Wednesday, April 24, 2019

April Finish and a Blue and White Parade

It was pretty windy when I took photos of my quilts, but I was able to capture a few pictures hanging relatively flat between the gusts.
Finally! My Buggy Wheels quilt is finished.
I think it's my new favorite of all the quilts that I've made.
This was my One Monthly Goal for April and I am so pleased with how it turned out. 

Most of the quilting is continuous curves which ended up looking like orange peels. 



My next finish was the Hunter's Star top. I cut this quilt out using an Accuquilt die.
 I need to put that die to work and cut out a scrappy version too--it's on the "someday" list. 

In my previous post I mentioned the video I found to accomplish the quilting--love the texture that it added!



Since I was on a crazed quilting roll, I loaded up my Half and Half quilt on the HQ16 and put out the call for quilting ideas. 

I ended up doing an edge to edge design that looks a lot like a stipple--a pantograph called Amoebas Gone Wild.

And, lastly, I managed to complete the hand quilting on Arctic Circles. I did big stitch quilting (actually, really big stitching---lol!) using Cosmo Multiwork--a two strand embroidery floss that comes on a spool--so easy to use! 

Whew--that was a lot of finishes for one month!
 I would love to take a long nap now, but quilt camp is coming up at the end of the week and I have a lot to get done to be ready to go! 

Linking with One Monthly Goal HERE
April link-up is open!!

Friday, April 12, 2019

An April Update

Well, the good thing about the continuing snow is that I can stay inside and work on UFO's instead of doing yard work. It's beginning to look like winter will never end here.
Before I started working on my UFO's, I finished up the next twelve Stonefield's blocks that I had prepped. 

Finally! I got to do everyone's favorite block--The Owl and the Pussycat--so cute! I changed out almost every fabric in the kit except for the pea green boat and moon.

I had a lot of angst trying to decide how to quilt my Buggy Wheels (which in error I have been calling Wagon Wheels) quilt. I printed out a couple pages of the block from my EQ program and used a Pilot Frixion pen to doodle some designs. The beauty of using the Frixion is that I can iron the  sheets of paper and start over until I find a design I like. In the end, neither of these made the cut, but my quilt is finished--just need to add the label--hooray! 




I felt so good about finishing my April goal quilt that I loaded up my Hunter's Star top, hit Pinterest for some quilting ideas, came upon this awesome video for a continuous line quilt design specifically for the Hunter's Star, and finished another quilt in record time! Another hooray!

I haven't been working on much else, although
I am up to date with the Wishing Ring blocks (144) and have another 24 ready to stitch. The way I have been handling them is to fill 6 of my block boards with four blocks each for a total of 24. I have them close to my sewing machine and when I have a few spare moments, I sew some up--pretty painless so far. 


Now my roadblock!
I am completely stumped as to how to quilt the Half and Half top. My only thought is that it would look nice with continuous feathers in the spaces around the stars however, that would require a lot of rolling back and forth or stopping and starting and I would probably have to work that out ahead of time. I'm kind of a "fly by the seat of my pants" type of quilter though, so maybe not.
This one may end up with an edge to edge design......

Back to pondering---Laters!!!

Monday, April 1, 2019

April Monthly Goal

I'm happy that I finished my March quilting goal, but I didn't meet my personal goal of switching out the quilts on my ladder.
Yep--still the same.
In deciding which quilts to put on the ladder, I thought it would be nice to make it an all blue and white display. Then I remembered I had a couple blue and white tops that still needed quilting. 

After some digging, I came up with four blue and white UFO's (not including my Arctic/Summer Circles that I am hand quilting). Oops! 
Sooo......I guess it will be a while before I'm ready to attack that ladder! 

My excuse:
I've completely gone down the rabbit hole working on my Stonefield's blocks--they are just too much fun! This grouping had a few too many pink fabrics in the kit than I was comfortable with, so I added a bit of blue. 

Also, I felt the Mirror blocks needed a little something special, so I raided my little stash of toile prints. 



This is the next grouping I have finished. I didn't replace a lot of the fabrics this time, but did switch them around a bit. 

The designer's notes say that she planned this to be center block of the quilt, so I added an initial to it just in case I do the same.

My four unfinished tops now have their bindings ready and waiting, and one even has a back ready to go too.
Okay--I confess...
it's a small quilt and all I had to do is find a piece long enough to fit it. 

So, here's my One Monthly Goal for April--Wagon Wheels.
I'm so shocked that I haven't finished this quilt, because I do really love it. I've found a nice backing fabric and will do my best to get this one completed and ready to hang on that ladder! 

Linking with One Monthly Goal HERE
April link-up is open!!