Finished the Chain LInk

 With Christmas still 10 days away, I have finished Landon's quilt in good time.  I even had time to make a pillow case to match.    

The pillow case plaid is from a leftover piece of the backing.  All that's left to do now is wrap it up!

Doodles

 Now that the Chain Link quilt top is finished and pinned, it's ready to go under the needle of the Q-20.  Deciding how to quilt a finished quilt top is always a big decision for me, and I usually doodle little designs on paper.  This doesn't give a very good representation of how the quilt will look when the quilting is done though.  Today I tried something new.  I put a picture of the quilt in my Paint program and drew on it with different ideas:

This worked very well.  As I doodled around, I knew that "I don't care for that," or "That would be too time consuming and too much stopping and starting."  I actually like the arches, I had an "atom" shape in mind.  I have a new curved ruler to make it happen, and was excited to try it out, but when I put the needle and the curved ruler to the test, it was VERY hard to control the ruler and keep it steady.  I made two sewn arches and decided to abandon that idea as unworkable for me at this time.  I will need way more practice with that ruler before I attempt it on a quilt again!  I ended up spending a little time with Jack-the-SeamRipper to pick out those quilted arches.

But the doodles had another very good possibility in the batch, and I opened up a new copy of the picture in my Paint, and quilted the picture again.  Here is the result of that, and it is my final choice.  I will quilt the quilt like this:

I love how there are two visuals in the quilting: a starburst and a star.  This will be very easy to quilt (ruler work).  It is always a big relief to me to finally decide on how to do it!  Making that decision is harder than the actually sewing!!  

There is also a small gray border all around the quilt that is not shown in this picture, but I plan to echo the edges onto that border.  We'll see how it turns out, and I can decide what to do with the border at that point, but that's the plan for now!

Pinning the Chain Link

I'm on a roll!  Today I pinned the Chain Link Christmas Quilt.  I used my new favorite method, of course, pinning on the kitchen table using clamps.

The clamps are 3" spring clamps that I got at Menards for $1.67 apiece.  I bought all there were at the time, and wanted 3 more (I have 10 in all), so I bought three 4" clamps as well.  The 4 inchers are almost too much!  I need two hands to squeeze them open!  But they all work beautifully, and are plastic, so no rust will ever get on the fabrics.  I really love this way to pin a quilt.  I've had nothing but great results every time I use them.

Flannel Backing and Pillow Case

 I have bought a big piece of red/black flannel plaid for the backing at JoAnn's.  I bought 5.5 yards (I'll need to cut it in half and seam the middle), but when I opened it up to make the seam, I found out that the clerk at JoAnn's had measured it wrong!  Luckily, the mistake was in my favor, and I have almost 7 yards of fabric instead of 5.5!  I will have enough left over to make a pillow case to match the quilt!!  Whooo hoooo!

I cut off a yard of fabric for the pillow case, and looked in my box of flannel fabrics and found a beautiful red flannel and a light gray flannel left over from a previous quilt I had made.  PERFECT!  The pillow case will look something like this:

Because of all the backing fabric that I had extra, I was able to match the plaid, and the seam turned out so well that it is practically invisible.  I pinned the two pieces of the backing together almost like I pin a binding--poke the pin through the top, check the backside to see if it is aligned, and finish the pinning,  Move an inch, repeat the process.  So it was time consuming to do this, but well worth the effort.  I am very pleased too with this piece of flannel.  It's a good tight weave.  I have had flannel fabrics that frayed horribly, and this time I really got (more!) than my money's worth.  Here's the seam, if you can see it!

  

Progress Report

 I have finished the Chain Link quilt top.  I decided to do it with a 5 x 6 layout, so 30 blocks.  It's plenty big.  I added a 3" gray border to "float" the blocks, and so it will be a nice size, not too big as the original plan (8 x 6, or 48 blocks).  Here it is:

  

Chain Link

I have been working on the Chain Link Christmas quilt.  I have cut all the gray fabric, and I ran out before I had all the patches I needed.  Luckily, I bought this gray fabric from Pins and Pieces quilt shop not too long ago, and I went back and bought 3 more yards to be on the safe side!  This is a fun quilt to piece, and I like matching red and black "scraps" for the links. The scraps are 2.5" strips, and I have a lot of those laying around that just need to be cut to the proper lengths.  I have a good start and am not worried about not having it done on time.  Here's my progress so far:

"Underwear" for Christmas

 I have a grandson for whom I have not yet made a quilt.  His sister, however has TWO quilts, so I know that I need to make a quilt for Landon ASAP!!!  I asked him about color choices.  Now, the family joke is if I want to know what colors a grandchild likes,  ask him/her "What colors do you like, what color "underwear" do you want for Christmas?"  I get some color preferences to work with.  

