Showing posts with label Starry Bright Night Quilt Along. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Starry Bright Night Quilt Along. Show all posts

Saturday, June 30, 2018

June is finished?

June is almost done and with the end of the month comes those deadlines that I may, or may not, have ignored so far 😊

Kingfisher Stitch-Along and One Monthly Goal (OMG)

My goal for June was to finish 16 hexie flowers. That's a lot less that what we need to follow the Stitch-Along but to be honest, I didn't think that I could even do 16. Thanks to Miaismine's very positive comment, I figured out that from the date she left me the comment, that if I did roughly one hexie a day, that I could easily complete all 16. So that's what I did. I even took some hexies to work and basted them on my lunch break!
First hexie flower hand-appliquéd
on the diamond

My neighbour's beautiful
clematis with my hexie flower


I also finished hand-appliquéing my first hexie to my background. I really like how it looks. This project is going to be a LOT of work. Oh well, it will get done eventually.




Pretty red hexie flower
The first 16 hexie flowers completed!
Star hexie flower














Starry Bright Night QAL

Month 6 of the Starry Bright Night QAL is all about curves - not my favourite thing, which is one of the reasons that I've procrastinated, although any excuse will do to procrastinate :-)

Block 5 - not a star. Could it be
a nebula?
I chose to make Block 2 which includes off-set curves within curves. To give it a starry look, I used an orange fabric for the centre, then bright yellow and a lighter yellow to symbolize a fiery star. Of course my son then told me that stars are only one colour because that's how they categorize them. Oh well, the artist in me doesn't care 😊, except that I messed it up, which I do care about, but at time, not enough to make another one! If you haven't figured it out, you'll have to read what I learned below.

Batik Lap Quilt

Batik Lap Quilt - feather meander

I finally got my silk thread from my supplier :-)

317 (Orenji)
345 (Kyoto)









I was doing well quilting Angela Walters' Feather Meander until I ran out of thread. So Wendy go me two spools of Kimono silk thread from Superior Threads. One spool of 345 (Kyoto) and one of 317 (Orenji). Looks like I'll be back at it. Yeah! This is my To-Do Tuesday project for the week!


What I learned
  • Although I've completed my 16 hexie flowers, I'm not going to be making the next 16 my July OMG. As much as I love making them, I would rather take my time and not have to rush. I am happiest without deadlines!
  • I also enjoyed hand-appliquéing the hexie flower onto the diamond fabric. It is a rather slow stitching Sunday type of task and is going to take a while. It will be a gorgeous quilt though.
  • I was also reminded, while I was appliquéing my hexie flower to my diamond, that I should have ironed (and possibly starched) it, before starting. 
  • I've added a few pictures of my hexie flowers to my post since it was nice enough outside to take pictures.
  • My curved starry bright night block is a bit of a mess. I learned that if you are going to cut  multiple pieces of a pattern at the same time, that all of the fabric needs to be either right-side up, or all right-side down...not folded accordion-style. I really should have known better but it's been a very long time since I've sewn with patterns. I've also been sewing a lot with batiks and solids which don't have a right and wrong side (which is one of the things I love about them!) 
  • I must admit though that sewing these curves was a lot easier than I expected. Alida suggested that we not bother pinning the pieces since they were wonky anyway. Wow, that was really wonderful and easy to do! If I end up making a new block, I'll post it here as an addendum.
Related posts
Linking parties

Posted by at 18 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

May progress & finishes

May is always a crazy busy month with lots of quilt shows, events and deadlines. You may have been following these in my last few posts. Here are some updates.

Comfort Quilt QAL

I have been participating in the Comfort Quilt QAL based on Amy Ellis' book, Modern Heritage Quilts: New Classics for Every Generation. My version is not her lovely low volume quilt but rather some colourful cuddle quilts using a variation of her pattern. It's great to see everyone's progress on Instagram. There are some fabulous quilts in the making 😊

I want to make 4 cuddle quilts but I very realistically chose to make two cuddle quilts as my May OMG - One monthly goal. I've learned a lot during the finishing of the first quilt. You can read about it below.

