Thursday, August 29, 2019

improv finish

In October 2017, I had the opportunity to take a class in improv from Michelle Wilke from Factotum of  Arts.   I created a whole bunch of blocks in the class and they hung out on my design wall for awhile  (like over a year!)


Once I assembled the quilt top (of which I can't seem to find a single photo pre-quilting), it sat again for months until I was ready to quilt.  I decided on a mixture of hand quilting and walking foot quilting.

The result?



Yummy texture!



I used a several different threads while quilting - some from Superior Threads, some from Aurifil along with Sulky for the hand quilting.


The quilt finishes roughly 24'' x 17''.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Monday, August 26, 2019

Spin

My tiny piecing class with Chawne Kimber has inspired me to continue to piece small.  I've gotten a bit better at it - these strips are more consistently 1/8'' than the last time.


After much auditioning, I decided to set my block inside black.  To quilt, I started at the center and quilted a line on the black, following the square spiral to the outside of the quilt.  I continued to echo that at roughly 1/8''  until the entire background was quilted.


Sewing on black fabric with black thread and following your previous quilted lines is VERY hard to do.  Instead of my walking foot, I used an open foot that gave me the best visibility.  Given the piece is small, this worked quite well.





I will be entering spin into Curated Quilts call for black & white mini quilts.

The quilt is faced (tutorial) and finishes at 11'' x 11''.  I used scraps of black and white from my stash.


Have a wonderful day! Patty

Sunday, August 25, 2019

One Monthly Goal August Finish Link-up


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




My goal for August was to finish my bunny baby quilt.   So much fun to make - quilt has already been gifted to the new grand daughter of a good friend!




Now its your turn to link-up.

There will be three winners this month - Fat Quarter Shop is offering a $25 gift certificate, Aurifil is offering a beautiful thread box and Latifah Saafir, our featured designer, is offering a pattern and one of her famous clammy rulers!


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. (August
 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.

Congratulations to Lynn, Nicole, and Kathy were the lucky winners for August!  (updated 9/3)



You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Thanks for linking up!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Friday, August 23, 2019

And a Bunny Finish!



The bunny quilt is done and gifted!

What fun it was to make these three baby bunnies!    The bunny is from Elizabeth Hartman's Delightful Desert pattern (affiliate link) 


I quilted in a loop pattern all over the quilt - although I worked hard not to cross over the eyes (!!).  I love all the texture it created.

The bunny quilt was a gift for the grand-daughter of a good friend. My friend gave me permission to share this photo of her grand-daughter on the quilt.  This little sweetheart isn't much bigger than the bunnies!


The heart and bunny fabric was from the Zen Chic Spotted line.  The background charm squares called Sweetheart from Free Spirit.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Kinship blocks 41, 44, 46


You've likely see blocks flowing through your Instagram feed as part of the #100Days100Blocks2019 QAL hosted by Angie at GnomeAngel?   This year's event is based on a pattern called Kinship written by GnomeAngel and Skyberries.  (There are some absolutely amazing prizes available from this QAL so check it out on the overall QAL page.)

I decided to make a subset of the blocks - namely most of the blocks that have flying geese.  I've chosen a very colorful fabric palette paired with some low volume fabric for the geese.  In my final layout, hopefully this coloring will work. 

Here are my latest blocks - #41, 44, and 46.


They join the other blocks with geese - 4, 12, 25 and 27!


If you are just joining, today is the halfway point - the 52nd day of the QAL so you've got 52 blocks to catch up if you make them all or maybe just pick a subset!  These blocks are either 4 x 8'' or 8 x 8'' and the once I've chosen are the more complicated ones!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Friday, August 16, 2019

My Dad's Quilt


When I send off a quilt to a friend or family member, I think of the quilt as a way of sending them a hug.  I hope that every single time they use the quilt, they will think of me and know how much I love them.

My latest finish is a quilt I made for my dad who just lost the battle with cancer.   The decision to make a quilt, design the quilt, buy the fabric and make the quilt from start to finish was done across a 2 day period - 10 hours on a Thursday and 12 hours on a Friday.  The whole time, I was intensely focused on creating something for my Dad.



The 7 partial stripes represent his 7 daughters - our names and that of Mom are quilted into the white area.   The straight line quilting done on the rest of the quilt and was "quick-ish" to do.

The quilt finished at 62'' x 70" .  The ombre fabric I used ran from the light blue to the dark blue across the width of fabric.  I achieved the dark blue stripe by sewing about 20-25 '' onto the pieced part of the quilt.

Basting for the quilt went faster than any other large quilt I've done likely because there were very little seams so the fabric behaved.


Dad loved his quilt, really loving the fact that everyone's name is stitched into it.

I cried a lot while making the quilt.  I love my dad.



Have a wonderful day! Patty

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

My Sewing Space Makeover

When I retired a few years ago, I took over the bonus room in our home as the place for my desk and my sewing studio.   The room had bright blue walls, really old ugly carpet and an even uglier couch.  There was a large tv that didn't really work.  It was cluttered with stuff that we no longer needed.

My sewing space consisted of 3 tables pushed together - one for the machine, one for my cutting mat and one for the small ironing board and piles of works in progress.  My view when I sat and sewed was my laundry room - not at all inspiring.


The first part of the makeover was to replace the bright blue walls with a pretty gray color.  I asked my husband to help me paint the room as my Christmas gift.

