ONE FISH 🐠 TWO FISH 🐟

ONE FISH 🐠 TWO FISH 🐟 RED FISH 🐡 BLUE FISH 🎣

I made this quilt for our Florida family ... Dave, Sabrina, Ethan, Tyler, Dylan and Katie ❤️ They love to fish and so I made them a fish quilt.

This quilt was fun to make!  It's made out of eight "impossible" seams.  That's where you cut the same curve out of two fabrics laying on top on one another and then when you put them together to sew together the curves are going in opposite directions.  Hence, the impossible part. You have to slowly force them together.  Then you add three block strips and four borders and your "lake" is done.  

Now you're ready to add some fish.  You cut out your pieces and appliqué them to the "lake" on your sewing machine.  My machine is 46 years old and it doesn't do a great zigzag but I managed.  

All ready to appliqué onto the background of the quilt.

Then it was time to put it on my longarm, always my favorite part of the quilting process.  I loaded it on the longarm upside down so that I could make sure and center my "signature" in the bottom corner.  I signed this quilt with some fish bones.  I do have quilting labels with my name on but I always feel a bit pretentious stitching one of those onto a quilt.  I don't know, it's just me, most people do it.  Instead, I've started this thing where I sign the quilt with something other than my name.  I signed my brother's aLiEn quilt with an aLiEn and a puppy quilt with a paw print.  So, this time I paper pieced fish bones with the scraps from the quilt.  Kind of like a before and after shot of the fish.

I used Aurifil monofilament to stitch this with.  That's basically fishing line, if you think about it.  And MicroQuilter in a soft blue for the bobbin.  The backing is actually green but the blue blended right in. I turned my tension down to 1.25 because the thread is so thin and I did all the quilting in a day. I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting which is soft because I knew the appliqué would be stiff and I didn't want to make the quilt even stiffer with a cotton or poly batting.  Quilter's Dream Orient is bamboo and silk and very soft.  I quilted this doing stitch in the ditch around all the appliqué and the "impossible" curved seams.  And then I line quilted part of the lake and filled the rest of it in with random bubbles.

While binding the quilt by hand I watched Star Trek - A Search For Spock on Amazon Prime.

The binding all wrapped up on the Binding Baby and ready to be stitched on.

Then it was time for my Master Quilt Holder to go to work.  This time I made him walk down our hill to the boat ramp and take a picture next to the No Fishing sign.  (I can't believe they put that up there.) 

We had wanted to drive down to Florida this year and deliver the quilt in person but, you know ... COVID.  So.  In the mail it went.

I hope they enjoy it.  I'll always remember Dave fishing at night in our mutual backyard, using a glowing bobber and getting a bite from a gator.  Way to go, Dave!  We sure do miss them!  

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and sew some love into your world❣️

THE ART DECO QUILT 🧡 💛 ❤️

 I made this quilt for my god-baby, Tiffany.  I have four god-daughters and Tiffy is my second one. At first I wanted to quilt something very contemporary for her. But the more I thought about it I decided to search for a quilt pattern that had more of an art deco vibe to it. I found this pattern and loved those little squares all over it.  They definitely reminded me of art deco design, especially in the architecture of that period.  

The pattern for this was well written and sewed up like a dream.  It took forever to do all those tiny one inch squares but they're just so pretty that I didn't mind at all.  This time while stitching I watched the original Star Trek series.  I was ten when it came out in 1967.  

I hadn't realized that this quilt is on the smaller size. It's only 48.5" X 63.5", but that still makes a nice couch quilt to snuggle with.  To that end I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting which is made up of an exotic blend of Bamboo, Silk and Cotton.  This batting has been hard to find during the COVID virus but I scored a couple of them awhile back so I had it on hand to use.

Then it was time to put it on my longarm.  This is always my favorite part of quilting.  I wanted to preserve the art deco look so I stuck to geometric ruler work.  I used Aurifil Monofilament thread which is invisible and can be used to stitch across all the colors.  For my bobbin thread I used MicroQuilter 7007 in a light gray. Then I lowered my tension to 1.0 to accommodate the finer threads.  

