Annie's Quilt Orts

 Today's sewing room activity was dedicated to the Meadowland Christmas Quilt.  I really want this completed before it is time to clear away all the season's decor!  To that end, I concentrated on the white squares. I drew up a peppermint candy swirl on freezer paper. 

The fabric had a six section red and white candy, as you can see above, but I added another "arm" to the swirl for the large white squares.  I used a six inch plate to draw the circle and then cut apart a fairly freeform drawing of the swirls.  The swirls didn't take too long to draw into the 9 white squares in erasable pen.  Note: the designer's pattern called for smaller squares that met in the corner of the big blocks; I wanted to eliminate those lines so assembled my version differently from Meghan's pattern (Then Came June).

I stitched these in white thread but they would be cute in red or green thread too.  

The nine squares are all quilted, burying the threads is on tomorrow's agenda.  The final quilting job will be the rectangles on the sides.  I'm considering either wooden spoons or candy canes there.  Oh! and the corner squares will also need something...

We did not get to see our son's wife and son at Christmas Eve, as our grandson had been sick with a high fever for a couple of days prior.  I got a little more time, then, to finish up a few things for my DIL  However, our younger daughter felt a bit under the weather a couple of days after our gathering and it turned out she has COVID, after 3 years of avoiding it!  I am the only sibling of my family who has not had it yet, amazingly.  Luckily, I am not working this week.

I had leftover Windham fabrics from the Sewtopia challenge--my sister gave me her set.  I decided to make reusable gift bags for my DIL.  She is very consumer-conscious, and a minimalist who avoids having lots of "things" around.  These fabrics were right up her alley, I thought. 

I had already made her a mug mat/hotpad.  The tall fabric bag on the left was my trial effort and I did not do the boxed corners correctly on one end.  I'll keep that one!  The remainder came out very well.  I used a tutorial from Sew Crafty Me. I cut my pieces 9x12".  My boxed corners came out a lot better on this set.  I did not have any ribbon or cording suitable on hand, so went to my local fabric store today, wearing my N95 mask.  I found some striped blue and white cording that I thought would work well. 

I bought 5 yards of the cording, which was very inexpensive.  Hopefully it will hold up to some washing and use.  If not, it is easily replaced through the casings.  Another tutorial I perused did French seams for the bags, but I just used pinking shears on these, as they won't likely get heavy use.  

 

This pic was taken only 20 minutes later! 

Design Wall Monday!  See more Design Walls on Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I hope all who celebrate the season had a lovely time with friends and family.  I got all the mug mats made for my co-workers in time to distribute at our holiday party.  

They were well received, no leftovers to take home!

The backs...As you can see, quilting was kept to a minimum, just the center square for most, but a few got some additional lines.  I am sure I'll make many more...maybe even one for myself, lol! 

Hallmark Mischievous Kitten ornaments on the tree.  The newest is the stripped tabby who knocked over the hedgehog planter.  Ridiculously cute!

The binding change on the poinsettia runner.  In the end, I just liked the striped fabric option more!  I did a narrow binding so it is not too overpowering. 

Refreshing the runner and cancelling out the old ill-made solid red binding makes me happy!

My Christmas Meadowland quilt got its plaid binding while I decided what to stitch in the plain squares and rectangles.  

There are a lot of white squares to quilt! I've decided to do peppermint swirl candy shapes in the white squares, and candy canes in the rectangles. I'll make a freezer paper templates for that job.  The quilt is 65" square, a good lap size. Meadowland pattern by Then Came June.  Off to the sewing room for my first day of vacation--I don't have to go back to work until next year :)

Slow Sunday Stitching of some mug mats. 

See more Slow Stitching on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

I have another batch layered, sewn around and turned right side out.  It has been fun to work on these. 

These pastel and bright mini-charms are so pretty. I'll sit by the Christmas Tree and enjoy another cup of tea while Hubby watches football.  Another batch awaits machine stitching and that is planned for today as well. I'd like to make more but completely forgot to look for Insulbrite when I stopped by the fabric store yesterday! I was distracted by picking out a binding fabric. More on that tomorrow:)

 Design Wall Monday---see more great projects on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I was scrolling on Pinterest recently for quick gift projects and came across a Coaster pattern by Crafty Staci.  This was for a small mug mag with a faux binding technique.  I've made other projects by this designer/crafter and like her easy directions and tips for her projects. Though she made hers with 2 1/4" squares, I wanted to utilize  2 1/2" charm packs I've acquired, mostly through gift baskets, etc.  I also wanted to upsize the size to a snack mat size. 

I decided to use 9 squares for each mat. 

