Holiday Weekend Sewing

For the first time in quite a while, I had a really productive week. I did every item on last week's Tuesday ToDo list.

I finished piecing the Eggplant Enchantress flimsy.

My longarm was repaired last Wednesday, no nagging was required.

I also finished repairing the backing on the Aged Elegance Quilt and Jeff finished the quilting. Then on Saturday, I put on the binding.

I also finally made a backing for the Graceful Moments lap quilt. I had originally planned to do something complicated but when I had a large scrap leftover from the Aged Elegance backing, I decided to use that instead.

Then, last Friday, on a whim, I decided to pull out my leftover blocks from the Rhododendron Trail quilt. I decided I had enough blocks I could make a lap-size version of Bonnie Hunter's original design. When I couldn't sleep on Friday night, I got back up and sewed for the rest of the night.

I worked on the border geese on and off during the rest of the long weekend. I still need to calculate the size of the fudge units before I finish this but it's too much math for me tonight.

For this next week, I would really like to

• Finish this Rhododendron Trail Flimsy.
• Get started on my quilting plan for the Deco Elegance quilt.

I'm having a lot of dental work this coming week so I probably won't have time for much else.

I'm linking up with 

Design Wall Monday and
Tuesday ToDo

Sept One Monthly Goal

Now that the long arm is working again, I can safely make plans for September. Jeff is going to be visiting a whole lot of family members in early October, so I'd really like to finish whatever quilts need to go with him to California.

Specifically, the Aged Elegance quilt is going to be gifted to Jeff's Aunt. Once he is finished with the quilting, I'd like to get the binding put on it.

Also, my Aunt Pat asked for the Deco Elegance quilt so I'd also like to get that one quilted and bound before Jeff's trip.

This is probably an easy goal, but with so much going on with house projects, I think I'd better keep the list small.

Thanks to Patty at Elm Street Quilts for hosting the linkup.

Sept Friday Night w/Friends

I got a fairly early start on Friday Night with Friends because today my HandiQuilter long arm was FINALLY fixed. At least it seems better, so far. The store sent out a technician to change out the card inside the machine this afternoon.

That green card was replaced with a new one.

Once the technician was finished, I put the Aged Elegance quilt back on the frame. It is almost finished. It just needs the last two edges of border. But, since it's Jeff's project, it will wait until he has time to work on it. He's really busy with work right now.

Then I turned my attention to a sewing project. Today I was in the mood to play with one of my UFOs. I had a bunch of blocks leftover from my Rhododendron Trail Quilt and I thought I would turn them into a lap quilt. Because I didn't have many of the half-block-triangles leftover, I originally planned to make lap quilts with a horizontal layout, like this.

It definitely would have been easier, but then I decided I would finish the lap quilt as Bonnie Hunter designed the pattern. I had enough blocks to do a 3x3 layout with 4 extra hourglass blocks.

I had to spend a couple hours tearing apart the extra hourglass blocks to get the pieces then I spent another hour or two assembling the missing filler triangles for the offset layout.

Now that all the blocks are assembled, I can cut out the sashing strips and start sewing the center portion. Of course, Bonnie's pattern has a complicated border with a whole lot of geese so I'll have to make those too; I only had a few leftover from my earlier project. 

It would be nice to finish this before Bonnie's next mystery quilt starts, assuming she does another one. 

I'm linking up with 

Friday Night With Friends

Finished (or Not) Friday

Tuesday To-Do #46

I've been really busy the past week cleaning the house and trying to hire contractors but I did manage to spend a couple of days working on quilting projects.

I finally got my ProStitcher Tablet back from HandiQuilter, but it's still not working. Super irritating. On the bright side, the store also got a new HandiQuilter Infinity in their showroom and it's having the same problems so maybe now they'll be able to figure out what is causing it and will give us a fix.

I cut out three quilt kits before company arrived for the weekend. 

Since I had a friend for the weekend who wanted to sew, I pulled out one of the kits and started sewing it. The pattern is Blue Ridge Beauty by Bonnie Hunter and is from her Adventures with Leaders and Enders book. I decided to call my quilt Eggplant Enchantress. The rest of the blocks are finished except for the last seam, but I decided to futz around the direction of the seams before I put in the last seam so I will have less seam stacking in the final assembly.