The first time I did this caused some confusion, understandably.  "Red and blue" was the answer to the question, and I went out and actually bought red and blue underwear for my chosen Christmas quilt recipient.  And I made a red and blue quilt.  He opened the underwear first, and Shock showed on his face--Shock with a capital "S".  Shock turned into disappointment.  "I thought I was going to get a quilt!" he said.  He was not disappointed long, because the next present was the quilt, and all was well with the world!  But ever after that, "What color underwear?" has a new meaning! 

So, back to Landon!  I asked him "What color underwear do you want for Christmas?"  Landon must not have remembered about the family underwear joke, because he said, "Do not buy me underwear for Christmas!"  His brothers and sister hooted in laughter, and Landon repeated his demand, "Do not buy me underwear for Christmas!"  His brother told him, "Grandma is not talking about underwear!" but Landon would not talk to me after that!

I found out from his Dad that Landon likes red, and since his school colors are red and black, I decided those would be the colors I will use in his quilt.  It's the end of  October, so I have to get working on it right away if I want it done for Christmas.  I have a pattern picked out already.  I found a quilt I liked on the internet and worked out the pattern in Electric Quilt8, my quilting software program.  I will call this quilt "Chain Link", and it looks like this:

I will use scraps of blacks and reds, and I have a nice mottled gray fabric for the background. I might make it a little smaller than this pattern.  I'll see how it looks once I have the blocks made.  I can't wait to get started!

Madison Quilt Expo 2020

 Every September there is a big Quilt Expo in Madison.  Dianne usually joins me, and we spend the day together enjoying the sights.  Last year we got a 2-day ticket and had a mini-vacation while attending the show, which was even more fun!  This year is different because of Covid-19.  No gatherings!  Social distancing, wearing masks, lockdowns, Governor mandates, virtual learning for schools.  Gah!  So Dianne could not come this year, and there was no regular Expo at the Alliant Center.  The Quilt Expo was a virtual event this year, which is better than nothing I suppose. 

Dianne took a couple of vacation days, and we "attended" the Expo together virtually.  Between our computers and our phones on speaker phone, we were able to sync our trip through the Gallery of Quilts, and "shop" together in the Venders' Mall.  It was actually quite fun and interesting how it worked.  All of the quilts in the Hall of Quilts were photographed separately, and you could move down the rows of quilts in a sort of 3-D way.  Clicking on the quilt gave you a closeup of some of the details, quilter information, sometimes a small story of the quilt.  You could still vote for your favorite for the Viewers' Choice Award.  There were video classes and lectures, and the Shoppers Mall of venders.  Lots of these venders had Quilt Show Specials.  I bought some backing fabrics.  We enjoyed the experience, and didn't have sore feet at the end of the day!    It was a free event, and I hope they continue to have a virtual quilt show every year in ADDITION to having a real live quilt show.  We could do both. 

More and More

I have been quilting the Badger quilt.  I didn't like this quilt to start with. It had only 2 colors, and I thought it was boring.  However, as I have been working on it, especially now in the quilting phase, I am liking it more and more.  I decided I could jazz it up a little in the quilting, there is a lot of red background to play with.  I wanted to keep it somewhat simple, and because there is a fleece backing, it can't be too tightly quilted so that the fleece stays soft.

I like echoing, and I like ruler work, so I decided to just echo the negative space.  That looked good.  But still needed something more. So, I quilted a square frame in the empty echoed spaces.  It looked even better.  The quilt still needs something "more!"  I have such a hard time deciding how to quilt these bigger areas. 

