Five Shadows

My goal for June was to finish the Color Me Happy Triangle quilt, and make progress on two Splash quilts. I did finish the triangle quilt and almost got to sandwiching the Splash quilts.

My goal for July will be to complete the two Splash quilts.

Blocks pieced and trimmed.

Appliqué pieces are prepped. I’m not using the anchor that came with the pattern, switching it up.

Top pieced.

Appliqué blanket stitched in place.

Time to piece the backs, sandwich, and get busy quilting these two quilts. That and binding the quilts will be my goal for July.

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

This quilt is going to my Sister in Law.

It was on hold for a while as I waited for fabric ordered for the binding.

The LQS was out of the blue Moda Grunge I used in the middle border and wanted for the binding. A bolt was ordered – back in May – and happily it arrived last Monday!

Binding on! Plus, here you can see the match stick quilting and curves quilted at the corners.

Here is the quilt on my queen size bed. The pattern is Curve it Up by Sew Kind of Wonderful. The yellow border was added so quilt fits a queen mattress. This is the largest quilt I’ve quilted on my Baby Lock Tiara III. 92″ x 105″

I quilted one block at a time. Sashing was quilted in a zig zag design,  all remaining white spaces quilted with meandering & loops. I followed the line of the curved piecing in the borders, adding circled in the wide yellow border for interest. Find more details and photos here.

Splash quilts are pieced and appliqué is underway!

Finishing the Splash quilts will be my July OMG, a quilt party sponsored by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

Last To-Do List:

1. Bind Curve It Up quilt  ✔️
2. Continue piecing Splash quilts  ✔️

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Splash quilts
2. ???

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us. Go take a look at what other quilters are doing this summer.

During the month of June, I’ve focused on finishing at least one baby quilt, and making progress on a few more.

It’s been a good month for meeting my main goal – finishing a baby quilt for my niece’s new little girl.

I did a curvy line stitch for the quilting using the walking foot.

Close up, and also two solid pink fabrics for a flange binding.

A flower motif for the center of the quilt.

Oh, plus while quilting, I decided to rip out the plain white corners and replace with printed fabric triangles.

Before quilting, and ripping out corners.

Quilted, bound, washed, labeled and ready to gift.

Two Splash quilts are well under way for two little boy quilts.

Blocks are pieced

and trimmed. Tops are actually pieced waiting for appliqué to be added.

Finishing these two quilts will be July’s OMG.

Linking to Patty’s One Monthly Goal. Thank you Patty for hosting the linky party!

Not a lot of sewing happened this week, unless I count shopping and cutting fabric.

First up, I found fabric I like for the 2 baby Splash quilts. Blue Marble for background, Moda Grunge Decadent for binding, and Gray Marble for whale or anchor.

And finally! The fabric I ordered to use as binding for the Curve It Up quilt arrived!

And fabric cutting -

Fabric cut and labeled by row for the Boston Commons version of Trip Around the World pattern. And backing purchased! I’ve prepped this for a friend who wants to make a quilt similar to one her grandmother made & gave to her. Grandmother’s quilt has been well loved, beyond repair.

Boston Commons is set aside, ready for some time in the future when my friend and I can get meet to start piecing. I’m going back to Curve It Up and get that binding on this week. Then on to piecing two Splash quilts.

Last To-Do List:

1. Baby Girl quilt – hand stitch label in place. ✔️
2. Work on Splash quilts, after shopping for background fabrics.  ✔️

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Bind Curve It Up quilt
2. Continue piecing Splash quilts

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

Once I started quilting this baby quilt, I decided I needed to rip out the plain corners and add prints from the Color Me Happy Moda Slice pack.

And here it is with the new piecing, quilted and bound!

Quilting and binding!

I quilted using a walking foot and Superior Threads So Fine 522, Barely Pink.

Other adventures this week included more canoeing, and our church held an outdoor service. We are enjoying the warm and sunny weather!

Last To-Do List:

1. More shopping. I’ll try another quilt shop for the background for the Splash quilts. ✗ Oops, no shopping. Have to go this week.
2. Quilt baby girl triangle quilt. ✔️ Quilted! Bound! Have to hand stitch label in place.

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Baby Girl quilt – hand stitch label in place.
2. Work on Splash quilts, after shopping for background fabrics.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

Progress was made on the 2012 Craftsy BOM. All the blocks are sashed with a tone on tone white. Batting and backing cut.