22" cuddle quilt made using a variation of Amy's Comfort Quilt
I attached the binding by machine for this first quilt since I had lots of space to sew within the border.

Here is the second cuddle quilt, before attaching the binding. The quilting can be seen better on this picture.
Second cuddle quilt, before the binding
Second finished cuddle quilt

There was less room on the border so I attached the binding and finished it by hand.

These two cuddle quilts were my May OMG. Done!

I am planning on making at least two more but it will probably wait till the fall.





Starry Bright Sky QAL

It's the end of the month and I finished my star last night. As with the origami block, I had help from my son. I don't do 3D very well, even if it's just folding fabric. 😊

Fabric cutout of a star for month 5

Upcoming Kingfisher Stitch-Along and Hexie Runner

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm getting excited about joining the Kingfisher Stitch-Along to make a quilt with some English Paper Pieced (EPP) flowers. I just love being able to use my hexies in different ways. 

I just checked out the Stitch-Along site and I'm in luck! They are using 1" hexies which is what I've been working with, so I probably have a few flowers ready :-)

I've been working on finishing my Hexie runner for a while now. It's very slow going but I plan on finishing it very soon so that I can concentrate on this next Stitch-Along.  This is on my To-do Tuesday list for this week.
Finishing the Hexie Runner soon
What I learned
  • Sewing with flannel is different than sewing with regular quilting cotton. The stitches end up being more embedded into the fabric, making picking apart the sewing very difficult! Of course, today, I read an article about sewing with flannel. They recommend that you use a slightly longer stitch. I hope I remember that for my next batch of cuddle quilts.
  • I measured the quilt tops before adding the border, but after finishing the FMQ, the yellow quilt barely made it to 22" while the blue one was slightly over. In theory they were the same size, and I even used the same size of borders. 
  • I have mentioned before that I am accuracy challenged - that would account for the difference in sizes. I hope the babies won't complain about a ½".
  • Although my cuddle quilts are quite different from Amy's Comfort quilt, I really enjoyed checking out participants' work on Instagram. 
  • This month's Starry Bright Sky block was made thanks to my son's help. I'm glad that he's around to help me with anything 3D or involving math.
  • My star cutout is not as starry as I would have liked but then, like snowflakes, they are all different (aren't they?)
  • For my Hexie Runner, I'm using the same binding technique as the first table topper I made. I'm not sure if it's because it's a larger piece, but it's not going as well as my first one. I hope to have it finished in the next couple of weeks.
  • Great news! I won 2 spools of lovely green thread from Connecting Threads through Alida's Starry Bright Sky QAL. They were shades that I didn't have - wonderful! Thanks Alida :-)
Related Links

Linking Parties
I will be linking up to the Elm Street Quilts' OMG May Finish Link-up as well as Starry Bright Sky QAL- Month 5 link-up. I will also be linking up to many other linky parties. Join me to see what's new out there. Midweek Makers, Let`s Bee Social, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Linky Tuesday, Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward Monday, Main Crush Monday, Monday Making, To-Do Tuesday, WOW Wips On Wednesday, May Color Challenge Link Up, Needle & Thread Thursday, Free Motion Mavericks, 

Project Details


Two cuddle quilts
22" x 22"
Adapted pattern: Comfy Quilt by Amy Ellis
Material: cotton flannel
Techniques: piecing, free motion quilting


Some great news - these quilts were featured on Muv's Free Motion Mavericks!
Posted by at 19 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Postcard from Sweden and Starry Bright Sky

Postcard from Sweden

It's done! The quilt top for Postcard from Sweden is finished.
Finished Postcard from Sweden quilt top in batiks
I absolutely love the quilt in the original Kona colours but could never have managed to follow the pattern. Instead I used batiks and roughly followed the values of the original, except for the last row. I didn't have enough of the correct valued fabric cut out but had many other half-square triangles, so I made due. I'm sure that this would work for the whole quilt since it's more about mixing the colours and values than it is about the specific colours.

