patchwork sampler blog

Final UFO Finish for 2011

2012-01-02T22:22:00.000-06:00

This little quilt has been a UFO since before last Christmas. It's one I found in the basket of UFO's in my sewing room and since it was supposed to be a Christmas quilt it seemed appropriate to try to finish it before this Christmas. This quilt began as a charm pack from Moda’s 12 Days of Christmas line. I pieced the quilt center but put it away before borders and quilting. I was able to find a backing fabric from the same line so slapped on a border, loaded it on the frame and finished it up. Now it's for sale in my Etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/88851159/12-days-of-christmas-lap-quilt

I think it turned out pretty cute. I really like the border fabric with the white poinsettia print.

It seems like ages since I’ve spent any significant time in my sewing room but it looks like it may happen tomorrow. My son went back to Milwaukee today and my husband will go back to work tomorrow so I plan to sew for most of the day. My daughter’s boyfriend is leaving tomorrow to spend a semester studying in Spain and she’ll be going down to the airport in Chicago to see him off so I SHOULD have the day to myself. What a treat. In anticipation of my sewing marathon I pulled fabric for a new quilt. It will be my first start of 2012. It’s a quilt for my monthly scrap quilt group. When I start it, I’ll post a little tutorial on how I’m piecing the blocks. It’s a little different so someone may find it helpful.

Right now I’m hemming a binding on a quilt that’s an old UFO. I had hoped to hem a couple of quilts while watching all the football games this weekend but I wasn’t very motivated. This quilt is from a line of fabric called Cottage Garden. I had intended to make it for a shop sample before the shop closed but the fabric sold so quickly I never made the quilt. I started it, then put it aside. It’s nice to finish some of these old ones. Hopefully I’ll finish it tomorrow so I can post it as my first finish for 2012.

Our Tree-Cutting Tradition

2011-12-03T22:03:00.001-06:00

I could write a book about our annual tree cutting expeditions—it’s always an experience! To start with we get lost almost every year and drive forever to find the tree farm. For the past several years we’ve gone to the same place and we still get lost. The good news this year is that we saved the postcard the tree farm mailed and drove straight to it. The bad news is that we had pouring rain. We’ve cut trees in all kinds of weather but this was the first year we had rain. Many years we’ve had knee-deep snow and sub-zero temps so overall it wasn’t too bad.

We go to Whispering Pines Tree Farm in Saxeville. They do a nice job of pruning the trees so you can always find one that’s nicely shaped.

We have a tendency to underestimate how big a tree is when it’s in the field so some years we end up with a huge tree that has to be cut down to fit in the family room. I’ve finally figured out that I need to look at it with Jim standing next to it to get a better idea of how big it is.

We ended up getting a nice tree (not this one) and didn’t have a single mishap. We even sprung for a new tree stand so we didn’t have to fight to get it in the stand and straight. We’ll probably decorate it tomorrow while we watch football. I always like the fresh pine scent in the house. I hope the cats don’t knock it over. So far they haven’t shown much interest but we still might anchor it to the ceiling!

I was able to sneak in a little sewing today. I pressed the Courtyard Maze top and sewed borders on Santa’s Little Helpers and 12 Days of Christmas. My tip for the day is to sew borders with the border on top. For some reason, when I do that the borders are nice and flat. I used to sew them with the quilt top on top so I could make sure the seams didn’t turn, but when I did it that way the borders ended up wavy. It might just be a fluke but I’m sticking with it!

After the borders I sewed and pressed backings for all three and then got the batting cut. They are now ready for quilting. I’m hoping to get up early in the morning and get one loaded. It would be nice to get at east two of them quilted tomorrow. I’m planning to do freehand allover designs so the quilting should go fast. I’ll post photos when I get them finished.

Full Disclosure-Part 1

2011-12-02T07:49:00.000-06:00

Like most quilters I have UFO’s—lots of UFO’s. When I started quilting I took classes every chance I had. I learned many techniques but didn’t always finish the projects. During the years I was a quilt shop owner I continued to take classes as well as teaching classes and clubs and making shop samples. A very conservative estimate is that I started two quilts a week for over twelve years. Since closing the shop I’ve started many more projects and have loads of kits that are still in packages. Over the past twenty years I’ve finished hundreds of quilts but I still have hundreds of unfinished ones. I’ve got to start working through my bins of UFO’s and get rid of them one way or another—finish them, trash them or give them to someone else to finish. I’ve been donating lots of quilts and this will give me more donation quilts without a huge additional cash outlay.

