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 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 also linking up my finished Ombre Star quilt top with Elm Street Quilts: January 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.

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.

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 1-Dec 7th:

1. Write my December 2020 One Monthly Goal post and make progress on that project. √ Done
2. Stitch a sixth rainbow Sashiko square. √ Done

To-Do #1

I am working on a new project that I’m very excited about. My friend, Kristen, is expecting a baby this Spring, and when I told her that I wanted to make a quilt for her baby girl, she requested one with cats and birds in teal and purple colors. In the design that my friend, Mary, and I came up with, there will only be one cat on the front of the quilt, but the quilt back will feature a large cat panel.  I belong to Kristy Lea@QuietPlay’s  2020 Pattern Club, and one pattern I’ve been wanting to make is her Geometric Cat. I made a fabric collage of the cat that I shared about in my December 2020 OMG post that featured many purple and teal colors along with blues to transition between the teal and purple. Below is the finished Geometric Cat block that measures 9 3/4” by 10”, but it will be 15” square when I finish sewing borders around it. It will be featured in the center of the quilt top. This was the easiest time I had sewing sections together, and I attribute that primarily to Kristy’s excellent pattern designing.

To-Do #2

I finished my sixth rainbow Sashiko square which was Star Crossed by Blair Stocker (It is also known as the rice stitch). This Sashiko square may be my favorite so far. I especially like how the not-totally-uniform stitches actually add interest to this square.

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

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

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky #70.