Design Wall Monday 11/28/2022

My sewing room has been overtaken by red scraps, thanks to the new project I started last week. I finished nine blocks by the end of the day on Sunday.

I call this design "Ring Around the Stars" because of the impression of circles formed by the little white squares. The blocks can be straight set, as shown above, but I prefer the look of the stars on point as below.

My blocks will finish at 9". I'm planning a quilt with 16 of the star blocks, so there is quite a bit of stitching still to be done. I think I have finished most of the cutting.

Check out what other quilters are working on this week at Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA 

Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/27/2022

I'm a little behind on posting my stash report, which seems surprising since there haven't really been any changes to the stash since last week. I've been doing plenty of cutting up fabric and stitching it back together, but nothing is ready to be included on the stash report. 

I spent a large portion of the past week trying to figure out a plan/design for a guild challenge. It is the 40th anniversary of the guild, so the challenge theme is Ruby, Ruby. The rules are to use at least 40 square inches (5" x 8") of a ruby red fabric and the quilt must also include exactly 40 of something: 40 blocks, 40 flying geese, 40 different fabrics, etc. 

After considering many possibilities, I decided that I could make a quilt with 20 blocks, using two different red fabrics in each block. The block that I tried is a Judy Martin design from The Block Book called "Jabberwocky". I made one sample block and have a second one cut out, but decided that I don't want to make more of them right now. Those long, skinny triangles in the star points are very tricky to cut and to stitch accurately.

"Jabberwocky" from The Block Book by Judy Martin

My current plan uses a simpler star design, this time a single fabric for the stars and a scrappy red background. I pulled together 40 different red fabrics and will limit myself to those for this quilt. Here are the first two blocks. The stars will alternate with a 9-Patch variation block for the quilt design.

The good news for the stash report is that I have managed to resist the Black Friday fabric sales so far--no new fabric added to the stash this week!

2022 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                0.0 yards

Used year to date:       131.25 yards

Added last week:              0.0 yards

Added year to date:     118.25 yards

Net used in 2022         13.0 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of stitching time. I spent even more time quilting than usual last week, although the beginning of the week was mostly playing with design ideas for my challenge quilt.

15 Minute Challenge for 2022: 

11/20 - 11/26          7 of 7 days

2022 Total        323 of 330 days

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Kaleidoscope Rainbow

I haven't been sewing any scrappy blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge lately, but I did pull out a set of Kaleidoscope blocks that were made last year. These blocks were all made from my collection of 1930's reproduction prints, and each block will finish at 6". I ended up with a total of nearly 200 blocks, and 99 of them are up on the design wall together.

I might still do a little rearranging of blocks (or maybe not,) and then I will work on getting them all stitched together. The quilt will also get a border of the same aqua fabric that was used in the corners of the blocks.

Be sure to check out all of the wonderful scrappy projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every Saturday and at Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday.

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/20/2022

The past week of quilting time didn't feel especially productive, but it turned out that I used more fabric than I realized. My usage included 2.625 yards for the border and the backing of the Thanksgiving Hexagons Stack & Whack quilt that I shared early in the week (see it HERE.) Unfortunately, it won't be finished in time for Thanksgiving due to machine tension problems. Instead I pulled out the matching fabric with black background (2.5 yards), hemmed it all around, and made it into a tablecloth perfect for fall and Thanksgiving. No new fabric was added this week, but there sure are a lot of tempting pre-Black Friday sales out there!

2022 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:            5.125 yards

Used year to date:       131.25 yards

Added last week:              0.0 yards

Added year to date:     118.25 yards

Net used in 2022         13.0 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of stitching time. Other than the Thanksgiving quilt and the tablecloth, most of my quilting time seemed to be spent trying to figure out the tension problems with my machine, including many phone calls and texts with a Juki technician. Unfortunately, the repairman for my local dealer has been in the hospital, and they don't know when he will be available for house calls again. I'm back to using my old Singer for everything until further notice.

15 Minute Challenge for 2022: 

11/13 - 11/19          7 of 7 days

2022 Total        316 of 323 days

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Design Wall Monday 11/14/2022

My plan had been to spend much of last week working on some free-motion quilting projects, but machine problems (read about them HERE) put an end to that idea. I switched gears to work on a very old project that had been hiding in the quilt closet. The center of this quilt top was pieced many years ago and had been waiting for borders. It seemed like the perfect project as we get closer to Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Hexagons Stack & Whack

46.5" square

Bethany Reynolds published her first book on the "Stack-n-Whack" technique in 1998, and it is still available today from many sources including American Quilter's Society. I made my first S&W quilt that same year, and that unquilted top is still hanging in my closet! 

My first Stack & Whack quilt

I made many S&W quilts in the late 1990's/early 2000's and also taught classes on the technique during that time. One of the keys to a successful quilt was the fabric choice. The necessary elements were multiple colors and medium to large-scale prints with not too much background showing. I knew this vegetable print would be a good option.

I don't know exactly when I pieced the center part of the quilt shown at the beginning of this post, but I do know that I bought the fabric in September of 1998. Most of the S&W pieces I made happened between 1998 and 2001, but I would guess that this piece was on the earlier end. I still have more of this fabric, plus a couple yards of the same print on a black background. 

The magic of stack & whack happens when the pieces are cut, then stitched together. You can't ever completely predict how each block will look until it is stitched up. My favorite block is the last photo with the multi-colored corn.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I still had some of the dark orange marbley fabric that makes up the star points. I cut off a chunk of it to make into a binding if (when?) this top gets quilted.