I’ve had a laundry basket under my sewing table for a few years. It’s filled with UFO’s but I don’t even remember what’s in there. In this post, I’ll start going through this basket and listing what I have and what needs to be done to finish the quilt. It should be fun to see what’s in there. I’m sure it will end up being a little trip down memory lane! It will take a few posts to get through everything in the basket, but here’s a start.

THE BASKET—you can see it’s overflowing. More than time to root through it to see what’s there!

I dumped it out so I can work from bottom to top. I know there are some new things in it because I just cleaned my sewing room and crammed a couple of current projects on top!

Project #1: This was a project from Thimbleberries Club. Each year we would work on a large block of the month quilt as the main project. Usually there was an additional project each month that would use fabrics from a current Thimbleberries line. I think this quilt is called Flying Dutchman. The reason I quit on it is because the border is wrong for the quilt. Even when you look at the picture you can barely see the border—it just fades out. A lot of the quilting is complete. To finish it, I think I’ll remove both the inner and out borders, finish the quilting and bind it. It really doesn’t need the additional borders.

Project #2: This quilt was a from a Debbie Caffrey mystery I taught several years ago. I hadn’t set the blocks together, but last year finished the top. It needs to be quilted and bound. I really should finish this—I love the quilt (even if it does have metallic fabric!).

Project #3: This is another Thimbleberries project. One year the main quilt centered around these calendar blocks. For this bonus project, I colored in the blocks with crayons. This quilt just needs a little more quilting. It’s already bound, so a hour or two of work will get it out of here!

Project #4: This table runner is from a free pattern we gave away. The pattern is from Quilt Retailer magazine. I made two or three of these already. I started this one in a class I taught using the Tri-Recs tools. This just needs to be quilted and bound.

Project #5: I can’t believe this wall hanging has been sitting around for years unfinished. It will take about 15 minutes to complete. It just needs some beads sewn on the snowman for eyes and buttons to embellish the mittens.

Project #6: This is a relatively new project. I started it last year. It’s simply sashed squares. I have the border fabric with it and I think the backing is somewhere around here. It needs the outer border, quilting and binding. I need to finish it and put it up for sale on Etsy before Christmas!

That’s the first batch of projects from the basket. Let’s see how I do in making progress on them! Of course, I’ve also got several current quilts I’m working on but I really need to get moving on some of these old UFO’s.

September already?

2011-09-01T20:29:00.000-05:00

What a summer of change in our house. When we dropped our daughter Jen off at school last Saturday we became empty nesters. It seems so strange for the house to be so quiet. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it's really a change. Last night Jim and I went down to Waterfest in Oshkosh to see the Doobie Brothers. It was a perfect evening weather-wise so it was nice just to sit and listen to the opening bands. It's great to see lots of people about our age singing and dancing to the music. The Doobie Brothers played a lot of their old hits and four new songs. What a fun night!Today I worked on piecing a quilt made from the Fandango line by Moda. It's a four-patch variation with sashing between the blocks. It always bothers me when the sashing doesn't line up straight along the length of the quilt. It's a little tricky to get it straight without cornerstones. Here's the easiest way I know to get it straight.
These seams should align like this: not like this:

Can you see how the seam on the right is off just a little bit? So what I do is line up a long straight pin with the seam like this:

Now, it's easy when you sew the seam to place the seam right over the pin. I stitch within a stitch or two of the pin before removing it. Make sure you don't sew over the pin. Here's what that looks like: See how that seam lays right on top of the pin? It works every time!

I'm hoping to finish quilting the Scrap-Basket Surprise tonight. I've had it on the frame all week and still haven't finished it even though the quilting on it isn't that difficult. Of course, there's football tonight, both Badgers and Packers so it may not get finished!

Challenge to Post

2011-06-14T20:22:00.005-05:00

I just can't seem to get in the habit of posting. While I'm at my sewing machine I'm constantly thinking "that would be a great thing to post on my blog." But when it comes to sitting at the computer and typing it out, I just don't follow through. Now I'm challenging myself to post SOMETHING at least three times a week.

