Week Two: Blocks A5 and B3

Last night I finished A5. Thrilled with it. I love the Drunkard's Path unit.

B3 Mirror Image

Not a difficult block. I'm used to curved piecing after putting together a drunkard's path quilt recently.

This morning I finished A5. Foundation pieced and pretty easy except I got a little overzealous while pressing it and distorted some of the seams. I'll have to go back and fix that because it is way to wonky to be acceptable.

A5 Cathie's Campfire

Just two blocks to go hopefully I can finish them tomorrow so I will have time for some UFO work during nap time on Monday.Unfortunately they are both foundation pieced and those blocks, no matter how easy, seem to take me forever.



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Week Two: Block B1

B1 Bachelor's Buttons

Finished this during nap time. First time doing reverse applique. I'm pretty sure a small area like this should not take two hours to sew. Hopefully I will get faster and neater. I think I may have clipped to far. I had a lot of poke threads to deal with and some edges aren't as smooth as I would prefer. Looks great in this photo but in my hand it looks much rougher. Acceptable but not nice and smooth weird because normally scanning makes these blocks look a bit rougher.

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Week Two: Blocks B1 and B2

Bad design.

 Last night I was helping my niece with a polar fleece project and we managed to break a rotary cutter. The handle snapped while Aubs was cutting. Looking over the cutter I am going to blame shoddy design. I was preferring this cutter (it came as part of a mat/cutter kit I was given as a gift) because of how the action for engaging the blade worked I felt it was safer around the baby. But this design feature is exactly why it broke. Just to weak for something that is going to have that much pressure on it all the time. I tried to look it up to find the name but it seems it has been discontinued. I did find a picture so beware if you see this blade on sale no matter how cheap don't buy it.

 I should add my other cutter is also from Fiskars. I have had it for 15 years and love it.

B2 Sweet Tater Pie

Anyway today I did some prep work on blocks B1 and B2. I cut out all the fabrics, basted and clipped B1, and managed to finish B2. This is the first time I have done applique in a really long time and I was doing the stitch backwards for the first third or so. I may take this part out and restitch it because those stitches really bother me but right now I am super thrilled with this block. Those stitches are whack, the line is a little wonky in a couple places, and I didn't quite match up the seams BUT I am still thrilled. Love love love this little block. I made two over sized pinwheel blocks and cut a circle from one and appliqued it to the other rotating the colours to contrast as per the block design. I will square it up and cut out the circle from the bottom pinwheel tomorrow. I would not wish quilting over that seam mountain on my worst enemy

B1 is prepped and ready to be stitched. I have never done reverse applique. Wish me luck.

I may not get to these tomorrow because my niece and I have plans to get together and work on her project again but we'll see.




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Week Two: Preparation

This week's blocks are A1, A5, B1, B2, B3, and B10. Three are foundation  pieced, one is reverse applique and two involve curved piecing. So a little bit of everything.

I didn't get any quilting done today. My MIL took the baby for the morning but I used that time to play catch up with the housework and I used nap time to, well, nap.

I did manage to get all the foundations and templates for these blocks printed despite my printer's best efforts to thwart me. It took all day (off and on between stuff) and a few tears wrestling with the bastard but everything is printed. To be fair the freezer paper is a bit curly so I imagine its hard for the printer to work with but he'll just have to get used to it or he will be replaced. Printers are super cheap these days and I will bin him if he puts me through another day like today.


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UFO: Flying Pirates

Status: Working on the flying geese units.

Today during nap time I managed to finish sewing all the geese and cut them apart. Almost got them all pressed but the maintenance man came to fix the light in that room so my time was cut short. I should be able to finish pressing alter today and I am hoping to get the next step done tonight. Probably not going to happen but if I get even a few squares pinned on for the second side I will be happy.

Looking ahead to tomorrow I am worried about doing applique for the first time in years. Much harder and more fiddly than foundation piecing.

UFO: Flying Pirates

Status: All fabric, thread, and notions for quilt top are ready to use. Preliminary cutting done. No sewing.

