrelated to each other! So no wonder when my daughter-in-law's sister had her baby girl, my flannel drawer was positively void of baby girl and even gender neutral prints. I was also unprepared because the baby came five weeks early; she is small, under 5 lbs, but is doing just fine. I delved into my gender neutral flannel options first.

Just  a couple weeks ago I'd bought this gray, red, and white snowman flannel. The Frosty Folks I had recently added to my stash was from Henry Glass & Co., Inc., designed by Jan Shade Beach. The randomly spotted gray flannel (a supplemental fabric purchase) looked like snow falling to me and so made a good pairing with the snowmen. Baby girl and parents live in Colorado so a snow theme seemed fitting.

I also had this fox print in my drawer and had been keeping my eye out for a complement to it. The Seuss stripe had been in the same drawer, too; but I had never thought to pair the two until now. Isn't there some quote about "necessity being the mother of invention" or "desperate times calling for desperate measures"? The red and white stripes serendipitously go splendidly with the red fox and his white tipped tail. I'd bought the foxes in May of 2016 and no longer remember their source but those wonky Seuss stripes are by Robert Kauffman and may still be hanging around as a staple.

I still wanted to make some more burp cloths to give, especially a few on the more girly side. So, martyr that I am, I dragged myself to my local quilt shop and raided the baby flannels in the back corner. I found some really cuties from the Maywood Studios line Little One Flannel Too. 

I bought this green trellis and animal print pairing from Little One Flannel Too.

There was a bold stronger colored print from the same line that I paired with a diagonal stripe that sported the same shocking pink.

The large print had delightful sayings on it, shown in the zoomed in photo below

I bought a half yard of each flannel and let the prints fall as they may. How lucky I was that they happened to feature themselves! Note how the elephant is front and center and even the turtle and his advice about speed turned out well-placed along the narrow border. Now I'd better pre-wash all these and get them off in the mail. I did not get them finished before the baby shower happened – I never intended to. But then the baby shower did not get completed before the birth happened, either! So there!

Completion of these eight burp cloths increases my 2017 running tally to 42. I did also buy these blue dot prints to add to my stash. The gender tides are bound to turn soon, and boy, am I ever gonna be male ready!

Birthday and Halloween

BIRTHDAY
Today is my eldest granddaughter's 5th birthday. I spent Sunday working away on a pair of Hansel and Gretel dolls and their accessories from a panel by Stacy Hsu.

I forget how long it does take to sew and stuff these. They always come out cute though. Here, from left to right, are Mr. Bear, Hansel, Funny Bunny and Gretel with her border print dirndl skirt.

This is the front of their blanket and pillow – at least I declare it to be the front. I layered the blanket  with batting and simply stitched straight lines along the squares of the counterpane. For the pillow I added a bit of batting, and stitched around the Home Sweet Home sign and the central house  to give the pillow a bit more dimension before sewing, turning, and stuffing it. 

Here is the reverse side of the pillow and blanket. The print is very cheerful and colorful. For some reason the vertical lines of the mini-quilt are not visible in the photo but they are indeed there.

This is the whole set completed. They will go with the Lil' Red (3/8/16), Coral Queen of the Sea (5/14/17), and Lil Superheroes (April 14, 2017) I've already given her. My granddaughter will not get Hansel and Gretel today, Wednesday, because the post office was closed Monday due to the Columbus Day holiday. Alas, I'd procrastinated and forgotten to allow for the extra day. UPS was open Monday and I sent it that way; it will get there Friday. At least an Amazon package I sent should arrive today.

I also mailed a book of the fairly tale Hansel and Gretel along with the cloth entourage. I read the book first. Yee gads, what a gruesome tale!  I'd remembered the part about shoving the wicked witch into the oven; but that was OK. After, all she was wicked and deserved it. I had not however remembered how Hansel and Gretel got in that predicament to begin with. The version of the book I found to send, told the tale of her father and stepmother having not enough food to share, so they took the kids out into the woods and deliberately left them there to perish. Nice, huh? Oh well, Autumn likes to watch scary movies with her dad so maybe this will not phase her in the least.

