Quilting is in my Blood

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Linky Party hosted by Chris at ChrisKnits. 

To-Do for the week of Feb 23rd-March 1st:

1. Take Nicholas Ball’s Mosaic Tiles online workshop. √ Done
2. Spend at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. √ Done
3. Finish second Snowflake Embroidery Month 1 block. √ Done

To-Do #1

I really enjoyed Nicholas Ball’s Mosaic Tiles online workshop through Crafty Monkies. The host of this virtual class was Rachel Pierman, and she is the founder of Crafty Monkies. She has a great sense of humor, and Nicholas is a fantastic instructor. Behind him in the photo below is a class example of his improv Mosaic Tiles. Notice that there is a definitely a wonky factor with many of the colorful “tiles” in the fabric mosaic.

Nicholas shared a few different ways to make a mosaic tiles piece. The first option is much more regimented with right angles and consistent grout widths, which is the option I chose for my class project. Moving further along the improv spectrum is a version with far fewer right angles such as Nicholas’ class example. He then demonstrated how use this technique with improv curves (see below):

The last option Nicholas shared with us is cutting stacks of fabric using using a variety of angles and then reordering the pieces. This is one technique that can be used in the Kintsugi quilt featured in Nicholas’ book Inspiring Improv. I absolutely want to make one some day.

I did start my Mosaic Tiles class project during the live Zoom workshop. But I prefer to watch online presentations closely and take a lot of screen shots as well as written notes before I try to apply all the information shared. I decided to use the Whale Tales fabric collection that I used in the Meadowland quilt for my nephew and thought a non-wonky version would work best to showcase some of the fussy cut squares in my class project that I was able to finish up the next day.

I really do recommend Nicholas’ classes, and I want to try some other Crafty Monkies classes down the road. The classes are broadcast from the United Kingdom, so you need to make sure their time zone works for you. Today’s class was held 4:00-7:00 pm (GMT) which was 9:00 am-12:00 pm in New Mexico (and would’ve started at 11:00 am for those of you on the East Coast). The cost was about $48 for the three-hour class.

To-Do #2

EQ8 already makes more sense to me since I’ve spent several hours this past week playing with the program. I committed to 15 minutes a day but put in at least a half hour each day this past week. I made it through several lessons in EQ8 Lessons for Beginners, and then I created an EQ8 rendition of the quilt I designed last weekend on graph paper in Yvonne Fuch’s Quilt Design workshop at QuiltCon Together. 

To-Do #3

I sure am having fun stitching along with the Snowflake Embroidery BOM. Below is the second block for Month 1 with a lovely snowflake design:

To-Do for the week of March 2nd-8th:

1. Work on my March 2020 OMG project.
2. Quilt my Mosaic Tiles class project.
3. Make a few more Shoal fish.
4. Start my Snowflake Embroidery Month 2 block.
5. Continue spending at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. 

Linking up to Chris Knits: To-Do Tuesday.

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Linky Party hosted by Chris at ChrisKnits. 

To-Do for the week of Feb19th-22nd:

1. Get ready for and attend QuiltCon Together. 

To-Do #1

I took five workshops this past week at QuiltCon Together which was a virtual conference this year due to the pandemic. I had only signed up for four workshops when registration opened last June, but recently I added a fifth workshop because I wanted to learn needle-turned appliqué for a quilt I’m planning to make this Spring. I also attended four lectures.

Workshops:

1. Quilt Design with Yvonne Fuchs
2. Serendipity Blocks in EQ8 with Cheryl Brickey
3. Y-Seams Not Cry-Seams with Libs Elliott
4. Rainbow Sun with Sylvia Schaefer
5. Everyday Appliqué with Sarah Fielke

Lectures

1. Modern Scrappy Quilts Using Color Value with Blair Stocker
2. Secondary Designs and Beyond with Jen Carlton Bailly
3. Improv Through Many Eyes with Yvonne Fuchs, Chawne Kimber, Anne Sullivan, and Melanie Tuazon
4. Quilt Photography Overview with Julie Schoening

No doubt I signed up for A LOT! But it was more doable since I took Thursday and Friday off work, and by 6:00 am Thursday I was watching the video for Rainbow Sun. All of the workshops were on-demand, so that worked well with me being such an early bird. Sylvia has a great eye for color as is evident in the example piece she made for this Workshop. I decided that I would only watch the video and take notes and maybe next year I will make this amazing mini quilt referencing my notes and Sylvia’s book The Quilter’s Negative Space Handbook. It was fun watching Sylvia’s process as she selected her beautiful color gradient scraps.

