Design Wall Monday

I have Quilt Show Hangover. Do you ever get that? The excitement is over and I am recovering from sensory overload. I spent yesterday getting my house back in order. I had been so busy getting ready for the show (finishing quilts)  and then spent the better part of the 2 days at the show, so I came home to discover piles of dirty dishes and a disordered mess. My husband has been travelling and he comes home today, so needless to say, yesterday I was Molly Maid. No rest for the weary quilt show attendee!
Here are 2 of the finished Quiltville mysteries that I had hanging at the Quilt Show. The pink one is "Double Delight" and I just put the binding on last Tuesday. I was happy with how it turned out but that mistake is still bugging me (you can read about it here).
The orange quilt is, of course, Orange Crush. It is still really Orange! I thought the Orange might grow on me, but so far it hasn't! But this is a quilt that my son likes, so at least someone appreciates it!
We won't mention that Carolina Crossroads (Quiltville's first mystery and not on the website anymore) is still a UFO! This is weird because I really like that quilt...I guess  it will be on the 'to-do' list for the next quilt show!
If you haven't yet entered my Quilt Show Celebration giveaway,  click here and leave a comment.

I love Judy's Design Wall Mondays. You can see what other quilters are working on and it's especially fun when a bundle/clump/cluster (what do you call a group of quilters??) of quilt bloggers are working on the same project. Right now many of us are sewing Judy's "Quilt for an Hour" project.  I started this quilt knowing that there are 8 borders, and attaching borders is the only part of quilting I dislike. I am hoping to make some progress in this area and be able to enjoy the border stages more. This is my quilt after Hour 5.

Quiltville Finish!

I am so thrilled to announce that I have finished my Orange Crush quilt!
You can read about the creation of this quilt by reading the blogposts I have made since April 1st 2008 - click here. I enjoyed finishing the free motion "C" design I quilted in the light squares of the 4 patch chains. But I sure laboured through the quilting of the orange blocks (and the half blocks on the edges). I made a list of the number of blocks to quilt, and ticked off the blocks on the list as I quilted them, so that I could see my progress. That seemed to take a long time. Then, to get more momentum going for myself, I sewed and pressed the binding and set it in the middle of the table wrapped around a roll of paper towel, so I could see that I was so close to being able to sew the binding on.
This encouraged me to finish the free motion swirly "C" designs in both borders. I like this photo because you can see that I really was using up all my green scraps to finish the border of the quilt.
And here it is...not a good photograph because a) it was a sunny and windy day and b) it is a big quilt (72" x 86") and my 6' tall son had to stand on a chair to hold it for me. You can see the bottom left corner really well. It is a really wonderful feeling of accomplishment to finish this year long quilt project and to know that the whole quilt top was made from stash fabric! Thanks again to Bonnie for organizing this mystery (one of my favorite quilting activities) and for giving us a great quilt design!

Retreat projects report #3

One of the projects I have been working on for almost a year is the Quiltville Orange Crush mystery. I already have 15 blog postings on this quilt, and that's more than enough! But here is a photo to prove that I took this baby to retreat and did more quilting on it. Jackie took this picture of me and if you are wondering why I tied my scarf on my head, it is because I almost machine quilted it into the Orange Crush!! Perhaps most people would have just removed the pesky scarf...don't know why I didn't think of that?!?!
I finished the 'C' loops that I free motioned in the light chains. Then went back to working on the orange blocks, which I really wanted to put some quilting in, but couldn't get the thread to stop shredding. At retreat I tried a 100 needle and it worked wonderfully! So I am back to enjoying the quilting, am about half way finished the orange blocks, and feel like the end is in sight for this project!

Out with the OLD... and in with the NEW

OLD mystery...

I have been forcing myself to do a little work on my Orange Crush mystery quilt each day. First I had to baste the quilt and while I was basting I was thinking about possible quilting ideas. I started by quilting in the seam lines around each block and can I tell you how boring that was?!?! It was extremely boring!

