A blog where I can share the textile projects I create in my craft room.
I finished this one as a gift for my mother, so it will be shipping off very soon. I decided to call it Myrtlewood, after the name of the street where I grew up.
I've obviously taken a bit of a break from posting regularly and making progress on projects but this week I finished my March One Monthly Goal, just in time.
Linking up with Tuesday ToDo.
I've finished it! This is the Pieces of my Heart quilt I designed and finished for the Tickled Pink blog hop last year. I still need to make a label and bind it, but I did finish the quilting, which was my one monthly goal.
I spent way too long obsessing about the quilting pattern to use on this quilt, but finally I just stitched out the design my husband liked best.
For the batting, I used Quilter's Dream Green (again); this is my go-to batting because it is made from 100% recycled bottles. I didn't use fancy threads on this project, just some dark purple MaxiLock serger thread and red Madiera AeroQuilt thread.
This is the quilt design I ended up using.
And I used the Sweet to the Core melon block from Quiltable and took off the rounded outline border and used it for the diamonds and then created a four-pointed piece for the Amethyst block.
Considering how wonky this quilt was, I am quite happy with how it turned out. I did learn some good lessons which I hope to remember for next time, like I wish I had basted down some of the seams because it created some extra fullness having them flipping back and forth under the seams.
Update a couple days later: It's finished!!
I'm linking up with
I spent several hours over the past few days cutting out a new project. It was inspired by a pile of scraps I've had kicking around on my sewing table for quite a few months and I needed to clean them up. This is roughly the color scheme, but since I mostly cut it out from scraps, there will be quite a bit more variation in the blocks.
I did cut quite a lot of the black with white prints from scraps, but I didn't have nearly enough so I cut some extra strips from yardage. And I cut the pointed aqua corner pieces out with my Cricut so that needed to be yardage as well. And, eventually, the outer border will also be from yardage.
 |
| Easy Street pattern by Bonnie Hunter from her book, More Adventures with Leaders and Enders |
I originally planned this as a leader-ender project, but it may end up being my actual project since I am having a hard time finding the motivation to work on my previously planned projects. Frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed. I just need to get started again. My break from sewing has already been too long
I'm planning to get started sewing blocks tonight during the Friday Night Sew In.
As planned, I spent the past week trying to come up with a quilting design for my Pieces of My Heart quilt. I've made a number of them so far, and I haven't really been happy with any of them.
I also had a rush quilting job over the weekend, but since it's a gift, I don't think I should show a photo. I doubt the recipient follows this blog, but it's not a quilt I made. It was a straight-forward edge-to-edge design along with sewing on the binding.
Today, I'm back playing with my quilting design. I'm currently trying to make the appropriate shapes by taking elements from pantographs I like.
I'll probably play with it for another week and then I'll make myself choose one and start stitching it. I don't want to wait until the end of the month again.
I'm linking up with Tuesday ToDo.
I did manage to finish my February OMG but I didn't get it posted in time to link up. Oh well.
For my March One Monthly Goal, I am hoping to finish quilting my Pieces of My Heart lap quilt. I am hoping to quilt it with octagonal blocks, and not just an edge-to-edge design. The diamond and octagon shapes should be a new challenge for me.
Well, mostly finished; it still needs the binding. Most of the time on this one was the planning. I spent several days playing with a more-complicated design but in the end, I wasn't sure I'd be able to stitch accurately enough that it would look good, so I decided to use a less precise layout. The quilting itself took me several days to finish, but I'm happy with how it turned out. It's definitely been worth the effort.
This is the Finger Lakes log cabin pattern designed by Judy Martin. I made mine really scrappy with lots of fabrics from my stash and scrap bin. I used Quilter's Dream Green batting. I used Glide thread in the Raisin color, though I rather wish I'd also purchased a creamy yellow thread as well for the burgundy-colored areas so the quilting would show up better.
I quilted it with the Trellis set of pantographs designed by Karen Thompson. I also made a few other custom pieces by editing the pantographs. I created a long scalloped border piece by taking a quarter of the block, mirroring it, and repeating it. It looked perfect with the scalloped border design. I also created the straight border and circular corners from the leafy swag piece.
The blocks themselves quilted pretty quickly, but I spent quite a lot of time filling in all those partial shapes around the edge. This finishes up my February One Monthly Goal, though one day late. I forgot February was a short month. Now I need to figure out my project for March.