What fun I had laying all these out and playing with color.  Easy row sewing for assembly.  The pattern calls for 1" wide strips all around; this forms the "binding" when the mat is assembled and ditch quilted. 

Initially I was pulling 1.5" strips from my scrap drawer system to trim down for the narrow borders, but switched to 2" strips for more mileage out of each strip length, since they could be sliced in half lengthwise for the 1" wide border pieces. Lots of backing squares were also cut from scraps and fat quarters.  I sewed up the first couple of mats...

The mats have batting as well as Insulbrite per the instructions, so are pretty thick.  I left the top right mat unquilted except for the faux binding, and on the black/gray/white one I added quilting just around the  center square.  Many of the mats are intended for my workmates. I did want to try the 4 patch size too, and used Christmas charms.  There is a little hand sewing closing the opening after assembling and turning the right side out, but otherwise lots of fun piecing. I've also sewn together  some of the remaining Christmas charms for a larger hot pad.  I'll cut up all the Insulbrite I have on hand to finish all these, no doubt!

Design Wall Monday--Joining up once again with Judy of Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.  

Happy December!  November sure seemed to last a long time, but I know the next few weeks will fly fast.  I spent some time over the weekend getting out Christmas decor; I got a lot of steps counted with all the decorating. 

The projects of the moment in the sewing room are both Christmas related too. 

My arms got quite a workout quilting the Meadowland Christmas quilt. Having quilted all the diagonal lines, I figured out a way to quilt the center shapes in two passes.  My arms did get quite a workout moving around this 65" square quilt. I also ordered fabric from this line (We Whisk You a Merry Christmas) from an Etsy seller for binding--it will be the green/black plaid print.  I will make bias binding for a fun finish. 

I did catch the batting edge at one point, haha, but was able to trim it closely and tease out all the fibers without having to remove any of the quilting.  While I decide on motifs for the white squares, I turned my attention to an old project. 

Many years ago, when I first started quilting, I made this tablerunner. which was an AP&Q magazine cover project. It was an ambitious project for a new quilter!  My binding skills were not great then and I was never entirely happy with the finished look, so I decided finally to remove the too wide binding.  I found the trimmed seam allowance isn't the most even, but I can adjust a little. 

I have two options from stash, a stripe and a dot.  

I like the stripe a lot but am concerned it is distracting from the poinsettias in the center...

...and the dot is okay but is a different shade from the corner squares and the dots are far apart.  Opinions welcome!  

 I'll be working on getting tops turned into quilts for some time!  There was more walking foot quilting over the long holiday weekend.  The APQ charity quilt got finished.  I first quilted around all the rows of mini charm squares. 

 

I decided I wanted all the vertical and horizontal lines quilted. The quilt did have to go in time out for a short time when the Sulky variegated thread refused to cooperate at the beginning of the stitching line. 

There were lots of folks putting up holiday lights and decorations on the weekend. I'll get started on ours since I de-Fall decorated over the weekend too.  

We had a lovely Thanksgiving gathering--we were 22 for dinner  and got to catch up with my brother Tyler's kids,  whom we had not seen in some time. There was a lot of furniture moving and cooking for the big meal.   I took zero photos but we did have two baby announcements! One was of our nephew and his wife who were not able to make it, they live a 12 hour drive away.  It is their first baby and my brother and sister-in-law's first grandchild.  So exciting for them  The other announcement we can now share is of our own son and daughter-in-law's pregnancy!  Dane will have a baby brother or sister next year.  Very excited about another grandchild!  It was great to have a big family gathering again.  Plenty of leftovers to enjoy too. I gave the Windham Challenge pillow cover to my sister-in-law.  

I did kind of "squircle" quilting, which is not perfect!  Though I like the colors and prints, it does not go with anything in my house. 

My sewing room became a sitting room for the big Thanksgiving event--the annual furniture resetting was accomplished pretty easily.  I first worked on the quilt top of the moment, Beachside Bungalow. 

I had the bright blue solid and the purple print in stash.  This long and slender quilt will be great for naps. I will look through stash fabrics for backing options first.  

My sister's longarm machine may get fixed soon, but until then I decided to quilt some smaller projects on my own to ease the crowding in the "to be quilted" closet. 

Curved organic crosshatch with the walking foot for this small quilt/baby quilt.  I used pink thread for three of the corners, and black thread for the last one, just for fun. 

During the burying of thread tails in one section, I lost my grip on the needle.  My husband and I were searching my sewing area for about 25 minutes with flashlights without success.  Finally, I went to pick up the quilt from my sewing desk and the magnetized needle was sitting on a pair of scissors on the quilt!!  So glad the search ended well. 

Backing made from leftovers from other quilts.  I love the monkey print that came from grandson Hunter's baby quilt.  I'll use black for the binding.  Tomorrow I plan to get another smaller top quilted to end the nice long weekend.  