This is a project I started around Thanksgiving. Not quite sure but it has been a few weeks. It is based on a tutorial I found while searching the Moda Bake Shop blog for "layer cake". It uses a fun layer cake from Benartex called Buried Treasure and some white yardage. The tutorial is Flying in Squares from Happy Quilting. I love flying geese so I was hooked as soon as I saw it.

I had already finished drawing the diagonal line through all my white squares and had started to line them up and pin them to the larger printed squares. I managed to finish putting these units together and sew on either side of the diagonal line on all the large squares.

I had company and errands to run today so that is all I had time for but I did squeeze in a couple more rows on my hat tonight while watching Dr. Who with the hubster.

Week One: Finished

These blocks took all day to make. I forgot how fiddly foundation piecing can be. Only way to do them though as some of these pieces are barely 1/4". I would estimate about six hours to complete these blocks which means two hours each so that does sound right. I always mean to keep track of time while working on stuff like this but I rarely remember. Thus week one is finished ahead of schedual and I have time to work on a UFO.

A8 Florence Nightingale

B4 Chris' Soccer Field

C1 trooper Green's Badge

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Week One: Blocks B13 and C3

I finished these while my daughter was napping. Very easy blocks. Both are machine pieced and rotary cut according to dimensions from the software. Tomorrow I tackle foundation piecing for the first time in years.

B13 Four Corner Press

C3 Rayelle's Fence

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Hattitude: Determined

I gave my first "Determined" hat to my Mom because she loved it. I recently started a new one for me when I found this yarn on sale. Yes, I have already broken my "No new projects in 2013" rule but this yarn and hat are worth the shame. I haven't been able to work on it in almost a week due to back issues but its half finished and I can't wait to wear it.

Can't resist colour

From the book Hattitude by Cathy Caron

Week One and First Block

These are the blocks I am planning to do this week. A6, A8, B4, C1, B13, and C3. They should all be easy blocks. Techniques used will be rotary cutting, machine piecing and freezer paper foundation piecing. Its been a long time since I have done any foundation piecing but these look like a good reintroduction for me.

All my quilt plans and layouts will be shown with a white background because white displays better than black. I don't know why but the black tends to look muddy.

Here is my first block, Uncle Homer (A6), in all it's scanned glory.

A6 - Uncle Homer

I'd go so far to say eensy weensy

Very easy block to cut and piece. I used the rotary cutting guide from the software for the correct dimensions. While I knew this was a quilt made of small blocks and each block was made of small pieces it wasn't until I was actually handling the wee patches that I realized just how small each patch was - teeny tiny.

Unfortunately even though my DMIL took my daughter this morning and I had lots of time to play a stiff back and dirty dishes prevented me from doing more than one block today.



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The Plan

For almost fifteen years I have wanted to do a "Dear Jane" quilt. For Christmas I received the software and templates from my DH. I've had the book for almost fifteen years.

I played around with the software to determine my colour scheme and decided to do bright rainbow on black. The colours will be placed in a trip around the world pattern. I purchased a fat quarter in each colour (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) and some black yardage. I am going to use a mix of fabrics for the prints and the background but I am not going to use a different fabric for every block. This way I can buy more fabric as I need it without having to worry about it being out of stock or discontinued. I still haven't decided about the sashing but if I do use sashing it will be all of the same fabric.

Over the New Year holidays I planned my attack. I decided to do approximately six blocks and/or triangles per week. I used a post from Quilting Board to help decide the difficulty level of each block and tried to keep a good mix of hard and easy in each week. I added a break for catching up approximately every four weeks. Hopefully this will keep me from getting bogged down or frustrated. If  all goes to plan the blocks will be ready for assembly in 54 weeks.

I am very excited about this project.

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Finished!

Completed Pat's Dr. Who scarf in time for Christmas. Huzzaah!

A year in the making.

I Can Do It

Credits:

• Beauty and Spirit Value Collection by Elizabeth Weaver

Hi Daddy!

Credit:

• Citrus Sunshine Page Kit by Lauren Bavin

Looking For Oscar

Credits:

• Delighfully Amazing Page Kit by Nicole Young