the book quilt

The final sharing period for the Summer Book Club Quilt-Along quilts is happening on Instagram now (look for the hashtags #summerbookclubqal and #sbcqalgp for finished quilts and tops), so I can FINALLY share my whole quilt!

(I mean, I guess I could have shown it earlier, but this is more fun, right?  Also, there may have also been six other quilts needing to be shared after finishing, so I can wait...)

Way back in May, I signed up for this quilt along.  I purchased the quilt block patterns - there are a few different books - and then almost talked myself out of it.  It was paper piecing, after all.  But one day, after seeing blocks start popping up on my Instagram feed, I decided to give it a try.  I mean, this was paced out over quite a few months and there were prizes, too.  Who doesn't like a bonus of prizes?!

And I sewed the first one...

...and it was all over.  I was hooked.  My fussy cutting was a little off (I got better as I made more), but I absolutely was in love with this block.

So I did some math, figuring out how many blocks using a standard border and then figured out how many I needed to make each day to have all the blocks done by the time we needed to start sewing the tops together.  It was a ton of fun seeing what fabrics others chose and I had a blast raiding my stash for fabrics that might not get used anywhere else.  (Well, maybe the back of a quilt or a pillowcase, but for my usual style, larger prints often aren't usable.)  I found fabrics I forgot I had.  And used up bits and pieces of fabrics I had just a little bit left - the binding on this block, for example.

The paper piecing wasn't bad.  There aren't that many pieces for each block and I only sewed ONE piece backwards in the whole quilt!  That's a huge win for me!  (But paper piecing is still not my favorite method of block construction!)

You've seen all the blocks as they've been made, so I'll skip ahead to the deciding how to lay it out part...  Originally I planned to do a straight layout, using the borders already sewn around each block as a sashing of sorts.  But then I saw one that was offset and went "hmmm..." So, with some help from the cats, I tried out a few options.

I guess I didn't upload (or save...oops!) the layout choice photos, but I did think long and hard before deciding that I liked the straight layout after all.  The offset I would have used wasn't much and for either a horizontal or vertical offset of just about an inch, it really didn't have a lot of impact.  I decided to just go with the straight setting, squinted a little at where all the blocks ended up on the floor, moved a few and decided I could spend a week rearranging and it wouldn't get better.  It's busy and colorful and just needed to be put together.

The top came together quickly, and before I knew it done!

Then my hubby left for vacation without me.  I had time off from work, so it was a vacation for me, too, just one taken at home.  That included Starving Emma.  And I decided, after chatting with a quilty friend, to make it a Longarm Week and try to quilt as many tops as I could.  I imagined one per day, but didn't set that in stone because you just never know.  (But you all know I made it!)  This quilt was first on the list.  It had an actual deadline, soonest of the quilt-along deadlines, and I was excited to be able to use it once it was finished.

You can see the back a little here, as I took a photo just before starting the last pass, but here is a better shot:

I was at my local quilt shop, looking for something else entirely (exactly what I can't remember...) and found this.  It just seemed perfect.  Like keeping track of how many books you've read this year or this summer or whatever.  And so I bought the end of the bolt, hoping it would be enough.  Knowing if it wasn't, I could figure out something.  But it was perfect.  I got lucky!

I chose to quilt it with a motif that makes me think of cotton bolls, but I'm calling it popcorn because that seems more fitting with a book.  You can sort of see the motif in the photo above...but it might be better in a minute with the whole finished quilt photo, too...

After the quilting was done, I knew I needed to do a scrappy binding.  So I raided my stash of leftovers, added up lengths as I pulled them out of the mess (it was tidy once...it is not any more...and the pile is still rather large...) until I had the right amount, sewed them together...

...and then onto the quilt.

Since this was the first day of my Longarm Week, I sat down with needle and thread (I opted for off-white, as it matched the back fabric and would hopefully hide any sins of hand-binding!), cranked up the Netflix and some Gilmore Girls, and started a binding marathon.  I had no idea if I would finish that night before bedtime, but I was going to make a good effort.

Turns out, if you can just sit down for a stretch of time (don't forget your thimble!), uninterrupted, you can actually sew a whole quilt binding on in a few hours!

It took a few days to get a good day for photos, but I dragged it outside and hung it on the line.

The clothesline sags in the middle, so it looks crooked here, but it's fine.  I'm just a bad photographer.  Or impatient...

I love it.

