More UFO BOM Progress

I have to remind myself when I write posts that seem mundane, that I really started this blog as a way to chronicle all my sewing and crafting endeavors.  With that said, I have once again made some more progress on the two UFO BOM's I am working on these past few months.  I am more than three quarters of the way through each BOM and I'm getting excited to get the blocks done, so I can get them all sewn together.

This is the finished four 12" blocks of "A Civil War Tribute" BOM, month 8.

And this is block 9 of the "Land of Lincoln Sampler", called Corn and Beans.  So fare this is my favorite block in this sampler.

Thank you for following along, even with the mundane!

Warmest...

Civil War Tribute, Month 8

Again today, I was able to work in some sewing time, in between canning more green chili.  I had the next month's block for the Civil War Tribute Block 8 already cut out before traveling, so all I had to do was sit down and begin sewing.

Month 8 block is a 12" block, and the pattern calls for  4 of them to be made.  I managed to only get one done today.  Even though only one was made today, it still gets me in the sewing room for a while, and gets me my sewing "fix" for the little addiction I have when it comes to spending time in my sewing room!

Warmest...

Land of Lincoln Sampler Block 9

I returned home mid-afternoon, Saturday, took a day of rest, and then hit the ground running today.  You see, I visit my parents who are in New Mexico.  While I am there, I always purchase large amounts of frozen red and green chili, and then stuff it all in a seprate suitcase and bring it home.  This time was no exception.  I brought back 45 pounds of green chili, and 50 pounds of red chili.  So today, I had to begin putting it "up" (which means getting it canned), so we can use it over the next couple of years.

Today, I woke up and started the long day processing/canning the some of the green chili into a sauce with cubed pork.  Each batch (6 quarts or  12 pints) takes about 3 hours to process .  I did 4 batches today, and  the next two days I will be busy finishing up the remainder of chili.

I did this block this evening, while the final batch was cooking in the pressure cooker, I stitched up Block 9 of the UFO BOM, Land of Lincoln.  This block is called "Yankee Puzzle".  Fortuntally, I had the block cut out before leaving town, so I was able to just sit down at the machine and just start sewing.  This block is super easy, using just half square triangles, and flying geese units.  Placement of the units and the placement of the fabric, makes the block look like a pinwheel.

Warmest...

Done. D.O.N.E. Done

Yessiree, I am done.  All eight of them are complete.  I wanted to cry from all the frustrations and at the same time do the happy dance, like Snoopy does.  But I cried throughout the process of making them, so I settled on the happy dance.  I know I ripped out more seams on these blocks that I would ever want to admit, because after about three completed blocks I thought I figured all the seam allowances out and could just whiz right through the next five.  Wrong.  Each block was it's own struggle nightmare.  More often than not, I would do stretching to make things fit, and then iron with lots of steam to set the fabric.  Any of the wonkiness of the blocks, will get fit in when it comes time to put the whole quilt together, and then the rest of it will work itself out in the quilting of the whole thing.  

I do have to say that I really like the way the pattern is for these blocks, as they will frame the medallion center of the quilt.  I have this same struggle going on with the "Farmer's Wife" quilt blocks, so I guess one could say, I gained some more patience and skill when working with these difficult and complex patterns.  

Warmest...

Civil War Tribute BOM Block 7 more...

Just dropping in to let everyone know that I am still plodding along with these blocks.  I have a determination of completing these, if nothing else to let myself know I can do it and not leave another project hanging in the wind (or to be more accurate, in a stored box or bag in my closet!).

Each block has 99 pieces, and my muscle memory of quilting seams, has to be rechecked each time I sew a piece, as if have to come in 1/16" of an inch on each seam.  Tedious at best.  I have one block to go, and then on to what is next on my list.

Warmest...

Next Block

I cut out the next block(s) for month 7 from the Civil War Tribute BOM that I have doing as part of my UFO BOM's I am working on this year.  Month 7 is requiring eight of the same block, all 12" square.  This picture is all of the pieces cut out.

What is different this month is, the pieces are cut out using 1/16", instead of 1/4" measurements.  Most of you who quilt, know that all of the quilt rulers are marked using the 1/4" measurement.  Some have little, tiny, black marks for 1/8" measurements, but not 1/16" measurements.  So, I had to spend some careful time cutting out the pieces.

