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 March 16th-22nd:

1. Cut out some equilateral triangles from Fairy Dust Ombré and Boundless Ombré fat quarters. √ Done
2. Continue spending at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. √ Done
3. Finish my Snowflake Embroidery Month 2 block. Nope

To-Do #1

My planner at work has a wonderful color gradation equilateral triangle design on the cover (second pic below). I used this cover for inspiration to design and make a small ombré equilateral quilt top over the weekend that measures 33.5” X 36”. 

I used the Fairy Dust Ombré Fat Quarter Bundle below that is so attractively stacked in a star shape for this bright ombré quilt that will go on the back of my love seat at work.

To-Do #2

The take-home lesson this week for me with EQ8 is make sure that Snap to Nodes is off when drawing the main lines in my blocks. I had to start over with both the SPRING block and the Bees block. I am feeling much more comfortable with EQ8 and plan to continue spending time becoming more proficient with the program. I was reluctant to commit much time to learning this program because I already spend so much time on computers between work, blogging, and reading posts/social media, but it is starting to feel like a tool for creativity and is becoming more fun.

To-Do #3

I had more stitching to do than I thought to finish my Snowflake Embroidery Month 2 block. I got a fair amount done, but still have at least a couple more hours of stitching to do.

To-Do for the week of March 23rd-30th:

1. Work on a second equilateral triangle baby quilt top with the triangles I cut from the Boundless fat quarter bundle that is pictured above on the right.
2. Continue spending at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. 
3. Finish my Snowflake Embroidery BOM Month 2 block.
4. Write my Dumbledore Finished post (March 2021 OMG Finish).

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 March 9th-15th:

1. Bind my Mosaic Tiles class project. √ Done
2. Quilt my Harry Potter (Dumbledore) mini quilt. √ Done
3. Work on my Snowflake Embroidery Month 2 block. √ Done
4. Continue spending at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. √ Done

To-Do #1

I recently read the binding tutorial from Michelle at From Bolt the Beauty on How I Bind My Quilts. I’ve not had much success in the past with machine binding but spontaneously decided to try her tutorial with my Mosaic Tiles class project which I am now referring to as my Whale Tales mini quilt. It’s easier to experiment with projects that I’m keeping for myself. Overall it went better than my previous machine binding attempts (and certainly was MUCH faster than hand-stitching the binding down on the back), and glue basting the corners definitely improved the look of my corners. What doesn’t work for me is how the machine stitching looks on the quilt label I make for almost all of my quilts. So if I’m going to machine stitch the binding for a gift quilt, I need to change how I label the quilt. I have an idea how I might do it and will probably try it out on my Shoal Fish quilt next month. Below are pics of the front and the back. Some of you may recognize the Cotton+Steel Octopus print on the back. I’ve had it in my stash for a few years and recently used it on the back of my modified Meadowland quilt and had some leftover to use on the back of this mini quilt.

To-Do #2

I quilted my Dumbledore mini quilt and also got it bound. I hand-stitched the binding to the back in my usual manner. Right now I’m just going to share a pic of the back and will save sharing photos of the front of the mini quilt until the end of the month when I link up with Elm Street Quilts March 2021 OMG Finishes.

To-Do #3

I made more progress with my Snowflake Embroidery BOM Month 2 block. I should finish it this coming week.

To-Do #4

I am enjoying spending daily time with EQ8 particularly with Kari Schell@On Point Quilter’s Spring Fever EQ8 Mystery (though she talks really fast and I frequently have to back up the videos over and over to catch what she is saying). Below are the four EQ8 blocks I created this past week.

To-Do for the week of March 16th-22nd:

1. Finish my Snowflake Embroidery Month 2 block.
2. Continue spending at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. 
3. Cut out some equilateral triangles from the Fairy Dust Ombré fat quarters arranged like a star on the left below. For a different project I’m also cutting out some equilateral triangles from the Boundless Ombré fat quarter bundle on the right. All of this ombré fabric is an early birthday present from my best friend, Mary. She did well, I would say!

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 March 2nd-8th:

1. Work on my March 2021 OMG project. √ Done
2. Quilt my Mosaic Tiles class project. √ Done
3. Make more Shoal fish. √ Done
4. Start my Snowflake Embroidery Month 2 block. √ Done
5. Continue spending at least 15 minutes a day playing with EQ8. √ Done

To-Do #1

My March 2021 One Monthly Goal through Elm Street Quilts is to make a Harry Potter mini quilt for a colleague at work named Tasia who loves all things Harry Potter. We are doing a trade where she is helping me with some strength training twice a week in exchange for the mini quilt. Tasia has given me free rein in the design. I found a great paper-pieced pattern at Fandom in Stitches of the wizard, Albus Dumbledore. He is one of Tasia’s favorite Harry Potter characters, and she has even named her cat, Albus. All of the patterns at Fandom in Stitches are free of charge for personal use. The size of the one I chose is 5” square which was smaller than I wanted for my mini quilt, so I enlarged it a bit on a copier. The nine sections weren’t separated, so I made 9 copies (and a few extra for good measure), so I could cut out each section to paper piece and then added a 1/4” seam allowance when I was trimming the sections. I would definitely say this pattern is NOT for a paper-piecing novice! But I was able to get all the sections paper-pieced on Saturday, and on Sunday I sewed the sections together to make a 7” square  Dumbledore. I then added three  borders to make it 17” square. I’ll share more about all the fabrics used when I have finished the mini quilt.

To-Do #2

I did get my Mosaic Tiles class project quilted on Sunday. My favorite quilting to do is organic wavy lines which hardly takes any time to get done. I’ll share a photo after it is bound.

To-Do #3

I made a couple more Shoal fish this past week. They are the fish below with the light blue fans. I plan to make a mini quilt next month with these fish and maybe more Shoal fish.

To-Do #4

I made progress on Month 2 of the Snowflake Embroidery BOM. I’ll wait to show this month’s pretty design when I’ve finished it.

To-Do #5

I am enjoying spending daily time with EQ8 going through a basic lesson book and this past week I signed up for Kari Schell@On Point Quilter’s Shoot for the Stars with EQ8 course. I have also signed up for her free Spring Fever EQ8 Mystery that starts tomorrow. (Thanks Roseanne for telling me about it). Anyone can participate, but they have to sign up, and Kari has three videos she would like participants to watch before the mystery project starts.

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

1. Quilt my Harry Potter (Dumbledore) mini quilt.
2. Bind my Mosaic Tiles class project.
3. Work on my Snowflake Embroidery Month 2 block.
4. 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 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.