Yesterday I loaded and started quilting the top I made from the Moda "Prayer Flag" fabric. Quilting the straight lines is proving to be a challenge, but I'm going to work through it because I think the quilt really calls for it. Of course, the rest of the quilting (meandering) went really quickly so the delay is kind of frustrating. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to finish it.

I DID finish the Moda "Boutique" quilt. I just loved this line of fabric and only had a layer cake and a few coordinates so it took quite awhile to decide what to do with it. I ended up just doing a geometric design with squares and rectangles. It ended up being a really pretty quilt and I just listed it on Etsy.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/76008358/boutique-lap-quilt

Here's a picture of the finished quilt. I quilted it with my favorite pantograph called "plumage." It's just a soft, feather design that goes fast and looks great on these pretty, feminine quilts. The first photo shows a detail of the quilting and the second is a photo of the whole quilt.

Finally Posting Again

2011-02-02T23:00:00.000-06:00

It's been such a long time since I've posted. Things got very busy in the fall and through the holidays and it just wasn't a priority. Since the first of the year I've been doing quite a bit of sewing and am trying to finish some UFO's. It's hard to resist all the beautiful new fabrics, though and I succumbed to a jelly roll of Bliss fabric from Moda. I wanted to stretch the jelly roll to make the largest quilt I could and came up with a 16-patch. I could have strip pieced the blocks, but ended up cutting individual squares from the jelly rolls. I used sixteen 2-1/2" squares for the main blocks (16-patches, lol!). I make 18 of these blocks. Then I pieced seventeen 4-patches and surrounded them with a white-on-white fabric. I sewed 2-1/2" x 4-1/2" strips to the top and bottom of the four-patches and 2-1/2" x 8-1/2" strips to the sides. Then I set these on point. I started with 12-3/4" squares for the side triangles and cut them twice on the diagonal. The corner triangles were made with 6-3/4" squares cut on the diagonal once

The inner border was cut 2-1/2 and the outer border was cut 6-1/2". I ended up with a nice size quilt, about 72" x 96".

Here's a picture of the almost finished quilt. I'm still hand stitching the binding but it will soon be DONE!

My Current Project-Heritage Sampler and Stack Pressing Tutorial

2010-10-31T18:55:00.000-06:00

A few days ago I looked through a bin of UFO's and came across my Heritage Sampler blocks. This was block of the month project I coordinated at the shop a few years ago. All of the applique blocks were complete and I only had three blocks left to piece. Even these three blocks were cut so I don't know why I stopped working on this so near completion. I quickly pieced the remaining blocks, trimmed the applique blocks and sewed the top center together. This quilt has an outer border of nearly 300 half square triangles so I pulled out the border triangles that were cut and pieced them. I was 96 triangles short so I cut those. That's where I am now on this project. I hope to get another little burst of energy this evening so I can finish piecing the triangles. It shouldn't take too long to piece them into the border. I just love this project and now I can't wait to finish it. The pattern is by Lori Smith of From My Heart To Your Hands. All of her quilts are just wonderful and it's so rewarding to finish them! Here's a picture of the top so far.
While piecing all the half-square triangles I thought I'd make a little tutorial on stack pressing. When I teach classes I'm always surprised at how many people haven't heard of this. I think it's very efficient and your pieces end up well-pressed and FLAT. Give it a try next time you're piecing a bunch of blocks and see if you don't think it works well!

Stack Pressing Tutorial
1. Press seam closed. This helps relax the thread into the seam. Then open up the triangle and press the seam toward the darker fabric.

2. Place the closed seam along the open seam that you just pressed. Offset it a little bit, then press this seam closed. Open it up and press it open toward the darker fabric. You've just pressed your first piece again.

3. Continue placing the next piece along the piece you just pressed. First press it closed, then open it and press.

4. I usually stack eight pieces before starting a new stack. I let the stack sit and cool off before handling it.

5. Once the stack has cooled, I pick them up together and trim the "dog ears." It's very easy to slip the tip of the scissors between the blocks and snip.

I use this pressing technique for almost all my piecing. Just remember to offset your blocks a little bit from the previous piece and you'll have nice, flat blocks!