The next workshop I accessed was Sarah Fielke’s appliqué class. She is a great teacher with a lovely Australian accent that I could listen to all day! Again I was a bit of a rebel and chose not to make the Class Project for which Sarah provided the templates. Instead I opted for a simpler design and cut out some orange peel pieces with my Accuquilt Die Cutter and then started appliquéing the orange peel pieces for a mini quilt for my office at work.

For Libs Elliott’s Y-Seams Not Cry Seams, I did complete the class project. I was happy to actually learn to use two specialty rulers I purchased awhile back: Hex N More and Super Sidekick both designed by Jaybird Quilts. I cut out a variety of white, grey, and black shapes in diamonds, triangles, and half-hexies and then I looked in my stash for a black print and came across a cool hexie print in the same colors as the shapes I’d just cut and decided to it had be in my class project. There was some time spent with my seam ripper when sewing the Y-seams, but overall it was a good skill to learn, and Libs Elliott is just super cool, so it was really fun to learn from her. I may quilt this project as is and turn it into a funky wall hanging.

Yvonne Fuchs’ Quilt Design class definitely challenged me in such a good way. I used a small gridded notebook to sketch some designs. The one below was to create a modern quilt/block using a source of inspiration I chose myself which was an offset snowball block. At first I thought I’d use black bars for the offset portion, but I didn’t like that, so I added one more pieced column. I also tried adding in a star block to see what that looked like. 

The last quilt design challenge for Yvonne’s class was to create our set of requirements and to create a quilt design based on those requirements. We were asked to consider what’s most important, second most important, and what can we be flexible about. I’ve decided that I want to play with curves using inspiration from Jen Carlton Bailly’s Secondary Design and Beyond lecture which was such a fun and entertaining presentation. I also want to use a limited palette of five colors that includes a dull color to allow my other four colors to shine. I’ve chosen my colors and ordered some fabric, and I plan to make some time in March to work on this project. I may squares to my curved pieces and possibly some HSTs.

The final workshop I took was Cheryl’s Serendipity Blocks in EQ8. Cheryl is a great teacher. I took a class from her at the EQ8 Academy in Ohio in 2019, and she uses the virtual format almost as well as in-person instruction. What really became clear to me is if I want to become more proficient in EQ8, I have to practice and use the program regularly. I have all sorts of resources, but I just need to use them on a consistent basis. See my To-Do list below to find out what I plan to do about this.

My favorite lecture was Julie Schoening’s Quilt Photography presentation. Julie posts on Instagram as @builtaquilt. She’s such a relaxed and  upbeat person with a wealth of information about photography. Hopefully you’ll see an improvement in my photos from watching this presentation. I do have two photos to share with you where I experimented with photo editing feature on my iPad. On Saturday I gave my friend, Kristen, the Cats & Birds quilt. I love how happy (and gloriously pregnant!) Kristen looks in the pic below:

Here’s a photo of the front of the quilt that I had to lighten up in photo editing.

QuiltCon Together Winners

There were many amazing quilts submitted for the QuiltCon Together Quilt Show. My favorite is Watercolor Study No. 6 by Audrey Esarey @cottonandbourbon. I hope to take her Virtual Watercolor online workshop someday.

To-Do for the week of Feb 23rd-March 1st:

1. Take Nicholas Ball’s Mosaic Tiles online workshop on Feb 27th through CraftyMonkies.
2. I started a 15-minute a day project on Monday where I will spend at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. I’m not sure how long I will do this. I’d say at least a month and maybe for a 100 days—we’ll see. I’m not planning to post regularly on Instagram but will probably share some photos here on my blog.
3. Finish second Snowflake Embroidery Month 1 block.

Linking up to Chris Knits: To-Do Tuesday.

I am joining the first weekly To-Do Tuesday Linky Party hosted by Chris at ChrisKnits. Chris was nice enough to take over the hosting responsibility from my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us, who had major problems with her blog when she tried to migrate from one platform to another. Technology sure is great when it works! And a major pain in the behind when it doesn’t!

To-Do for the week of Feb 9th-15th:

1. Finish my modified Meadowland quilt top. √ Done
2. Finish binding Cats & Birds quilt. √ Done
3. Work on one block for Snowflake Embroidery BOM Month 1. √ Done

To-Do #1

I finished my modified Meadowland quilt top this past week which is my Feb 2021 One Monthly Goal. Even though I had to sew it in rows rather than blocks to accommodate the 8.5” fussy-cut squares, it sewed up pretty easily. I really enjoyed working with the Whale Tales fabrics and also used one of the oldest fabrics in my stash which is called Revelation Etching by Legacy Studio. It is the rust/brick fabric below that looks like a Grunge fabric. The orangey-brown fabric is Kona Cedar, and I also like how it complements the feature fabrics in the quilt top. 

To-Do #2

The binding is finished on my Cat & Birds quilt that I hope to give sometime soon to my friend, Kristen, for her baby, Luciana (Lucy) who is due in April. This is a throw size quilt at 57” square. One of these days I’ll make a more traditionally-sized baby quilt! I haven’t had a chance to get a photo of it yet. Hopefully that will happen in the next week or two.

To-Do #3

I stitched the first block for the Snowflake Embroidery BOM that I am participating in this year to grow my embroidery and stitching skills. It was a lot of fun, and I have a lovely snowflake design to stitch for block two that I have started and may or may not get done this month.

To-Do for the week of Feb16th-22nd:

1. I just have one item on my To-Do list this coming week which is to get ready for and to attend QuiltCon Together. Here’s a pic of the t-shirt I bought for this virtual conference.

Linking up to Chris Knits: Tuesday To-Do Linky Party. I’m also linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Feb 2021 OMG Finishes.

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us. I am so grateful for all the work Roseanne has put into hosting this weekly linky party and sorry that she won’t be able to continue doing so due to insurmountable problems with a blog migration. I look forward to joining the linky party hosted by Chris at ChrisKnits next week.

To-Do for the week of Feb 2nd-8th:

1. Make progress on my modified Meadowland quilt top. √ Done
2. Start binding Cats & Birds quilt. √ Done

To-Do #1

I finished making all nine-patches and flying geese for my modified Meadowland quilt top. The photo below shows some of them up on my design board, but it’s not the final layout.

To-Do #2

I got the binding machine stitched to the front of my Cat & Birds quilt and am 3/4 of the way through hand-stitching it to the back. Here’s a sneak peek of the upper left corner:

To-Do for the week of Feb 9th-15th:

1. Finish my modified Meadowland quilt top.
2. Finish binding Cats & Birds quilt.
3. Work on one block for Snowflake Embroidery BOM Month 1.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Last Linky Party.

I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us. I’m feeling really pressed for time, so this will be my shortest To-Do Tuesday post ever!

To-Do for the week of Jan 26th-Feb 1st:

1. Bind Color Jolt quilt. √ Done
2. Write my Feb 2021 OMG post. √ Done
3. Sashiko stitch a shoal fish. √ Done

To-Do #1

I did finish binding my Color Jolt quilt but am going to wait to share a photo until I can get a nice outside shot.

To-Do #2

Here is the link to my February 2021 OMG post about the modified Meadowland quilt top I plan to finish this month.

To-Do #3

Here is the cute little shoal fish I stitched on Sunday. I photographed it with a spool of Aurifil floss for perspective.

To-Do for the week of Feb 2nd-8th:

1. Make progress on my modified Meadowland quilt top.
2. Start binding my Cat & Birds quilt.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky 78.

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 19th- Jan 25th

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

To-Do #1

I have made three Shoal fish so far. It’s still not quite intuitive for me yet, and I botched one big time, but overall I like how these three little fishies look. I definitely plan to make more but am going to prioritize other projects right now.

To-Do #2

I recently found some beautiful hand-dyed variegated perle floss in Caribbean color. I plan to use it on my 2021 Snowflake Sampler BOM and thought I’d try this floss out on a pre-printed light grey Sashiko coaster. It stitched up like a dream on Sashiko fabric. Hopefully it will also do well on the gingham fabric for the Snowflake Sampler where I will be learning chicken scratch embroidery. 

To-Do #3

I am making a Meadowland quilt for my nephew, Jack’s 50th birthday in July that features fabric from the Whale Tales collection, and I am modifying the pattern to use 8.5” fussy-cut squares rather than (4) 4.5” squares sewn together which are background fabric squares in the pattern. If this is unclear, please see the Meadowland quilt I made in 2019 where the background fabric was a lightly patterned white fabric. Evie@evquilts shared a tutorial on her blog in 2019 on how to modify the Meadowland pattern that I can’t access any more, but I had made it into a PDF on iBooks, so I can still access the information (though with many blank pages in the PDF). If you go into her link above, you’ll see a beautiful Meadowland quilt featuring both 8.5” and 4.5” squares in a modern-looking floral. Here are the nine large squares I have cut out that I will use in the large throw-size quilt I’m making for Jack.

To-Do for the week of Jan 25th-Feb 1st:

1. Bind Color Jolt quilt which came back this week from a new long-arm quilter.
2. Write my Feb OMG post about getting my Meadowland quilt top done next month.
3. Sashiko stitch a shoal fish.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Linky 77 .

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.