The grey-overdyed muslin I used for the background is a little stiff.  I'm a little worried that it will fade since I didn't wash it before I used it, but I'm hoping that it will soften with washing and won't fade.  Of course, I'll throw in a color catcher, but there's still a chance.

It measures 64x63", so a little wider than tall, but not enough to make it look wacky.

And a few more photos from along the way...

Lexie plopped in the middle of a block as I was trying to take a photo.  She gets ideas that she needs ALL the pets RIGHT NOW and pursues them seriously.  This was one of those times.

And of course, Kevin helped with the book about Minions!

In other, more recent quilty news, I purchased some purples and a few more lights for the quilt for my niece.  The photo below is all the fabrics, but the ones in the pile on the left are the new additions.

I still need to do some math to see how many of each color to cut, but I hope to start tomorrow.  Maybe tonight, but my book is calling to me and it has been neglected quite a lot lately...also a nap sounds kinda good...

And, of course, the 100 blocks project continues.  I worked ahead by a few blocks today so I am caught up through Saturday.  I have to work both Friday and Saturday, and would like a full day to work on Adrian's quilt (at least to get pieces cut and paired up to be ready for sewing), so I decided I would take today and make a few extra blocks.

Some of these are SUPER simple, but that makes up for others that are none too fun (loads of half square triangles anyone?!).  At #48, I'm nearly halfway done.  Some days it feels like more of a chore than fun to make these, but I'm committed to finishing.  And I'm sure, like many other projects that seem to stretch out forever, once it's done, I'll love it.

So that's all that's new around here.  With a finished quilt, it makes me look like I've gotten more done than I really have since the last blog post, but I haven't been lazy either!

Happy quilting!

Katie

just keep sewing...just keep sewing...

Some days I feel like I've gotten myself in over my head with these quilt-alongs.

And then I catch up and I feel better.

No extra sewing this week for any new projects (though one is in the works...more on that in a minute), but lots of blocks to show!

First, the next installment of the 100 blocks in 100 days, blocks 23-30!

(I really AM trying to keep this from becoming a cat-centric quilt, but...)

(...this one went better in my head...)

This gets me caught up through today.  Tomorrow I'll make another batch, as that seems to be working for me - to make three or four at a time and then focus on other projects.

Other projects like the books!

I sewed up the remaining covers for the last eight yesterday, but still have to put sashing/borders on those.  A few others were completed earlier and make up the remaining 11 that are needed for my plan.

(this one looks so much like records!)

I hope to get the remaining borders/sashings sewn on tomorrow, as my needle REALLY needs to be changed, but until I'm done sewing through paper, I hesitate to put in a new one.

This afternoon, instead of cleaning the house up some, I opted to sew more on the jelly roll quilt along quilt.  For some reason, I'm having trouble getting into this one.  I was all in when I first saw it and excited to sew.  But now, it's like a chore.

Earlier in the week, I forced myself to sit down and sew two columns.  Not blocks.  Because it seemed columns would be easier to keep track of.  And they probably are, but there are a LOT of pieces to sew.  So...I'm doing two columns at a time, leader-ender style.

The first two:

(The color is faded out, but I layed these out down my upstairs hallway and the window provided a nice, bright effort to wash everything out...of course, the other end is dismally dull by comparison, but who ever said taking photos in an old house was easy?!)

And after the second round of effort tonight:

Taken from the opposite end of the hallway, we have exactly the same problem.  (Also, please note that that is NOT a real bug.  It's a cat toy.  It functions like a hex bug...I think...before the battery ran out.  Now it serves as a noisy thing to whap around while I am trying to sleep.  It is NOT a good toy to play with during daylight hours.  Or when mom is awake.  Nope.)

But you can start to see the "waves" forming.  Two more columns and I will be joining the long, dreaded seams.  Hopefully the last set will have me more motivated, but at this point I want it finished and will push myself to at least get it into a top.

Because there is another quilt to be made!

Remember my friend Sarah?  The one who, because of her pregnancy, got me to start quilting?

Well.

Her daughter, the daughter that got THE first quilt, is pregnant.  In her mid-20's and married, so a very different situation than her mother faced, but pregnant no less.  I don't know the daughter.  I'm not sure if I've even met her.  (Sarah and I live only an hour apart, but I'm sure you all know exactly how it goes when your friends have kids and you don't, or vice-versa!  Me being in college during the birth of at least two of hers didn't help the situation of meeting them either.)  But I do believe this "bun in the oven" needs a quilt.