One thing I noticed though, the more I put quilting in the negative spaces, the puffier the stars are becoming, and the stars are losing the focus! This quilt is not about negative space, it's about these great stars, which don't look like stars anymore.  I am thinking I need to echo the gray stars and star points.  That's gonna take a long time and I didn't want to invest so much time in this quilt!  What to do???  I will finish the red echoing and see how it looks overall, then decide!  Stay tuned...

V-blocks

While I was making the border for my Disappearing Shoofly QOV, one of the units that I needed to make is what's know as a V-block.  The V-block unit looks like this, and is a common unit in many quilt designs:

An important thing to know about a V-block is that the top of the  "V" does not go to the corner of the block.  It is inset slightly, about an eighth of an inch. (The sides of the block below have not yet been trimmed, so they appear wider.)

I have a special ruler just for making this type of block, and although it looks complicated with all the markings, it produces perfect V-blocks every time, and I think it is worth the effort to figure out how to use it.

    

The ruler makes 11 different sizes of V-blocks, and you can also you it for making 60-degree triangles.  The directions that come along with the ruler are well-written and have diagrams.  The cutting allows for slightly larger units than necessary because let's face it, no one sews perfect quarter-inch seams 100% of the time!  Your unit will be slightly larger to allow for those imperfections, and will trim to the exact size you need.

Basically, the ruler has 2 functions: Cutting the patches, and trimming the block.  Let's look at it:

The first thing is to cut strips of fabric for your units.  In the right part of the ruler, circled in yellow, it tells you what size strips to cut.  Basically, an inch larger than your finished unit.  I needed a 4" finished unit, so I had to cut a 5" strip.  This same yellow section is used to cut the sides of your V.  You need a left and a right side, (mirrored images) so if you fold or put your fabrics right sides together, you can cut both at the same time.  The part of the ruler circled in green is used to cut the center V of your V-block.  The very first V you cut on your strip will be cut on a fold using dark black line on the ruler shown by the blue arrow.  This is because WOF strips have straight edges, and we need a 60-degree angle.  So fold the fabric strip just enough that when you put the bold black line on the fold, you will be able to get both sides of the triangle with one cut.  After that, you just align the left edge of the 60-degree triangle in the green circle on the fabric and cut.  You will need to rotate the ruler from the top of your strip to the bottom after each cut. The part of the ruler circled in red is used for trimming you v-block unit after it is sewed.

I needed 4" finished V-blocks for my border.  You can see that there is about an eighth or a quarter inch "wiggle room" in the block to be trimmed off. The tip of the V fits into the "4-inch finished size V" on the ruler, you trim the right side and the top of the V-block.  Then  flip the v-block unit over, align the now-trimmed straight edges with the "4 1/2 inch cut size markings."  The point of the V fits perfectly in the X, and you can now trim the other two edges.

I know there are other rulers that do the same thing as this one, but I have used it in various projects over the course of the years and was always happy with the results. I know rulers can be expensive, and this one is no exception. But I think it is worth it. 

Recalculate!

My Disappearing Shoofly Quilt of Valor has been sewn and I found a really cool border pattern and I thought it would be perfect since it has the same layout as my Disappearing Shoofly QOV, 4 x 5 for 12" blocks.  I cut the fabrics all at once since it was my intention to chain piece the units.

I don't usually cut all the fabrics at once.  Usually I make a sample to see how it goes together, and cut fabric as I go along.  I have miscut fabrics more then once, and it was a lesson I learned the hard way more than once.  This time, it was a little different.  Lucky for me, I laid out the units BEFORE I sewed them together.  I could see right away it was too long for the quilt.  How did this happen??  I checked the pattern, measured twice, cut once.  It should have worked.  The math and the measurements matched.  Hmmm.   LIGHTBULB!!  The border was patterned for 12" blocks.  My shoofly block STARTED out at 12", but then I cut it in quarters, rotated, resewed.  The new version of the block only measured at 11.5"!!  Well, better the border too big then too short.  And there was an easy fix.  Whew!  After recalculating, I could trim 1/2" from each of the "rail" units, and it would fit perfectly.  And it did!

I laid out the rest of the units into borders, sewed them, and here is the finished quilt top!

From start to finish, this quilt top only took 2 weeks to do! I think this is a new record! It measures 56" x 63".  

