Craft Tote Progress

I decided I need to make some sort of project carrier for my EPP (English paper piecing) projects. After I found the byAnnie pattern at the Fat Quarter Shop, A Place for Everything 2.0, I decided it would be perfect.

For my primary print fabric, I chose the black Moda Wildflowers fabric because it coordinated with the black zipper yardage I had ordered. It is quilted with a purple batik. I wanted the interior storage "pages" to be a lighter color so I decided to use white fabric, quilted with the purple batik on the back side.

Since I've ordered a long arm, it was probably insane to quilt these on my home machine but I don't have the long arm yet and I was impatient to get this bag made. It took me most of a day to quilt those diamonds. But I did get to take advantage of a neat trick I read about recently: The Pilot Frixion Gel Ink pens have ink that will disappear when you apply heat, so I was able to draw the diamond grid onto the fabric, sew the lines, and then iron the fabric to make the lines disappear. It was amazing! I did make a few mistakes on the first piece I sewed, but I had it all figured out for the rest of the pieces.

Yesterday, I cut out the rest of the pieces. I'll be honest, it took quite a while to prep all the parts of the bag. It has more than a dozen zippers! 

Hopefully, now that everything is ready, I should be able to just sit down and sew it this coming week. 

I'm linking up with Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday.

Tuesday ToDo #19

I can't believe it's August already. Summer is flying by this year. And it's Tuesday, so it's time for me to check in on my weekly goals again.

1.    Continue to work on the Meadow Flowers Lap Quilt. ✔︎

2.     If I finish the Meadow Flower blocks, trim them down to size and piece the flimsy on the machine. ✔︎

Flimsy finished!! I blogged about it here.

3.    Choose fabrics for the next EPP project. (I've already cut out the papers.) ✔︎

These are roughly the fabric colors I chose. 

Japanese Poppies EPP Lap Quilt

4.    Cut out the fabric pieces for the next EPP project. ✔︎

The fabrics have been cut out with my amazing Cricut Maker (in about 2 hours!) and they're already glued onto the papers. I was a little short on one of the cardstock shapes so I need to cut out some more papers before I can truly declare it finished, but I have plenty to keep me busy for a very long time. Those baggies are for each of the twelve flower blocks.

5.    Continue work on the Unbeweavable Lap Quilt. ❌

I didn't work on this one. I actually started working on a new project that I need more urgently, my August One Monthly Goal. I'll return to the Unbeweavable Lap Quilt when the craft tote is finished.

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For this coming week, I'm going to make a too-long list for all the things I'd like to finish, but there are way too many since I have other, non-sewing projects I also need to work on. I'll do what I can and keep them active on my ToDo list until I can get to them. 

1. Work on my new Craft Tote (A Place for Everything 2.0). OMG
2. Cut out additional papers for the Japanese Poppies EPP (English paper piecing) project.
3. Work on the EPP project whenever we're not at home.
4. Make an appt with Long Arm Dealer for a lesson using the long arm and gather materials to practice on.
5. Continue work on the Unbeweavable Lap Quilt.

Melva Loves Scraps is hosting the linkup for Tuesday ToDo this week. Drop by if you'd like to see what everyone else is working on.

August One Monthly Goal

When I started taking hand sewing projects with me in the car, I looked around for something I could transport them in and I couldn't find anything that worked well. I've been using a food leftover storage container but it's not working very well. It works fine for carrying the thread and small pieces, but once I sew the pieces together they're too big to fit so I end up having to hold them separately and I'll eventually lose one of them if I continue using this container.

So, I started looking around for a pattern for something I could make; I thought I wanted something like a pouch with a bunch of compartments, but it would be nice if it had a strap to carry it over my shoulder. Eventually, I ran across the byAnnie pattern at the Fat Quarter Shop, "A Place for Everything 2.0." It has exactly the kind of storage I was looking for. There is a 9-minute video that describes it in detail here. 

It was fairly expensive to buy all the materials, but I did economize where I could. I bought a 15-yard black zipper and 16 gauge vinyl off Amazon for much less. I bought her Pattern, Mesh, Elastic and Soft & Stable foam from Fat Quarter Shop. 

For my August One Monthly Goal, I would like to make this craft tote to transport my EPP (English Paper Piecing) projects.

Meadow Flower Lap Quilt Flimsy

The Meadow Flower flimsy is finished! This more than completes my One Monthly Goal, which was to get started on an EPP (English Paper Piecing) project. This also completes a project from my 2021 WOOFA list. 

This was my first ever EPP project so I wanted to do something relatively simple so I could get the hang of it. I really enjoyed working on this project so I am definitely going to do more EPP projects. It's wonderful to have something to work on when I'm out of the house.

Even though I wanted this as a project primarily for when I was off doing things outside of the home, I have to admit I did work on it fairly often while I was at home. It was a fun project and once I only had 4 blocks left to finish, it was too difficult to resist the lure of finishing before the end of the month.