Next, all the unused furniture needed to get out of the room.  Thankfully, we got this done when my son and daughter were home.  Ugly couch and non-working tv down the stairs and out of the house - happy dance!

The next part of the makeover was replacing the carpet with hardwoods.  This required taking everything - everything - out of the room.   My number 1 goal was to only return to the room what needed to be there - donating, selling or gifting everything else.

Here is my new room!



I relocated the sewing machine to a corner of the room that actually gets some nice natural light and I can look out the window while I sew.  The new layout is ideal for quilting large quilts - I've already done two of them!


Back in the corner where my machine used to be is my ironing station.  I hope to replace this with a larger ironing surface but for now this is working.


The shelves you see on the left hold my pre-cuts and my works in progress that aren't being actively worked on.


The new addition to the room is this wonderful counter height table which is a wonderful work table.  It serves as my cutting station and I've also used it for quilt basting.


There are two large drawers with the table - one hold my rulers and extra mats and the other scissors and rotary cutters.


Not pictured in either of these shots is my fabric stash which fits in two small shelving units after quite a few destash sales and donations.

My next step is to hang up some quilts = more pictures to come once I do so!

I love my new space.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Monday, August 12, 2019

Bunny Quilt update

My goal for August is to finish a baby quilt for a friend's new grand-baby.  The bunny is from Elizabeth Hartman's Delightful Desert pattern (affiliate link)  I am using these really sweet charm squares called Sweetheart from Free Spirit as my background. 



This is one of those 'design as I go quilts'.  Right now, the quilt is 36'' wide and 20'' tall.   I've pinned it up onto my design wall so I can think about next steps. 

This is what I'm thinking about:

  • Another row of bunnies - facing the other way - would be good although need more fabric
  • A row of pink hearts (it's a girl!)
  • More of these cute charm pack and then applique the name.

I'd like to keep the size to 40'' or less wide so that I can use a regular yardage without needing to piece the back.

Really loving these cute bunnies and look forward to finishing the quilt!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Basted and ready to Quilt

Ta da!  My 100 day project - hand piecing 100 drunkard's path blocks - is assembled and ready for quilting!



I am really happy with my final layout.  I ended up carefully trimming each block to 4 1/4'' to get everything to square up properly.

I love the braid like design that twisting my blocks this way forms.  And I'm enjoyed the color placement quite a bit.




Since I'll be hand quilting this (using 12 wt thread) I decide to thread baste.  I never did this before so first I did a basic pin baste and then made a grid with my thread basting.

This is what it looks like from the back.   I've had this piece of fabric in my stash for a long time and decided to use it for this quilt.  I didn't want to piece the back nor spend money to get something that might 'match' better!


Ready to go!  I've got a road trip coming up and a family visit so I am looking forward to making progress soon.



Have a wonderful day! Patty

Monday, August 5, 2019

July Temperatures


July was a hot one - here in NC and many other places in the world.

With the heat wave, I thought we actually had a chance of hitting a high daily temperature over 100.  While my car might have registered 108, I use the high temperature as recorded at a nearby airport so the highest temperature officially reported was 99.

And my interest in hitting that high temperature mark is simply to improve the design of my quilt - add a new color into the mix. (wink)  I'd much prefer perfect summer day temperatures - mid-80s and low humidity.

July definitely had more days over 90 (the red) than 2018 shown in the quilt below.



Here is a mapping of the colors.


There are so many temperature quilts popping up and I love them.  I wrote up a tutorial on a temperature quilt if you are interested.  In addition, Anina is running a 2019 QAL!

Have a wonderful day.

Patty

Thursday, August 1, 2019

One Monthly Goal August Link-up

Welcome to August!  We had 101 goals linked up for July - lets 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.  


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.

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 and this month's prize will be a large spool thread set from our featured designer!  (How cool is that?)



I'm excited to introduce Latifah Saafir from Latifah Saafir Studios as our featured designer for August!



Latifah is a pattern designer, fabric designer, a teacher and is the designer of the amazing versatile Clammy template!    (With the Clammy, you can cut clamshells, circles, half circles, quarter circles and orange peels - check out Latifah's YouTube videos to learn more.)

 Latifah is known for her bold and innovative modern quilts. Combining her training as an engineer with her lifelong passion for sewing, Latifah creates designs that are graphic and contemporary, featuring challenging techniques with meticulous attention to detail.  

 Latifah was a co-founder of both the Los Angelous Modern Quilt Guild and the worldwide Modern Quilt Guild. 


Quilt & image credit: Latifah Saafir
I had the pleasure of taking a class with Latifah through my guild.  She was just a wonderful instructor who wanted to make sure everyone was successful with their projects. 

You can find Latifah on her blog, on Instagram, on Facebook and in her shop plus you can see Latifah on two episodes of Fresh Quilting - Creating Bold Designers with Bias Tape Applique and  Learning how to Design a Quilt with Half-Rectangle Triangles.   Latifah is offering one lucky winner a 10" Clammy ruler and a pattern!

My goal for August is to finish my bunny baby quilt.  This will be gifted to a friend - soon to be a new grandma!  (The bunny is from Elizabeth Hartman's Delightful Desert pattern (affiliate link).)


Now it is your turn to link up - what is your goal for this month?  (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 making something with 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 August 25.)

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: 
 





You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Thanks for linking up!



Have a wonderful day! Patty