C'mon In...

 ... let me show you a few things that I've been working on, and thinking about, lately. There's never any shortage of projects in various stages of construction in and around the sewing space!  "Scaredy Cat" has come off the rails after machine quilting, Sundance did a great job with the woodgrain on the fence and the swirling, starry night sky. The pumpkins are wool; I will hand finish them with big-stitch quilting. I will hand-couch the thread to add toothy-grins for the cat, moon and pumpkins; plus I plan to add flat, black button overlays to those white, zombie-eye circles, giving them a less possesed appearance and one small round button eye to Mr. Moon! I'm pleased to get this one done up and ready for fall, it's only been two years in the works! This pattern is from Kim Diehl's book: Simple Seasons. This project, however, is a newbie compared to what's on Sundance today. I pieced the quilt below from a McCall's Quilting magazine (mid 1990's) pattern named "American Melting Pot". I added the folk-art border after taking a Sue Nickels' machine applique workshop back in 2005!  I layered it and pin-basted the sandwich, eight years ago, and quilted most of it on my domestic machine. For some reason I stopped working on it, I don't have any idea why; just lost interest I guess.

All Are Precious In His Sight   56" X 68" circa 2005

On Tuesday this week I stopped by to see a friend who just bought a new longarm machine, an APQS George, the sit down variety. I stitched on it for a few minutes and realized, immediately, how very long it's been since I sat and machine quilted! I tried to recall the last quilt I had quilted that way, before Sundance came into my life; this one (I have renamed it, see above) jumped to mind. I came home, dug it out, and loaded it onto Sundance by wrapping it onto the rails, I couldn't load it by the conventional method; 80% of the quilting was already done, all that remains to be quilted is border work! In 2005 I had been quilting a small stipple in the border; yesterday I found just enough of the matching thread to give it a go and see if I could make this work, and look seamless. Lo, and behold, I can! I need more thread and will be moving this one, soon, from the recesses of the stash closet (where all self-respecting UFO's hang out together) to the bedroom hallway; in a special spot I had chosen for it to hang many years ago!

Star Flower block pieces arranged per  QAL at  A Crafty Fox.

You may recall, earlier in the summer that I began collecting low-volume fabrics to make "Chicken Soup" quilts to give to my children for their respective families, a quilt to put away and use on those inevitable stay-home-from-school sick days. As a sick day quilt, I felt, the fabrics chosen would need to be soft and quiet; and so, the fabric hunt began and the collection grew... and grew, and grew! It's time; time to stop collecting and start cutting! Now that I have the fabrics, and they're all so gorgeous, what pattern could I use to incorporate them all, scrappy style? I cut out a few diamonds and placed them on a background.

Sunday Morning strip block from the book: Sunday Morning Quilts.

Tumbler block pieces, randomly arranged as a small test piece.

And, so... my decision? All three! I told you I had collected a LOT of low volume fabrics this summer! I plan to make a Tumbler and a Sunday Morning and let my children draw straws for those. I'll do a Star Flower to keep for myself. These soft, quiet fabrics hold great appeal for yours truly; I believe each one of these is a classic quilt just waiting to be born! Looks like I have my work CUT OUT (or about to be!) for me. Thanks for stopping by today to see what's being finished... and what's being started... life in the sewing space at Chez Goodneedle is all about balance!

Life is Good!

Miles and Miles...

... of thread! You may wonder what I was actually doing while being a captive passenger on our recent Canadian adventure. Well, I spent time stitching, among other things (GPS inputting, reading two books, napping, map reading, picture taking) and I have show and tell to prove it! It was a lo-o-o-o-ng way around all the scalloped edges of this antique Double wedding ring quilt that required a new binding. Whipping down the edges consumed many hours that these hands would have been otherwise idle. Now it's completed and ready to be pressed back into service.

This Swiss (French) sampler cross-stitch was begun in 1997. It had migrated to the top of the stack and this time I didn't push it back down to the bottom. I decided to take it along and finish it, at long last; quite unbelievably, it was almost done already, why I had ever abandoned it at 90+% completion is a mystery, even to me. Now it is done and ready to be framed and hung in our kitchen.

Life is Good!

February 1

My plan for this decade is still holding and we're already over a month in! In fact, I'm a little bit ahead... I'd better go find some wood to knock on! Last month I turned the "notes" portion of my desk calendar to a place where I listed "goals". January's done and the goals were met. This morning I ripped off the spent calendar page to reveal February and found these items listed under goals for this month to come:

To quilt: 1. Redwork Circles 2. Dog Year Finish piecing: 1. Christmas Nine-patch

As you can see I have already begun quilting on the redwork quilt and can happily report that I accomplished everything I had listed for last month and then some. It's a positive thing to have this public forum to hold me accountable. So far, so good!

Life is Good!

Dog Year

The vault of unfinished projects (a.k.a. my stash closet) continues to yield premiums. While searching for a project to take to an in-town Bee retreat this past weekend look what rose to the surface! These pictorial dog blocks were the result of an on-line block of the month offered by Ami Simms as a "Dog Yeared Calendar" back in 2003. I completed all of the blocks in a timely fashion and then let them "steep" for the past five and a half years in a project box. I dug them out last week, embroidered the names that I had assigned each canine friend, and drafted the lettering for the borders in EQ6. I had exactly enough sashing and border fabric set aside in the box, with the blocks, right down to the last inch. After this one is quilted it will receive button embellishments for eyes, to dot the "i", and to complete the exclamation point. As for me and this house, every year is, indeed, the year of the dog! As you know I am a huge Ami Simms fan, having made oodles of her "Picture Play" quilts. You can pop over to her website and order her Picture Play book at 50% off (between now and noon on Thursday), the first 50 customers will be rewarded with a chunk of her very own novelty fabrics to get you started; now that's a deal you can't pass up.

Life is Good!

"EVERY year is the year of the dog!" 48" X 60"

Traditional Blocks, 2008

I have participated in the annual Block of the Month classes at my LQS since 2005, I don't have one of these quilts completed, although 2006 is set into a top; that's noteworthy! I decided to do 2007, 2008 (and am currently working on 2009) in two separate colorways, (how's that for convoluted thinking? Since I wasn't getting single sets done, let's go ahead and double up!?!) that's eight quilts that I have in progress right there, that's a BUNCH of blocks piling up! Enough is enough. On Saturday I decided to drag them out of the closet and begin the setting process, this is 2008, the traditional blocks ( I also have a matching set in batiks). I chose to float the blocks on point and use a strippy set for these, my plan will be to attempt some pretty quilting in the open areas, there will be lots of room to practice feathers and swirls on this one, stay tuned... there's a virtual parade of quilt tops to come!

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."~William James

Life is Good!