The flower block is from BlockBase+ (#4143) and is called Meadow Flower.  According to BB+, it was originally published by the Old Chelsea Station Needlecraft Service in the 1930s. I exported the SVG file from BB+ and cut it out on my new Cricut Maker, so it was super easy to make this project.

That wild floral print is a really old fabric I bought in around 2000 to make square dance clothes. The rest of the coordinating prints are just a random assortment of fabrics from the stash.

I'm linking up with

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Finished or Not Friday at Alicia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday

One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts & More

Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

WOOFA at Gone Stitchin'

Tuesday To Do #18

Has it really been a week since I last made a To-Do list? My, how summer is flying by. I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to sew but I really need to finish a stained glass project I started more than a decade ago so I can sell off the supplies and clear some room in the basement. I ordered a Handiquilter Infinity long arm and I can't have it delivered until I come up with a 14'x7' space in our basement family room. You'd think it would be difficult to keep me from that project, but surprisingly not.

Anyway, back to last week's list.

1.    Assemble the long border pieces for the Finger Lakes log cabin. ✔︎

2.    Finish the Finger Lakes log cabin flimsy. ✔︎

The flimsy is finished. I posted about it here.

3.    Assemble the backing for the Finger Lakes log cabin quilt.

I don't feel like doing this right now. It will be quite a long time before I manage to quilt this into a finished quilt so it can wait for now. I also need to make some pillowcases. I'll set the fabric aside and return to the project later this fall.

4.    Continue sewing the Meadow Flower blocks when we're out of the house. ✔︎

The quilt is nearly finished. I am sewing on the last black border pieces on four of the blocks. The rest are finished. I may actually manage to finish the flimsy this coming week.

5.    Start figuring out how to cut out the Unbeweavable Lap Quilt (from my WOOFA 2021 list). ✔︎

Figured out and Complete. I posted about it here. 

I actually spent a couple hours last night starting to put blocks together. These angles hurt my brain; I keep making mistakes on the assembly so it will be a bit of a slog until I get into the routine (and memorize the orientation of the pieces). And I'm also trying to figure out which direction to iron all the seams so they are oriented in the opposite direction as the adjacent block. It will take a bit of trial and error to figure everything out.

Also, last night I realized I cut out twice as many pieces as I need. Oops. If I cut out another set of black pieces, I could actually make another quilt with the weaves going in the opposite direction. We'll see how this one goes first before I decide to make another. LOL

My list for the coming week:

1. Continue to work on the Meadow Flowers Lap Quilt.
2. If I finish the Meadow Flower blocks, trim them down to size and piece the flimsy on the machine.
3. Choose fabrics for the next EPP project. (I've already cut out the papers.)
4. Cut out the fabric pieces for the next EPP project.
5. Continue work on the Unbeweavable Lap Quilt.

Linking up with

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Making at Live, Love, Laugh blog

Tuesday ToDo at Chris Knits

Drop on by if you want to see what everyone else has been up to.

Cricut Magic

OMG, I am seriously in love with my new Cricut Maker 3. I already have most of my Unbeweavable quilt cut out. And I did it while I was working on other projects!

I would put on a fabric to cut and then wander off and do something else! Then I would come back a little while later and put on the next fabric. This continued for the afternoon until it was all finished. I don't think I'll be doing much cutting out by hand anymore. LOL 

Since I expect I'll be doing most of my cutting out on the Cricut now, I decided I'd better stock up on the fabric cutting mats. Cricut has them on sale right now for about $8/ea (in a 3 pack) so I figured I better stock up. And they are also offering Free Economy Shipping on orders $99+ with code SHIPAUG or AUGSHIP through 8/31. 

Now that I know how awesome this tool is, I'll definitely keep an eye out for sales on the mats and replacement rotary blades. I am officially glad I didn't go for the AccuQuilt. This cricut is so much more flexible; I can resize blocks to any size (smaller than the mats) and I cut any block I can find/make an SVG file for.

Unbeweavable Lap Quilt Plan

Finger Lakes Log Cabin Flimsy

I don't have a good way to hang this quilt flimsy to take a good photo of it, unfortunately, so I'll settle for just laying it out on the bed so you can see the finished border. This is an amazing quilt design and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Most of the print fabrics are an old set of fabrics I bought from JoAnn's in about 1999/2000 that I've been hauling around for way too long so I'm glad I finally made something from them.

The instructions—found in Judy Martin's Log Cabin Quilt Book: Patterns & Possibilities for Lob Cabin & Log Quilts—are excellent and I had no problem making it. Okay, other than using some of the wrong length strips when I was assembling the border blocks, but that was mostly because I wasn't paying close enough attention to what I was doing and I picked up the wrong pile of pieces.

This is the second quilt I've made out of this book (the first was the Snake River Log Cabin Quilt) and it was worth every penny I paid for it. 

There is still one more design I may make at some point (the Timberline Log Cabin), but now it's time to focus on finishing up my WOOFA 2021 list. And I have a number of non-quilting projects I need to work on for the rest of the summer.

I'm linking up with

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Finished or Not Friday at Alicia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts & More

Put Your Foot Down Friday at For the Love of Geese

TGI Finished Friday