Whirlwind Weekend

2010-10-15T20:29:00.000-05:00

Our son Bryan is applying to medical school and has interviews scheduled at a number of different schools. I’ve been traveling with him and it’s getting a little crazy because they’re close together and there hasn’t been much time to recover from one trip before it’s time for another. Needless to say I haven’t been doing much quilting. Before all this started I had been on a roll and finished a lot of stuff. It’s been kind of fun going with him but it will be nice when it’s over and I can get back to my sewing machine. I’m determined to work down a few UFO’s before the end of the year. There’s a laundry basket of projects under my sewing table and I’d at least like to finish those.

Last week, we were in Rochester, NY and stopped in at the High Falls Visitors Center (and Art Gallery). We met the curator, Sally, and after a delightful visit with her she revealed that she had spent many years earning a living as a quilter. I knew there was a reason we hit it off right away. It was a beautiful weekend in upstate New York and Rochester is a very nice city. There are so many hiking and biking trails and we really enjoyed seeing much of the city on foot. We also walked on a path along the Erie Canal, did a little wine tasting around the Finger Lakes and visited the US side of Niagara Falls (we hadn’t brought passports to go on the Canadian side). It was a fun trip and we did a lot in a short amount of time. Here are a few pictures from the trip: fall leaves along the Genesee River walking path, Seneca Lake and Niagara Falls.

Here are pictures of a couple of quilting projects I’ve finished lately. I made three of the Spicy Spiral Table Runners. They look difficult but are really easy. I think I’ll make some for Christmas gifts. It’s an unusual pattern and not many people have seen it. The other quilt is an old UFO from Patchwork Sampler called “Grandpa’s Best” from a pattern by Perkins Dry Goods. It will be a nice one for the holidays. It’s probably from around 2004 or 2005 and now that it’s finished I wonder why I didn’t get to it sooner!

An (Almost) Wasted Day

2010-09-25T08:18:00.000-05:00

This week has been kind of a letdown after last weekend's marathon sewing session. Bryan and I made a quick trip to St. Louis on Monday and Tuesday. He had an medical school interview with St. Louis University. When we left home on Monday morning it was 44 degrees outside. By the time we got to St. Louis it was 94! It was hot and muggy both days we were there and I'd brought the wrong clothes for the weather. We survived, though, and the interview went well. While he was at the university I visited Forest Park. I had a nice walk and spent a little time at the zoo. I'd brought bindings to hand sew but it was just too hot to work on quilts so I didn't do any sewing while we were gone.

When we got back home I pieced a quick and easy quilt top from Westminster's Leanika fabric line. It turned out pretty well. I had a fat quarter collection of this fabric and only used half of them so I think I'll make another one using the same pattern. There was only one (okay, maybe two) fabrics in the collection that I really liked so I just want to use it up. I pieced another "Spicy Spiral Table Runner" and have another one cut and ready to stitch together. I ordered a layer cake of Moda's new line called "Bliss." Then I saw the Moda Bake Shop pattern called "Blissful Confection" so I pieced that on Thursday. Here's the link for "Blissful Confection" if you'd like to make one for yourself: http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/09/blissful-confection.html. After all this piecing I needed to start quilting so I could get some things finished so on Friday I got up early and quilted an old UFO called Grandpa's Best. I'd had this quilt cut out since about 2003 so it was nice to make some progress on it.

Last Saturday my clothes dryer quit heating up. I had a service appointment scheduled for Friday morning between 8 and 11. I didn't want to work downstairs in my studio because I didn't want to miss the doorbell so I decided to work in the dining room upstairs. I brought up a bunch of quilts that needed binding and got to work. Eleven o'clock came and went with no service technician, but I did have binding machine sewn onto two quilts. At 12:30 with another binding complete, I called and left a message to see if they were still coming. They didn't return my call and I called back at 2:00 (after another binding) and finally talked to someone. They said the technician had called here and got no answer so he didn't bother coming. WHAT?? In the first place, I hadn't made an appointment for a phone call, I'd made an appointment for a technician to come to my house and fix my dryer. Secondly, I had been sitting right by the phone all day and had received no call. My caller ID confirmed this so I was really angry that they hadn't followed up or made a reasonable effort to make this service call. I decided they really didn't need the business if they didn't try any harder than that so declined an offer to reschedule (also my laundry was piling up and I didn't want to go to the laundromat). I then called another service company and they had someone at my house an hour later. By the time he had it fixed I had finished by fifth binding of the day. It seemed like I had wasted my day sitting here waiting but I ended up accomplishing quite a bit so it turned out okay. Now I have lots of binding to hand sew while I watch football and movies!

