Lovely Year of Finishes April

After writing my Yarn Along post for today I've realized that it would be a good idea to make a list of everything I want to finish before this year's quilt show. Since Fiber of All Sorts hosts a linky party for this every month I'll be linking up over there.

First up is to finish the binding on my comma quilt. This poor thing has had the quilting done since the beginning of February and still isn't finished. I do have the binding attached and have sewn half of it down already so hopefully this will be finished this week. Along with the binding I want to put labels on this quilt and the Hobbit quilt.

The big project for this month is the mystery quilt. I've gathered my backing, batting, and thread. Friday my quilt guild is hosting a work night so I should be able to baste my quilt then. I think I've decided to quilt this with lots of swirls. I debated doing something to highlight the ribbons and just do a single swirl in each churn dash, but then I remembered my FMQ skills aren't there yet.

Finally I'm putting my Crosshatch Bag on the list. I made the center portions the right size and started assembling the blocks when my bobbin ran out. I was getting tired so I took that as my cue to quit. I need to finish putting the blocks together and then make the bag. My focus this month is going to be to finish the Mystery Quilt so this one might be on the list again next month. One of my friends is hosting a Great Strides Walk this summer to raise funds for CF research. I'm planning to sell my mystery quilt for her walk, but I'm pretty sure people will only want to buy a finished quilt.

Machine Work vs. Hand Work

I'm a bit surprised that I have any knitting to share this week. I hear the clock ticking on my quilt guild's annual show (I have 41 days left. Eek!) Usually my knitting and quilting don't get in the way of each other because in my mind machine work is separate from hand work. Machine work gets done in large chunks on weekends and the occasional mornings when I wake up super early and inspired. Since my sewing studio doubles as our kitchen I don't set up my machine unless I can dedicate a minimum of an hour to work. Hand work gets done while I sip coffee in the morning or am watching t.v. with my husband at night. Normally hand work is knitting. However right now I'm buckling down and sewing on some long waiting bindings. (Unless it's part of a workshop or the mystery all of our quilts have to be completely finished in order to hang in the show. The grace period in this is that there's no deadline of when we have to start so any quilts that don't get finished in time can hang in next year's show.)

I'm not sure how my knitting post has turned into a quilting ramble. Back on topic. Last week I had two cuffs and this week I've got stuff attached to both cuffs! You can tell Blueberry hasn't gotten much attention this week. I am feeling a bit more confident with the pattern and aren't tied so closely to my stitch counter or pattern. (I think that will change when my increases move from every 4 rounds to every 6, but I'm right now I'm just appreciating that little bit of lace that's grown above the cuff.)

I'm really late to the party with Hermione's Socks. I know lots of people have knit them before, but there's a good reason for that. This pattern rocks! It takes me a long time to memorize patterns (please note that I'm still using the pattern for blueberry when there are only two lines where anything happens.) I had Hermione memorized after only three repeats of the pattern! Granted the pattern is only 4 stitches wide and only 2 rows have action, but it's still memorized. I love that this sock can go into my repertoire of easy sock knitting when I want something that's just a step above vanilla. I also enjoy the fact that it will work great with hand painted yarns. I never know what to do other than vanilla which doesn't seem to do justice to those lovelies. This pattern is even basic enough that I can see using it for my husband or dad with a more masculine yarn color. The pattern only gives directions for a women's sock, but since the repeat is only 4 stitches wide it won't be hard to change.

Farmer's Wife Sunday?

Over the weekend I washed the paint chip quilt. I did have to pick off some fuzzies, but it looks so much better. I'm hoping the weather will cooperate enough this week that I can get some finish pictures and actually have a Friday Finish to write about. Since I got my Farmer's Wife blocks for this week done today I figured I'd share those as my beginning of the week post. Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict is hosting her annual hands to help challenge. Today she's hosting a link party of tips and tricks. The Wrench and Churn Dash blocks for this quilt are identical so I took pictures of my method for making churn dash blocks if you're only making one (or making lots of scrappy ones.)

The size of your block will determine the size of squares you start with. Since I'm making 6" blocks I started with 3" squares. Cut four 3" squares of each color. Mark two light squares diagonally for HSTs, and two light squares vertically down the middle. (Sorry I didn't take pictures of the HST part, but there's lots of tutorials out there for that.)

Sew 1/4" on each side of the line you marked.

Here's how it looks all sewn up. (Check out the new ruler I got this weekend. I've been trimming lots of 3.5" blocks lately and love that I won't have to reposition my ruler any more. Plus the tiny ruler is super cute!!!)

Cut on the line and press open. Trim to 2.5". (There is a bit of waste, but I found this easier than cutting rectangles and worrying about having everything facing the right direction.)

Cut a center square 2.5" and assemble block as shown. I'm thinking of using a bunch of charm squares in my stash to make a quilt of giant churn dashes. If I do that then I'll trim my pieces to 4.5" before assembly and my blocks will finish at 12".

#111 Wrench (aka churn dash)

My second block this weekend is #72 Railroad. I really love how this block looks. I'm already playing with it in EQ7 and thinking about making a full quilt featuring this block.

#72 Railroad

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*It's official. I've made one quarter of the blocks for this quilt!

Farmer's Wife Friday 12

Holy Cow! It's officially been 3 months since I committed to making 2 blocks from the Farmer's Wife quilt every week. I'm 2 blocks away from the official 1/4 mark so I'd say I'm doing pretty good on my goal. This week I decided to focus on one block at a time. It's a bit different than how I usually make my Farmer's Wife blocks, but it was significantly less confusing. I think I'll have to try this again. Cat and Mice did turn out a bit small (6.25" square) but the sashing method I'm considering will give me room to fix this so I'm really not worried.

