Quilting is in my Blood

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us.

To-Do for the week of Jan 12th- Jan 18th

1. Make some Shoal tail pieces. √ Done
2. Make 12th Rainbow Sashiko square. √ Done
3. Work on another project using a quilt kit that has long been in my stash.√ Done

To-Do #1

I got a few triangle units done that will be used for the tail units for the shoal fish I’m making using indigo prints from my mom’s fabric stash from the 1990s. I’m drawing inspiration from Nicholas Ball’s Shoal Sew Along (#shoalsewalong) that started 1/4/21, but am not worrying about keeping up with the SAL. I want to take my time and really enjoy making these shoal fish. I’m liking how my mom’s fabrics look in contrast with the more modern but also subdued Kaleidoscope fabrics.

To-Do #2

I stitched two more rainbow Sashiko squares pictured below (grid marks not removed yet). I modified one out of The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook that is reminiscent of the quilt block, Card Trick. The second is Circular Seven Treasures. I have enough rainbow Sashiko squares to make a table topper (with nine squares) and four coasters, so I will be starting another small Sashiko project this coming week.

To-Do #3

I’ve had a quilt kit in my stash for over six years that I bought at Thread Bear (which used to be my local quilt store, but this past year it moved to Las Cruces, NM). I had just started quilting, and I was like a kid in a candy store, and when I saw the gorgeous Magic Carpet quilt hanging on their wall, I knew I wanted to make it someday. So I purchased the quilt kit (pattern by Vanilla Latte Quilts) and then scoured the internet to try find more of the gorgeous border fabric, Water Garden, by Andover, not knowing what I was going to use it for but I knew I really needed it! Fast forward six years, and I pulled out the quilt kit earlier in the month and decided I wanted to make the Magic Carpet quilt for my friend, Kathy, in California. I’ve been friends with Kathy for 40 plus years. I’ll share more about her down the road, but the first thing you need to know about Kathy is that she has a thing for frogs. When my bestie, Mary, and I were looking at the fabric in the quilt kit, she told me she thought it was perfect for Kathy, but it needed a frog fabric, and she was totally right. I found a cute Heather Ross frog fabric at the Etsy shop, Cluttered Cupboard, who really deserves a shout-out because I received the fabric I ordered in four days from Wisconsin to New Mexico. What I really like about this pattern is that it shows off larger prints and provides an opportunity to fussy cut numerous smaller squares. And this 54” X 64” quilt top sewed up fast especially with using a strip-sewing shortcut for the sashing/corner stones. I started it this past Monday and finished it on Sunday. The border fabric is cut on the bias with opposite diagonals. I ended up cutting the top and bottom borders from the fabric in the quilt kit, and after a brilliant suggestion by Mary, I cut the side borders using the opposite diagonal from the extra two-yards I tracked down after purchasing the quilt kit. I told Mary this violates a cardinal rule for quilters which is that we try never to cut into a treasured piece of fabric unless absolutely necessary. But in this case, I only had to piece together the long right border, and I have extra fabric to make gorgeous bias-cut borders on another quilt, possibly even using this pattern again.

Here’s a close-up of the cute frogs and the gorgeous border fabric:

To-Do for the week of Jan 19th-Jan 25th:

1. Work on my Shoal Sew-Along project.
2. Start another small Sashiko project featuring a beautiful Caribbean perle floss.
3. Start cutting squares for the Meadowland quilt top I’m making for my nephew’s birthday this summer.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly List Update Linky #76.

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us.

To-Do for the week of Jan 5th- Jan 11th

1. Make an 11th Rainbow Sashiko square. √ Done
2. Make more progress on Ombré Star quilt. √ Done
3. Make the 6-inch January purple block for 2021 Monthly Color Challenge by Patterns by Jen. √ Done
4. Pull fabric for Nicholas Ball’s Shoal Sew Along that started last week. √ Done

To-Do #1

This pattern is called Hanmari Tsugnagi (linked semicircles). It is from The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook by Susan Briscoe. I think of it as Moons & Butt Cheeks (get it? My sister would’ve gotten a kick out of this extremely informal description, but she also might’ve been a little fanny obsessed!). At any rate, I have this book on my Kindle on my iPad, and I like to take screenshots of the patterns and enlarge them to see the patterns and the suggested stitching paths more clearly. I drew a one inch grid (still not removed in the photo below) and then used Perfect Circles to draw the curves.

To-Do #2

I finished sewing my Ombré Star quilt top together on Saturday. It went fairly smoothly, though as with any HST quilt, some of my points refused to match nicely! I definitely recommend this Ombré Star pattern by Sam@Hunter’s Design Studio. It does take a fair amount of ombré fabric to the make the quilt top since there’s no background fabric.. Mine finished at 73” X 73”, and I used about 4 1/2 yards of ombré fabric. I’d recommend purchasing five yards to allow for some wiggle room.