It's a very grey day outside, so the colours aren't as brilliant as they should be, even with fancy technical adjustments. This close-up picture shows a bit more of the details of the fabrics.
Close-up of the batik fabrics
Thank you Sandra of MMM! Quilts for hosting this quilt along. This quilt top would still be in its lovely project bag if it wasn't for your deadlines and encouragement 😊
The quilt top is done!


Finishing the Postcard from Sweden quilt top was my OMG for April. Hooray!!!

Next steps: I'm not finished, am I? I'm looking forward to quilting this baby. I am going to quilt it very densely using all kinds of FMQ designs. It won't be for a little while because there is a line up in my quilt room, but with luck it will be finished in 2018.

Starry Bright Sky - Week 4, Improv

This is my absolute favourite block so far. I just love improv... minimal measuring, lots of experimenting!

Here is the first block. It has an improv centre as well as the star spikes. It was a lot of fun to make.

Improv star block
The second block is a small star improv block - you can put 4 together to make the full size block. I'll probably make a few more and sew them together.

Smaller improv star block
I used my new design wall to put the blocks together and to take pictures. It really is great. I don't know how I worked without it!
Blocks on my new design wall :-)
Here's the gang so far!
Blocks 1 to 4

What I learned
  • If I ever fell on my head and decided to make another Postcard from Sweden quilt, I would still use batik fabrics, but instead of matching the value of the original quilt, I would just place my fabrics randomly. I think that as long as there was a good range of values in the fabrics, it would come out great. This would take a fraction of the time to make.
  • I used some very light batiks from a couple of charm packs since I don't have anything that light in my stash. Getting a variety of charm packs could also work for a random version of this quilt.
  • I just love sewing pieces of fabric, cutting them and sewing them back together, without any pattern or plan. That, of course, is why I love improv piecing 😊
  • My design wall is holding up really well. I'm very happy with it.
Related links
Linking Parties
I will be linking this post to MMM! Quilt's Postcard from Sweden Quilt Along, to April's OMG once it's up as well as Alida's Starry Bright Sky link-up (my earlier post ever!) Needle & Thread Thursday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Linky Tuesday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Moving it Forward Monday,


Posted by at 9 comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Sunday, April 01, 2018

March finishes and April beginnings


I've had a great time with a friend. A weekend full of playing, gabbing and eating. Of course the playing involved textile - and even paint!

Colour Vie Pigment System

In the fall, Gunnel Hag was a guest speaker at the September Out of the Box meeting. She is a textile artist who became allergic to commercial dies. She worked with a company to develop the Colour Vie Pigment System which is water-based and eco-friendly. I bought a starter set at the meeting and was hoping to visit my girlfriend, the artist, to try these out. Well my girlfriend is visiting this weekend and we've been playing with Colour Vie.

We did some experimenting with the colours and this is my practice fabric. I think I'm really going to like making marks with Colour Vie.
Trying out and making marks with Colour Vie
Do you remember the FMQ project below from my Learning Quilt-Along ? Lyne and I have started painting little bits of it. It's pretty slow going.

The back of the wholecloth quilt

The blank canvas that we are painting :-)
The painting is coming along. I'll share this with you in a future post.

Starry Bright Sky - Block 3, Origami


For our third month, Alida had us create a star with fabric doing origami.

Origami star














Free-Motion Challenge Quilting Along

I've joined Angela Walter's Free-Motion Challenge Quilting Along. I've missed a few weeks but hope to catch up, or just to do them when I can. I was hoping to make a quick Quilt-as-you-go quilt based on Angela's suggested quilt top, but that's not going to happen. I am doing a Quilt-as-you-go technique but only with solid blocks.

Every week Angela presents two FMQ techniques. Week 6, when I started, was Machine Quilting Wavy Lines & Serpentines.

Wavy lines block

Back of the wavy line block 
I've been drawing the serpentine block for a couple of days. This one is very difficult for me.

One Monthly Goal

I'm hoping to finish my Postcard from Sweden quilt top by the end of the month. Technically it needs to be ready for April 3rd and then quilted by April 11th, but that's only 10 days away....so who knows.

I do have a more recent picture of what is done so far.


April OMG -
Postcard from Sweden quilt top
Great news! Susan of Midweek Makers featured my quilt top on her colourful quilts to herald spring! Thanks Susan 😊

Fibre Fling 7

Fibre Fling 7
To-Do Tuesday: This week I have to finish getting ready for Fibre Fling 7.

I have two quilt labels to sew on the back of my quilts and I have to prepare the bags to delivery the quilts in.


What I learned
  • I really enjoyed making different marks on the practice fabric with Colour Vie. The medium is really great to work with.
  • However, painting all of those really small sections of my wholecloth quilt reminds me too much of the paint-by-number that I ruined when I was a kid. There was no way that I was using more than one brown to paint the ceiling of the Last Supper! 
  • There are a lot of very fiddly little areas to paint (like the paint-by-number), although I least I get to choose my own colours.
  • The Starry Bright Ski Origami block was very difficult to make. I learned years ago that I don't do origami! That's my son's strength, so I did the first part of the folding and he completed it.
  • I am looking forward to doing some of Alida's extra textured 3-D blocks.
  • I'm really enjoying Angela Walter's videos of FMQ designs. I've always had problems with "S" curves, which she calls serpentines. I'm sure that if I practice them enough that I'll get them. I start off well but eventually the echoing either starts getting flat or too curly 😊 
  • I decided that since I'm starting the FMQ challenge late, that I would do a quilt-as-you-go quilt. It's going to be fairly simple, and I can join each quilted block (of different pinks and purples) once I'm done.
  • I'm following Jera Brandvig's instructions in Quilt As-You-Go Made Modern, for joining the blocks. 
Related Links
Linking Parties
I am writing this post at the last possible minute to link up to Starry Bright Night link-up. Let's see how everyone's origami blocks came along. I will also be linking up to April's OMG Link-up the Postcard from Sweden Quilt Along as well as To-Do Tuesday. Off the Wall Friday, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Design Wall Monday, Moving it Forward, Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers,

Posted by at 7 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, March 04, 2018

Starry Bright Sky - Block 2

I am having a really hard time this winter - I seem to make my deadlines by only few hours. Not really good but then I guess that's what happens when life is busy. At least it's done.

Starry Bright Sky - Block 2

Updated March 8, 2018
Block 2 - Traditional piecing (final block) :-)


This is the second block in Alida's Starry Bright Sky quilt-along. It was a fairly simple block to make and included half-square triangles and 4-patch strips. It went together well, with most seams matching. That's always my challenge.

I used a solid blue and bright yellow, with a slightly textured very light yellow for the 4-patch units in the middle. Both picture were taken after dark, so neither is a really good representation, but the colours in the bottom picture are more accurate. However, you can see the slight circular shapes in the light fabric better in the upper picture.

To add some interest to the blocks, I've decided to use at least one non-solid in each block. It will probably be in the yellow (or orange) fabric since I have lots of tone-on-tone yellow fabric. I learned from last year's quilt-along that I quickly get tired of solids.

Block 2 - Traditional piecing
A pretty block but not a star!
Oops, as I posted the picture to the link-up, I noticed that my star didn't look like the others....because it's not a star!!! (Groan....) It would seem that my half-square triangle blocks are not on correctly. I didn't really have to fix the block, since, as Alida said, they are all just variations of the same block, but I really wanted some stars.
March OMG

One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I am keeping my OMG simple for March. I will be finishing up my  "Not playing the supporting role!" quilt, which I finished FMQ as my February OMG.

It now needs to be trimmed and the binding added. The great news is that the binding is all cut and ready to go in a bag that I still know where it is :-)

What I learned

  • I took the time to read all of the instructions and make notes, but still managed to cut double the amount of blocks I needed. Not sure how that happened. Anyway, I trimmed 4 of them to 2" and may use them to make the second variation of this block. Well see...
  • After my oops moment above, I may want to compare the picture of my block to the block on the pattern!
  • I fixed two of the half-square triangle units and thought I was done :-(  I think I may need another vacation....
  • I am keeping my OMG simple this month since I have to get my quilts ready for Fibre Fling 7. This mostly involves deciding on the quilts, doing the paper work and ensuring that they all have sleeves and labels. I'm sure that I will do my FMQ this month, but I don't want to commit to anything specific. You see, I am learning 😊 