HALLOWEEN

This week I also sewed up some block of the month mini-kits from my guild. There was a choice of  a squat pieced house block, a tall pieced house block, or a short and tall tree pair paper-pieced block. I bought one of each block type intending to submit them back into the drawing. The houses came out cute enough and the paper-pieced trees took me long enough that I decided to keep the trio and make it into a small wall hanging. Here is the squat house complete with spidery window and door and a skeleton lurking in the attic.

The tall house had ghosts on the first floor and jack-o'-lanterns peeking out the second story window. I split the tree block and sandwiched the tall house in between the two paper-pieced pines.

I placed the trio on my design wall and plan to add a lawn in front courtesy of green fabric culled from my stash. Perhaps I will interrupt the grass with a couple of angled walkways and bind the unit pretty much the size it is. The blocks with the blue marbleized background finished about 12" each.

Linking up now with Let's Bee Social #198 from Sew Fresh Quilts...

Quilting In the Garden

September is a very quilt-y month for me. The weekend after my guild's quilt show (post for 9/19/17) and the same weekend as the Pleasanton Craft Fair (post for 10/3/17) my local nursery Alden Lane Nursery, hosted their annual outdoor Quilting in the Garden show. At Alden Lane, the quilts are hung on clothes lines strung between four-hundred-year old oak trees. They are put up by nursery staff and guild volunteers Saturday morning, taken down Saturday evening so as not to be exposed overnight, then put up again on Sunday morning and taken down one last time on Sunday evening. 

I was part of the Saturday take down; it is a lot of fun. Over the years of this annual event, the nursery has developed and fine tuned the process down to a science. With many hands, the raising and lowering of the quilts works as a well oiled machine. There are pulley and rope tenders, clothes pin attacher and removers, clothespin distribution and collection managers, quilt folders, baggers, labelers and pullers of the fleet of wagons that traverse the aisles of the garden outdoor area. 

Here is just a handful of my favorites sights from the show of close to 300 quilts on display. The quilts are by local artists and, in 2017, by Featured Artist Edydta Sitar, Guest Artist Debby Schnable, with Special Guests Alex Anderson and Jennifer Sampou. Here I am at the entry which sports a mini-pumpkin patch and quilts from some of the local artists.

Although not a quilt, I love this whimsical, welcoming cow at the entry.

Number 177 is a precision pieced Edyta Sitar creation. The mottled shadowing of the oak leaves from the tree branches do not lend themselves to awesome photos but they do create an inspirational outdoor ambience that is further enhanced as the breeze blows and the quilts flutter in gentle undulations.

I particularly liked the colors in Number 193, another Edyta Sitar quilt.

Notice how her background fabric was a subtle stripe, one that she was careful to consistently orient throughout.

You can never go wrong with a the color scheme of Number 91 Living in the Moment Blue and Yellow.

Number 33 was titled Triangle Bubble Dance. I am more of a traditionalist than a modern quilter but the asymmetry of this one drew me in.

I loved the bright colors of Number 13 titled 30 Spools of Thread.  Most of all, the dappled leaf shadows and arching branches of the old oaks represent the feel of the show.

I toured the show, making no purchases from the vendors. Then I sat down for my two hour time slot where I was a volunteer for my guild, selling tickets for our fund raising opportunity quilt. That was all well and good except that our booth was right next to the Sandy Klop booth of American Jane fabrics. Even though I had made purchases the previous day at the Pleasanton Craft Fair (10/3/17 post), I bought an eight piece stack of half yards of her pinstripes from the new line titled Merry-Go-Round. Aren't the colors luscious? I also find good stripes hard to come by so this was a serrendipitous find!

It had been a pleasant afternoon. I helped with the Saturday evening quilt take down. Then I waved bye to the friendly scarecrow as I exited. You can watch the 2015 YouTube video for a more extensive overview of the annual Alden Lane Nursery event Quilting in the Garden. I am linking up now with Let's Bee Social #197.