While I had the fabrics out, I went ahead and made the backing too. I used a panel of the main print, with additions on each side for width.

Check out what other quilters are working on this week at Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA 

Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/13/2022

The past week of quilting started out with the emphasis on catching up with some free-motion quilting (FMQ) lessons. One of the final projects for the online class I've been taking is a sampler quilt made up of solid squares that each get quilted with a different motif. I made the pieced quilt top a couple months ago (see it HERE), and this week I pieced the back, plus made a little mini quilt with the same fabrics for testing out my tension and stitching designs.

The backing fabric is an old Jinny Beyer fabric. I love that it has feather designs, very much like some of the quilting motifs we are learning in class.

Above is my little mini version of the sampler quilt, complete with stitching samples. It measures around 18" square. All of the stitching near the center was done as a review of the motifs before I started quilting on the actual quilt. I'm using the same medium grey thread on all the different fabrics. After doing the test stitching, I quilted the first two blocks in the sampler quilt, and was very excited to have made a start. 

Unfortunately, the next day when I sat down to continue quilting, I discovered that my tension looked horrible on the back side of the quilt, with loops from the top thread pulling through to the back. It seemed as though there was no top tension on the machine. It is especially visible in the loop-de-loop near the center, the wavy line just above that, and even in the straight-stitch lines at the bottom. Click on the photo to zoom in.

I did everything I knew to make it better--rethreaded the machine multiple times, changed bobbins, new needle, etc. Nothing helped. The machine has electronic controls, and even when I had the top tension at the highest possible setting, it still looked like this. After two days of frustration, messing with the machine, searching online for suggestions, and phone calls to my dealer, nothing has gotten better. I'm hoping for a phone call from a Juki technician on Monday. 

Enough of my tale of woe, this is supposed to be a stash report. I used 3 yards for the sampler quilt backing plus 3/4 yard for the mini sampler quilt. 

2022 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:              3.75 yards

Used year to date:     126.125 yards

Added last week:              0.0 yards

Added year to date:     118.25 yards

Net used in 2022       7.875 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of stitching time. Prepping my FMQ sampler quilt for quilting dominated the early part of the week, followed by days of frustration as I tried to figure out my tension problems. By Saturday I had given up and switched over to piecing on a different machine.

15 Minute Challenge for 2022: 

11/6 - 11/12            7 of 7 days

2022 Total        309 of 316 days

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/6/2022

When I sat down to calculate my stash report for the week, I didn't think there would be any usage to report because most of the week was spent joining blocks together. However, I realized that the final set of Charm Basket blocks got finished after my last stash report, 24 light and bright blue blocks.

Those blocks plus a dozen background rectangles at the ends of columns used a total of one yard of fabric. They all got joined together with the previous 200+ basket blocks into my finished Charm Baskets quilt top. I shared this same photo in yesterday's post, but I love it so much that it is making a second appearance! 

As for fabric additions, I received another fat quarter bundle of solids, this time in shades of Golden Topaz, from the Fat Quarter Shop. 3 yards added. They seem like the perfect colors for this time of year!

2022 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:                1.0 yards

Used year to date:     122.375 yards

Added last week:              3.0 yards

Added year to date:     118.25 yards

Net used in 2022       4.125 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of stitching time. After finishing the last set of basket blocks, I spent most of the week assembling the Charm Basket quilt top. After that, I switched over to catching up on some free-motion quilting lessons.

15 Minute Challenge for 2022: 

10/30 - 11/5           7 of 7 days

2022 Total        302 of 309 days

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Charm Baskets Quilt Top

After more than three months of being ignored, my Charm Baskets blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge became the primary project in my sewing room for the past couple of weeks. I made 60 more blocks in orange, light blue and light/bright green, bringing my total number of blocks to 227. Once all the blocks were made, I jumped right into joining them together, and now I have a completed quilt top!

Charm Baskets, 52.75" x 69"

I was amazed at how quickly this top came together once all the blocks were made. I knew that I wanted the blocks arranged in a rainbow gradation, but not in straight horizontal or vertical lines of color. I had a total of 227 blocks and needed 215 of them for this arrangement (13 columns x 16 or 17 baskets per column.) I started at the lower left corner with the purple blocks, keeping the darkest ones at the outer edges. I added the blues next and kept working my way up and toward the right. After less than an hour, this was the initial layout on my design wall. It's a shadowy photo and not very straight, but you can get the idea.

There was very little rearranging of blocks the next morning, mostly in the upper right corner. After that, it was time to cut some background rectangles for the offset columns, then I started sewing everything together. The basket blocks were stitched into vertical columns, then the columns were joined together. I did lots of pinning on those columns to keep everything lined up.

True confessions time--I've nearly really cared for basket quilts before! At least, that was true until I saw the Charm Basket pattern by Edyta Sitar at Laundry Basket Quilts. Those little 4" blocks in a wash of color were just irresistible! 

Charm Basket by Edyta Sitar, Laundry Basket Quilts

I made my first sample basket blocks in October, 2021, then continued making them in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month throughout 2022. The last basket blocks were made on October 29, 2022, and the quilt top was finished on November 2nd. I had so much fun making these blocks all year, and I'm very pleased with the result!

Linking up with:

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

Rainbow Scrap Challenge at So Scrappy

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA