Sew Along Time Stitching

The Sew Along is finished!

That means all the clues/steps are posted, 

but I am not out of the woods yet. 

I started stitching rows together.

There were a few false starts. 

Twosies were stitched together then 

one final block added. The last block

received another border piece. 

Yes, I put the whole first row

together upside down, with the

left and top border treatment 

turned around.  Started picking,

then restarted. 

All that picking and I still 

ended up with a "What?" area.  

Two border blocks together

since one block is turned. 

I made it thru the blocks minus 

the bottom row and placed them 

on the design wall. 

Can I say 'Holy Hannah, this thing is huge!"

I obviously missed the dimension talk

and happily sewed on, making a quilt 

that would cover my entire family!

This is when I again noticed a block

just a little different and had to 

do some rearranging.

 

I began to notice the size overwhelming 

my design wall, so only 6 blocks made it into 

each row. It is now 75" wide without 

the 10" border added ( 1 1/2" + 3 1/2 " on each side) 

and it is 84" long,

It should finish about 96" square complete,

 which is a bit out of my comfort zone. 

I do like the design and other than a few 

too light browns, the first and secondary 

patterns are wowzer!

Soo...I think I will make one more block, 

then split the top into 2

using a 5 x 5 arrangement.

Each should be around 65" x 65" and 

the pieced border will be added to the top 

and bottom to step up the length. 

That is the current plan. 

Update. 

Two tops  ready for the pieced border.

Yay!  More stitching to come later in the 

week after guild planning and enjoying 

beautiful summer weather.  

We even listened to symphony in the park!

Look at that beautiful sky !

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Handmade Monday

Monday Musings

Sr SPS

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Needle & Thread Thursday

Finished or Not Friday

Design Wall Friday

Home Matters

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Patchwork & Quilts

Great Buys , Stash increase!

One quilter's extras are another one's stash.

A quilt group I belong to took a small road trip

to a sale run by a group of Quilters

who spent many years wintering in the south!

Truly Canadian Snow Birds. One had moved into a smaller space,

and the other two were just overwhelmed by their excessive stashes.

They decided to liquidate some and we were happy to help.

I managed to break my fast of fabric purchasing,

and ended up with a quantity of nice backing fabric.

They were also selling some recycling bags of big bits.

I couldn't resist and grabbed a surprise bag of goodies.

Here's a quick rundown of  my wonderful purchase.

The backing fabrics were about 3 meters each,

with one surprise of 4 meters when I got home.

They needed a nice wash and then into 

 the bin with the other backings.

The goodie bag yielded almost 10 m of

yardage!!

This beautiful red, and

a lovely forest print with silvery trunk tree trunks,

I also found  rich green that I just fell in love with,

but I later noticed that it is a cemetery print!

This beautiful techy type black and white print,

will really enhance a scrappy front.

The total increase for my stash this year is:

 42 m from this great sale 

8.5m Jan- Jun

50.5  YTD Purchased

Used  5 m, 3 m ( baby quilt)

42.5 total Purchased YTD

There are a few items near 

finishing so the numbers 

will change soon. 

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with: 

Stash Report

Donation Sewing

 The end of the meeting year 

caught one of the groups I attend,

with quite few quilts unfinished. 

Ever the optimist,

I asked for a bag and received,

seven quilts to tie or stitch up.

This group ties all their quilts.

So to prepare for tying, the quilts are

layered right sides together with batting,

stitched leaving an opening,

then turn right side, and a faux 

binding stitched around the outer edge.

I don't like to tie so I quilt some of these quilts.

Puckering usually isn't a problem.

If it feels or looks like it may pucker or shift, 

some pinning seems to stabilize it enough 

to get a smooth look without bunching. 

Here's a look at the ones I finished up so far.

Please note, I did not make these beautiful quilts,

 I am just doing the final step so they can be labeled and donated.

 

They were great fun to do 

and I certainly need practice to 

get used to my new sewing room buddy, 

a Bernina 820. 

Happy Stitching!

 

 

 

Ready for a Trip!

 The Crumbs Surrounded  is almost ready for the quilter!

I worked on  it for a good long evening and got most of it ready, 

then started doing the rows. 

A bit of excessive  ambition at the start had 

me picking out the border around the corner stones. 

Since the grey sashing goes into the upper 

part of block, I had to a bit of reworking to make it all fit.  

