Monday, July 30, 2018

Progress update on my hand-piecing


I shared some observations on my hand piecing project about a month ago (read it here).  Once I got my base blocks done and all assembled in a quilt top, I decided that maybe I was having so much fun that I ought to make more blocks.

So I did.


I am still trying to decide on the perfect dimensions for the right side and then it will be time to baste and get this all quilted.  Can't wait!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Thursday, July 26, 2018

One Monthly Goal - July Finish link-up

Ready to link up your July finishes?
Don't panic - this link-up is open until July 31 at 11:55 pm ET.



My goal for July was to turn my hexies into a pillow.  I love it!  You can read about the process of creating this pillow on this post.

elm street quilts hexie pillow random

There will be three winners this month - Fat Quarter Shop is offering a $25 gift certificate, Make Modern Magazine is offering a 6 month subscription to their digital magazine and Pat Sloan is offering a Aurifil thread box!



Visit the One Monthly Goal event page for the specific requirements for links and social tags. 

And remember, to be eligible for the prize(s) by random drawing you must linkup at both the goal setting and the accomplishment linkup in a given month. (
July Goal Setting Link-up.)

Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can follow where you are linking.   Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post:  


Sign up to receive email notifications when the One Monthly Goal linkup is open.  Think of it as a helpful reminder!  Joining the link-up from Instagram -see the tutorial.

Congrats to Maggie, Becky & Laura - our lucky winners, notified via email for July.  (Updated 8/1)



Thanks for linking up!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

My Clementine Quilt Top

I've really enjoyed making the blocks from Fat Quarter Shop's Clementine QAL.  (Click here to see photos of all my blocks.)    

When it came time to assemble the quilt top, I debated (and debated) with myself on what to do.  The original layout is just lovely but the resulting quilt is bigger than I wanted to quilt on my domestic machine.   I laid the blocks out on the floor and walked around them for days trying to decide what to do.

Photo credit to Fat Quarter Shop 

I actually started sewing one layout using just the larger blocks but then realized (eek!) my math was wrong and the dimensions of the final quilt wasn't going to work.  Out comes my seam ripper and back to the drawing board.


This layout yields a quilt 64'' square which is just the perfect size!

With the QAL, there were 6 large blocks in total and the 6th one will become a matching pillow.  4 of the 6 smaller blocks are on the back.

The quilt is all basted and the quilting is underway!  I am doing a combination of straight line stitching on the diagonal and then some FMQ.  I am about half-way on the straight line quilting.

I'm gifting this to my daughter as a couch quilt is celebration of her new apartment at school with her oldest girlfriend.  Its a surprise though - don't tell her!



Fat Quarter Shop's Clementine QAL benefits St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.  Quilters are encouraged to donate $5 for each block pattern.  I really love how the FQS QALs support a different charity each year.  If you love the fabrics in the sample quilt, you can order the kit!

You can ready more about the QAL and get the finishing instructions on the Jolly Jabber and read more about the Clementine QAL.  

I am happy to be sharing this QAL blog hop with all these other bloggers - go check them out!

*April of April Rosenthal (@amrosenthal)
Bonnie of Sunset Family Living (@sunsetfamilyliving)
Cara of That Crafty Cara (@thatcraftycara)
Carrie of Moda Cutting Table (@modafabrics)
Denise of Pieced Brain (@piecedbrain)
Elise of Elise and Emelie (@eliseandemelie)
Gina of Carpe Quiltin (@gina_tell_carpequiltin)
Heather of A Creative Pursuit (@acreativemama)
Hilary of By Hilary Jordan (@byhilaryjordan)
Jan of Cocoa Quilts (@cocoaquilts)
Jen of Heritage Threads (@heritage.threads)
Joanne of Quilts by Joanne (@turtlequilterjo)
Kairle of Kairle Oaks Handcrafted Goodness (@kairleoaks)
Kendra of Good Starter (@good_starter)
Kristen of 3 in the Nest (@threeinthenestraleigh)
Kristina of Center Street Quilts (@centerstreetquilts)
Leah of Ponderings from My Heart (@ponderingsfrommyheart)
Melanie of A Bit of Scrap Stuff (@mellierc)
Melissa of Happy Quilting (@happyquiltingmc)
Pat of Pat Sloan (@quilterpatsloan)
Pat B. of Life in the Scrapatch (@scrapatches)
Patty of Elm Street Quilts (@elmstreetquilts)
Rebecca of One Wee Bird (@oneweebird)
Sarah of 123 Quilt (@123quilt)
Seema of SSK Craft Shop (@sskcraftshop)
Sherri of A Quilting Life (@aquiltinglife)
Sondra of Out of the Blue Quilts (@sondradavison)
Stephanie of Quilt 'n Party (@quiltnparty)
Tanya of Tanya Quilts in CO (@tanyaquiltsinco)
Teresa of Aurea's Kitchen (@aureaskitchen)
Vickie of Crocheting Vixen (@crochetingvixen)

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Thursday, July 19, 2018

The HRT pile grows!