This morning I got up and jumped right in with it and finished a binding I had started last week while I watched the movie "Whip It." It was an okay movie that didn't require a lot of focus to follow along--just the thing to watch while sewing. This quilt is "Crossed Rails." Basically you make rail fence blocks, cut them in half on the diagonal and sew them back together. I sewed it together with sashing and cornerstones and really like how it turned out. It was made completely from stash. Here is a picture of the finished quilt.

Stay At Home Retreat Weekend

2010-09-18T17:36:00.000-05:00

I didn't finish nearly as many quilts this summer as I though I would. This was our first summer in over 12 years that we didn't travel for soccer so you would think that I would have had a lot more time for sewing. Not so! I only finished a few things and those were mostly for our Scrap Basket group that meets each month.

This weekend, though, I've been trying to make up for lost time. Jacqi at Keep Me In Stitches Quilt Shop asked me to make a "Spicy Spiral Table Runner" for a shop sample. I was a little unsure about the pattern so I picked eight fat quarters from my stash to make a prototype before using the shop fabric. I wouldn't say this is a beginner's project, but it was pretty easy and I LOVE the results. I'm sewing the strips sets on the second one and have a third cut out. This is going to look so pretty on my coffee table this fall. I haven't decided whether to use flannel or a very thin batting in the middle. I'll probably piece all three runners and then finish them all at one time. The assembly line method seems to work pretty well.
This morning I cut out three more quilts from new fabric I've been wanting to use. I also spent a little time organizing the sewing room. I may never get through all my cupboards to color coordinate my fabric, but I figure every little bit helps. Unfortunately I haven't been very good about keeping fabric for binding together with the quilt top fabric. I'm happy to say that I found binding fabric for two old UFOs in my stash. Neither one will take much time to finish. I'm hoping to get a few bindings machine sewn so I have hand work to do during car trips and football games.

Now to take a short break to run some errands. Tomorrow all the roads around here will be blocked and restricted for the Fox Cities Marathon. I've learned to avoid going out while that's going on!

Plugging Away On Yellow Brick Road

2010-06-02T21:21:00.000-05:00

Before Patchwork Sampler closed in October 2008 my daughter decided that we should make quilts for her seven closest friends for their high school graduation. She picked out fabric for each of the seven quilts and I stored it away. Graduation was over a year and a half away so there was no pressure to get these quilts finished. Well, here it is June 2 and graduation is TOMORROW. Sadly ,the quilts are not quite finished. I still have binding to complete on three and the seventh one is on the quilting frame. With so much going on tomorrow with commencement we decided to either give each girl her quilt at her graduation party or have a big sleepover at our house and present them all at once. Anyway, I should have some time over the weekend to stitch bindings so they'll be finished very soon. I've found I almost always need a deadline to finish a project. If there's no deadline I'm always tempted to start a new project. That's how I've gotten in the mess I'm in with UFO's. Hopefully it doesn't rain tomorrow and I'll photograph some of the finished quilts and post them.

It's Time To Get Serious

2010-02-25T20:23:00.006-06:00

Okay, I've gotten serious about finishing quilts, now I've got to get serious about blogging. I tend to daydream while quilting and I'll think about some subject and say to myself, "Oh, that would be a great blog topic." After my quilting session I get busy with housework, errands, etc., etc. and the blog post never happens. Lately I've gotten into more of a routine so my plan is to start regular posts.

I've been doing a lot of quilting this winter. It took nearly a year to organize my stash and UFO's but now things are pretty much in order (well, orderly for me!!) I still don't have all the UFO's listed but I do know where they all are. I try to finish two old projects for every new one I start. I really love starting new quilts but now most of my new ones are gifts and donation quilts. Occasionally I'll make a new quilt with no particular recipient in mind, but honestly how many quilts does a person need?

My first finish for the year was this flannel quilt. This was a UFO from several years ago. It started out as a shop sample from a line of Holly Taylor flannels from Moda. I pieced the top and even had it quilted but never sewed the binding on. Anyway, it only took a few hours and I had this beautiful flannel quilt completed. So one UFO finished, another 699 to go!