#17 Cat and Mice

I couldn't get my head around a black maple leaf. Maple Leaves are supposed to be red. Since I didn't want to add color to this quilt I decided to make a white tea leaf block instead.

#56 Maple Tea Leaf

I think this block took the most thought this time. I struggled so much with getting all of those little triangles facing the right way. I am glad that I followed the book and used three colors for this block. I think the dark grey gives it a lot more movement.

#107 Windblown Square

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This summer I'm teaching a quilt class at my local community college. I've decided to teach a simple table runner using a half hexagon template and a jelly roll. Since I was focusing on one block at a time I decided to use my hexagons as leaders and followers for my FW blocks. It's so much fun to see some color mixed in with all of the black and white.

Casting on some Cuffs

I finished the first sleeve for Blueberry and cast on the second one. I finally managed to get a good picture of this yarn. I love the subtle color changes in KnitPick's Stroll Tonal sock yarns, but my camera doesn't. I don't have pictures to share of the first sleeve, but my gauge is perfect. I still don't understand what's going on that I'm using needles three sizes smaller than the pattern, but I guess that's why we're supposed to make swatches for everything.

I also finished my orange socks and cast on for another pair. I'm trying Hermione's Everyday Socks for this one. It looks like a fairly basic sock which will fill the need for mindless knitting, but it's a step above a vanilla sock. I'm using Deborah Noville Serenity Sock Yarn in Lavender Topaz. This was actually one of the first skeins of sock yarn I ever bought. Someday I might share pictures of my first "pair" of socks. When I started knitting socks I didn't realize that a skein of sock yarn didn't necessarily make a pair of socks so I bought two different skeins of sock yarn with the intention of making two pairs of socks. I finished one sock with a very small foot and a sock leg and then ran out of yarn. I've made several pairs of socks since that first attempt, but I've never come back to the second color I bought. Since JoAnn Fabric sells this yarn it wasn't very hard to find a second skein. The dye lots are different, but they're socks for me so I don't think this will matter too much.

Spring 2014 Quilt Retreat

Last weekend a bunch of women from my guild went to Canton Quilt Retreat for a retreat. I had so much fun. It was really laid back with everyone working on our own projects. On Friday I focused on the Crosshatch Bag from Vintage Quilt Revival. I'm not a huge fan of paper piecing, but I loved this bag enough to give it another try. Catherine (the owner of the retreat center) is a Judy Niemeyer teacher and she showed me the JN way of paper piecing. I can't say that paper piecing is my favorite way of assembling a quilt block, but I'm no longer terrified of it. (Don't tell anyone, but I'm almost excited for the Fall workshop where we'll make a Judy Niemeyer table runner.)

I got all of the paper pieced bits done for my bag. Sadly I didn't check for pattern errors before leaving so I only got this far on my blocks. Thankfully the pattern gives you room for errors so I have enough of the light blue and white to recut with the proper measurements. I haven't had a chance to redo the middle section, but you can see that this block will look awesome when it's done.

Of course Friday before supper we went shopping. I found a cute charm pack for Bluebird Park. (Can I just say hedgehogs and fabric!!!!) I also found a jellyroll of Twenty-Three that had been marked down to twenty dollars and got a spool of grey thread to use for piecing and quilting. I find grey is becoming my go-to thread color for quilting.

Before the retreat I was able to finish piecing the top for my paint chip quilt. At the quilt shop I found a multi-colored pink thread, some batting, and backing so I was able to do the quilting on Saturday. I'm not completely in love with this quilt so I'm just sharing some sneak peaks right now. I tried several new things which I think is why I'm not loving this quilt. First off I used Quilter's Dream Cotton. Normally I use Warm & Natural, but the quilt shop only had Quilter's Dream. I've never had a batting pill as much as this one did. I'm sure it will look better when it's washed, but I've never had to wash my quilts before using them. (I know this is a horrible admission, but our apartment only has coin operated  laundry and we have really hard water here so I avoid washing my quilts if I can.) I also tried spiral quilting for the first time. The outer edges look decent, but it's obvious that I struggled at the start. (Note all those little white bits...that's the batting. Yuck!)

I found this red onion fabric on the clearance table for $3.75. The pinks and reds match the quilt top perfectly so the ladies on the retreat convinced me it was a good back. I'm still not sure about the onions, but they're growing on me. One of the ladies convinced me to use some of the leftovers for the binding. I loved only needing to cut four strips and the fabric looks really cute as a binding.

I'm going to try and get this quilt washed this week and maybe next Monday I'll be happy enough with it to show the final pictures. 

Farmer's Wife Friday 11

Wow has it been a chaotic week. I had a great goal of doing four blocks this week. I've been getting restless as I see my total inching closer and closer to 27.75 (okay let's be honest, it will be 28 blocks because as talented as I am I can't make 3/4 of a quilt block.) I tried doing four blocks this week, but my math was off. Like a good quilter rather than trying to fix it I moved on to the next project that wasn't in time out yet. I have a big pile of scraps to show for my work.

I managed to finish one block. It was super easy otherwise I think I'd just have a pile of scraps.

#69 Practical Orchard

Last weekend I got to go to a quilting retreat center in South Dakota. I'll share more about the retreat on Monday, but one of the great things about the retreat center were the massive design walls all over the place. I brought my Farmer's Wife blocks along with me in hopes of productivity (haha) and put them up on the wall. It's so exciting seeing all of the blocks laid out together. Looking at my blocks like this I can almost believe that one day they will actually be a quilt.

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