For this coming week, I would like to:

• Finish piecing the Eggplant Enchantress flimsy.
• Nag SAVE Stores about a fix for my long arm. I need to become a squeaky wheel because I want this machine fixed.
• Fix the backing on the Aged Elegance Quilt.
• Maybe this will be the week I make a backing for the Graceful Moments lap quilt.

Go check out the Tuesday ToDo linkup to see more great projects.

Making Scrap Quilt Kits

I have a ton of scraps. Way too many. Even though I've been working on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I haven't made much of a dent so I decided to try and up my game. I've spent the past three days ironing and cutting up scraps in an attempt to assemble some kits. I think these patterns will be fairly easy and quick to make.

Lake Cabin by Kim Brackett (from Scrap Basket Sensations)

Generations by Kim Brackett (from Scrap Basket Beauties)

Sanctuary by Kim Brackett (from Scrap Basket Beauties)

Blue Ridge Beauty by Bonnie Hunter
(from Adventures with Leaders and Enders)

Over and Under by Kim Brackett (from Scrap Basket Sensations)

The colors will change, but these are the quilt patterns I'd like to make. I've mostly finished cutting up the scraps that were floating around in my sewing room, but now I'll start sorting them and cutting colors to fill out the pieces I need for each of them. It will be nice to have some quickie projects I can just pick up. I might use some of them as leader and ender projects.

Tuesday ToDo #45

My life has started to settle down again so I've been able to grab more time to sew. It's time to get back to my weekly goals and figure out what I'm in the mood to work on.

I have not done a great job on my last list, which included assembling the Desert Sunset quilt. I spent a while working on it, but I was having issues with the blocks not turning out the right size. My old sewing machine died while I was working on this project and my seams on the new machine are not turning out precisely the same, so my alternative is to tear blocks apart and fix them, or stuff the project into a UFO bin and deal with it later when I'm less frustrated with the project. And that's what I did. LOL

My brand new HandiQuilter long arm is also out of commission. We have had ongoing problems with the ProStitcher computer crashing in the middle of programs. That's not really a feature. So we took the tablet into the store for them to send back to HandiQuilter for repair. It was supposed to be back in two weeks, but when I called at two weeks, they hadn't even started working on it, so who knows how much longer it will be. Another source of frustration at the moment.

During the past week, I did manage to make most of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. I spent the entire weekend sewing and I managed to catch up with my green, blue, and orange blocks. So, I should be good to go for next month's color when it is released next week.

Arlington Square Blocks
Pattern from Pat Speth's Nickel Quilts book.

Bloom Blocks
Pattern by Kim Brackett, from her Scrap Basket Beauties book.

Flowers for Nana Girl Blocks
Pattern by Kim Brackett, from her Scrap Basket Sensations book.

For next week, I would like to:

• Make something small and fun. My scrap bins are overflowing so it definitely needs to be something scrappy. Choose a pattern and get it cut out.
• Fix the backing on the Aged Elegance Quilt.
• I still need to make a backing for the Graceful Moments lap quilt.

Thanks to Linda for hosting the Tuesday ToDo link-up.

August Goal Complete

I spent all weekend cutting and sewing my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. Other than the stained glass blocks (which I've decided to postpone until the weather gets cold again), I've caught up on all the blocks for my RSC projects!

On Friday, I finished the Flowers for Nana Girl blocks.  I started cutting out the dark green triangles for the sashing blocks, but I won't bother to build those until I know how many I need.

Then on Saturday, I finished the Bloom blocks. I also cut out the rest of the light pieces and the dark green leaves for the remaining 8 blocks. Now that I have counted them and know I need 8 more, and there are only 3 colors left, I will likely backtrack and make a couple more in an earlier color when I get the project out again next month.

And then on Sunday, I made 32 of the Arlington Square blocks! These blocks are really quick to make especially when you have many of the squares already pre-cut.

Looking at this photo, it's obvious there isn't enough orange in those blocks so I will cut extra orange squares for the next round. 

I also counted up these blocks and I have realized I already have more than the 96 total I need and there are still 3 more colors for RSC. Oops. I guess they're too easy to make. I've decided to continue making them each month but I'll just use the extras in a lap quilt, probably without the fancy border.

I've also been looking ahead at how I'm going to assemble these blocks, i.e. whether I want to add sashing or not. I think with all the seam matching along the edge of the blocks, I will be adding sashing, but I can't decide which color. Which do you guys prefer? White or Black?

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday and Monday Making. I'm also linking up with One Monthly Goal. Drop on by those blogs if you want to see more great projects.