 

After binding the quilt it was time for my "Master Quilt Holder" to go to work.  My husband was a joy to work with this time because with the smaller size of the quilt he was able to hold it up easily.  When I do a large quilt he can never get those top corners to stay straight and I have to keep reshooting the picture making him just a tad bit grumpy.  (Did I say that?) Anyway, I hope that Tiffy enjoys her quilt! 

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love and joy into your world❣️  

The Master Quilt Holder at work!

THE BROKEN QUILT

This is my Broken Quilt.  It's actually called a Color Block Quilt which features a rainbow of solid colored fabrics.  That beautiful rainbow is featured across 1840 tiny fabric pieces.  I made this quilt for our Florida neighbors, Dave, Sabrina, Ethan, Tyler, Dylan and Katie ❤️ whom we love and miss. Unfortunately, the pattern had more than a dozen errors in it, which is why I've called it my Broken Quilt.  The finished result was not something that I would take pride in gifting to someone, so,  I will have to make them another quilt.  

This blog has been my way of keeping a personal journal of all the quilts that I make.  But it's also meant for other quilters on my quilting boards to follow so that they can learn from my successes and from my failures.  To that end I like to document when something goes wrong. This quilt went wrong, which is why I call it my broken quilt.  In fact, if this had been the first quilt that I had ever made it would probably have been my last.  The problems that I encountered along the way all had to do with the pattern itself.  The pattern was filled with errors.  I don't know if I received an earlier version of the pattern that was later pulled and replaced with an updated version or if that's just how they left the pattern stand. I do know that there was no errata listed for this quilt on the internet.

Some patterns are easier than others to follow, but normally all the directions are correct.  Usually, a pattern has been tested by a handful of pattern testers before being published.  I actually applied to be a pattern tester for a series of Star Wars quilts.  The patterns were gorgeous!  I was very excited because I would be making and testing the Baby Yoda quilt pattern.  However, the company had to withdraw their patterns at the last minute because it turned out that the person who sold them the drawings did not have the intellectual property rights. I was so disappointed.  But even with a dozen or so pattern testers an error will sometimes get through.  One of my earlier quilts that I made had the templates marked wrong.  Once I found out that the quilt was not going together right I discovered the mistake.  I contacted the quilt's author in Australia and she apologized.  She said that the company that published it knew of the error and would not put out an update.  She gladly sent me all the corrections by e-mail.  So, this kind of thing does happen.  

With this quilt, however, there were many errors.  There was even a whole paragraph of instructions for one step missing.  You're told to cut out the wrong amount of fabric pieces several times. And after you cut out 248 squares of fabric to use to cut templates with, the templates given don't fit that size, leaving you with a mess to sort out. All of which meant that this quilt is not made with any precision because a lot of the pieces were simply off.  When this happens you can't really match your corners or square things up nicely.  I struggled to do so anyway.  I enjoy quilting and all of its processes but the mess that all these wrong pieces left me with took that joy away.  I toyed with the idea of throwing it out ...  several times.  But quilting is not inexpensive and so about a third of the way through I decided I would just donate the quilt.  Once I had decided to donate it I just stitched it up the rest as fast as possible not caring what matched and didn't match.  The object was to just get it done because it wasn't fun anymore.

There is a quilter, Angela Walters, of the Midnight Quilt Show fame, who teaches that "close enough is good enough".  Yeah, I get that.  But when I spend a month or more cutting and piecing a quilt and then a week quilting it on my longarm and binding it by hand. I want it to be my best effort, especially when it's a gift.  And even more so when it's a gift for someone you love.  And if I'm going to make mistakes I want them to be my own mistakes, not mistakes made because someone didn't test their pattern and left me with a mess to fix.  

The frustrating part is that I couldn't even contact the company because they went out of business this past May.  I still can't understand how this many mistakes got by.  Unless, the original pattern was pulled and I just happened to get one of those.  All in all, it just makes me appreciate those quilters who do spend the time and effort to successfully make a pattern and who go through the pattern testing process to deliver a well executed product.  

