A Peek at the Leftover Project

This leftover project has taken more time than I really wanted to commit.  My original thought was, "Here is a stack of leftover triangles, I should be able to whip up something really quick!"  (Snicker)  Yeah, right!

Using leftover little triangles causes fitting issues, as they are the off cast of the correct fitting flying geese and each leftover triangle may or may not be the same size as the other cut off triangles.

So, there is a little wonky fitting, including a little tuck here and there.  But overall, I think it is going to come out rather nicely using up all the leftovers from the big quilt.

I am hoping to quilt it and bind it this afternoon and evening.  

Warmest...

Leftovers Design

Remember the zillion (only about 124 actually), flying geese from the UFO project I posted about yesterday?  Of course you do, I been complaining posting about them a lot, since the beginning of the project.


Here is that huge pile of triangles.  Made me think this is a lot of fabric just to leave alone or throw away as scrap.  Surely, I could do something with them.

I kept them paired up just as they were when I trimmed them away from the original UFO project, and stitched them on the long side of the triangle.  I chined stitched 248 triangles through my machine until my eyes crossed.

I put four little squares together, and formed a pattern called a pinwheel, and then sewed four pinwheels together as a start of playing around to see what I can make an end result.  I'm leaning towards using several of these somehow in a table runner????

                                     

UFO Project Top Completed

Yep, another UFO project bites the dust, meaning it is completed.  Well, at least the top is completed.  I had a short break today, in overcast Oregon, to hang the finished top on the fence outside.  The top finished out to be about 70" X 87".  Remember I did three extra center blocks, to make the quilt more for a twin bed, rather than be just a big square quilt.

I brought the finished top back inside and laid it on my cutting table (folded) and took a couple of close up pictures.

I really like the thin green border, and if I would have thought about it, I would have put one on the other side of the flying geese, but I just followed the pattern and it only called for one.  (Sigh)

Warmest...

UFO Project Progress

A few posts back, I did a post about a UFO project, here.  I have made some progress.  I have put together the blocks, and the first 1" border within this last week.

Then, this evening, after being at a gun show all day, I sat down and was able to de-stress by getting some "sew time" in working some more on this UFO project.  Remember,  I need to make 100+ flying geese, which will be the second border.  So, I sewed 25 of them, made them into a strip, and sewed it to the top.  Only three more sides to go!

This is a nice project to be working on, because the flying geese pieces are all cut out, and I can work on it whenever I have a couple of free minutes, and that doesn't require any deep concentration.  Everyone should have few of these type "no-brainer" sew time projects to work on when they have short periods of time.

Warmest....

UFO Project

Ok, for the last few posts, I have been bringing out a few UFO BOM's that I hope to work on weekly.  Then I will post the progress of all the BOM's that I am working on in one post once a week.  

But, for today, I am going to post about a UFO project.  Back in 2008, I was laid off from my job, and had much difficulty finding a new job, so I delved into my sewing.  I started and finished quite a few projects, and had started this project when I have to pack up my sewing room to "stage" the house.  Can you believe that the real estate agent said that people looking at houses would not want to see a sewing room, because they couldn't envision it as a bedroom.  So, we really needed to sell this house, and I packed up everything.  The house sold, we moved, and this project stayed packed.  I found it the other day, and went ahead and brought it out so that I could finish it.

It was from a program from Main Street Cotton Shop involving Thimbleberries pattern and fabrics.  The program was called Room by Room and lasted for 12 months.  This is the project from month 5.  The original pattern says it is 72" X 72", but I don't like square quilts, so I am making it about 16" longer, so it will end up 72" X 88".

The pattern can be found in Lynette Jensen's, Thimbleberries, book "Cranberry Harvest".

The pattern is called "Autumn Retreat".

Here is a full laid out picture of the quilt.  I will be adding three blocks in the center of the quilt.  See the blocks below.

Here are the alternating blocks found in the center of the quilt.  I only had one of these completed when I had to pack up the project.  As of today, I have 5 of the 6 blocks done.

I had all of these blocks completed when I packed up the project.

As soon as I am done with the last center block, I will be working on the flying geese border.  I will need to make over 200 flying geese to complete the border.  I see lots of chain sewing ahead!

Older Project Revealed

Ok, here is the "big" reveal of the older project that I posted about yesterday.  A nice Christmas table runner!

It was the first project from a Thimbleberries club I did back in 2006.  Yeah, you read that right, 2006!  I discovered Lynette Jensen, and her "Thimbleberries" beginning 1998.  There was a point in time when I just had to have everything she came out with through her company, including books, patterns, and fabric.  Then I discovered the Main Street Cotton Shop.....they had everything Thimbleberries, including clubs and her annual BOM (sometimes in two color ways).  I don't mean to ramble, but it kinda is the lead in to this post.

This table runner is from a Main Street Cotton Shop called Christmas Countdown Club 2006.  This book was based on Lynette's new book at the time called "Christmas Countdown.  The Main Street Cotton Shop put together a 6-month club from July 2006 to December 2006.  This is a picture of her book.  

This is a really bad picture (the one I took not the publisher's picture) of the table runner inside the book.

 Here is a close up of the quilting I did for the runner.  I did shadow quilting around the appliquéd stars on the green prints, spiraling inside each red triangle, and cross-hatching on all the light background print areas.

Here is a close up of the binding.  I am only showing you this because I learned how to sew on the binding by machine.  Usually, I machine stitch the binding on the right side, then hand stitch it down on the back side of the item.  But, looking through Pinterest the other day, I saw how to machine sew it down on the back side and make it look nice on the front side.  I was tickled pink on how it came out!

This is the table runner folded up next to the book.  It shows how thin it folds up, and that is because I did such intense quilting on the runner.  I use poly batting (cheaper) for table runners, but it has a higher loft.  So, to get it to lay flat and be thin enough to set things on so that they're not wobbly, I do this kind of close quilting.

Here is the back side of the table runner with the label.  Thimbleberries even had matching quilt labels to go with their projects.

Just for kicks, I took a picture of the label the Main Street Cotton Shop sent with the kit.  Before the blog, I used to keep these kinds of things for the scrapbook/record of the projects I completed.  I think I used to like doing the record keeping of the projects as much as making them.  Weird, huh?

Older Project

I found another older project when doing the reorg of my sewing room.  I found it with the top done, batting and backing pinned to the top, and on a hanger waiting to be quilted.   This is just a peek at the quilting I have started doing on it. 

As we all know quilting the quilt takes forever awhile, so I am only about half way through completing it.  Look for the finished project soon....