Aug 29, 2016
Well after a windy cold day last Sunday we had another heat wave which was wonderful, I love warm weather then on Saturday the weather turned cool again and today you can really feel fall in the air.
I have a project I have been working on last week but I can’t post about it until next week so I thought I would talk about UFO projects (Unfinished Objects) or WIP projects (Works in progress).
I used to never have any of these, hard to believe I know, but I used to just work on one project at a time and finish it before moving on to the next project. Well except for one hand applique project but I will get to that in a minute.
I have a girlfriend who I know will give me a hard time about this post because we used to tease each other about how many UFOs she had to my none. Now I don’t call these projects UFOs because I do intend to finish them all and I will (one day). So here are my WIP projects. I will start from the oldest to the newest.
First up are two quilts that are finished just waiting to be quilted.
The quilt on the left is a Judy Niemeyer Wedding Ring Star that I started about 4 years ago. I finished piecing the top about two years ago. It was the project that I worked on while going through cancer treatment. I could do this as I had everything already organized beforehand so it was just the paper piecing part which once organized is pretty mindless. When I wasn’t too tired or sore I could just sit at the machine and sew. This quilt is still in the “to be quilted pile”. I was waiting until my quilting skills had improved enough to do this quilt justice. My skills are more than there now however I simply haven’t got to this quilt top yet. I even know how I am going to quilt it. Maybe I will get to this soon.
The second it a quilt I started in April and is from a pattern I saw in a magazine that I really liked. This quilt top ended up being big enough for a full size bed! I like the way it turned out. I know you can’t see much of it here but it is next to be quilted so I will show more pics soon.
Now for the quilt tops that are still in pieces.
Here is a hand applique project that I started in a class over 10 years ago now. I used to laugh and say it was my block of the year project instead of my block of the month however truthfully there has been some years I have missed completing a block. I have three blocks to go as well as the centre. I will finish this but I will tell you that once completed it will be a long time before I ever do hand applique again. It’s OK, I don’t hate doing hand applique but I don’t love it either hence the long time in completing this project.
Next up is a Kaffe Fassett diamonds quilt which I cut out over 4 years ago. I cut this out just before my world fell apart and I ended up in a messy divorce. This was my choice, by the way, I decided I didn’t want to stay in a loveless marriage anymore but it did get nasty. As difficult as this time was, as difficult as this decision was, it was the best thing ever!! I now have a partner who is truly a partner in so many ways and I am so grateful for the love and support he has shown me through my cancer and life in general.
I will finish this project one day just not sure when.
Next up is Gravity a Jaybird quilt pattern which was a block of the month for 2015. I loved this pattern and I ordered the kit. I then decided to try to make the quilt from fabrics from my stash along side the kit quilt. I have all of the blocks completed for both quilts, I have all of the background fabrics purchased washed and ironed and there these two sit. Waiting for me to get back to them. These will get finished and I thoroughly enjoyed making the blocks and am really excited about trying the different quilting designs I see on the internet for these quilts so these are a must do. Hopefully soon.
Last but not least is a scrap quilt. One Saturday a month there is a group of us that get together for quilting. I was finding I was so busy catching up with everyone that I couldn’t concentrate on any of my projects that needed a design wall so I wanted something mindless. I dug around in all of my 1.5 inch square bin and came up with all of these red and white squares so I just pieced little 4 patches while sitting sewing and chatting. I am not totally sure what the next step is for this quilt. I have been working on a couple of design options. These will find a home but it may be a work in progress for awhile yet.
Well that’s it for the moment. How many Works in progress do you have?
Quilters affect eternity; they can never tell where their influence stops.
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
Aug 24, 2016
Well I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. I am on my last day of medication. I am still getting tired easily but am on the mend. Needless to say not much quilty has been happening around here. I even took last Friday off and listened to an audio book. I can’t remember the last time I have done that.
One thing I am always amazed at is the synchronicity of events sometimes. Like Monday for instance, I have been working hard towards a goal and am making progress however what with one thing and another I have also been disappointed that the goal isn’t happening faster than I would like. I like to relax watching YouTube videos, some are about entrepreneurship and some are more spiritual in nature. So the other day I opened up YouTube and there in my channel listings was two separate videos on just the subject that I was needing to hear about. The amazing thing is that even though the two videos were different in nature they both had the exact same message and it was the message I really needed to hear that day.