However, I must say that I have enjoyed looking out my window at the snow falling and trying to soak up any possible sunrays that might shine in the window. See how close the window is to my quilting table!

Then I started some free motion quilting in the orange blocks but the thread kept breaking. I have tried a number of combinations of needles and threads and have decided that the problem is the orange fabric. Perhaps because is a high weave fabric and/or maybe it has some kind of finish on it that is shredding the thread? So my final decision is...no free motion quilting in the orange blocks! Now I am stalled and thinking about what I will do next. I do not want to do more stitch in the ditch, but after a day or two away from it, I might change my mind.

ON with the NEW mystery...

I have been working away on sewing the Double Delight mystery blocks a few at a time. It is mindless and meditative sewing and has been relaxing...in between fighting with quilting the Orange Crush. On the right are my 130 nine patch blocks from step #3 and on the left are all my blocks from steps 1 to 3 in a spinach salad box, which is great for block storage...thanks Louise!

Now onto step 4 and sewing all these pieces into blocks.

Orange Crush top finished!

Guess what?!?! I finished the Orange Crush quilt top! Woo hoo!
If you read this post, you know how much I dislike sewing borders! But I bribed myself and was able to finish the quilt top. The next Quiltville mystery will start in September so I had to get this one finished up since I will soon have to do back-so-school shopping and hair cuts for the kids, and also fit in a vacation, a visit to my sister's in Michigan, and a trip to the zoo for my son before September. Surprisingly, especially since there are a lot of pieced blocks on the edges, my measurements weren't too difficult to deal with. I measure across the middle and the two ends when cutting a border piece, and there was between 1/4" and 1/2" variance - quite good for a quilt this size and not a problem to ease in that amount over a long border. I made a small 1.5" black inner border and a 3.5" outer green border using up the leftover half-split 4 patch blocks in the corners. I ran out of the green fabric on the last border and had to piece in another fabric as you can see in the photo on the right. I wasn't worried about this - I don't think it's very noticeable.
And here is the finished quilt top! It was difficult to get a photo of the whole quilt since it is almost twice as large as my design wall. I taped it to the walls for the photo!

OC top together - working on the border

I finally overcame my procrastination on the weekend and finished sewing my OC blocks together. It is bigger than my design board, so I taped it to the wall for the photo. I don't want it to be much bigger but I do want to use all these split 4 patch blocks we made. So I have been working on ideas for a border that will use up these blocks and won't require purchasing more fabrics since I am almost out of most of the fabrics in this quilt. I used up a lot of stash in this baby - approx. 6.5 yards!

Here is one of the border possibilities - a black inner border made of leftover black scraps and using the

split 4 patch blocks in the corners. I don't know if I have enough black fabric left to do this, so I will work out the numbers and see if it will work. Otherwise I'll use green since I still have some of that left....and I know I have enough of the red fabric for the binding. I have enjoyed surfing the Mystery Quilters blog ring to see the other finished quilts.

Back to Quilting

I finally had some time this weekend to do some quilting. This whole week was very busy and disorganized, everything was a mess from the condition of my home, to coordinating the end of the school year activities for the kids with my work schedules.
It was also overwhelming shlepping all my quilting stuff back into the studio to unpack and reorganize. It was a shock to see so many UFO's and pieces of projects piled up, and I chastized myself several times for having too many ideas, and too much activity in my life - quilting and otherwise!
Yesterday I worked on getting organized a little bit at a time. And in between the "putting away tasks" I worked on sewing my Orange Crush top together. I had peeked at some of the mystery quilt blogs to see how the other quilts were coming along and was excited to get going on mine. Here are as many of my blocks as will fit on my design wall. This quilt is so large already without borders, I'm thinking I will probably just put a small border on, or maybe no border at all. I have many of the blocks needed for the border that Bonnie suggested, but maybe I'll use them for something else, or part of the quilt backing.
Then my brother dropped in for a visit and I was delighted since we don't get many opportunities just the two of us to talk together. We had a great chat while I worked on piecing the rows. That will always be part of my memory of working on this quilt. Don't you find that when you look at your older quilts you remember exactly what was happening in your life at that time - the good and the bad stuff?!?!? They are like little visual cues of your past!
Anyway, now that I see the blocks on the computer screen I see a mistake in the layout! I did manage to get many rows sewn together and just hope I didn't get that far along in the sewing so I can change that one block.

