The Home Stretch!!

The Community Quilt came back from the quilters and Oh!  What a beauty!  It always amazes me how the quilting can really make a quilt sing!  Since I am a hand quilter and don't have experience "sending out a quilt", I didn't realize it would come back all trimmed and ready for binding.  BONUS!  So yesterday morning, I made a scrappy bias binding, thinking that a scrappy binding would play nicely with the scrappy top.  I'm getting better and better at making continuous bias binding - practice makes perfect!

To make the binding, I picked a couple of fabrics that I had less than a fat quarter of, but at least a square of 13", and used them all up.  Man, that feels good!  Although I'm going to miss this fun fabric!

I picked up the quilt in early afternoon, and used the time before my kids were done with school to sew the binding to the front by machine.

You can see some of the quilting here.  I think she called the design she used "Blooming Feathers."

Then I spent a lovely evening working on sewing the binding down to the back by hand.  In some ways, this is my favorite part of making a quilt!  So easy and relaxing and SO CLOSE TO THE END!

Binding Clips, how I love you!!  Those metal snap shut barrettes served me well for years, but these binding clips are just THE BEST!

But, of course, I can't just work on one thing at a time, so my leader and ender for the day was Block 10 of the Westering Women BOM, Rocky Mountain Chain.

I didn't cut off the points on the right in real life, just in my photos.

My fabric placement is a bit different than suggested, but I really like how this one turned out!  And HURRAY!  No Y seams!  Thank you, Barbara!!

Oh, and one last little bit.  This is a bit of bragging, but so much has been going "wrong" in my life these days, I want to focus on what is going "right" even if to do nothing more than cheer myself up.  When I picked up the quilt from the long arm quilter, I met her at our Monday quilt group.  When I came back from putting the quilt in the car (after showing it off to everyone there, of course), she was raving about my piecing, how row after row was exactly the same size and how she never sees that.  Again, having never sent quilts out for quilting, I didn't even realize this is important.  She said that if she graded construction on a scale of 1-100, she'd give mine a 95.  A for the day!!  Whew!  Putting blocks together made from over 60 people with different levels of experience was a bit challenging, but it worked out.  I guess taking the time to square up my blocks at every step is worth the trouble after all (although when I am doing it, I am grumbling the whole time, wanting to rush ahead with more piecing).

Have a great day, everyone.  And no matter what happens in our Presidential Election here in the US today, remember that we here are all united in our love of quilting.

I'm linking up with Monday Making and Oh, Scrap!

Chimney Rock Block

I was determined to catch up on my Westering Women BOM blocks before the new block was released today, and I did it!  I did the re-drafted (read: no Y seams!) version of the block, and while it isn't perfect, I'm quite pleased with it.

But, considering my aversion to Y seams, can you imagine my dread when I saw September's block, which was released today?

image credit: http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/09/westering-women-9sage-bud-for-fort.html

I'm redrafting it, no question!

I DID IT!!! (and I'll be happy to never do it again)

I've enjoyed participating in Barbara Brackman's Westering Women BOM.  Well mostly, anyway.  There have been two months so far where the block included set-in seams, so I've skipped those months.  I'm a wimp, I know.

But in light of my recent victory over my fear of machine quilting, I decided to suck it up yet again and give those Y seams a try.  First stop, March's block, Sweet Gum Leaf.  Lord have mercy, that block nearly killed me!  I labored over it all day long! (well, in between helping customers and restocking yarns and paying bills and all the rest that goes on during the course of a day in my shop)  But still, just one block to show for my day!

It isn't perfect, but it is done.  I can safely say I'll never make an entire quilt out of that block.  At least not without redrafting it to include all HSTs instead of those blasted parallelograms!  And even though I typically do needle turn appliqué, I sewed that stem on by machine just to be done with it!  Tomorrow, I'll give the other block I skipped a try, August's Chimney Rock.  You can bet the farm that I'll be doing the version WITHOUT set-in seams!

In other news, I shipped out 4 of the projects that I adopted out for the Quilty Adoption Event last weekend.  Congratulations to:

• "Miaismine" for winning the Tropical Fish project
• Christina P for winning the Snails Trails project
• Kelly O for winning the Christmas Stars project
• Jackie for winning the Flannel 9 Patches project

I've emailed Anonymous at valekort at yahoo dot com as the winner of the Scrappy Spools project, but haven't heard back.  If I don't hear back by the beginning of next week, I'll choose a new winner.  Thank you to all of you who volunteered to take some of these projects off my hands.

