365 Challenge Quilt Sampler – Weeks 5 to 9

I managed to get away from posting about all of my 365 Challenge Quilt Sampler blocks over the last several weeks. Well, really, from any and all posting.

Why?

I got a new job! I’m now working in insurance, and it’s been an adjustment, getting used to the commute, the new sleep schedule, etc… I’m packing lunches daily, which is helping me fight the good fight, on the dieting front. Now I just need to add exercise to my daily activities, and I’ll be much happier!

Anyway, I’d been mostly keeping up with the sampler blocks as they were posted, but then I suddenly ended up two weeks behind. I was horribly sick this past weekend with a stomach flu, so I took advantage of my isolation from the world to get through most of them. I got caught up by Tuesday, and then photographed everything for posting.

Week 5

29. Churn Dash, 30. Grecian Square, 31. Flock of Geese,
32. Hovering Hawks, 33. Antique Frame, 34. Lost Ships, 35. Sailboat

Week 6

36. Southern Belle, 37. Hour Glass, 38. Big Dipper,
39. Chinese Coin, 40. Practical Orchard, 41. Ohio Star, 42. Chained Star

Week 7

43. Design In Geometrics, 44. Diagonal Strips, 45. Love and Kisses,
46. Flying Geese, 47. Streak of Lightning, 48. Slanted Diamonds, 49. Attic Window

Week 8

50. Tea Leaf, 51. Sawtooth Variation, 52. Dutchman’s Puzzle,
53. X-Quisite, 54. Capital T, 55. Broken Sash, 56. Squares Squared

Week 9

57. Economy, 58. Fair and Square, 59. Four Queens,
60. Right and Left, 61. Whirlwind, 62. Hidden Square

Block number 59, Four Queens, is actually the center medallion for this sampler, and finishes at 18″. We actually had two days to work on that one, which is why there are only six blocks for that week.

With this block, I took the opportunity to introduce a lot of low volume prints. As we progress through more blocks, more of these prints will show up as well.

Altogether, I ended up cutting about another half a yard from my stash of black fabrics, to add to the current pool of scraps. I’m starting to see the end of certain fabrics, even from my scrap bins. It’s both sad, and thrilling. Sad, because I love, love, love some of those fabrics. Thrilling because I’m getting every inch I could out of the yardage I purchased.

Still, it’ll be fun to play with arranging these blocks. I’m looking forward to getting through these 3″ blocks!

365 Challenge Quilt Sampler – Week 03

Another week, another set of blocks:

15. Triple Rail, 16. Maggie’s Mystery, 17. Thrifty, 18. Double Four Patch,
19. Half Square Triangle, 20. Triangle Combination, 21. Broken Wheel

I’m still having a lot of fun playing in my scrap bins, though I am going to have to start pulling from my stash soon in order to supplement. I’m running short of black and grey scraps – which, considering what I sew with, shouldn’t be happening, but that’s all right. It’s an excuse to cut into yardage (not that I need one).

I did end up doing some extra work, and re-made two of the blocks. I just didn’t like the way my first attempts turned out, and I had the extra time, because the last few blocks were very simple.

For anyone working on these blocks with me, I highly encourage you to starch your fabrics. I’m even hitting the completed blocks with another blast of starch. It’s extremely helpful for these small blocks. Also – less fraying of the blocks, so they’ll be nice and crisp when I get ready to sew them together.

I’m still loving the process of putting these blocks together, and am looking forward to being able to start assembly.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday. Also linking to Let’s Bee Social.

365 Challenge Quilt Sampler – Week 02

In addition to completing a quilt yesterday, I made a delicious pot of soup, and caught up on my 365 Challenge Quilt Sampler blocks. I’d let myself get a bit behind – I was focusing on what felt like miles and miles of binding to stitch down/

It was only almost 400″ of binding. No big. Really. *headdesk*

Anyway – I turned that final corner, took photos, had dinner, and then headed to the sewing machine. I was ready to make!