I've already chosen a pattern, but am trying very hard to finish up a couple of quilt (tops) - the books and the jelly roll quilt - before I purchase fabric.  Because I know once the fabric is here, it will be an awful temptation to start working on that instead of what SHOULD be done.  (Also, baby is not due till early 2020...2020?  Sheesh, where is time going?!)  But when that all starts to happen, you know I'll be sharing progress!

And with that, I need to get going.  Busy couple of days coming and I'd better make the most of the time I have!

Happy quilting!

Katie

chelsie's baby quilt

I know I've been teasing some about the baby quilt, but I wanted to give the quilt before the final reveal.  That happened yesterday afternoon, so it's safe!

I worked with Chelsie at my last job, in the lab.  Her job and mine were different, but we saw each other every day and, as happens in a small space with a small group, chatted often.  She was a hard worker, never complained no matter how long the hours or how hot the room became, and she's a good person.  But when I left the job, we didn't exactly stay in touch.  Social media, yes, but that isn't the same.  One day, she posted she was pregnant. I debated for a while about making her a quilt.  Since we aren't really friends outside of the apps on our phones, I felt it might be a little strange, so I talked myself out of it.

But then, about three weeks ago, I got a text from another former coworker.  They were planning a baby shower for Chelsie and did I want to come.

YES!

And instead of freaking out about the short timeline, I just went looking for a pattern.  I knew once that part was solved, I would be fine.  I first went to Pinterest - I have a lot of quilts saved there for inspiration - but found nothing that truly grabbed me for her.  So I turned to my stash of books.  And I found a pattern that looked both relatively simple, but also looked like her.

Off I went to buy fabrics!

And the back too!

I washed and ironed everything and then got started cutting.  My hubby grumbled, theorizing that I would abandon him for weeks to get this done.  But I knew better.  After my Project Quilting experience, I knew that three weeks was plenty of time and I would still be able to pay him some attention.  And eat and stuff.

Cutting the pieces went quite fast.

But I need to mention here that I redrew the pattern some.  The original did not have a full photo of the quilt and only a drawing of a "block" that, when I added things up, did not seem to be a block at all, but a center of the quilt with multiple borders or something.  I wanted this quilt somewhat smaller (original is 60x80" and I thought a 60x60" would be plenty large, but also allow the design to remain present), so I drew and made notes and cutting instructions.

Anyways, then I went on to match the strips sets, as the original is based on a jelly roll and charm pack...

This was getting exciting!  These colors are so much fun and that blue with the wavy lines (they're actually dots) reminds me of swimming pools in the summertime.

The sewing part went very quickly as well and before I knew it, I was ready to lay out the quilt.  That waited a few days, as I wanted to vacuum my design floor first.

But it seems that even if there was no cat hair on the carpet to attach itself to the back of the quilt, Freddie was there to help make sure the fronts of the blocks had their share.

This layout stayed on the floor a bit longer than average, as I had to sew some white strips to the square blocks and such.  Freddie eventually got bored and moved on to chasing something else, but for a while there, it was rough.  And he's a little stinker with the claws...he and Gabby both...my legs and arms are proof!

These rows seemed to take forever, but there are quite a few of them, despite the central block with borders design.  And I had to make sure to keep orientations correct on blocks to keep the colors distributed evenly.  (But honestly, once it was done, it probably wouldn't have been that noticeable!)

Finally, I waited for a cooler day to run the longarm.  We had a night that it got down into the low 60s, so I jumped at the chance to quilt that morning.  The lights heat up the room quickly and I wanted to be out of there before the day got too warm!

I got this far and the second bobbin ran out.  Boy was I annoyed, but I did have another wound.

I quilted with swirls of varying size all over.  I feel like it was kind of a cop-out because it's an easy pattern, but this quilt would have taken forever if I did ruler work.  And, as you can see in the above photo, there was a little poofiness that needed to be quilted out.  It didn't seem to be there until I got it on the longarm, but it quilted out just fine.  It might have been harder to disguise if I had chosen the ruler work option.

I trimmed it and sewed the binding down yet that day.  The house stayed cool and I decided to just keep going.  You never know what kind of weather you'll get here in the summer (the last three days, we've neared 100 and today it topped out at only 74!), so I took advantage of the cooler temperature to get it sewn down by hand.

Of course, I procrastinated the label until the night before, but what's a good quilt if there isn't at least something going on last-minute, right?!