The Beachside Bungalow tablerunner project occupying my small sewing room floorspace needed its setting triangles cut.  I used Kona Shale for the neutral and decided to continue that as the setting triangle color.  There was a decent length of fabric left for this job.  I checked the Scrap Basket Beauties book by Kim Brackett for the setting triangle size.  I prefer using Bonnie Hunter's Easy Angle Ruler to cut QSTs from strips, but after drawing out the square on paper and measuring, it was an odd size.  Therefore I just cut squares per the book.  Unfortunately, I was looking at the wrong pattern in the book!! I was just able to eke out the  correct sized 18 large QSTs out of my now smaller chunk of leftover Shale. 

The pattern for the quilt has a different print for the setting triangles, which I do like for its border effect, but for my smaller project I wanted to feature the rings and keep the background the same.  These triangles on the cutting table are the wrong sized ones....

...versus the correct size.  I was WAY off, lol!  Today's project is to get the rows off the floor and all sewn together.  My sewing room will become a sitting room for the Thanksgiving Day crowd.  Hoping for good weather--without the strong East winds we have had for days...

Sewtopia project #2 was a tablerunner, a cropped portion of the Beachside Bungalow quilt by Kim Brackett, in her Scrap Basket Beauties book.  I had all the block pieces cut and ready to sew.  I needed my husband's help to take a photo of the layout directions in the book, as I had only written down my changes on a piece of paper.  Eventually he got back to me after golfing! By that time I had finished all the blocks. 

Very scrappy but fun.  Most of the fabrics were from a JoAnn's store jelly roll, with some additions from stash.

The "corner" blocks alternated with a "twist" block. There was no further assembly as I will have to figure the  the setting triangle size for the sides.  I am glad all the center pieces got sewn, anyway!

My third project was the Four-patch X by Bonnie Hunter, but I was only able to get one block completed before the end of the last day.  

The pillow cover I made did not win the Windham challenge; I am not sure who won!  The winner was chosen when I was busy elsewhere, I suppose.

There was a great trunk show from Latifah Saafir as well, with lots of HRTs.  She was selling her new HuRTy ruler afterwards. 

When opened, it was full of loot. 

A needle minder, needle book, needle setting tool, magnetic pin holder, and mini charm pack.  Thanks, Mandy!

Look at all the Sewtopia loot given and some I took home after we played games.  I did buy the strawberry print yardage and couple of fat quarters in the Sewtopia shop.  

An ironing board cover and several bottles of Soak spray, with a Kona color book were also gifted. 

Finally, I got a couple of birthday gifts, since mine fell during Sewtopia. My sister made me an H-bag. 

Love the sewing theme and the Lucite handles. Kathy cut up and covered used campaign signs for  a sturdy base inside the bag.  Our sister-in-law gave me a beautiful lipstick holder and thread winder butterflies. 

Sorry for the break between posts! Sewtopia Palm Springs outings on Day 1 ended with a visit to the Palm Springs Art Museum.  We had a little trouble getting in to the museum--there was apparently a miscommunication about payment and we had to wait about 25 minutes before it was sorted out.  There were lots of great art pieces--I'll just share a few. 

The San Jacinto Mountains looked very quilt-like in this very wide and narrow painting. 

Interesting bio for this 1960 painting. 

I left the bit of the museum floor to show how large the Pueblo painting was.  Love the colors of this painting. 

There were also sculptures. 

One could not exactly tell what this was at first glance, though I did have an idea before reading the bio. 

Can you see the horse now?

Upstairs were lots of modern art pieces including one of my favorites...

I don't really see a lizard, but I liked the shapes!  It would be fun to see this in motion. Okay, just one more to share...

This huge basket sculpture was made from an usual group of materials. 

Crushed aluminum cans mounted on a satellite dish!

 

There were many more pieces of art I enjoyed--and there was also a turn through the museum store--but later I learned from my sister that I missed the basement treasures, including glass art by Dale Chihuly.  Oh well!  

Finally we returned to the hotel and at last entered the sewing room for some actual sewing.  I started with my main sewing project, Sidewalk Chalk (pattern by Meghan Buchanan), sewing together all the HRT pieces before calling it a night. 

The next morning we had buffet breakfast in the conference center and then got back to sewing.  It was great to have a design wall close by and I slowly filled it up with the blocks over the hours. 

It was slow going to keep track of my different fabrics versus the pattern colors for each block, but I managed to get them all done.  then I made my task longer by sewing each of the block pieces  together individually, but I wanted to be sure of my placements!  

 I ended Friday night with the individual rows sewn and packed them away to assemble into a top at home.