I don’t know why I am surprised at this but it always does surprise me when it happens. I remember taking a double take when I saw the subject line of the videos and saying really, how apropos. It happens enough these days that I really shouldn’t be surprised at all.
I’m curious has this ever happened to anyone else? Maybe it has and you just haven’t been aware of it. Let me know in the comments if you have experienced this.
One thing I did get up to last weekend was to get out for an hour last Sunday as I was getting cabin fever. A knitting store here in Victoria has a Fibre Arts celebration every year and they were having vendors and different demonstrations going on. It was mostly knitting, spinning and weaving but I enjoyed myself even so.
Sunday was windy and cold, you would never have known we had a heat wave just two days before. It was so windy some of the vendors were sitting holding down their tents.
I wandered around happily and talked to a few of the vendors who were from all over the island, some from the Mainland and even one from Seattle.
I do knit but not on a regular basis however I did purchase some hand-spun wool to make Kevin a warm waterproof cap to wear in winter under his hardhat (he works outside on a log sort).
I love this quote I found, even when you have pains, you do not have to be one.
Rather apropos for me last week.
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
Aug 19, 2016
Well, it feels like I have lost a full week. As mentioned in my last post I had health issues with a kidney stone and ended up in hospital last Saturday. Well, my troubles weren’t over. The stone decided not to pass quietly and I have ended up with a bladder infection. Needless to say not much quilting or anything else has been happening this week. The medication I am on makes me dizzy and drowsy. Oh well not much I can do about it. Just have to accept it and hope I get better sooner than later. I did manage to get the surprise quilt I am working on on the frame and the ditch quilting started. Hopefully I can manage to work on this for short time periods over the next few days as it needs to be finished and presented on Labour day weekend.
Yesterday Facebook came up with a memory (as Facebook does) and for me it was of a quilt I posted 2 years ago. This was a mystery quilt done at a quilting retreat. Has anyone ever done mystery quilts?
Mystery quilts are interesting. With mystery quilts you usually get just the yardage and colour value required. Like 12 fat quarters medium to dark value and 2 metres light. It is up to you to go from there. Bonnie Hunter puts out a mystery quilt that starts every American Thanksgiving. With Bonnie’s she actually gives her readers paint chip numbers from Lowes so anyone who wishes to can match the colours Bonnie uses in her mystery quilt.
Once you have picked your fabrics and the mystery starts you get a set of instructions and you go from there. You have no idea what the finished quilt is going to look like until the last part of the mystery is handed out and a picture of the quilt is revealed.
At first the control freak in me hated mystery quilts. I wanted to know what the end project would look like and always worried that I would make the wrong fabric choices. Now that I have learned to relax and trust my sense of colour and design more, I don’t find choosing fabrics for mystery quilts quite so daunting.
Here are some of the pictures from facebook that prompted this trip down memory lane.
As mentioned this quilt was produced at a quilting retreat so there was several of us working on this pattern at once. We were only told yardage and values required nothing else. It was really funny because as we all got to about Part 6 on this quilt we all were wondering what we got ourselves into. I may be remembering this wrong, but I think we all questioned whether we were all making the ugliest quilt top ever. However once we got the last part and put the quilt top together they all turned out beautifully.
I guess it’s sometimes like life, just when you wonder how on earth all of the pieces are going to work together something is revealed and everything falls into place.
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
Aug 15, 2016
Warmer weather is still with us yeah although I didn’t enjoy it much this weekend as I ended up in hospital on Saturday with a kidney stone of all things. Has anyone ever experienced this? If not I wouldn’t recommend it. It is not a lot of fun! I am still not feeling up to par and may go for a nap before today is over even though I have a lot of things that need to get done. Severe pain seems to drain energy but I guess that makes sense. I am fine now other than still feeling very tired.