I had my hubby hold the quilt up Sunday morning to get a photo, and since it was raining, the front porch shot is the best I could do.  (Sorry for the bird feeder in there.  He was feeling particularly put-upon for this photo shoot, so "nagging" him to hold it "properly" would have gone poorly...)

And there it is!  The finished quilt in all its glory.  A little washed out here, but you can see the pattern nicely.  Even the quilting in some spots!

The pattern: "Stars and Stripes"

By: Brioni Greenberg

From: "25 Ways to Sew Jelly Rolls, Layer Cakes & Charm Packs" book

Size: 60"x60"

But I can tell you, this pattern was difficult.  Not because of the construction, but because of errors.  When I started to notice things were off (like telling me to cut those white strips at 1/2"), I went looking for errata online.  I found nothing.  I was even hard pressed to find the publisher.  Published in 2013, and knowing how quickly new books and patterns are released, I can understand why I found little.  And I hesitate to strongly criticize the author because I know she put a lot of work into this, but there were some glaring errors that, had I not redrafted the pattern smaller and caught them as I went, I would have been really angry at having wasted my fabric.  Thankfully all was well and I had a wonderful quilt to give.

The baby shower was small and I was surprised that, other than her mom and grandma, all attendees were former coworkers.  And just a small handful of us at that.  I'm not sure who all else may have been invited, but Chelsie made a comment about who her real friends are and it broke my heart.  Here is this young girl, trying her best to do the right thing (I'm not sure she gets a lot of good, positive help from family and her situation is not picture-perfect ideal either), having to play it cool at 8 1/2 months pregnant, about her "friends."  It made me want to go buy her more stuff.

But she loved it.  She's not a very expressive person about things like this, but I know she liked it.  She didn't want to open it up - I think she was afraid she'd start crying (she's tough like that, but at this stage of pregnancy, we all know anything is possible!) - but the others told her she had to.  And I think her grandma knew what she had...grandmas are like that!

So that's the third in the trio of baby quilts this spring/summer.  The other two little ones have arrived (the second one just last week) and Chelsie is due very soon.  They seem to come in threes for me and this spring did not disappoint.  I'm just thankful I have the means and machinery to be able to do this.  And though shopping for baby clothes is fun (everything is cuter when it's tiny!), I feel a quilt is so much more meaningful and long-term useful.

And while I'm here, why not share my latest of the 100 blocks and the books?!

Block #17-22

(Pardon the number on block 21.  I'm also sharing them via Instagram for the quilt-along, and I have been uploading them with block numbers there, just to keep track...and I guess I deleted the one without the number already...)

I have two more done, but will wait to share those until they have been posted officially (also read: I forgot to upload them and am lazy)...

And the books!  I am up to 45, so here are #38-45

At one per day, these get me through Wednesday this week.  I'm working ahead some because I have to work tomorrow and Wednesday I am heading north to quilt with a few friends!  (I'm not sure how much quilting I'll get done, as we chat a lot, but I'm excited even if I don't sew a stitch!)

Only 11 more to go!

Wait, only 11?

Holy cow!

What will I be taking north?  The jelly roll quilt!  But that has progressed as well!

I started by sorting the piles of strips into sub-piles.  To make sure every color was represented with each part of the block, I made even piles and then sewed with abandon!

I neglected to take a photo after sewing, but you get the idea I think.

Then, again to keep colors evenly spaced, I layed them out all over my living room floor.  This quilt will finish 60x60, but without all those seam allowances taken up, it takes up significantly more space.

Of course I had help.

Always helping.

I have one more photo (not uploaded) of him on the full top.  He never left, but he did settle down some.  Until the safety pins came out to attach row markers.  Apparently safety pins have secret catnip-like powers.  I never knew.

I quickly picked it up because those catnip-safety pins were really becoming too much to manage...but apparently that photo has gone missing.  Oh well, it wasn't very exciting.  But they are all labelled to be sewn into columns on Wednesday.  So other than paying some attention to orientation of that white piece (it makes the wave!), it should be an easy project if I do end up sewing.

And one last cat photo...

I was sewing merrily along today and turned around to find this.  Crashed out crazy beast.  Sleeping between "toys"...he's such a goofball.

And with that long post, I need to go eat something for dinner and get myself into bed fairly early.  Work tomorrow and sewing Wednesday means I need to sleep well the next few nights.  But I'll be dreaming of more books and other quilts!

Happy quilting,

Katie