My half-rectangle triangle (HRT) quilt is my go-to quilt when I just want to sew without too much thought.  I prep 'kits' - HRTs grouped together to try and avoid any duplicate fabric touching - and then when I find time to sew, I can just sew away..

At my guild sew-in two weeks ago, I sewed together 40 sets of 8-HRTs.   Love looking at this pile!  (Want a HRT tutorial?)


32 HRTs make a 16'' block.  To keep some sanity in my process, I am assembling the blocks in the order shown below - first make a boatload of HRTs, then sew them in pairs, then into groups of 4 and then into groups of 8.   Once I've got everything in groups of 8, I'll press to get my seams going in alternative directions and sew into blocks.



For the quilt size I'm working towards (64 x 80") I need eight (80) of these groups of 8 which will yield the 20 blocks I need for the quilt.


The overall quilt will need 640 HRTs and frankly I got myself lost in how many I had made and got tired of counting them.   With them in groups of 8, I know how many more I need to sew.


40 sets of 8 are together - 40 more to go!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Monday, July 16, 2018

Random - a finish

elm street quilts hexie pillow random

Once upon a time*, I purchased a mini-charm pack filled with every gorgeous color from Paintbrush Studios solids.  With no specific project in mind, I turned them into about 100 hexies.

elm street quilts hexie pillow random

And then I started to assemble them - randomly.  I disciplined myself to blindly pick a hexie and attach it irredgardless of the color of the neighboring hexie.

elm street quilts hexie pillow random

 I continued in a clockwise direction until essentially it was time to square off the project.  Placement was still random though.

elm street quilts hexie pillow random

All complete, I adhered my project to fusible fleece** and then sewed a basting line all around the edge.

Then, more random fun.  I gathered all my thread - a mix of Aurifil & Superior So Fine - into a basket and proceeded to hand quilt.  Patterns we again randomly done.  Most of the time these were running stitches but a few times I got a bit 'fancy'.  Thread was either coordinating color or it not - everything was fair game.

elm street quilts hexie pillow random


One every hexie had at least a line of hand-quilting. I squared the project up to 15'', redoing the basting stitch along the edge where needed.


Love the way the back looks!

For the back, I followed my own tutorial to add a zipper and used a navy blue with a accent of some Sweetwater text fabric.

elm street quilts pillow back tutorial

And now I have a beautiful pillow.

elm street quilts hexie pillow random

 Pictured above on my couch, the pillow actually now sits on my comfy gilder rocker (left over from when my kids were babies) where I like to sit and read or stitch at the end of the day.


elm street quilts hexie pillow random


* last summer

** although this seemed like a good idea at the time to keep things in place and avoid the need to actually baste with pins, it was a bear to sew through that fleece and led to hand fatique

elm street quilts hexie pillow random


I'll be linking up my finish with  Freemotion by the River,   WIP Wednesday's,  Let's Bee SocialMidweek Makers.  Needle and Thread Thursdays, Finish it Up Friday and Finished or Not Friday.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Friday, July 13, 2018

Double Windmill quilt - want to make your own?


Last week I blogged about a new podcast - The Quilt Fiction Podcast - by my friend Frances Dowell.  Frances is reading chapters from her latest novel - new episodes each Friday.

The Friendship Album is a story about 5 woman - Eula, Bess, Florence, Emmeline and Dorothy - who gather together as a group based on their mutual love for quilting.  In each episode, we hear a few more chapters of their story.


Recently Frances and I worked together on a quilt pattern inspired by a newspaper clipping she found circa 1930s.  The pattern is now available for free!

Her quilt is gorgeous - see it here.   She used 1930s themed fabric to create her quilt and the free quilt pattern is designed around that colorway -


I wanted to play around with other color-ways (EQ7 makes this so easy!).  Aren't these fun?







My favorite may very well be the second one or maybe the last one!

Read more about the quilt and get the free pattern here.

One of my key goals for 2018 was to collaborate with other quilters & bloggers.  I'm pleased to share my very first result!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

QP QAL Progress

Checking in with my blocks for the Quilter's Planner QAL.  July's block was fun.  I'm downsizing the blocks to 6'' finished and created a paper pieced pattern for myself to piece those geese.


7 blocks are now done.  I'll be turning these blocks into a pillow when I'm all done.



Have a wonderful day! Patty

Monday, July 9, 2018

My First Quilt in a Magazine!

Happy dance!   My very first magazine publish for a quilt I designed!


My quilt Sequence is in Make Modern Magazine issue 23 which became available on July 6th.  Make Modern Magazine is a digital magazine and I love browsing through the articles and the photos on my ipad.

Sequence was originally designed for my son - the math geek.  It is inspired by the Fibonacci sequence of numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 ...) where each number in the series is the sum of two prior numbers.  I used these numbers as the finished dimensions for the blocks  as well as the quilting I did.

elm street quilts Fibonacci quilt sequence

Make Modern Magazine was fantastic to work with.  The team is based in Australia and the designer is responsible for their own photography.  I had a great time taking my quilt all over to capture some photos.  I visited a local park, the art museum and our neighborhood green to capture photos.


Interested in your very own subscription to Make Modern Magazine?    Subscribe now!

Want to grab a copy of the current issue 3 and make Sequence and the other great projects?
Click here to order just issue 23.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Friday, July 6, 2018

Mid-Year Check-in


Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl invites us to review our 2018 goals as we cross into July and the second half of the year.    I'll be joining her link-up here.

My specific goals for 2018 (from this post) are:
  • Be bold in my choice of color and design.  Step outside my comfort zone (a bit!) in my color choices
  • Sew a quilt by hand
  • Improve my FMQ
  • Submit quilt designs to magazines for publication
  • Create a new quilt for submission to QuiltCon 2019 and other shows
  • Collaborate with other quilters / bloggers on a project (interested, drop me an email)
  • Grow participation in One Monthly Goal
  • Practice my photography
  • Finish the novel
So how am I doing?  For my first 3 goals (be bold in my choice of color and design, sew a quilt by hand, and improve my FMQ) have tangible proof of progress against my goals.


My quilt Encouragement gave me the opportunity to go bold with color with lots of bright saturated fabric plus practice my FMQ.  Hard to see in this photo, but there are 5 long rows of FMQing that go across the quilt mingled with those straight lines.


I'm using that same fabric to hand-piece my double wedding ring quilt and so happy I decided to try hand-piecing.


For the goals around quilt design and submitting to shows and publication  -submit quilt designs to magazines for publication, & create a new quilt for submission to QuiltCon 2019 and other shows - I've got some progress to report but work still to be done.  First, my quilt hung in a local quilt show.  This was the first time a quilt had been accepted into a show.  And I fully intend to work on a quilt specific for QuiltCon submission but so far, I've not started on it.  I've done nothing (yet?) on submitting quilt ideas to magazines. While I will have a design in the next issue of Make Modern magazine (so excited), the quilt was submitted last year so doesn't quite count against 2018 goals.

I've met so many people through my blog so my next two goals (collaborate with other quilters / bloggers on a project and grow participation in One Monthly Goal) are important ones.

New folks are finding One Monthly Goal each month(which makes me happy) and  I've got two things in the works around collaboration and feeling good about this goal.  (Not familiar with One Monthly Goal?  Check out the latest post and link up your goal for July.) 

Finally, when I retired 3 years ago, two of my key goals were to write a novel and improve my photography.  Let's just say I'm happy there are 6 more months left in this year for that novel.  Plenty of time to focus on this!

Bottom line, these goals are serving me well. I'm going to leave them just as they are and try to get myself a bit more focused on some of them!

Did you set goals for 2018?  How are you doing?


Tuesday, July 3, 2018

June Temperatures


June was a hot one here in central North Carolina!  See all that red?  Those are temps in the 90s!


The first column (of color) on the left is January 1 through 15, next column January 16 through 31 etc which means the last column on the right is June 16 - June 30.  I'm using a low volume fabric to fill in months that don't have 31 days plus surrounding the overall temperature quilt as you can see surrounding the quilt on left edge, top and bottom.

The quilt measures roughly 32'' x 19''.

Summer arrived in June - lots and lots of days in the 80's and the 90's - all which brought some changes to my plan.  First, there were so many more days that hit 85 which put me at real risk for not having enough of my 85-89 orange fabric.  I ordered some more.  




Then, we ended up with two days with temperatures over 95 so I had a chance to see my color in action.  I didn't like it. (You can see it in this post.)  Back to my stash I went and found a different red to use for the 95-99 range.   The arrow in the photo above points to the red for 9-99.  The 90-94 is more of a red orange, the 95-99 is a tomato red and the 100+ is a deep purple-red  

Here is the mapping of color to temperature range - 



I'll be linking up my wip with  Freemotion by the River,   WIP Wednesday's,  Let's Bee SocialMidweek Makers.  Needle and Thread Thursdays, and Finished or Not Friday.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Sunday, July 1, 2018

One Monthly Goal - July Goal link-up

Welcome to July!  We had 110 projects linked up in June - let's see what this month brings!



New to One Monthly Goal?  Welcome!  To join, share a photo of your project, some words about what you want to accomplish in a blog post, an Instagram post (tutorial) or a post on Flickr and add that photo to the link-up.  Return at the end of the month and share your results.  You can read about the event and the rules on the main event page.

We have wonderful sponsors this month - three (3) winners will be randomly chosen from those that link up in both the goal and the finish event.  Plus anyone linking up will earn an entry for the bonus prize.  (Bonus prize to be awarded in October - you can earn up to 3 entries by joining the link-ups July through September.) 


Fat Quarter Shop offers a tremendous selection of fabric, notions, books and just about anything you will need for your project. Consider their Sew Sampler box to receive a monthly surprise delivery of fabric and fun.  Fat Quarter Shop is offering a $25 gift certificate to one lucky participant.

Make Modern is a digital magazine launched by a collaboration of quilters based in Australia. Their magazine is filled with modern quilt designs and a wonderful source of inspiration. Make Modern is offering a 6 month subscription to one lucky participant.


Aurifil is home to a beautiful rainbow of thread in all weights, perfect for any of your sewing and quilting needs.  My favorite product is the designer collection boxes which coordinate with various fabric lines.  Aurifil is offering a thread set for the third quarter bonus prize.
Image credit: Pat Sloan

I am very excited to introduce the designer sponsor for July - the one and only Pat Sloan.  Pat is a fabric designer, quilt designer, author, and lecturer plus she has a weekly radio show which is also available as a podcast.  Pat is passionate about making quilting fun for herself and everyone around her.    She creates a warm and welcoming environment for quilters of all abilities through her free QALs, link-ups and her Facebook group.  Together with her friend Jane Davidson, Pat collaborated with many industry designers to create the Splendid Sampler and - available later this year - the Splendid Sampler II.


If you aren't listening to Pat's weekly American Patchwork & Quilting podcast hosted by Pat Sloan, you are missing wonderful interviews with guests from the quilting world.  Pat's interview style is warm and welcoming.  I love learning about her guests each week and never miss an episode.
Pat travels  around the country teaching and showing her quilts to quilt guilds and quilt shops.  Pat has written over 30 quilt books (see them on Amazon) and has had her designs published in all the national magazines.


Image credit - Pat Sloan
Take the Round-About pattern, Splendid Sampler, Let's Go Camping QAL,
Pat's Aurifil Thread Collection, & Moda Sunday Drive fabric
Pat is offering a Aurifil thread box to one lucky winner!  Visit Pat on her website PatSloan.com and make sure to check out her free BOM Mystery QAL - Let's Go Camping.  You can also visit Pat on her blog, pattern store,  Quilt Along with Pat Sloan Facebook group, and Instagram.

My goal for July is finish my hand quilting and turn my hexie project into a pillow.



Now it is your turn to link up - what is your goal for July?  (A goal could be to finish a quilt but it could also be to attach a binding.  Whatever it takes to help you move forward and make progress on your projects!  And as long as the project involves a needle and/or fabric, you can link up!)

Make sure you visit the One Monthly Goal event page for the specific requirements for links and social tags. 
 Your blog post (or Flickr post) must contain a photo of your project, a clearly stated goal and a link back to Elm Street Quilts.  Your Instagram post must include a photo of your project, a clearly stated goal and the tag #onemonthlygoal.  (Entries which don't contain the required information may be disqualified.)

And remember, to be eligible for the prize(s) by random drawing you must linkup at both the goal setting and the accomplishment linkup in a given month.   (The One Monthly Goal accomplishment linkup will be available on July 26.)

Make sure you add a link to this OMG post so others can find the OMG link-up from your blog.  Let's make that easy -  just paste this into your post: 

 





Thanks for linking up!




Have a wonderful day! Patty