Above is the pile of all 20 blocks from the 2012 Craftsy BOM.

Before I get to quilting the 20 blocks, I have to turn my attention to some baby quilts.

This quilt is sandwiched and ready for some quilting! I found the back at a quilt shop sadly going out of business.

The aqua hexie floral print goes nicely with the aqua and teals in the quilt. I was happy to find it!

I did find some fabric that I think will work for backs for the two Splash quilts, but not background fabric.

And while we are talking about splash-ing. Hubs and I went canoeing this morning.

We bought a used canoe yesterday and tried it out today. It is a light weight Wenonah at 40 pounds. It is so much easier to load, unload from our car top than our 83 pound Old Town canoe! Summer sunny fun days ahead!

This week, more shopping and sewing. And maybe canoeing!

Last To-Do List:

1. Shopping! – back & binding for baby girl triangle quilt, – background, back & binding for 2 Splash quilts. ✔️Kind of. Didn’t find background fabric for the 2 Splash quilts.
2. Make progress of baby girl quilt. ✔️ Back pieced, and quilt sandwiched.
3. Finish sewing sashing on 2012 Craftsy BOM blocks. ✔️ Blocks all sashed.

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. More shopping. I’ll try another quilt shop for the background for the Splash quilts.
2. Quilt baby girl triangle quilt.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

One happy finish! -

This was my May One Monthly Goal, quilting Curve It Up. And I’m so pleased that after numerous problems with tension, the quilting is completed! Now I’m waiting for my LQS to call that their order of Moda Grunge has arrived. I claimed 2 yards of the dark blue grunge. One yard will be the binding. But they don’t think the shipment of fabric will arrive until the end of June.

This week hubs and I are traveling to visit our daughter to deliver some native plants she ordered. I’ll be stopping by a quilt shop on the way, sadly it is going out of business. They announced this back in January, a slow closure ending in June. I might find fabric for the back & binding for this baby quilt -

This will be going to my niece’s new baby girl.

A while ago I pulled out an old project to work on during my group sewing days. And as you know with Covid, those have all been canceled since March. Time to get going on it anyway! The project is an old Craftsy BOM from 2012 with Amy Gibson. Yep, an 8 year old unfinished quilt. Craftsy later became Bluprint, and they recently announced they will be closing. May 31st was the last day to shop Bluprint.

The next step in this BOM is sewing sashing around all the blocks, sandwich, and start quilting.

Above, 2 of my fav blocks from the Craftsy 2012 BOM.

The blocks are all pieced. I’ll use Quilt-As-You-Go for the quilting, and then stitch the quilted blocks together. Leah Day has info on this technique as does Pauline Rogers. I’ll be merging their processes together, I hope! I have used both of their techniques before, so I think I can merge them to make it my own. This will be an on going project, not whipping it out this week! Maybe my quilting friends and I will soon be able to meet again!

Happy Stitching, All!

Last To-Do List:

1. Finish Curve It Up yellow border! Please no tension issues!  ✔️Tension behaved! All quilted!

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Shopping! – back & binding for baby girl triangle quilt, – background, back & binding for 2 Splash quilts.
2. Make progress of baby girl quilt
3. Finish sewing sashing on 2012 Craftsy BOM blocks

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

I have several baby quilts in the making.

This one needs a back which I plan to shop for, then sandwich, quilt & bind – my goal for this month.

Several years ago, Moda offered 10″ triangle precuts they called Slice.  Apparently they didn’t sell well as they are no longer available. I had purchased 2 packs of Color Me Happy by V and Co. For this baby quilt, I cut some of the triangles in half, paired they up with tone on tone whites I had in my stash. The top measures 48″ square.

I also had in my stash a pack of Slice in Moda solids. It came with a pattern called Splash for a 72″ x 78″ quilt.

Again, I’ve cut the triangles in half and will make 2 quilts 48″ x 54″. I’ve stitched up the flying geese, but need the back ground fabric to finish. I might add a whale instead of the anchor.

For June OMG, I plan on finishing the Color Me Happy triangle quilt. If I make any progress on the two Splash quilts, that will be a bonus!

Linking to OMG hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts. Thanks Patty for this fun monthly link-up party!