To-Do #3

I got the 6-inch January purple block finished on Sunday for the 2021 Monthly Color Challenge by Patterns by Jen. It turned out fine, but the center probably would’ve looked a little sharper if I’d watched the video on how the trim the units before I made the block rather than after!

To-Do #4

Below is my fabric pull for the Shoal Sew-Along. Most of it is from my mom’s indigo prints from the 1990s. The solids on the right are some Alison Glass Kaleidoscope fabrics and some navy Sashiko fabric that I may use to stitch some shoal fish.

To-Do for the week of Jan 12th-Jan 18th:

1. Make some Shoal tail pieces.
2. Make a 12th Rainbow Sashiko square.
3. Work on another project using a quilt kit that has long been in my stash.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky #75 .

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us.

To-Do for the week of Dec 28th-Jan 4th:

1. Make a 10th Rainbow Sashiko square. √ Done
2. Write my Jan 2021 One Monthly Goal post. √ Done
3. Finish binding the last Sunflower placemat for my friend, Amanda. √ Done

To-Do #1

This pattern is called Begonia. I really like the look of Sashiko with threads woven through the stitches. This is on a 1/4” grid. With a smaller grid, the design looks even more intricate.

To-Do #2

I got my Jan 2021 OMG post written and posted the first day of this brand new year. I’m really enjoying making this Ombré Star pattern. Sam describes it as another “so much easier than it looks” pattern, and so far I totally agree with that description. I’ve made all 64 HST blocks and have started sewing the blocks into rows. Below is a pic that shows some of the blocks on the right side of my design boards. The blocks that don’t have a piece of masking tape on them have more contrast and as such “more glow”. 

To-Do #3

I finished binding the last placemat for my friend Amanda’s housewarming gift and will be getting it in the mail to her soon. Here is a pic I snapped (literally—I had about two minutes to take the photo!) at my work’s conference room table with the six placemats and the table runner. These placemats and table runner have many of the same fabrics as the ones I made for my brother and sister-in-law for their  50th Wedding Anniversary Gift, but I really like how the tan grunge background fabric shows off the sunflower quilting in the photo below:

To-Do for the week of Jan 5th-Jan 11th:

1. Make an 11th Rainbow Sashiko square.
2. Make more progress on Ombré Star quilt.
3. Make the 6-inch January purple block for 2021 Monthly Color Challenge by Patterns by Jen. I’ve decided to join in this year and plan to make the smaller size option in more muted colors rather than my typical go-to bright saturated color palette. 
4. I’ve also decided to participate in Nicholas Ball’s Shoal Sew Along that started yesterday. I have his Inspiring Improv book, and the Shoal Project is one of my favorites in the book. The goal for this week is to pull fabrics for the sew-along.

Linking up to .Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky #74

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us.

To-Do for the week of Dec 22nd-Dec 28th:

1. Finish my Cat & Birds quilt top and write my Dec 2020 OMG Finish post. √ Done
2. Finish binding another sunflower placemat or two. √ Done
3. Stitch my 9th Rainbow Sashiko square that I will be sewing into a small table topper after the first of the year.

To-Do #1

I finished my Cat & Birds quilt top before Christmas and got it into the mail to Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting a couple days later. Here’s the link to my December 2020 OMG Finish  post if you’d like more info about this project.

To-Do #2

I finished binding two more Sunflower placemats this past week. The pic below shows the back of the table runner that I finished binding a couple weeks ago. I thought I’d share some of my favorite binding tools this week. They are Aurafil 50 wt thread (for this project I’m using Medium Orange 5009 that matches nicely with the rust peppered cotton binding fabric), the tiny, super sharp Big Eye Quilting needles Size 10 (but I say “Big eye my a$$!” which is why I also use a needle threader), and in recent months I purchased a Knuckle ring from Kimonomomo’s Etsy shop that has little grooves that help push the needle through the quilting and binding layers. My favorite binding tip is to tie a single knot right by the eye of the needle which helps my needle from becoming unthreaded. It sometimes loosens anyway with the thread coming out of the needle but less frequently so.

To-Do #3

For my 9th rainbow Sashiko square, I decided to make another diamond design. As I did for my 8th Rainbow Sashiko Square, I drew a 1/2” by 1” grid on a blank indigo square and then added the diagonal lines across the rectangles that became my stitching lines. For this photo, I haven’t yet removed the grid or the unused diagonal lines:

To-Do for the week of Dec 29th-Jan 4th:

1. Make a 10th Rainbow Sashiko square. I’ve decided to keep on making these squares as I’ve come across other patterns I want to try, and I’ll probably make the squares I don’t use in the table topper into coasters.
2. Write my Jan 2021 One Monthly Goal post.
3. Finish binding the last Sunflower placemat for my friend, Amanda.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky #73.

