Happy Monday!
I’ve spent the last few days quilting Tell It To The Stars! No pretty pictures since they all look like this:
Or some variation of that. I’ve got all the orange quilted and now I’m working on the light blue.
Nothing on the design wall since it still isn’t up. 🙁 Maybe I should get the hubby a new drill so he can “practice” using it by putting up my design wall. 🙂 lol…
I’m looking forward to a great week!
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Have a great week!
~Melanie
Happy Monday!
Raining Cats and Dogs
Block 7
All pieces appliqued!
Next Step: Embroider
Cross Stitch
“Welcome” Project
1/3/2016
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
Happy Monday! Here’s where I ended the weekend with:
For Allietare, I got 3 sets of this week’s clue completed (even though the picture only shows 2 sets).
Allietare!
Step 4
12/20/2015
2 sets done
For Missing Ivy, I finished Step 8!
Missing Ivy
Step 8 complete!
12/19/15
I got the second cat on for Raining Cats and Dogs and prepped it for the last cat! 🙂
Raining Cats and Dogs
Block 7
2 cats down
1 more to go
12/19/15
More stitches on the old Welcome cross stitch project:
As you can see, the letter “M” is finished and now I’ll work on the bottom border.
I’m still working on getting the dark blue parts of Tell It To The Stars quilted. I’m so DONE with this project. I’m not happy with the quilting. I’m not going to unquilt it. I just have to finish it, get it off the frame and bind it and move on. I’m sure whoever I give this to will love it just cuz I made it regardless of the quality of the quilting. At least that is what I tell myself. 🙂
And I posted the Rosie Hat on Instagram! Here it is for those who follow the blog and not me on Instagram.
The Rosie Hat
12/20/2015
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
Wow, with a very busy schedule last week, I really needed a Sunday just to sit in my sewing room and relax with my crafts. I got a lot done yesterday.
For Allietare, I got 3 sets of this week’s clue completed.
Allietare
Step 2
3 Sets completed
12/6/2015
In between, some of the sets, I got a few of those top two rows pieced together for Celtic Solstice (Bonnie’s mystery quilt-a-long from 2013).
Celtic Solstice
Step 6
Block A
11/15/2015
I got the last two leaves on for Raining Cats and Dogs and prepped it for the first cat! 🙂 I’ve been waiting a long time to get that cat on and I’m sew very excited to almost be done with this block.
Raining Cats and Dogs
Block 7
all the leaves are down
now it’s the cats turn!
12/6/2015
More stitches on the old Welcome cross stitch project:
Welcome Project
Cross Stitch
12/6/2015
As you can see, the pink flower on the top right is complete now. I’m working on getting the letter “M” finished and then I”ll work on the bottom part.
I got all the background quilted for Tell It To The Stars. Now I’ve changed threads and I’m working on quilting the dark blue parts of the quilt. I’m not loving the quilting. I’m actually really mad at the mid arm and the frame. It pulls and is hard to move in certain parts of the frame. It also needs to be seriously cleaned. I did my best before I started quilting Tell It To The Stars but now I see that it really needs to be professionally serviced. I’m going to start saving for a new frame because once the mid arm is cleaned, I think a new frame will help me. But that’s not going to happen anytime soon so I’ll continue using what I’ve got. In the meantime, I need to use easy meandering quilting and not try to do anything more complicated that that. I probably should continue to watch youtube videos and look to see what other Bailey owners feel about their machines.
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
I hope everyone had a great break! We’re back to the regular schedule – for the next few weeks anyway. These next few weeks will be very busy as we head into Christmas.
This coming weekend I will be going to a tea festival in Downtown and then ending it with a Clipper Game. It’s my first tea festival so I’m excited to see how it goes.
Next weekend, the family and I will be going to Las Vegas for the weekend. Bad planning because my sister and her family will be coming down that same weekend to spend at Disneyland. We’ll stay in town for them to visit Thursday evening and will head off to Vegas Friday morning when they leave for Anaheim. Then we’ll head back to see them Sunday evening. I still need to coordinate timing and all that. But my mother will be planning on coming down too and will go to Vegas with us.
There’s a short respite the following weekend and then it’s Christmas. I’m taking one day at a time.
Yesterday, I was able to knit while watching basketball. I finished a beanie that I started while the boy was still playing basketball (I think May). I took a break from knitting during the summer but now that basketball is on, I plan to knit while I watch the games. The beanie was really for the hubby but the boy claimed it. I started a new hat for me or the girl. It’s the Rosie Hat in the Craftsy class – Hats Four Ways with Stephanie Japel. After this class, I think I’ll start a sock class. I’ve been hearing how great knit socks are during the winter and I want to learn how to knit them.
Here’s all my accomplishments this weekend:
I got step 7 of Missing Ivy done and put it away to play with other projects:
Missing Ivy
Step #7
11/28/2015
I cut more scraps for Scrapitude 2016. I finished cutting all but the background. Since the first clue comes out January 12, I’m taking a break on cutting this week.
I got two leaves on for Raining Cats and Dogs. I meant to put a third leaf yesterday but spent more time on knitting than I meant to. It’s so fun to start something new.
Raining Cats and Dogs
2 leaves on
2 leaves left
11/29/2015
A few HSTs for Allietare:
Allietare!
Step 1
11/28/2015
More stitches on the old Welcome cross stitch project:
Cross Stitch
Welcome Project
11/29/2015
And here’s the finished beanie:
The boy’s new beanie
11/29/2015
I didn’t get to work on Hampton Ridge so the plan is to get Border #2 and Border #3 on Hampton Ridge, quilt Tell It To The Stars and clean the quilty closet. I’ve been keeping the quilty stuff somewhat organized but there are a few items that got put in the closet when we first moved in that needs to be relegated elsewhere. It’s difficult to reach (because I’m short) so in order for me to get to them I need to remove the stuff at the bottom so I can reach the shelf at the top. I know I could ask the hubby to get it for me but I want to go through the stuff at the bottom anyway.
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
I am feeling so much better today! Thank you everyone for all of your warm wishes. 🙂
I pulled out Missing Ivy to work on this week!
Missing Ivy
Blocks A and B placed
Design Floor
11/2/2015
Of all my projects currently in rotation, I’m most excited about Missing Ivy. It’s coming together really nice and I’m loving the colors and the coordination. I haven’t yet looked at what the next steps are this week but I have a feeling they are the triangles to fill in the quilt.
I cut more scraps for Scrapitude 2016. I actually finished cutting for all the medium to dark pieces. I pulled out my lights from bin #3 and need to separate between lights and very lights. Then I’ll start cutting. I know Bonnie Hunter’s mystery starts this Friday but I haven’t gotten my fabric together and I’m still not sure what I’m going to do. I have a feeling I’ll be heading to my LQS on Wednesday afternoon to grab something because I want to play with everyone. We’ll see.
I’ll be working on the leaves next for Raining Cats and Dogs and then I’ll be getting the kitties on. In case you’re wondering why it takes me forever on these, I’m actually hand appliqueing everything. (you know, needleturn…) And I have the patience of a fly. I can only do 1-2 strings of thread at a time. But that little bit of progress is enough for me right now.
And if you’re coming back from last Monday, just a quick update on Razzle – Over the weekend, I pieced the blocks and sashes together to make 4 separate rows. Then I went to put together the cornerstones (not part of the pic) with the sashing and discovered that I miscut them. So… sheesh, I feel like every time I get ready to go to the next step in one project I discover something that is messed up or wrong – sometimes it’s something I did like in this case but other times its the kit or the pattern. It’s good that none of these are Christmas presents and I’m just quilting for the joy of quilting.
Design Floor
Razzle
11/15/2015
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
I made a lot of progress yesterday but nothing really finished. For Tell It To The Stars, I’m quilting the background first and have gone through two passes on the frame. I’m actually drawing guide lines to help me make sure I don’t get stuck anywhere. I’m not yet sure about the middle of the stars though. I’m going to go back and finish those off once the background is done. I was wondering if that’s how people do it or do they do thread changes before moving the quilt up the frame. Let me know how you do it? This is my first time changing threads and I may end up regretting it later. For now, it’s an experiment and we’ll see how it turns out.
Tell It To The Stars
Being quilted
11/15/2015
I cut more scraps for Scrapitude 2016. I actually went through all my #3 scrap bin and cut all the darks that were large enough. But I still need more darks. So I went to bin #4 and pulled out more darks. These are scraps that were larger than a 5×7 and smaller than a yard. I pulled a lot of darks so there will be a good sampling in the quilt.
I finished the stem in Raining Cats and Dogs and prepped the next piece.
Raining Cats and Dogs
11/15/2015
And finally I pulled out Razzle – this week’s project. I’m really disappointed. The white corduroy I bought didn’t match the white corduroy of the quilt. So now I’ve got a yard of corduroy that I can’t use. At least not for this project. Rather than try to get another yard of white corduroy to match, I decided to just make the quilt smaller. So I’m going to have 4 rows of blocks. I lined them all nice on my design floor:
Design Floor
Razzle
11/15/2015
As you can see, the sashing isn’t pressed so I went and pressed them. This week, I’ll be putting the blocks together.
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
I was not able to get much quilty stuff done yesterday. I didn’t work on Raining Cats and Dogs. I didn’t get the practice quilt off the frame and Tell It to The Stars on the frame. But, I worked a little. I spent a couple of hours studying. I went to yoga. My MIL dropped by unexpectedly. I went to get a massage. So, it was a nice relaxing day. I did get Celtic Solstice out and Hampton Ridge packed up. I pieced more of the pieces for these blocks:
Celtic Solstice
Step 6
Block A
6 done
10/17/2015
Not enough to actually finish one but if you break the block into three rows, for the first row, all of the first two pieces are put together and in the second row, all of the first two pieces are put together. Next up is getting the first two pieces of the bottom row put together.
Short post today. Tonight is SFVQA guild meeting. Super excited to hang out with quilt ladies (and a couple men) in real life! I love you guys but you know sometimes this girl needs people she can touch!