Related Links
Linking Parties - I will be linking this post to the Starry Bright Night Quilt Along Link-up, and to the March OMG goal setting link-up. Let's see what everyone is up to!
Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward, Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Maker, Needle & Thread Thursday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday,

Great news! My star block (the correct one) was featured by Susan on Midweek Makers. Thanks!
Posted by at 10 comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, February 04, 2018

Starry Bright Sky - Block 1

The deadline is today. I feel like the baseball player who just slides onto first base, just before the first base-person catches the ball! I'm not sure where that came from except that I was hustling it when doing my zigzag stitch!
Block 1 - Appliqué of Starry Bright Sky QAL

Block 1 - Starry Bright Sky

I realised yesterday that I still hadn't started my first block. I really considered not playing along this year, but Alida does such a great job, and I really liked and learned from last year's quilt along, so it wasn't a very difficult decision to make.

I hadn't even thought about fabric. Thank goodness it didn't take long to take out all of my dark blue Kona solids and my printed yellow fabrics. They are now in a project bag, waiting for the next block. 😊

Alida's instructions mentioned using fusible web interfacing. I'm not sure if it's the same thing but I used some Heat & Bond adhesive. I'm not sure if there is a difference, but it worked fine. I tend to skip those part of the instructions but decided to use the adhesive since I didn't want the star to move around while doing all that zigzag.

I have now completed my To-Do Tuesday goal! Now for my OMG (One Month Goal)...

"Not playing the supporting role!" Quilt

I have now finished free motion quilting (FMQ) in-the-ditch most of the seams in the quilt - as many as I'm going to anyway.

I'm looking forward to playing some more. I want to stitch each block, but not too densely since this is my cuddle quilt - perfect with a good book (or my Kobo).
All the seams have been stitched - now the fun begins!
Landscape Quilt

This is the funky landscape Jo liked
One of my daughter's friend graduated from nursing school last year and is now a Registered Nurse, living in her first apartment. She's a real sweetheart and always has nice things to say about my quilts. So my daughter showed her a few of my quilts and she decided on a funky landscape quilt. It's going to be fairly wide but I'll keep it simple and play with the embellishments.

It's always easier for me to have a picture to use when creating these, even if I don't always follow them, so here are the pictures that I chose. My plan is to use the first picture below as the background and to add the driftwood logs (without me) in the foreground.
The Rockies

Driftwood logs for the foreground
My husband and I took these pictures in British Columbia a few years ago. I've always wanted to make them into a quilt, so here's my chance.

My goal for To-Do Tuesday this week is to start on this quilt by auditioning fabrics. If it's going to be a funky landscape, I'm thinking that some colourful batiks could be cool.

What I learned

  • Since I don't use adhesive web very often, I forgot that you have to place the pattern on the wrong side of the fabric. I figured that out when I came to iron the applique piece to the background. Oops! Of course by then I had cut out and fused all of the pieces....so I had to start over. It did go faster the second time around. 😊
  • I'm happy to report that I played with the zigzag setting and adjusted the width of the zigzag as I came to the points in the pattern. I only did that for the orange flame pieces, but I'm glad that I remembered. It really did a much better job.
  • I went back to work on Thursday and was very zen. I wish I could say the same for Friday. It felt as if I had never left :-(  I did like the idea of being in for only two days for my first days back. It was great to have a weekend after that Friday! I'm sure that I will get into the swing of things soon.
Related Links

Linking Parties

I am linking this post to the Starry Bright Night Quilt Along Link-up, as well as the next To-Do Tuesday link-up. Check out what is going on out there in quilt-land: Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? MOP Monday, Free Motion Mavericks, Finished or Not Friday, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Design Wall Monday, Linky Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social, Needle & Thread Thursday,

Great news - my "Not playing the supporting role!" Quilt was features on Free Motion Mavericks! Thanks Muv 😊


Posted by at 12 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)