Once I got a process 

in line, it went together well. 

I added the grey bits to the ends of 

the  pieced low volume beige sashing rectangles 

and it really started to come together!

 Now all it needs is the two center halves joined, 

and the side borders added. 

The outer edges of the border are

stay stitched.  All the seams at the 

edges tend to separate with  a bit of 

handling.  I know tighter stitching would

keep them together but picking that out is 

troublesome. 

This will go off to the quilter 

along with the larger 8s & 10s. 

There is not a lot of backing yardage 

in my stash so I will take 4 -1m+ bits

and join them up to make the back.

I did see a larger piece of yellow batik

in the stacks so that might become the 

main backing. There is not enough

grey remaining to bind this quilt but 

I have some other grey that could slip in 

to fill the gaps.  

It is complete!

The top finishes up at 85" x85".

There is  a nice sized stack of 

pieced 4 1/2"  x 9" strips so they 

will go together with the remaining 

crumb blocks to make a top of some sort. 

It should be interesting!

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with :

Monday Musing

       Design Wall Monday

   SrSPS

     Sew & Tell

To Do Tuesday

Wait Loss Wednesday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished or Not Friday

Design Wall Friday

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Patchwork & Quilts

Oh Scrap

Stitching Stuff

I Got Distracted

 The string fling sew along is almost

to the last step. However, I got distracted and 

dug into my UFOs. The 8s and 10s were calling me,

and after I finished a twin size top,

I moved on to the blocks from the string block race.

Those were finished up,

and all the strip lengths were replenished. 

A few narrow strips might have snuck into

some of the sections, but they will still 

fit nicely together to make blocks.

The project will be easy to carry to

my weekly stitching group.

One visit to the stitching group produced more partial blocks,

so I went on to finish those up,

trim them and remove the papers from everything.

Now I have 51 string blocks.

After a visit to my daughter,

I realized they're using a queen size quilt on a king size bed.

So.... I took the rest of the 8s and 10s blocks,

and put them together to form nine rows of nine blocks.

This should make a nice 90" by 90",

which I'm advised will be perfect for their bed!

There is still some room on my quilt card 

so I can send it off to get  a nice overall pattern. 

One holiday gift sorted!

I have more leftovers!

Twenty one more of these will make a twin

so more stitching ahead!

Sorting out my big  Bernina,

 finalizing some guild program plans,

and getting ready for a family sleepover 

should still allow me to stitch in

some more sewing this week.

Maybe I could work on the sew along top!

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with :

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing

SrSPS

Sew & Tell

To Do Tuesday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished Or Not Friday

Off the Wall Friday

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Patchwork & Quilts

One Monthly Goal!

 Well after 7 months it's finally time for a goal!

My goal for this month is to finish up

two charity quilts  that needs quilting,

and start on my own big stash of quilts to quilt,

My ladder quilt rack is full to bursting!

I started one of mine this morning.

It is ready for trimming, so I pulled out 

this beauty.  

A curved nine patch made with the 

Quick Curve ruler. 

I would have finished, but my sewing partner, Bernie

 decided to be persnickety with my threading.

I gave up in the afternoon and decided to spend

an evening on the couch,

with some old detectives and puzzling mysteries.

Good luck with your monthly goals and 

we'll catch you at the end of the month!

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with : 

One Monthly Goal

Alberta in the Summer

 Every morning before starting my day,

I join a friend outside for a walk

around our small Alberta community.

Our province has a lot of varied topography,

and I've seen two small quilts lately

 that illustrate this wonderfully.

The first one, you may have seen before 

as it hangs on the wall of my sewing room.

It is a small 26" x 7" depiction of Alberta 

done in 1" finished squares.

If you look closely you can see, 

starting at the bottom:

Green fields, 

golden fields (wheat),

yellow fields (canola),

green (forests) , blue  (lakes), 

green ( old timber) , grey, brown

and purple( mountains ), then big blue sky!

This was part of an estate clear out and 

I treasure a fellow quilter each time I look at it. 

These little mug rug "Albertas" (6 "x 12") are made 

with 1" strips and depict our ripening 

canola fields of late summer. 

They are very interesting and backed with 

Canadian trivia fabric. They are perfect host gifts 

that are traveling off to Europe with a friend. 

They are made by ER and BK. 

Enjoy this quickie tidbit 

on some beautiful quilting. 

Stay safe and sew on !