Below is a picture of the finished block, and remember I have to make 8 of  it.  The reason the measurements are different than normal is the pattern makers kept it historical to the block from the Civil War era.  Included in the pattern, is a modified block using 1/4" measurement, but the block looks so different.  I pondered for awhile on which direction to go in making these blocks, and finally concluded that I wanted to keep it as original and historical.  Yeah, we'll see how that works for me.....

Warmest...

UFO BOM progress

Well, this last week was slow going in the sewing room. Mostly because of some health issues, but I got to feeling better by Thursday, so to keep it simple, I worked on all of the UFO BOMs.

First up is block six of Land of Lincoln Sampler called "Farm Friendliness".

Next up is  Month 5 of the Tribute to the Civil War blocks.  This month called for (4) 12" blocks .  Here is a full view of the block made up.

And here is a pic of all four of the blocks done.

Then, last but not least, I added the sixth row on my civil war color way Farmer's Wife quilt.  There are a total of 15 rows all sewn on the diagional.  This is a side view of it hanging on my door.  When all the rows are done it will be a queen sized quilt!

Warmest...

UFO Project #2

When finishing up the last UFO Project, you can see it here, I was going through my massive collection of Thimbleberries UFO projects I came across one of the first Thimbleberries Clubs I participated back in 2003.  My involvement with the Thimbleberries craze began in 1999.

This club involved a project per quarter rather than a block a month.  The first picture is the advertisement of the collection of the four quarter projects.  I have it taped on the front of a three ring binder, which holds the collection of the documents and handouts that I received throughout the year.

Let me take a moment here, and say that I am a "Type A" when organizing my projects, fabric, clubs, BOM's.  I spend as much time organizing as I do the actual time spent sewing.  With that said, I have to admit I enjoy doing the "organizing" more than the sewing and putting the projects together.  I've been know to re-organize stuff more than once, just because I find that part of it very satisfying.  I call it my therapy, but some out there who are not the crafts kind would think I might need professional help (smile).  I don't think so, as it gives me a sense of contentment!

Here is the first quarter project, called Window Box.  I have put the ad for this project and a swatch for all the fabric used in the project on a piece of paper and then into a sheet proctor, so that I can add it to the Project binder.  

I completed the first quarter club project of 2003 in 2009.  This picture does not do it justice.  It is currently hanging in my hall, right between the master bedroom and bathroom doorway.  Not a day goes by, as I walk down the hall, or going to bed in the evening, I don't take the time to look at it and to run my hand over the quilting done on the wall hanging.  Again, it keeps me content!  

Below are closeups of the three blocks used twice in this wallhanging.  It also shows how I chose to quilt each block differently.  The border quilting was done in a cross hatching pattern.

Okay, now that we have the prelude all done, here is the next UFO project I am going to work on over the new week or so.  This is the second quarter project for the 2003 Thimbleberries Club.  This will be perfect for my kitchen, as it has many things garden related, including blocks that look like canning jars.  For those who don't know me well, I can several hundred jars of food either from my own garden or from local growers.  

When I found the Club of 2003 package, I found that I had already started on this project by getting all the pieces cut out.  And of course, I took the advertisement of the project and a swatch of each fabric used in the wall hanging and attached it to a piece of paper (recycled, see the printing in the upper right hand corner?)  and had already put it in a sheet proctor, and was in the project binder.

So, now I am ready to sit down and begin sewing it up for another "contentment" piece in my home!

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!

Messed Up Bad!

Ever make a bad purchase sometime in their life?  Well, here's mine.  Yep a quilt frame that uses a home sewing machine.  Sounds perfect, especially if the budget is slim, and one cannot afford a longarm setup.  I thought this would be the next best thing, and would be better than quilting a big quilt with just the home sewing machine.

All sounded good, looked easy enough, would speed up the process, and I would be cranking out all my quilt tops faster than one could blink!  Ha! Ha!  Not so...

In doing my first quilt on this frame, I chose a BOM that came from the same local quilt shop as this post (you can read about it here) , and again the materials were not the same throught the quilt, and was something I didn't think fit in the stellar column.  Perfect for testing and practicing on the frame.  So, I made leaders, pinned the quilt to them, rolled it up on the roller bars, and started the quilting.  Yeah right!  What a disaster......argh!

1.  The thread broke a lot.  I mean a lot.  Especially if I didn't use the correct speed.  If I went too fast the stitches would be too long, and the bobbin thread would pull up to the front of the quilt, and at some point very quickly the thread would break.  If you went too slow, the bobbin thread would snarl and become a rat's nest on the back, and the thread would break.  This meant, that I had to roll the machine back to one end or the other, rethread, and reload the bobbin, and then roll it back to where I had left off.  I could only quilt a small area, and then I would have to stop and do all the steps to rethread the machine again..