New Quilt of Valor

 After making the Disappearing Shoo Fly block, I decided that I will need some samples of each stage if I want to use this block as a teaching session for the quilt guild.  I decided to use my Patriotic fabrics for these blocks, and as I made one, and then another and then another  ... !  Oh my!  Looks like I got a little carried away!  So I decided to use these blocks in an actual quilt instead, and it didn't take long, and presto!   I ended up with this:

What a fun quilt!  It looks like a party going on!  Twenty blocks in just a week, and each block is unique.  No two are the same.  Now  to make a pretty border.  I have something in mind, if I can just find the pattern!

Now that I have used my blocks for this quilt, I still need to make some for my quilt guild demonstration, but there's no hurry on that.  Due to Covid-19, all gatherings are cancelled until August!

Block of the Week

I allowed myself to become ... diverted... to a new quilt. It's a Block of the Week, for 16 weeks, a Sampler quilt.  I love sampler quilts, they are interesting and fun, and so diverse.  No block is the same, and you can substitute blocks if there is one you don't happen to like.  A block of the week gives plenty of time to work on other projects too, so it's really not a big diversion. (Right?)  So, here are my first 2 blocks!

  

Here is a diagram of the quilt, and a color suggestion.  You can see I am using different colors.  It's not a large quilt, only 58 x 58", so it's a nice easy project.

Here is a link if you'd like to join or get more information: 2020 Summer Sampler

Sidetracked!!

Because of Covid-19, all of my Quilt Guild spring meetings have been cancelled, but we had one in June, outside, social distancing 6 ft apart.

We will meet again like this in July, and it is my turn to present the lesson.  My turn for the lesson was actually in May, but that was cancelled, and I got put in the July slot for teaching.  It's hard to know what to teach the group.  Lots of experienced quilters here, not really any newbies.  The Sew '  Sews have been meeting now for 7 years. 

I have found lots of "disappearing" blocks that look really hard, but the construction of the blocks is not in the sewing, it's in the cutting.You start with a simple block, a pinwheel or a 9-patch for example, and cut, rotate, and Voila!  A new exciting complicated-looking block results! It was my plan to show some of these blocks to the group.

As everyone knows, the best of plans can go astray!  While experimenting with this idea, and making sample blocks, I came across a very simple block and got ... sidetracked! 

It's all the fault of the "Disappearing Shoofly!"  Here is the Shoofly Block, a simple 9-patch block consisting of 4 HST's and 5 squares:

Cut like this, rotate like that...

   

Voila!  You get this...

It's a really quick and easy block, and there are no matching seams to worry about-- nothing touches!.  There are a few corners that touch each other,  but that's easily handled with nested seams. Even when you put the blocks in rows, still no area touches each other except at the corners.  It doesn't get much easier than this!!

 SO!!  Looks like my program presentation next month will be about the Disappearing Shoofly!

20 Blocks

I have just finished all 20 blocks for the Badger Quilt.  It turned out to be prettier than it looked on the paper pattern.  I initially thought it looked  too plain and boring.  I still do wish it had more color in it, but this is what the customer wanted!  Chain piecing all these units really sped things up.  I never chain pieced like this before.  I tend to make one block at a time because I like to see finished blocks, not just a pile of pieces.  However, I will probably do a lot more chain piecing in the future.  It really does go faster.  Anyway, here are the quilt blocks on the design wall:

Now I will sew block to block, and row to row. Pin, quilt, bind.  Can't wait to get it done!

Flying Geese

The Badger quilt that I am working on has a lot of flying geese units.  I have not made a quilt that uses so many of these units, and the few flying geese I have made have most likely been paper pieced.  But for this quilt, I need 80 flying geese units.  I didn't want to paper piece that many.  I looked at all the way to make flying geese, and decided on this method, that makes 4 at a time.  Using the directions and the cheat sheet below, I whipped these units out quite quickly with chain piecing.