Since I've divested myself of 10 projects in the last 6 months, I couldn't help but throw my name in the hat to adopt someone else's orphans.  I scored these pieced setting triangles.

Photo credit: http://quiltyfolk.blogspot.com/2016/09/quilty-orphans-up-for-grabs.html

Woo hoo!  I love the idea of pieced setting triangles, but doubt I'd ever take the time to make them.  Now I don't have to!  I do have to come up with a project to set them with, though, and the prospect of that just excites me!

Have a great weekend, everyone!  Tomorrow is my 45th birthday, so I'm having a 45% off sale at my shop, you know, to ensure that I won't be sitting there sad and lonely at work on my special day.  Last year it was a blast, people there all day long.  Hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

Procrastinating

Thanks so much for the encouragement about my row for the Row By Row Experience.  I'm feeling much better about everything.  Now I just have to prep kits - in other words, cut, Cut, CUT!!  I admit to feeling a bit intimidated when faced by this 30 yard pile of fabric (and that's only to make 50 kits!),

so I sewed instead.  First, I pieced the May block for the Westering Women BOM by Barbara Brackman, The Platte River.

Then, when I got home after an 11 hour day at work, I treated myself to an hour of sewing at home!  I have a slight addiction to making these blocks that our Guild is making for our Comfort Quilt effort.

I haven't really liked how they look together, though, so I started playing with alternate layouts.  Perhaps some interlocking wonky stars?

We'll see.  In the meantime, I have some cutting to do.

I was a Westering Woman!!

The second block of Barbara Brackman's Westering Women BOM was released yesterday, so, of course, I made it today.  It was an easy block called Indian.  It seems strange for me to use such big blocks - the center piece is 6.5" square - as most of the quilts I make have much smaller pieces.  But hey, it went together quickly!

I was tickled by the accompanying blog post because it highlighted St. Joseph, Missouri as a "jumping off" point for wagon trains.  In the summer of 1993, I, too, traveled across country, albeit on a motorcycle and not a wagon, and I, too, stopped in St. Joseph, MO.  I left my home in the woods of Maine, and zigzag-ed my way across the country, stopping anywhere I knew somebody or found a youth hostel or cheap motel, and 20 days later arrived at my destination: San Francisco, CA.

This is me on my bike leaving Cambridge, MA in July 1993 after spending the night with my college roommate.  See that spot of yellow underneath the green sleeping bag I have strapped to the seat behind me?  That was my rain gear.  And for those of you who know bikes, this was an 87 Honda Rebel 250cc - can you believe I drove across the Rockies on that little thing???

St. Joseph wasn't a planned stop for me; I didn't know anyone there.  However, it is where I was when I didn't want to ride anymore that day.  I remember staying in an inexpensive motel and eating dinner at a restaurant with an Old West decor, all the way down to wagon wheels!  What really made St. Joseph stand out to me, though, was the fact that I accidentally left my rain gear in the hotel when I left, and I REALLY could have used it the day I drove through Salt Lake City, UT and stopped in West Wendover, NV to spend a stormy night in the WORST rundown deserted motel EVER - it didn't even have a radio or clock, let alone a TV, in the room! - and then the next day from West Wendover to Truckee, CA; it rained BUCKETS those two days and I had no gear to keep me dry.  I lived to tell the tale, though, which is more than can be said for many of those who headed west in days of old.

Today I also pulled out my Carpenter's Wheel HSTs and put another wheel together, plus another center Lemoyne Star.

Terrible nighttime lighting, I know.

I'm wondering about alternating the Carpenter's Wheel blocks with the Lemoyne Star blocks instead of just making Carpenter's Wheel blocks.  What say you?  Yay or Nay?  Am I just being lazy?

Westering Women BOM, Block 1 Done!

I'm an easy mark.  I was reading Lane's blog today, and he mentioned Barbara Brackman's 2016 Block of the Month.  Curious, I clicked over to see what it was.  And just like that, I'm hooked!!

It's called Westering Women, and what I love about it is that she includes anecdotes and illustrations about the westward journey on the overland trails in the 19th century.  Throw in some reproduction fabrics and I'm LOVING it!

The first block is Independence Square.  I have one directional print in there, so I had to unpick one seam where I wasn't paying attention, but otherwise, it went together quickly and easily.

I look forward to next month's block.