This quilt is made up of 1840 pieces.  That's a whole lot of pieces to cut out. 720 of those make up 80 nine patches.  872 of those pieces make up the half squares and squares and then 248 of those pieces make up the template pieces to make all the circles with.  All of those tiny pieces are sewn together to make twelve large blocks which are then sewn together to make the 74" by 92" quilt top.  I used Quilter's Dream Orient batting so that it would quilt up soft.  Quilter's Dream Orient is made up of bamboo, silk and cotton and is extremely soft and pliable.  Due to the Covid virus I had to wait a long time for the batting to come as batting was in short supply.  I had also wanted to go to the quilt shop and pick out different color matching threads to quilt it in.  It's very difficult to match thread to fabric online.  We have stayed home since March because my husband is at risk, so, even though they reopened the quilt shop I didn't go.  Instead, I made the decision to quilt it with monofilament, which is an invisible thread.  That way I could quilt across the colors.  

Putting a quilt on the longarm is always my favorite part.  It takes a flat quilt top and gives it texture and personality.  It can also take a less than perfect quilt and hide some of that "less than perfectness".  That's what I was hoping for with this quilt.  This quilt was such a mess, however, that I just quilted it quickly, again not caring if any points matched as I was just going to donate it. 

Although, this is the messiest quilt I've made it still is colorful and very soft because of the more expensive Orient batting.  When it was done it occurred to me that it might still make a good enough quilt to toss in the backyard when my friends fish in the lake behind their home. To that end, I think I'll make them another quilt and send them both.  

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and quilt some love into your world❣️ 

My Master Quilt Holder in action!

THE GARDEN PARTY QUILT 🌺 🌸 🌺

The Garden Party Quilt is a beautiful appliqué quilt pattern by Laura Heine.  It's made up of twelve blocks filled with glorious flowers and butterflies flitting about.  I chose to make only nine of these blocks as that's all that I needed to fill the space on the wall behind my longarm where this quilt will hang. 

First, I had to fuse on all of the appliqué pieces onto the background fabric.  To do this you trace the pattern onto the fabric first.  Typically, quilter's use light boxes to do this but since I have a glass dining room table I simple used that with a light underneath on the floor.  I've never done transfer work before and so I didn't realize that you have to reverse the pattern so my first block came out backwards.  Oh well, live and learn, right?

After fusing all the appliqué pieces onto the background fabric I blanket stitched them all down.  This is very time consuming so after finishing one block I decided that I would do a block between each quilt that I made or whenever I got around to it.  I bought this kit in April of 2019 so it's been awhile that I've been working on this.

 

I also realized that I would need so many different colors of threads to appliqué this that it would cost a small fortune.  So, instead, I went online and found a kit with two boxes of bobbins which had every color that I needed.  This saved me quite a bit.

I used some "handwriting" fabric for the sashes and borders.  And for the backing I used the $50.00 gift certificate that I had won doing the Quilter's Planner Challenge and got some bright green fabric to use for the backing.  I'll also use it to make a sleeve to hang the quilt up on the wall behind my longarm.

I have never quilted a fusible appliqué quilt.  I did some research and found out that I needed a non-stick needle.  I also found out that it helped to iron/steam the fusible right before stitching it so the needle would go through easier as the fusible glue would melt and not be gummy.  And I also found out that you have to clean your needle with alcohol during the process to keep the gooey stuff off.  Actually, though, when it came time to quilt this I had no problems and didn't have to use those suggestions.  

There isn't much room to quilt between the appliqué pieces so I found a meandering design that I thought might work.  I loaded up my longarm with a practice piece and tried it out along with the new non stick needle.  I used Glide White thread on top and bottom and Quilter's Dream Wool batting to make the appliqués pop!

I finally ordered a different binding because the one I chose was on backorder with Hawthorne Supply Company.  It was a digital print and they no longer have any base cotton to print on because of Covid.  It seems their fabric comes from China.  They said there are no longer any fabric mills in the US.  

This was the most expensive quilt that I have made so far.  And the most time consuming.  If I had a new sewing machine I could have done the appliqué on there and saved time but doing it by hand gave the quilt a very organic look.  

Since we are still sheltering in place as my husband is at risk it was difficult to get the hardware we needed to hang this.  I finally ordered marine hooks and a dowel online.  It didn't quite hang as nice as I would like though since the marine hooks stuck out too far and made the top corners and middle of the quilt bulge out where they're in the wall.  I ended up stuffing batting behind the top binding in-between those points and it looked somewhat better.  When Covid isn't keeping us in we'll go so if we can find something better to hang it with and change it out.  But for now ..... there it is!

