Blogger Girls BOM update

I'm officially two blocks behind. BUT, I did make a dent on this one last month. I tackled block #3 and dwelled on the sashing a bit more.

This block finally brought into the play the companion ruler to Monique's Fit to be Quarter 6.5 ruler. I was excited to give it a try and found it super easy to use.

You start with the center of your square in a square

Trim the edges off

Then you need to attach the hst unit to the newly trimmed edge.

I centered the piece by folding the triangle in half and finger pressing the center. 

I did the same with the trimmed edge of the square and just aligned the folds.

After attaching both sides to the center square, I used the Fit to be Quarter ruler to trim the piece.

Perfect. EVERY TIME!

I added these units to the strips I made for both of my blocks.

Ended up with two new installments on this BOM. 

This is Block #3 v1

This is Block #3 v2

On that last one I really wanted to have the churn dash pop so I used lighter tones on all my other fabrics in the square. Overall, I like the way these new blocks compliment the existing ones.

April's installment is my favorite block so I have to think about the color placement to make sure I don't screw it up.
If you visit the blogger girls today you can pick up May's installment, so get out there and grab your instructions off of Monique's blog . Above all, have fun!

February in April

I've been a bit missing in action the last few weeks. Thought I'd post a little update before it's been officially a month since my last post.

Not much going on over here. I finally got my sewing machine back from the shop at the end of March. I think having her away had me a bit depressed and unmotivated. Not that I didn't have a replacement, since I was using my old machine, but I didn't want to start anything new on that machine since I kept thinking how easy it would have been on my other one. I know it makes no sense but I kept putting obstacles in the way of any creative endeavor.

Anyway, she's finally home but I was not able to really dig into anything because I had a business trip planned. When I go up north, I try to squeeze in a few days with my daughter so it was another week before I could sit in front of my machine again. I enjoy every minute I spend with my baby girl but I needed to get home to sew SOMETHING.

When I finally got a chance to sit down, I had to tackle my Blogger Girl BOM quilt.
I started this back in February and I had the next block cut and ready to roll.

This is Version # 1 

This is Version # 2 

I like the way the colors are playing well with each other but I'm a bit concerned with the sashing/finishing instructions Monique posted last month. I think if I go with the brown I had in mind, the color will overwhelm the quilt (I am using a floral brown for the outer border and red for my inner border). Yet, I'm not sure that throwing in a red will look good in the sashing.

I think I will have to do a Thelma and make a different sashing strip for each of my variations and see which one I like better. Not freaky concerned about it yet since I still have two more blocks to catch-up with the series. I cut my next block and have it ready to roll for this weekend. It will be my first adventure using Monique's Companion ruler so wish me luck.

Lil' Baskets

At the Dallas quilt show, earlier this month I picked up a couple of kits. One of them was a small quilt designed by Lori Smith. The quilt is called Grandmother's Baskets and it's about 16" x 20".

I thought it was the cutest thing and had to give it a go.

I made the 12 mini baskets from fabric to finish in about 4 hours.

This past weekend I decided to finish it. 

I wasn't crazy about the tan that came in the kit but decided to go with it and not lose sleep over it.

In no time at all, the top was finished! 

Since I had some "extra" time, I thought I'd just quilt it too. 

I'm not brave enough to do it on my own,
so I marked it with that FriXion pen everyone raves about. 

Sooo easy! 

After the main quilting was done, I thought I'd add a few "big stitches" to this small quilt.
 I loved the whole big stitch process, I just struggled with the hoop... it was definitely the right size, but for some reason I struggled with getting the stitches on the needle. I guess I need to practice more.

After all my experimenting, I finally attached the binding. It's only waiting for me to stitch the binding down but I thought I'd leave that for when I traveled in a few weeks. Gives me something to do on the plane.
BTW: The fabric in the kit is from Minick and Simpson's new line for Moda - Indigo Crossing

Fly Away Home finished.

I finished this one a couple of weeks ago but had not posted the final pics. Last time we talked about this quilt I had just finished the top and my machine had died. You can read about it here.

 I really needed to finish this quilt because it was going into the special exhibit on the Dallas Modern Guild at the Dallas Guild show earlier this month.

After piecing my backing (which I had to order twice because my first attempt at grey backing turned out to have a cream undertone), I proceeded to one of the most hated parts of quilting... Basting.

I knew I was doing a very straight forward design so I didn't have to MARK the quilt (which I always do because I'm not talented enough to wing it). I did practice a bit on the swirl design I was going to use on the geese units.

Then I started the lines on this one...

and more lines...

and every once in a while I needed to check my progress and measure how much I had left to do!

Until it was done!

Pretty darn happy with how it turned out.

Sweat equity that pays off

And after a failed attempt with the backing, I was actually loving the back too

I incorporated the label in the back.

This one should be coming home at the end of the month. I didn't get a chance to pick it up after the show so one of the organizers is holding it for me until the guild meeting. I'll be happy to see this one fly it's way home.. sorry, couldn't resist the pun.

In Search Of....

Don't you hate when you have something in mind but are stuck because you cannot find what you need to get started? Or when you are collecting something and you are missing that one elusive item to complete your set?
It's like being revved up to make a cake and realizing there are no eggs in the house, or in the corner store, or in the whole town! Eggs no longer exist!!!

I have been searching for a few things online recently that has led to much frustration. First up was the pattern to a block called Yankee Pride or Snow Crystal. You can see a picture of the block here and here and here.. I think this would be a great block to English paper piece. A hand project to travel with when I get sick of my baskets.