 

Chain piecing the Flying Geese

I want to stress that I did not use the method of making flying geese shown on the cheat sheet.  I ONLY used the size measurements for cutting SQUARES!  I  did not cut any triangles to make these units.  My unfinished flying geese unit measured 2.5 x 4.5".  I started with a 5.25" red square, and four 3" gray squares.  After doing all the steps in the directions (first set of directions), I had four flying geese units.  I only used the MEASUREMENTS found in the cheat sheet. The only difference is that the cheat sheet says to use 3" squares, the directions say the squares should be 2 7/8.  Only an eighth of an inch difference.  Now if you sew like me, you'd take that eighth of an inch!  My quarter inch seam allowance is still shaky, although I'm getting more and more accurate.  Still, I'd rather make a unit larger and trim it down, rather than risk it being too small. 

These directions and the 3" square produced surprisingly accurate flying geese units.  When I trimmed and squared the units, very little scraps were left.  Here are the trimmings left over after I trimmed the units.  Hardly anything, especially considering I trimmed 80 flying geese!!  On some units, all I had to do was snip off the dog ears!  I was glad for that fudge factor eighth of an inch because some of my sewing was wonky, but not too many.

Also, I used a specialty ruler I bought long long ago and never used.  It's the Wing Clipper for trimming up flying geese, and boy did it work well!  I would highly recommend this ruler if you love flying geese units or need to make a lot of them.  It's super easy to use and makes 10 different sized flying geese.

Anyway, my flying geese will be sewn to my twice-framed Bucky Badger star centers, and I'll have 20 stars ready to go!

Badger Quilt Modifications

Here is the pattern of the Badger Quilt as published.  It's a 2-color quilt, and a holiday quilt pattern.  The fabrics I have been given are red, gray, and a yard of a Wisconsin Badgers graphic print.  My friend wants the Bucky Badger pictures centered in each of the 12 white stars of a twin sized quilt.  There will be 20 blocks, each 16" finished, in a 4 x 5 layout.  Originally, each block would look like this:

However, I need to center a Bucky in each gray star.  Instead of simply cutting one 5.5" gray square, I had to fussy cut 20 Buckies.  This wasted a lot of fabric because I had to cut into each of the surrounding pictures for the seam allowances.  I framed them in red, each frame only about 3/8 inch wide,  then framed them again in gray and squared them up at a mere 3.5"--3" finished:

 

This results in a very small unit.  A lot of work for such a small unit! At least that is the only modifications I need to do.  I can go back to the regular (boring) pattern now.  I may try to jazz it up somehow.  Or maybe not.  Just get it done so I can move on to more fabulous things! Modifications are time consuming!

I made one block center to see how it looks.  Flying geese units, and red squares complete the center of the star:  I still need to put on the star points to finish the block but here it is so far:

I'm going to chain piece these now, hopefully it'll go fast.

OH NO! I did it again!!

I have vowed not to start a brand new quilt until I finished some of my UFO's.  But there is something about an empty design wall that seems so wrong!!

OH OH OH! Heaven help me, I couldn't resist!  I started another quilt.  This is one I had been asked to do for a friend's son for Christmas (last year) and  had put it on hold because I was having fun doing other quilts.  So, TECHNICALLY, it IS a UFO, albeit not started yet.  Right?  (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

This quilt was easy to set on the back burner, I'm not crazy about the pattern, the fabrics, or the fact that the recipient of this quilt already has a quilt made by me in the fall of 2015 (as a birthday present from my friend). Also, there is a modification to the pattern that I have to work out.  Sometimes people just know know what they're asking!

  

 I AM flattered that he loved it so much that he wanted another one, BUT he doesn't know how much time/work is involved, obviously.  Anyway, my friend provided all the fabric and the patterns, I just donate my time.  I love my friend, and I will make this quilt for her.  She can give it to whoever she likes.  She offered to pay me, but I do not charge for making quilts, to me, that would make the project "a job" instead of a fun hobby.  Ok, enough venting! I could have said "no", and I would not be in this position.  I know, I know, I'm a marshmallow.  Maybe I should call this the "Marshmallow Quilt" instead of Badger Quilt #2.

Quilting the Graduation Quilt

The Graduation Quilt is about 70" x 70".  It fit nicely under the needle of the Q20.  It was a joy to quilt. I used a turquoise thread, and it went well.  I did free motion quilting, outlining the text of the sayings and decorating the borders.  Here's some detail:

  

Here is the back of the quilt.  There are smaller positive affirmations on the backing fabric.

I used the black fabric for the binding, and here is the finished quilt: