A New Year

It is a new year and new challenges. The first challenge I am facing this year is overcoming this crud that is going all around. The really bad part is Johnny and I have both had it so we have had to fend for ourselves as best as we can. I think we are on the uphill side of it now but still a ways to go. We both still tire easily. I have not felt like going out to my quilt shack yet this year and that is a big disappointment. Hopefully I will get out there in the next few days.

Last year I made a 12 for 12 list of projects I wanted to get finished and I did great on it until the last three months of the year. I had not anticipated having so many request for quilting projects from others for Christmas. By the time I got all of those finished I was ready for a quilting break and it was time for Bonnie Hunters mystery. This year it was called On Ringo Lake. I was able to get enough piecing time in to keep up with the weekly clues but by the reveal on New Years Day I had come down with this crud so I have not got it put together.

I have started putting it together. If you are following the mystery can see that I am not using the sashing strips. I tried putting them in but they were too distracting for me so I will use them in a border.

Check back later for my list for 2018.


Happy Stitching,

Teresa

Status of Ringo Lake

Steps 4 and 5 are in their little plastic boxes. Both steps used brown, so with the little that was used in step 1, I am hoping that is it for brown. If  not I may have to dig deeper in my stash or bum from friends. I know we have at least one more step before the reveal and I am guessing we will use the aqua and neutrals but that is just my guess. This project has really helped me use up a lot of small pieces of neutrals. I usually by them now in yardage but in the past have bought fat quarter or half yard bundles. A lot of those went away with this project. I'll tell you Bonnie has really got me puzzled with this one, can't figure out how all this is going to go together. My only guess is that step 3 is going to be the border but we will just have to wait and see.

I have not done much quilting since I got past the Christmas rush stuff. I have quilted some placemats  with Cathy and Ivy but I think that is also in a holding pattern until we get a good number needed to finish. If you remember our goal is 325, I know Cathy has a few over 200 completed ready to go. I have four more here at the house to add to that and I know of several others who are binding some that have not been turned in or counted. We hope to have a good count by our January meeting so we can make plans for the final push.

Got to do a little clean up in the sewing room so that I will be ready for step 6 on Friday.

Happy Stitching,

Teresa

Christmas Rush

Finally finished all the quilts I had to do for others for Christmas. I finished the binding on the last one last night and she is coming to pick it up today. It is kind of like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I still have five other quilts to do for folks but no time pressure on these. Until the Bonnie Hunter mystery came out I hadn't done much piecing, but I have managed to squeeze a little time in for this years Ringo Lake. The first step was quick and easy I had it done by lunch time that Friday.

The next Friday I had my mammogram scheduled that morning and other errands to run in town, but I did get started on it that afternoon. However those 200 flying geese did take a little time and with the other quilts I was trying to finish it was Wednesday before I finished step 2.

Clue 3 came out yesterday but for some reason I forgot it was even Friday until about 1:30 in the afternoon. This week we are working with pink again. I got 61 of the right slant done yesterday and have gotten over 30 of the left slant done this morning. I plan to work more on them today. It is too cold to go out to the quilt shack today. I may not make it back out there until Monday when it is supposed to warm up some. Johnny got me an oil filled heater for the shack and I have to say I really like the radiant heat I get from it, so the temperature is not as much an issue now that it is on all the time.

I hope this step will finish the pink because I am about to use up all I had pulled for this quilt. I may have to dig back into my stash for some less desirable shades of pink or go bumming from my friends. Hopefully the next steps will have more of the brown and aqua since we haven't done much with those colors yet. I am really liking my color variation, it remind me of ice cream, strawberry, pistachio, chocolate and vanilla, so mine may be called Ice Cream Sunday on Ringo Lake.


Hopefully I will have more time to blog now that the Christmas rush is over.

Happy Stitching,

Teresa  
 
 
 

Black Friday Madness

Black Friday madness means a lot of things to different people. At 2:30 this morning I woke up and not to go shopping, I was wondering if the new Bonnie Hunter mystery Ringo Lake was on line yet? No I didn't get up and go check, I did go back to sleep but only dosing until it was time to get up. You won't find me in any mall or big box store today but you will find me in the sewing room working away on step one of the 2017 mystery. This is what I looked forward to this Black Friday and it was a successful day.

Step one complete. I have chosen to go with the softer aqua and a soft pink rather than coral. I think it will still represent the colors of sunrise on the lake. Now to wait for step 2, of course I have plenty to do between now and next Friday.


Happy Stitching,

Teresa

Friday Finish

When I awoke this morning it was with almost a sigh of relief because this monstrosity was finished. That is to the flimsy stage, but that is as far as I have to take it. Ivy will quilt it when it is needed for Habitat. It measures 88 by 104 so it is a very nice queen size top. I really liked how it turned out and it was a joy to have most of the cutting done for me so that I could just sew. Having it cut like that is the only way I could have put this thing together in five weeks. Ivy and Cora cut most of the logs and I had a box of 2.5 inch squares that I used for the flying geese and the center parts of the saw tooth stars. Just about all I had to cut were the rectangles for the flying geese and I had a bunch of light 2.5 inch strips so they just had to be subcut. Yes this one used up a lot of our scrap stash but by no means all of it.

Another project that has taken up most of my time these last two weeks is the placemats the guild it doing for Meals on Wheels. This was brought up at the September meeting and after checking with the organization it is a go. I have been working on different samples and methods to present at the October meeting and I had finished the last of that last night, so that too was part of that early morning sigh.

So what was I going to do today? Believe me there are endless possibilities here in the sewing room so check back later to see just what I got into for the day.

Happy stitching,

Teresa

Placemats

I have mentioned before that a quilt was going to Habitat, that is the charity of choice for the Decatur Quilt Lovers Guild. This is a small group of ladies but with big hearts. We now have more quilts ready than Habitat has homes so we went looking for another project to give. We are going to make placemats for each recipient of Meals on Wheels in Morgan County. That number is 325, which is pretty ambitious for a group of about 22, but I have no doubt it is a goal we can accomplish. February is their primary fund raising month so we plan to have them ready to present at that time. We are also going to ask the ladies at Somerville Stitch Day if they would like to help so I have been working on a few examples to show as an infomercial on Saturday.

Since binding would probably be the most time consuming part this is one that I pieced and then birthed and quilted last. This eliminates the binding.

I have a box of strips so I did this one as a quilt as you go and then sewed the binding from the back and stitched it down on the front by machine. This was a big time saver.

Here is an example where I was short of long enough strips so I pieced the strips before adding to the quilt as you go method. I think it adds interest. Bound this on on the machine too.

When I went to sew the binding on this one, out of habit I sewed it to the front so I hand stitched it down. It only took me about 35 minutes to whip it down so I plan to do a few more to carry to stitch day since we mainly do hand work.

This one I used varying widths of strips, not sure I like it as well. I like to work on 2 or 3 of these quilt as you go style so that I am not getting up to iron so often. On these I have been aiming for darker more masculine appeal, but we will do a variety. 

This was a 12.5 inch orphan block that I added strips to the side. I have a couple of other test blocks this size that I have not done anything with until now. I think this will be a worthwhile finish for these blocks. I also have some smaller orphan blocks that I plan to put together. I'll load a back on the longarm and then float these placemats on top, quilt then cut apart and bind. I'm even thinking about doing some ovals ones using left over bias binding. Just cut the shapes from a large flora print I have and quilt and bind. We have 4 months to get these done but with a little bit of effort and maybe a couple of sew days we will get them done early. Two or three people working together on the quilt as you go can accomplish a lot fast. I showed Carol how to do these last week and we made 3 in less that 2 hours.

This and some quilting for others is what I will be working on this week, what do you have going?

Linking with-----
Oh, Scrap
Slow Sunday Stitching
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday
Main Crush Monday
Moving it Forward


Happy Stitching,

Teresa







 

Friday Finish

This little pink cutie was on my 12 for 12 list and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to finish and mark off the list. The above picture is how I would display it with the smaller blocks at the top with them getting bigger towards the bottom.

But if I remember the pattern correctly this is how they had it photographed. Which do you think is correct or does it really matter?

2017 Project List

1. En Province-------March finish
2. Jamestown landing in green
3. Black and White disappearing nine patch--------June finish
4. Split Rail ---------February finish
5. 100 patch------July Finish
6. Three inch shoe fly----- August finish
7. North woods - king ----May finish
8. Black white and red rails ---------   January finish
9. Pink 1 x 4 x 16------September finish
10. Rick Rack Nines
11. Oversize Dreams   ----- April finish
12. Blue all around

 Three more months left in the year and I am still on target. Number 12 is out in the quilt shack ready to quilt. It is going to require a little custom quilting and that is something I am not that good at, so that is the reason it keeps getting pushed back, but I am running out of time on it. The blocks are all made on number 10 and it is partially assembled. I think I only have 10 more rows but they are the longest ones since it is set on point and I have worked from both ends. Now I have the middle to go. Last is number 2, Jamestown landing in green, I still need to finish some of the string pieced blocks in neutrals and then the border is string pieced in green. Can't put this off much longer if I want to get it finished before the end of the year. I have a few things to do for others plus the guild has made pillow cases for the Harvey victims and we are now tackling place mats for all the recipients of Meals on Wheels in Morgan County so I will be spending a good bit of time on this over the next 4 months.

What have you finished today?

Linking with----
  
Whoop Whoop
Finish it up Friday
Off the Wall Friday
Finished or Not Friday


Happy Stitching,

Teresa