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
I was able to get a little bit of that stem appliqued down on Raining Cats and Dogs. But it doesn’t look much different from yesterday so I didn’t bother taking a picture.
Raining Cats and Dogs
Stem down
11/1/2015
I put away Missing Ivy but before I did I put Block A and Block B together on my design floor so we can see how it’s looking so far.
Missing Ivy
Blocks A and B placed
Design Floor
11/2/2015
I am loving how it’s coming together. I haven’t looked at the next steps but it probably has to do with the half triangles and then the borders. At the rate this is going, I may be able to get this completed (quilted and bound) early next year. I can keep my fingers crossed. 🙂
I practiced a little bit on Bailey and I’m getting comfortable with it. But nowhere near confident. That may take some time so after this practice quilt is done, I’ll put Scrapitude on the frame and just go with it. These are my first few attempts so I’m just going to have jump in and tackle it head on. 🙂 No one is expecting perfection!
And finally, this week’s project is Hampton Ridge. Yup, I decided that the backing for Moon Glow can wait another day. I would rather get closer to a finished top with Hampton Ridge. I pulled out the final packet and took out all the luxurious fabric and read through the instructions. There are 4 borders to attach. Borders #1, 2, and 3 are fairly easy in that they are just one border fabric. Border #1 and #3 are the same fabric. Border #2 is a different fabric and is slightly more complicated in that they will be mitered. Border #4 is a lot more complicated in that it involves 350 HSTs. 🙁 boo. What makes it worse is that the instructions indicate that I should be using “Star Single” Triangle paper and they were not included in my packet. 🙁 The BOM included it throughout the program and suddenly for the final packet, it was not included. I’m kind of irritated. I tried to contact the quilt shop via their website but I’m not sure it worked. I’ll wait a week and then I’ll call. The good news is that it isn’t necessary until Border #4 and I’ll probably spend the rest of this week working on the borders before hand. Here’s the thing, I’m pretty organized about this kind of stuff. I keep all the pattern pages in a binder along with the templates they provided and all the Triangle Papers they provided previously (I still have all the extras that I had received). None of them are the 2″ kind. All the fabric and packets and even the inner top were packed together in a project bin. So, I’m pretty confident that I didn’t misplace it or lose it. However, I will concede that I did move over the summer and things happen so, there’s a chance it could have been misplaced or lost. If I have to, I can go buy these things. But I’m going to wait and see what the quilt shop says first.
Once I mentally moved passed that (because of course I had to pull everything out and look), I started to work on Border #1. It will consist of 272″ of 1 3/4″ strips all around the inner top. First, I pressed the fabric. Then I cut my 1-3/4″ strip. I usually cut my borders from from parallel to the selvage and I cut a pair at once. I read, heard, was taught this somewhere from someone. I do not know if this is the normal way quilters do it or if it was a quirk I picked up along the way. I figure I’ll share with you in case you didn’t know this. But the selvage or lengthwise grain (per the image) has the least amount of give. So if you use that for borders, your border shouldn’t be wavy.
Anyway, I was in the process of putting my strips together when a thought came to my head. I was at a guild meeting and one of the ladies was showing us how to do the quarter inch border. Anyway, she said to piece them together straight, like this:
straight pieced
(it’s not really pieced but just pinned together for example purposes only)
But I usually piece them the same way I piece my binding strips together, which is drawing a diagonal line:
sewing on the line, cut that little triangle on the upper right side of the line (leaving a quarter inch from the sewed line, of course) and then opening it up:
I believe it isn’t done this way on a quarter inch border because it would be too bulky. But it made me think that maybe I’ve been doing it wrong for my borders all this time. Maybe this is only supposed to be done this way for binding as that diagonal line gets lost in the binding. Maybe the proper way is to do the straight line. Of course, no one notices and probably doesn’t care. But I wondered so I wanted to know how you do it. Please comment and let me know. Thanks!
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie
I was able to get a little bit of that stem appliqued down on Raining Cats and Dogs –
Raining Cats and Dogs
Block 7
10/25/2015
It’s not much but it’s another step further.
This week’s project is Missing Ivy. I pulled out my project bin from under some other project bin and found that I was at step 6. And luckily it’s an easy step. I have most of the pieces already cut and it was just a matter of putting them together to form 9 blocks. But in getting all the pieces in the right spot, I discovered that I needed 9 more 3.5 inch white squares. So, I’ll need to cut in order to finish these up. In the meantime, I’ve pressed what I’ve got pieced and can continue on until I really need to cut.
Here’s what I’ve got so far..
Missing Ivy
Step 6
10/25/2015
Since it’s Design Wall Monday and I still do not have my design wall up (no complaints here)… here’s the last time I had Missing Ivy on the design wall:
Design Wall
12/2/13
I’m working half days this week while I recuperate from the last few weeks. It’s back to yoga and my sewing machine! I’ve got a Valley MQG meeting tonight so I’m really excited about it.
I’m looking forward to a great week!
Check out more at and and and
Have a great week!
~Melanie