Quilt Canada

When I was surfing the Orange Crush mystery blogs and seeing all the step #5 blocks, I realized that I wasn't really finished with step #5. I had "forgotten" about the 18 half and 4 quarter blocks. So I quickly whipped those up in my free time on the weekend, and now I am really and truly finished step #5!!

I am all packed and ready for my very early morning flight tomorrow. I will go to bed early but doubt that I will sleep a wink since I am so excited! I have dreamed of going to Quilt Canada ever since I first read the CQA magazine many years ago, so this is really a dream come true for me! If I have time and can find an internet cafe in Newfoundland, I'll let you know how it's going.

Quilt Canada - here I come!

Orange Crush step #5 done

I have been sewing a few OC blocks each night before bedtime, and surprisingly have only made a few little mistakes. I have finished all the blocks and they went together a lot faster than the step 4 blocks, maybe because there were only 20 of them? At first I didn't really like them, because the orange is really bright, but they are growing on me and I just hope that the layout will calm them down a bit!
I am so excited for all the quilt events I will be attending in the next couple of weeks. On Saturday is the Mennonite Relief Sale and Quilt Auction. The quilt that I worked on with my friends (see this post) is now posted on their official website. You can see the quilts here and ours is quilt #166. It's amazing to think that this time last year we were just talking about how fun it would be to actually have a quilt that we had made in the auction, and now it is happening! Check back on Saturday night to see how the auction went!

Step #4 done

I finished sewing the 30 blocks for step 4 of Orange Crush. I enjoyed listening to CBC radio and leisurely sewing these blocks. However, I am bored with my colours and am really looking forward to the next step where I can hopefully start using my orange and blue fabrics, which are brighter.
I enjoyed surfing the mystery blogs and seeing some of the other finished blocks for this quilt. I have copied some of the blog links where other versions of the step 4 block can be seen. Grab a cup of tea and check these out... just click on the quilter's name:

Becky's, Jeanne's, Carolyn's, Solvi's, Donna's, Shirley's, Lynn's, Lucy's, Laura's, Sue's, Tracy's, Katie's and Annie's .

And here are all 30 of my blocks:

On sometimes being clever...

I must admit that I often use my creativity to get things done around my house. I try to come up with great ideas to bribe my kids into helping out - let's call it an "exchange of services". If they agree to help me by spending some time pulling these lovely weeds from our yard, I will agree to spend the same amount of time pulling these yummy plants from our yard! Of course we all love anything made from rhubarb, and the kids expecially love rhubarb juice, so they will work hard at those dandelions until they think I have pulled, cleaned and cut enough rhubarb for a dessert AND juice! I take my time thinning out the rhubarb patch and on wonderful days like today, enjoying the warm sunshine. And we all work away at our jobs until it looks like there is enough rhubarb to start baking. That way we all get what we want...
clever eh?!?
And not so clever, is my big mistake on step 4 of the Orange Crush mystery. Here it is - that is not the correct block layout, so don't anybody go and sew your mystery blocks like this one! Thankfully I only sewed 2 blocks with the wrong layout. Where is that bright green seam ripper that Barb gave me that she thought would be easier for me to find?!?!?

Sewing step #4

I have been sewing my 120 HST (half square triangle) blocks for step #4. I like using the Angler 2 for this kind of a job. The only thing I don't like about it is when I run out of bobbin thread and have to take it off the machine to get out the bobbin, and then realign everything. I am happy with not having to draw the diagonal lines, and the accuracy is fairly good. I did square up each HST to 3 1/2" to make sure the blocks fit well with the 4 patches.

I now have finished sewing all the HST's and here is my first block. I think it looks quite masculine.
One block done, 29 more to go!