8. London Stairs, 9. Uneven Nine Patch, 10. Double Four Patch, 11. Checkerboard, 12. Plait, 13. Mountains, 14. Six Strips

I needed four blocks to be caught up to current posting, and got them all done today. That allowed me to enter the weekly give-away for those individuals who have completed the current week’s blocks.

I added a bit more color, in blocks Twelve and Thirteen. So far, my favorite block is Number Twelve: Plait. I just love the graphic appeal of the scraps I used.

And, just to further illustrate my insanity…

I’m taking all of the scraps from the 365 Challenge Quilt Sampler blocks, and piecing them into found fabric. Yes, I’m going all scrap vortex on these leftovers. Ultimately, I think I’d like these to become the backing of another quilt top. We’ll see if that ever happens – I’m working with very small pieces here. The sample above is probably only 4″ X 4″.

That’s it for this week. If you’d like to keep up with my daily progress on these blocks, I am posting these to Instagram.

365 Challenge Quilt Sampler

Yes, there is a 365 Challenge Quilt Sampler out there, and yes, I’m doing it! Of course I am. It’s a quilt-along – we’ve already established that I’m a sucker for a quilt-along.

Blocks are being posted daily – one block for every day of the calendar year. Blocks are mostly 3″ and 6″ finished, but there will be a few other sizes mixed in. Also, come April, there will be instructions to complete borders, so none of the participants will have to wrangle 365 separate blocks at the end of the year.

It’s a good reason for me to take a few minutes and sit at my sewing machine every day. So far, that few minutes has been just enough to spark me to sewing on other projects.

I’ve already determined that I’m going to work from my scraps and stash for this top. I’ve started with my greys and blacks, but I’m throwing pops of color in as I feel like it. So far, I like the look.

Rather than inundate the blog with a daily post about each 365 Challenge Quilt block, I’m going to do a weekly round up, of that week’s blocks. As of writing this, nine blocks are available, and I’ve nine completed.

1. Three Stripes, 2. Easy H, 3. Red Cross, 4. Four Patch,
5. Nine Patch,6. Four Strips, 7. Two By Two

Seven days, seven blocks. They’ve been simple blocks so far. My understanding is that difficulty will increase as we progress through the year.

It’s been fun, revisiting my scraps for these blocks, and more fun to use scraps leftover from the scraps to piece later blocks. Doing this, of course, means that I’ll probably play with the final layout, to spread out the random pops of color, when it comes time to start assembling, but I’m okay with that.

I’m just going to enjoy the journey.

WIP Wednesday – Millefiore QAL

Round 1 of Rosette 1 for the The New Hexagon Millefiore 2015 QAL has been completed! If you’d like to know what fabrics I’ve used thus far, check out this post. Be warned, most of these fabrics are likely out of print. They’ve just found new life through this project.

It’s not as precise as I’d like in some spots… However, I’m accepting those small ‘flaws’ as part of the process.

EPP is something I’d only barely flirted with before, and actually hated. But then, I was using the June Tailor Simple Shapes hexagon templates to do it. I found the plastic templates too thick, and when I whip-stitched hexies together, I was disappointed by how visible the stitches were. Also, I found thread basting all of these pieces to be tedious.

Now that I’ve changed up my methodology, I can see myself doing EPP far more often. Instead of plastic, I’m using cardstock. I’m also glue basting all my pieces, and using ladder stitch to join everything. I’m finding all of these changes make piecing these hexagons much faster. More importantly (to me), they’re much neater looking. I can’t see my stitches.

I’ve picked out fabrics for the Debbie blocks in Round 2, and prepped those pieces.

I selected the bird fabric in order to reintroduce blue to the rosette, based on the center hexagon, which is the same reason I selected the yellow print. The purple print chevron print seemed like a natural addition, based on the bird fabric.

I have a coordinating print for the bird fabric that might be introduced in the other half of round two… I’m not sure yet. I need to audition fabrics, but don’t want to do so until I have one of these block pieced. I’m finding I’m having some trouble with visualizing the final hexagons – this method of constructing a block is just a little too new to me.