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️

 

MY CORONAVIRUS QUILT 😷

I am calling this quilt my Coronavirus Quilt 😷  This is the third Brush Stokes Quilt that I have made and this one is for me.

  
I made this quilt while sheltering in place at home during the Coronavirus - Covid 19 pandemic.  We started to #ShelterInPlace on March 13'th since my husband is at risk.  Happily, we already had a good supply of toilet paper since my husband buys it in bulk when it goes on sale.  Him always doing that went from a thing I've always teased him about into a really good thing since toilet paper had already flown off the shelves by then.  I went shopping and brought home three weeks of groceries which lasted maybe two weeks in our #NoCarbsLeftBehind diet.  Then my son pulled up in our driveway and dropped off a trunk load of food.  He stayed six feet away but all I really wanted to do was hug him❣️

I found out fairly soon that if you get up at 2:30 in the morning you could sometimes get a delivery window with Amazon Whole Foods, otherwise you were out of luck.  So, after a few of those deliveries we had a freezer full of healthy!  What we didn't have was chocolate ... or soda (pop) ... sigh. By Easter I was desperately hoping that the Easter Bunny would be declared "essential" and able to drop off his goodies. Apparently, he was sheltering at home too.  I did, however,  score a Peach Coke one day! Yay! 

As the days slipped by one into another it became difficult to tell them apart.  

Then one day there was a box outside our front door.  It had a note that said, "Meow. From Teek, Tribble, and Gin."  It was filled with Ghirardelli Brownies in a Cup packages. Also, that day there was a package in our mailbox with a Dachshund Calendar in it.  The note with that said, "To keep track of the time while you stay at home! From, Tesla, Ti, and Odin." ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Those are all of my son and his wife's pets ... three rescue kitties and three dachshund puppies. 

Chocolate at last!!!

Since we could no longer go to the gym we walked each morning around 7:30 for an hour.  We have a beautiful lake to walk around so it's an enjoyable time.  It's not always an easy walk for my husband who has had upwards of twenty-two surgeries?  I can't even remember the total now.  For the most part he is a Bionic Man with rebuilt knees and hips etc.  It's not always easy for him to take long walks but he's doing really well with this routine.  

Sheltering at home, I'm doing what I normally do ... quilt.  Well, except for all those face masks that I made.  I think I made about sixty masks for my family.  I have a niece and nephew out delivering groceries in public and another one standing in the Chic Filet drive up window all day.  They got the first masks.  Then I heard how a lot of states and even stores around us here in N.C. were making it mandatory to wear them in public so I made some more for my family.  I even made one for Cocoa Bear 🐻  'Cause ya just gotta protect the ones you love❣️

I don't know how long this will last.  The thing that I miss the most is seeing my son and his wife.  And the dachshunds and kitties too, of course.  Otherwise, I'm pretty good about being alone and sitting in my soul.  

I did have a weird thing happen, though.  Unlike most people during this pandemic who wear pajamas every day I just put on my regular clothes.  But one day after our walk I decided after my shower to have a pajama day.  I tossed on my pjs, curled up on the couch with a good book and about twenty minutes later I looked up to see six men on my back patio looking at me through the glass doors.  Really? My one and only pajama day and THIS happens?  Turns out they were there to clean the gutter.  Oh well.  I didn't know that was considered essential during the pandemic.  Anyway, they climbed the ladder and were promptly swarmed by hornets.  Ha, come stare at me in my pajamas and fate is gonna bite you back, boys.

My second weird thing was in the form of a dream.  I dreamt that all these people were sitting on the floor with little sticks with wash rags wrapped around the ends. They were using these to clean out the holes in all the bowling balls to keep us safe.  No idea where that came from.  These are definitely strange times though.

During this time I've been watching the confirmed cases of the virus rise.  As of today, May 9 2020 there are 1,734 confirmed cases in my county with 50 deaths.  There are 13,397.00 confirmed cases in NC with 507 deaths. And 1.32M confirmed cases in the US with 80,061 deaths.  Since this is my journal of sorts I thought I would document those figures.

Enough about the virus, let's move on to the quilt.  This quilt was a dream to do.  I had just done this very same quilt for my niece for her graduation so this one went quicker and easier.  All my settings on the longarm were the same.  You can read about that in my last blog.