I found the pattern on the Linda Franz' Inklingo site but it's a pieced version... Harriet Hargrave's Quilter's Academy vol 4 also has a pieced version...I tend to be on the fail side for imagination and trying to fix something to suit my needs appears more difficult than redesigning it altogether, so I've decided to either use EQ7 to get the templates or just use some quad paper and draw it out. This decision was reached after many agonizing hours, days, weeks dwelling on the lack of pattern for the block.

So, I have resigned myself on a solution to item #1. On to the next item on my list... Henrietta Whiskers. Yes, I know you know who she is. Anne Sutton from Bunny Hill designs had a free BOM on her site in 2011 - Have I mentioned that I have one too many of her applique projects on my to do list?

Especially since I really don't applique!!!! This BOM was so darn cute (like everything she conjures up) I started collecting the patterns to make it. Well, can you believe that I pulled out the pdf files last month and found that I had all the block images and all the PDF files, but one? I had failed to download the instructions for the LAST block!!! Yes, I went to the site that month, grabbed the image she would post with the block and then forgot to download the instructions for that block!  Not the finishing instructions.. oh no, I made sure to grab the finishing instructions. But the last block? Nope. What for? I had the image... ARG!! Ok. Deep breath. 
I rummaged around and found that she does sell the pattern now, so I could BUY the pattern that I already have to get that ONE LAST BLOCK... but, the frugal person in me has told me that Bunny Hill has other patterns I want more (Pumkinville, anyone?) before I break down and buy the one I already have.
I am a bit twitchy on not having this pattern in it's entirety (OCD much?) but I figure that the elements in the block are very similar to the other blocks so I could create my own block to fill in the blank on the quilt.. So, after many agonizing hours, days, weeks, I am no longer losing TOO much sleep over this one... As long as I don't think about it too much, then I get twitchy again. LOL!

So, I now I get to those eggs I mentioned earlier.. The ones that no longer exist, which means you will never eat cake again!! yes. Those eggs.

Do you see how I'm a bit of a fan girl of Blackbird designs patterns? I could put it right up there with my obsession with Carrie Nelson's work, except I can actually MAKE Carrie's quilts - remember my comment above of not doing applique?. Ok, back to the eggs... Well, back in November I placed an order on Pickledish. They are the web home of Kansas City Star quilts, the distributors of Blackbird designs books as well as other wonderful books. On that particular day, they had run a special for black Friday and I was eager to take advantage of it, since I do love me those gals at Blackbird (had you already deduced that?). Come Friday I got online and placed my order. I was looking forward to receiving my book and patterns. I ordered two patterns, Welcome Home and Midnight Silhouette, and one book called You're Invited.

tick tock tick tock... Come December my order had not arrived. I was never charged for the items and outside of my order confirm from the site, I had not received any communication from them... So, I called. It seems they received my order but the order was empty.. a system fail? I restated what I wanted and gave them the order #. At this point my sister had promised to gift me the book  for the holidays, so I canceled the order for the book, but my patterns were hard to find and I REALLY wanted them... the gentleman on the phone was very nice and very apologetic. He said he would place the patterns in the mail at once and said they would not charge me anything for my inconvenience. I was very happy and settled in to wait for my patterns.... tick tock tick tock... They never arrived.

A few weeks ago I went on the hunt for the patterns again since I have resigned myself that the company could care less about their customers and has no intentions of even acknowledging their failure to get an order right. Life is just too short to hassle someone that has shown they cannot be bothered.

I was very very happy to have found the Welcome Home pattern online at 1-2-3 Stitch! I placed the order one week and the next week it was in my hands.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to track down the other pattern... Midnight Silhouette.

This pattern appears to be out of print and the only way I would ever get my hands on it is if someone already has it, made the quilt or has fallen out of love with it (I know, that last one just might be a long stretch), and is willing to part with it. I don't know why I'm obsessing over this pattern (again, OCD much?) when I have so many other ones to keep me busy for the rest of my life, but I am. Obsessing that is.

If you, by chance, run into this pattern in your journeys or have checked this quilt off your to do list and can part with the pattern, I would be happy to buy it from you. You will be eternally in my debt for saving me from losing more sleep over this one.

That concludes this ridiculously long post on the nature and status of my OCD.

See Jess Sew....

A new quilter joins the ranks and has started blogging her adventures!

This is Jess. You might remember her from this post.

If you have a moment, go and read her story at See Jess Sew.

I little encouragement is always a good thing. 

Fly Away Home update.

Do you remember that movie with a young Anna Paquin called Fly Away home? I always think of it when I make a truckload of flying geese. Thought I'd mention it in case there are other people like me out there... sort of freaky people... like me.
No?
Okay.
Onto your regularly scheduled blog entry for today...

This weekend I worked on my traditionally modern quilt. 

Lots of flying geese.

Lot's of Gray...

I played around with my sewing machine's stitches to see if I could find one I saw over at Camille Roskelley's blog. 

Found one that is comparable. I planned on using this one to quilt the piece until my machine died on me over the weekend. That's right, it died. Just stopped chugging along, made a little sad face but refused to acknowledge my attempts of revival... I had to pull my spare... that doesn't have a straight forward stitch to match.  I need to test a few stitches on this 'new' machine and hopefully I can find something I can work with. 

I'm in need of some serious pep talks, so feel free to let me know how you get excited over the quilting process. Tips are welcomed. Going to use my walking foot and plan on doing some squiggly lines on it. I am debating on doing a design on the geese units. Throw out your ideas. 

Anyway. I need to work on the backing. I hate backing. Who decided that you had to make the back of a quilt as interesting as the front? I'm so creatively exhausted with the front I just want to slap on whatever for the back and move on. Then afterwards I look at the fun stuff out there and say, I could have done that... NOT. 

What is the worse part of the process for you? My daughter HATES borders. I don't mind them, but I go brain dead thinking on the backing.