OC Step #4

Once Step #4 was posted for the Orange Crush mystery, I have been distracted by thoughts of needing to get cutting up my fabric and sewing together the blocks. When I was too tired to sew last night, (but not too tired to sit at the computer!) I surfed around the mystery blog ring and saw some very pretty blocks already finished. I finally had a few minutes to get out my fabrics and start cutting. Here are the 2 fabrics for the 120 HST's. I am using up some scraps to get the black yardage, and a very old Debbie Mumm red print. I quickly cut all these squares and will have to do my regular method of making the HST's until I get a new Easy Angle ruler. I hope to be able to post a photo of at least one of my blocks tomorrow.

Orange Crushing

I have finally finished step #3 for the Orange Crush mystery. This step took me a long time, even though there were fewer units. First of all, I had to look at the photo to sew each and every piece together and make the mirrored units. In reading the other mystery quilt blogs, I was relieved to note that it seemed to be the same for lots of other quilters.
Secondly, my new sewing machine was doing the same thing it did when I strip pieced units from the first mystery. The beginning of every seam, on the underneath piece of fabric got bent over. So I had to unstitch the beginning of each seam and restitch just the first part of every unit. Luckily I realized this was happening before I had sewn them all! It I fed the units through the machine starting at the opposite end, it worked fine! I guess the beginning seam was too bulky? Anyway, they're done and I'm ready to start cutting into some yardage.

Step 2 is crushed!

I have been working away on my Orange Crush blocks for step #2 each evening. I finally had some time to finish them up today. They look a little boring sitting there, but they were fun to sew. The fabrics look brown, but they are really green. The question is...how will they be sewn to these blocks from step 1 to make this quilt?!?! Inquiring minds can hardly wait to find out!!

Wings are sewn

What a busy week! I spoke to the Busy Hands Quilt Guild yesterday and then had to rush away to get to work. But I did get to see some Show and Tell quilts and wished I could get in on some of the group activities they have going on, especially the hand quilting bee for a scrappy charity quilt.
This is as far as I am on step #2 of the Orange Crush mystery. Let's call it "half finished"! I have been sewing quietly in the basement at night until I am too tired to sew a straight line. I have finally finished sewing the "wings" on the little squares and think they look like little angels all lined up like that! Now I am ready to snip off the dog ears and put them in my jam jar...you just know I keep everything, even dog ears! As you can see my other jar is already full after the last mystery, so I found a new empty jar to use. Snip. Snip.

Orange Crush step #1

I had a great time making these little 4 patch blocks. Don't tell Bonnie, but I could have made 150 more!! I have been so busy the last couple of weeks, that it was a real treat to sit down and chain sew all these little pieces. It was very quiet sewing at night, and I didn't get any pages to come into work, so I finished all the sewing for step #1. I ended up only needing to use 4 of my Jo Morton fat quarters, so I still have two FQ's (the golden one and the blue one) to use somewhere else in the quilt. Here is a photo of my finished 4 patches.

Ringsurf changes

Too bad about the changes made to the ringsurf system. Have you tried it lately? I used to like to run through the list of blogs on the two rings I belong to, but now when I do that each blog has an advertising bar across the top of the screen - oh how I hate advertising! So now 1/2 of my screen is taken up with stuff I don't want to see! Here is a photo of my computer showing my blog - see what I mean?!? And notice at the top that the address listed is not my blog, even though I am looking at my blog. When you go through the ringsurf system now, all addresses are ringsurf websites.
And it used to be that I could click on "next" on the blogring logos and run through all the blogs that way. Now if you click "next" or "previous" it takes you to the ring master list all the time, with the advertising bar on every page. So I guess I will bookmark the blogs I visit most frequently and not run through the rings anymore. It's too bad - I used to enjoy that :(
Anyway, onto more positive things... I have cut and pieced my strips for Orange Crush. Here they are. I just used yardage for the lights since I don't have many light scraps. I'll get the cross cuts done and piece the 4 patch blocks - if I don't get called in to work tonight.