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some ❤️ into your world.  Our world could use an extra dose of love right now.

THE BRUSH STROKES QUILT 🔷 🔷 🔷

This Brush Strokes quilt is for my niece, Molly 💙 This is for her college graduation.  

I have made this Brush Strokes Quilt before.  You can read about it in an earlier blog.  Molly actually saw the first one as an unfinished quilt top laying across my guest bed when she came to visit once.  What she didn't know was that I had all the fabric to make another one tucked away in a drawer for when she graduated.  At the time both Molly and my son were learning how to speak and read Japanese.  Although these brush strokes look nothing like Japanese scripts they still kinda gave me that vibe, which is why I chose it for Molly.

This quilt came together quickly, having already made one.  I stopped part way through, however, to join the Giucy Giuce/Alison Glass Mini Series SAL (Sew Along) on Instagram.  I actually won the very first prize in the challenge.  Here is the announcement from Alison Glass that I won ...

                         

And here is my thank you post on Instagram ...

                  

And here is my Instagram post for my practice square.  I should mention that Alison Glass is the fabric and pattern designer for the Spectrum quilt that I made for my son and his wife and that Giucy Giuce is the designer of the aLiEn fabric that I used in my brother's quilt.  This is why the aLiEns are pictured in the above post and referenced in the post below.  

                           

This was a ten week challenge.  You had eight patterns to make and you made one a week and then the last two weeks you picked a project to sew them into. I chose to make a matching drawstring bag for Molly's quilt.  

Here are some of the squares as I made them.  These are four inch squares.  They're very tiny.  Some of them have over a hundred pieces of fabric in them.  They are all paper pieced. 

During this time the Coronavirus made its appearance in the United States.  The severity of this pandemic was brought home very quickly to us when our son's coworker came back sick from a business trip to the West coast and tried to get tested and there weren't any available testing kits.  Then my son, whose desk is next to his,  got a cough and fever but was also unable to get tested, although he was soon fine. My husband and I had bought enough food and supplies to self quarantine and my son brought us more when we ran out. We watched as so many people didn't listen and just kept going out to places that they didn't need to go to. As I sat home sewing I was reminded of my Mom who made baby quilts for all of us.  She would put a letter in each one that journaled what was going on in the world around her as she sat there cross-stitching.  I remember reading the letter that she had put in with one of the quilts that told of the events of 911. That letter is now a piece of history. And now here I sit making a quilt and writing about the Coronavirus that's affecting the entire world.  I hope we can come out of this stronger and kinder.  

As the pandemic grew, I made Molly's quilt.  I made it differently than the first one that I made.  I covered the entire quilt in orange peels using a small circle ruler.  There are approximately 720 orange peels in the twenty squares that make up the quilt.The hard part is that I tucked them behind the brush strokes. The harder part was that I ran out of my quilter's marking pen which I couldn't replace.  That meant I couldn't mark it properly and had to eyeball most of it which led to some wonky orange peels.  I guess that's just part of the quilts' history though.  As I finished the quilt I finally got replacement markers from England, the only place online that I could find them.

The small circle ruler used to make the orange peels with.

For this quilt I used Aurfil Monofilament thread and Glide White thread for the borders.  For the Monofilament my top tension was dropped to 1.25 and the bobbin tension was set at TOWA 200.  I used Quilter's Dream Polyester Batting in white because the quilt top is mostly white.  

I made the border larger than the pattern calls for and free motion quilted leaves around it.  I also put the material for the drawstring bag on the longarm and quilted matching leaves and flowers onto it.  

For the drawstring bag I used up the leftover batting and backing from longarming the quilt.  There were very few colorful scraps left from piecing together the quilt top.  That's why I thought to use the paper piecing challenge to use up the tiny scraps.  For the challenge I made eight four inch paper pieced squares.  There are five on the front of the bag, one flanged onto the back and two inside for pockets.  I put a cedar block in the pocket.  

I started this quilt a month ago when the statistics for coronavirus in our county of Mecklenberg, NC were 0.  Now the confirmed cases are 665 with 6 deaths.  There are presently 337,309 cases in the US and 1,289,380 in the world.  We've been told that these next two weeks will show a peak of cases here. I hope and pray that this moment in history leaves my family and friends untouched as we shelter in place at home ... and as I pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into my world❣️