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Sewing Like Mad!

A quilt-along of the Night Sky quilt pattern by Camille Roskelley is being hosted by the lovely Jana Machado. Since I’m still feeling the effects of having my sewing mojo back, I jumped in.

The milestones of this particular quilt along are to have one row of each quilt done each week, with the goal of having the completed top done by December 5. I’ve not gotten any rows done yet, but I have finished all 44 blocks needed for this top.

Needless to say, I’m damned glad to be done piecing star blocks. These got very repetitive, and I found myself a little tweaked at the waste generated by this pattern if you followed the piecing instructions exactly as written. I also felt that some things should be explicitly called out, as I needed to go back and cut more fabric after I’d gone through the majority of the piecing.

Still, I was able to use up quite a few of my smaller cuts of grey, black and yellow fabrc – everything for this top was pulled from my stash. Really, it was the fact that the pattern called for so many fat quarters (28) that kind of sold me on participating. I had a ton of smaller remnants that would have just gone into my scrap bags, left over from piecing The Garden Party’s Quadrille.

As usual, it feels wonderful to use stuff that I have in my stash – I have enough fabric to make several quilt tops, and I haven’t held as true to my fabric diet this year as I should have. So, ‘wonderful’ really is something of an understatement.

I’ve also made significant progress on Swirling Sea of Stars:

Last time this top was featured on this blog, I only had two rows done. I’m now up to four, though I know I’ve plenty in my scrappy strips tote for a few more projects. There’s going to be at least one more string top in my future. I just have to decide what, though that’s planning for another day. I’m hoping to be able to call this a completed quilt top by the end of the year – it’s very slow going because of the nature of the project.

Strings and paper-piecing take time, lots of it, and I’ve found that I don’t make significant progress if I use this as a leader/end project. Thus, I work on this one as I feel like expending a huge chunk of time on string blocks.

Now, I’m off to sew more. My plans for today include completing the Night Sky quilt top, making a few more string blocks, and making a return to the Winged Square quilt top.

Charmed, I’m Sure

Almost a year ago, I stumbled across the pins and bobbins Made in Cherry Quilt-Along, and decided that the project was a great way to use the charms I was receiving from a swap. It was also a great way to stay motivated in managing my scraps.

Being who I am, I of course had to draw the design up in EQ7.

The original pattern by Sarah Fielke didn’t include any borders, but I liked the look with borders.

If you look closely at the illustration to the left, you can actually tell that I did my quilt-y math wrong. The black, inner border isn’t wide enough. It needs to be twice as wide.

But no matter. I realized my mistake well before I actually added the border. I actually finished the center of the top months ago, in June 0f 2012. I also recognized some issues that had taken place in the cutting, causing some major waving in the big triangles.

I then folded it away, to await my participation in a second charm swap, to get enough for the border. Unfortunately, real life conspired against me, and I wasn’t able to join in.

So, the top sat, unfinished. For quite a while.

Until I decided that I had gotten through enough of my scraps to do the border. Ha! I ended up needing to cut 51 charms my stash, which I accomplished yesterday. This was after spending a day picking apart the major seams of the top, to fix the wavering issues.

Very late last night (or very early this morning, depending on your definition), at around 1:30 AM, I finished adding the second border. It was entirely too big to photograph in my apartment, so I took it to work, thinking I could have a couple of students hold it over a railing. That didn’t happen, since I spent work working on a report and catching up on tasks. Plus, I have a sinus cold going on, and staying away from Kleenex for too long was not an option.

So, once I got home, I took advantage of my balcony once again, and caught a photo.

I present to you, Charmed, I’m Sure:

Overall, I’m pretty happy. I was very worried, as I pieced the final border, that I would have too much pink, yellow and green in it. I have very little blue in my stash, and by the time I got toward the end, my charms were definitely leaning toward the warmer side of things.

Cool beans for me – the inner border used up the remainder of a fabric in my stash. The backing and the binding will also come from my stash. Happiness.