Lately I have been reading a lot of books on entrepreneurship, the one I am reading right now is The Power of Starting Something Stupid. How to crush fear, make dreams happen, and live without regret. It is by Richie Norton and I am enjoying reading it. The thing with these books is that they make you think! Now that is not a bad thing, it’s actually a good thing but it does mean that if you want to continue to move forward with your life and your goals you will need to put in the work. Sometimes that work is simply to check in with yourself and start to become aware of your feelings and then once you are aware of them to be honest about what you are feeling and experiencing. If the feelings aren’t positive then to really look at them and figure out why. This may sound easy, but in truth it is actually very challenging. It’s easy to get distracted and not dig deeper than the surface to find out what you are feeling and why you might be having the fear that is stopping you from reaching your goals. I am discovering I have a lot to learn but I am also discovering an inner strength and talent that I knew was there hidden but was always afraid to uncover it. Not sure why and I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point. Anyway that is not the point of this blog so on to quilting.
Last week I finished quilting a quilt for a client. This client likes to quilt in her RV (recreational vehicle). I am not sure how big the RV is but all I can say is way to go! This client has a wonderful eye for colour and her piecing is perfect. My piecing is just alright compared to hers. I am not sure what this pattern is called. It is a simple pattern using 5 inch squares and 2.5 inch strips. The block is the same just rotated to make the stair effect.
The client said just something simple so I kept it simple but I just couldn’t do an allover design on this quilt. An all over design would have looked fine and given some texture but that stair stepped negative space kept calling me to do something different in it.
There was a lot of leaves and nature in the fabric designs used in this quilt so I chose to quilt leaves on a vine in the light green areas using Superior Threads So Fine 50 506 and just a simple petal design in the squares. I repeated the leaf and vine quilting design in the border using Aurifil 50 variegated thread colour 4649.
The quilting doesn’t show up so well in the border as there is a lot of colour happening in the border. I think this turned out well and I personally like the look of it better than if I had chosen an all over quilt design for this quilt. The client seemed to agree so I guess that is all that matters.
Well, onto the next project which is another surprise, this seems to be the year of secret projects.
We are responsible for what we do no matter how we feel.
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
Aug 12, 2016
We haven’t had the best summer here in Victoria but today is nice and sunny and warm. It makes me want to take the day off and head to the beach. Oh well, maybe tomorrow afternoon if the weather holds.
I have
my computer in the den which is just off the kitchen and my partner Kevin decided to put a
n old drafting table in the room as well thinking we may use it. Well it got used all right but mostly as a dumping ground for papers etc. After about a year of this he decided that it simply wasn’t working for him so got rid of the drafting table and found a used Roland piano online at Used Victoria. It was in good working order but needed a little TLC. What does Kevin decide to do? Spray paint it red! It then got reassembled and placed in the corner of the den.
I have to admit it does look nice. It gets played too! Not by me really although I do sit down occasionally however I haven’t played piano since I was 9 and I have forgotten anything I might have known.
Kevin can just sit down and play. He makes it up as he goes and it simply amazes me how he can do that.
You can watch him in action here. I am going to recover that piano seat with patchwork. I think that would be appropriate. Kevin says that’s fine as long as it’s black and red.
Ah technology! Don’t you just love it. I sat down two hours ago to write a quick post and here I still am because I wanted to show a video. So how can you do that and do I need to go to YouTube etc. I can’t just upload video to a free wordpress.com account. I took the video from my smartphone and when I downloaded it to the computer it was sideways. So ok how do you fix that. OK I need a new program, so download the program. Oops the computer needs a restart for the program to work. OK done now back to the blog post. OK now you have to find the draft of the in progress draft post, and on it goes. Nothing is ever as simple and as easy as it looks. Of course once you understand what needs to be done it’s fine but sometimes just trying to figure things out the first time you try something is time consuming.
So enough of this, I do have a new quilt to show but I will save that until Monday now. Ah something to look forward to.
Remember to sign up for the newsletter and you get the free pattern for the Inspiration journal. Just click on the picture of the journal itself if you are interested. I am working on the pattern for “the Light Within” quilt and that should be available next week. I send out a separate newsletter every two weeks. Have a great weekend.
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