2.  The stitches were uneven and jerky, which I am sure is because home machines do not have a stitch regulator, and the mechanism that operated the foot pedal was inconsistent, thus causing the unsightly stitches.  See number 1.

3.  Quilting with my home machine only let me quilt about 7 inches, which is the "depth of the machines throat" by the width of the quilt.  Then I had to stop and roll the quilt forward.

4.  I needed to have more bobbins wound, because after going one and a half widths of the quilt, the bobbin would run out.  I only had two empty bobbins to use on the project,so after three rows, I had to take apart a section of the frame to get to the machine in order to wind two bobbins.

It could also be a possibility that I might not be smart or patient enough to operate the frame! I know it was put together correctly, because hubby did that part, and he's very good and smart in thaat area (he even reads the paper directions!).

I did about a fifth of the quilt, and several days (did I say days?), yes days, I gave it up. Stopped. Quit. Done. Put it on Craigslist and couldn't get it out the door fast enough!

Here is a picture of what I considered a disaster.

Originally I was just going to throw the whole mess out, but my Husband talked me out of it.  I came across it the other day when I was reorganizing my sewing room.  I pulled it out and began taking out all that messy stitching.  Yes, I use a razor blade, rather than a seam ripper.  I had it ripped out in no time!

Here is a picture of what the top looks like, just note another row of basket blocks over the fence.

Here is a close up of the basket block. I am a big fan of basket blocks, so I think rework this one someday. It would make a great charity quilt. I think? Maybe? Sigh.....

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....

Making It Right

I have been doing some straightening up in my sewing room, and have come across some unfinished projects. Now there are many reasons for this, I get bored, a newer, greater something else grabs my attention, I get frustrated when something doesn't go right, I've ran out of one or more pieces of fabric, etc, etc.

I could go on forever, as evident of my UFO (unfinished object) list. I have even, in past years, set a goal of completing a old project before starting a new project, that lasted for about three projects. But, that was while I was working outside the home, because I wanted to "get in as much sewing time as possible" for the few precious hours of time I could set aside.

Now I don't feel as rushed. I am getting my house and yards/gardens in order, laundry and other duties are caught up all the time, and we eat at home way more (so we are not spending a lot of time eating out). Also, these last couple of weeks, I finished 4 commissioned orders out the door, so I began a little reorg of the sewing room, and came across a couple of projects that were in need of completing. So for the next few days I will be posting some of my old projects.

I posted about this project sometime last year here. It was a local quilt shop BOM, that was designed by the shop owner. After putting it all together, I realized that the background fabric did not match, because the first two blocks had a different background than the next ten blocks. Then, I remembered the shop owner switched to another background because the original one she chose ran out, and she couldn't order/find any more. See, it things like this, that makes me frustrated, and causes a project to be put on the back burner.

So, I bit the bullet, and removed the two blocks with the different background from the quilt top. Looks a little strange, doesn't it? Maybe if you are a quilt restorer it might look fairly normal?

It is really hard to see in these pictures, just how different the background really is, but trust me, I can tell. I knew I wouldn't be happy until I redid the blocks. I have it all sewn back together now, but my two guys who hold up the big quilts for me, were really busy this weekend, so I didn't get a picture yet. I'll try to get one done tomorrow.

The block on the left in the pictures below is the background that doesn't match the rest of the blocks background fabric.

P.S. I really like not working outside the home, even though I work harder staying home......

Simple Flannel Quilt

When I moved into my new sewing room, I of course found many things. Many things like projects that I started but put away. Put away because I wasn't in the mood to finish them, or I got bored on working on them, or something newer/better came along, or life interupted them.

Anyway, this is one of those projects. This is a Thimbleberries pattern that was so simple, I knew it would be perfect done in flannels. I bought this several years ago, the line is by Maywood Studios "Christmas Presence". I really liked the colors, and I didn't think it looked so Christmasy, that it couldn't be used all year round.

I have to confess that this part is the least part of quilting that I like to do. Maybe that's why it got put away so long ago? I have to say that sandwiching and pinning it today was so much easier doing it on my nice big cutting table. I used to have to do it on our king-sized bed, but there were always folds and wrinkles in the fabric because the surface was not hard.


This view is looking at the cutting table from the left side.

This view is looking at the cutting table from the right side.

And this is a close up view of the two flannels.