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us.

To-Do for the week of Dec 15th-Dec 21st:

1. Make progress on my Cat and Birds quilt top. √ Done
2. Finish binding another sunflower placemat or two. √ Done
3. Stitch my last (for now) Rainbow Sashiko square that I will be sewing into a small table topper after the first of the year.
4. Write my  2021 Planning Party post for the linky party hosted by Yvonne@ Quilting Jetgirl. √ Done

To-Do #1

I have made more progress on my Cat and Birds project. From Mitzie@Jittery Wings , I downloaded the free Sparrow Quilt pattern and paper-pieced the smallest sparrows using purple, blue, and teal Kona solids. I cut the sparrows into 3.5” squares rather than the shape on the template. I rotated the squares to a diamond shape so the sparrows were angled at 45 degrees, and I then sewed setting corner triangles onto the diamonds to make them into 5 inch squares.

To-Do #2

I finished binding two more Sunflower placemats this past week. I’ll wait to take a photo of any more until they are all finished. The table runner is also done, so I just have three more placemats to finish for my friend, Amanda’s housewarming gift.

To-Do #3

For my 8th rainbow Sashiko square, I drew a 1/2” by 1” grid on a blank indigo square using my favorite Clover Fine Marking Pen which took a little getting used to since the line it draws does not immediately show up but within a minute the line is clearly visible but just as important it is easily removed with a little water. Then I drew diagonal lines across the rectangles which became my stitching lines and when I was done I erased the 1/2” by 1” grid using a wetted pieced of cloth. I’ll take a photo of the grid next time. I apologize for the awful photo below. The square is on a piece of white paper, and I took the photo at my office. I didn’t think the lighting was so bad, but indeed it was!

To-Do #4

I always enjoy writing a goal-setting post for the coming year related to what I want to accomplish with my quilting hobby. This year I included stitching in my goals as I plan to continue doing Sashiko as well as participating in Wise Craft Handmade’s 2021 Snowflake Embroidery Block of the Month. See my 2021 Quilting/Stitching Goals post for more info about my 2021 goals.

To-Do for the week of Dec 22nd-Dec 28th

1. Finish my Cat and Birds quilt top and write my December 2020 OMG Finish post.
2. Finish binding another sunflower placemat or two.
3. Make a 9th Rainbow Sashiko square (I decided I could fit one more square into my schedule since they’re pretty quick and so much dang fun to stitch!)

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky #72.

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us.

To-Do for the week of Dec 8th-Dec 14th:

1. Make progress on my Cat and Birds quilt top. √ Done
2. Make the binding for my friend, Amanda’s sunflower placemats and table runner. √ Done
3. Make a lined drawstring bag using the pattern by Jeni@In Color Order. Nope

To-Do #1

This week I have focused on sewing borders around the eight hummingbird small panels that I’m using in the quilt top for Kristen’s baby. I haven’t gotten them all finished because I had to order some more Kona Dark Violet for the inner borders and Kona Regal for the outer borders. Below is one of the finished Hummingbird blocks:

To-Do #2

About a week ago I received the Sunflowers Placemats/Table Runner “Quilt” back from Sew Shabby Quilting for my friend, Amanda, and I started binding the placemats over the weekend. Below is one finished placemat:

To-Do #3

When Jeni Baker at In Color Order announced that she was going to host a Lined Drawstring Bag Sew-Along, I really wanted to join in especially since I have had the pattern for a few years. But I really have too much going on right now, and the paper gift bags I have on hand are fine for gift-giving this year, but hopefully I will make some next year. I even purchased her Lined Drawstring Expansion pattern that has some cool options like a drawstring backpack and adding a paper-pieced component. If you are interested in making one of Jeni’s lined drawstring bags, the original pattern and the expansion pattern are both reasonably priced in her shop, and she has generously made a Video Tutorial to accompany the pattern.

Bonus

I finished my seventh rainbow Sashiko square this past week. The pattern is called Asagao which I first saw in the Alison Glass July 2020 Stitch Club Journal. Because this pattern was initially really confusing to me (it’d definitely be easier with three distinct thread colors), I wanted some more detailed instructions and found this Tutorial by A Threaded Needle. This square is fraying terribly. I’ll put some Fray Check on it and sew close to the line around the block which is supposed to wash out.

To-Do for the week of Dec 15th-Dec 21st

1. Make more progress on the Cat and Birds quilt top.
2. Finish binding another sunflower placemat or two.
3. Stitch my last (for now) Rainbow Sashiko square that I will be sewing into a small table topper after the first of the year.
4. Write my  2021 Planning Party post for the linky party hosted by Yvonne@ Quilting Jetgirl.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky #71.