Go take a look to join up, or see what other quilters are up to this month!

The Curve It Up quilt I pieced, I believe back in 2015 is now all quilted! That means I did meet my OMG for May!

Here it is on a queen size bed, in a very sparse bedroom. My youngest moved out the beginning of March. This room is in transition to be a guest room. For close up of blocks go here, and here.

For the quilting in the large 12″ wide outer yellow border, I went with following the quilting lines of the inner turquoise border. Circles were added for more interest. Next I planned to match stick quilt out to the edge of the quilt top.

I started match stitch quilting on one corner.  That is 7″ worth on both sides. That is slow going! And I quickly decided I needed a new plan!

New idea – do another set of lines following the turquoise border, and then mirror them adding the circles in the outer set of lines.

Next – what to do at the corners?

Following the lines on either side of the match stick quilting, I quilted the curves and added one row of circles. My daughter, mentioned above, visited yesterday and she said the corners looks like the sun. I’ll go with that! Especially since this is such a bright quilt with white, blue, turquoise and yellow!

Next decision was how to  quilt the corners of the top border as it is narrower at just 6″ wide.

Instead of curves this time, the first two sets of straight lines meet and continue around the quilt. The next two sets I just quilted to the edge of the quilt.

This quilt is a Sew Kind of Wonderful Pattern called Curve It Up, and uses their Quick Curve Ruler for cutting pieces. I used their quilting rulers QCR Sidekick for the curved and straight quilting lines. That pattern makes a 68″ x 86″ quilt, but with the wide yellow borders added at 12″ on three sides and 6″ wide on the top, the quilt is 92″ x 104″. Thread for quilting – Superior Threads King Tut 40 weight – #1031 Edwardian Blue, #927 De Nile Variegated Aqua, #985 Shekels Variegated Yellow, Aurifil 50 weight #2021 Natural White. Aurifil #2021 in bobbin.

The fabric I want to use for the binding is the dark blue Moda Grunge that is used in the second border. My LQS is out of that Grunge! It is ordered, and should arrive late June. I’ll have to be patient and wait for the fabric to finish up this quilt with a nice binding!

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts. Thank you Patty for hosting!

This week I continued to have problems with tension every time I changed the bobbin. After doing all the regular stuff, like cleaning – there wasn’t much lint, rethreading machine, oiling, checking tension top and bottom, I decided to do some internet searches on the problem. I found a few helpful videos. But some contradicted others. Hmmmm. What I decided was to retest the bobbin case tension and go with the video that showed a tighter bobbin case. You know the test where the bobbin in the case is laying in your hand? When you pull up on the thread the bobbin case should sit up in your hand but not lift off it? I went with that. Another video shows it lifting up while thread is unwinding easily. Which is right? The tighter tension seemed to work for a while.

Sample piece testing tension.

Next I again went to the top tension – some where in my manual it states that 185 is the standard setting. Turning the tension knob in quarter and half turns, it finally seemed to sew smoothly when it reached 295. That was, it worked well until the next bobbin change! Fiddling again, it is now set at 330 and is working well. Is there something wrong with the tension spring that I have to keep tightening the tension up? It might be time to call the dealer and have her walk me through resetting the top tension which involves taking it all apart! That is a suggestion in the manual! Reset tension but only with your dealer walking you through the steps!

All that said, I did not get the final yellow border of Curve It Up finished. Progress was made though.

One side is completed. I’m not even sure I like it, but it is staying as is.

Here is one of the corners at the bottom of the quilt. At first, I thought I’d do match stick quilting from the double lines with the circles in between, match stick to the edges, but boy was that taking a long time! So I switched to repeating the lines in the turquoise and blue borders. The match stick quilting will stay and I’ll repeat it at the opposite corner.

The top border is not as wide as the rest, so that will mean a different quilting design.

Time for some decision making.

The lines with the circles in them, then echoed once, has been quilting on all 4 sides. Hopefully with no more tension problems, I’ll get this last border completed this week, actually by May 31st as finishing the quilting was my One Monthly Goal for May!

Last To-Do List:

1. Finish yellow border on Curve It Up quilt ✗ Progress was made!
2. Shop again for background and backs – baby quilts in progress.  ✗ I’ll shop after I finish quilting Curve It Up. 

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Finish Curve It Up yellow border! Please no tension issues!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.