February Recap

Wow, it's been a productive month. The wintry weather keeping me indoors, plus the fact that I wasn't distracted by a ginormous jigsaw puzzle like I was in January, allowed me to spend lots of time in the sewing room. I think I hibernated in there all month!

Although unplanned, February turned out to be a month of building new skills. I embraced string piecing from Kevin the Quilter's class and his pattern "Goodnight, Darleen!"  I'm still not sure string piecing's my thing, but it's another technique I can add to my repertoire. I also attempted and sort of succeeded at free-motion quilting spiral motifs in blocks. They're not perfect, but I'm confident enough to attempt them again.

Spirals

All that sewing used up some stash, and my yardage out looks good this month. However, the LQS had another FQ sale, 5 FQs for $5 or $1.09 each, and once again I got sucked in. My guild had our annual Fabric Swap - very popular! - and I couldn't resist a few pieces of new-to-me fabric from the swap.

February Stash Report:
IN this month: 12-1/8 yards  (FQ Sale, 6-1/4 yards. CSQ Fabric Swap, 5-7/8 yards.)
OUT this month: 18 yards (1/2 yard batiks given to Jeanne;  5/8 yard moose panel given to Margaret;  5-1/4 yards for "Goodnight, Darleen!" flimsy; 1/2 yard binding for Mercyful Plus; 11-1/8 yards to CSQ Fabric Swap)

IN YTD: 21-7/8 yards
OUT YTD: 27-3/8 yards
YTD Net Change: 5.5 yards out

The goal for the year is to break even, so now I have a little wiggle room. No guilt about buying those fat quarters!

"Goodnight, Darleen!" flimsy

Goals update: 
February recap:
1. Layer, baste, quilt and bind Mercyful Plus. DONE
2. Add top and bottom checkerboard border to the Red Project. DONE
3. Prep Roman Road and send to Sandy for quilting. DONE
4. Layer, baste, quilt and bind Paddington Bear baby quilt. DONE
5. Prep for class with Quilt Diva Julie on March 1st. Yes, got my strips cut and my scraps packed. Unfortunately the class has been cancelled.
6. Continue quilting Pickle Dish. Yes, finished quilting the arcs and rings.
7. Continue string piecing "Goodnight, Darleen!" from Kevin's class. DONE - Flimsy complete! 
8. Hand stitch on WIGSP Piecing Group project.  YES! Stitched one row partially on this month. 
9. Keep up with bee blocks & BOMs. DONE

Paddington Bear baby quilt for Operation Shower

Mercyful Plus

March Goals: 
1. Make backing, layer, baste, quilt and bind "Goodnight, Darleen!"
2. Work on STLMQG challenge project, "No Excuses!"
3. Send "Mercyful Plus" to Bernie at Needle & Foot
4. Work on quilting Pickle Dish
5. Add 3rd border to Red Project, all four sides
6. Plan and start piecing a new donation quilt
7. Work on hand stitching WIGSP Piecing Group project
8. Keep up with Bee blocks and BOMs
9. Look through UFOs and select next project to work on.

STLMQG Color BOM, February Theme = Triangles

I hope March will be a productive month, too. Wish me luck!

A New-to-Me Skill

Back in January I pieced this top featuring a cute Paddington Bear print. It's been on my to-do list for quilting this month.

Because of the bias plaid, I didn't want to just give it my usual walking foot diagonal grid treatment. I'm not a proficient FMQ quilter - about all I can handle is meandering or stippling. Sometimes an actual motif is needed. This quilt needs something in the bear blocks, maybe a spiral. 

I sketched a spiral on paper and practiced stitching on the lines onto a scrap fabric, using the stitch regulator on my Bernina.  It went better than I expected. I stitched over the paper spiral three times. Then I carefully pulled the paper off the fabric to use it as a template.

The paper came off in two parts, two halves of the spiral.

I traced one of the parts onto template plastic and cut it out so I could trace around it.

Then I carefully marked around it onto the quilt, using a water-erasable marker.

Carefully, slo-o-owly, I quilted on the marked lines.

Not bad! I can do this! I quilted spirals in all the bear print blocks. (I had previously quilted in the ditch around all the blocks to stabilize the quilt sandwich.)

My spirals are not perfect, far from it. There are lots of bobbles and wobbles. But after the quilt is washed and crinkles up I think it will look all right.

Whoo-hoo! As my little grandson says, with great excitement in his voice, "I did that!"


Monday Link-ups:
Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Em's Scrapbag
Love Laugh Quilt


PS -Thanks to all who responded to my request for weight-to-yards conversion info yesterday; some are no-reply bloggers whom I can't reply to personally.

Stash Usage Calculation

Can any of you stash reporters help me out?

This mountain of snippets weighs 7.15 ounces. That's nearly half a pound!

Mount Snippet

I'm trying to figure out how much yardage this is. I know there's a conversion of quilting fabric weight to yardage but I can't find it. Does anyone know? Please leave a comment. Thanks! 

Linking up with Quilt Paint Create for Sunday Stash Report

"Goodnight, Darleen!" Finished Flimsy

Whoo-hoo! We finally had some good enough weather for me to take some outdoor photos. Not great weather, the wind wasn't exactly helpful, but at least not dark and rainy.

Since the top was flapping around, it took a few tries to get the whole thing in the picture. 

Finally! This shot must have happened by accident between gusts. 

Green. Maybe I can make the backing and quilt it by St. Patrick's Day. Timely!


Link ups: Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Peacock Party

Secret Sewing

I'm participating in a challenge project that I can't show here. 

I'll just show a sneak peek: 

A variety of low volume pieces. What will become of these? 

String Progress Continues

I've been having fun with this project ever since I took the string piecing class with Kevin the Quilter. It's a variation of his pattern "Goodnight, Darleen!" made smaller. In my last post about it, I had the center medallion of blocks assembled.

In order to measure the lengths needed for the pieced strips that make up the corners, I put the center medallion on the wall and roughly marked the size needed on the wall with strings. Then I laid the string-pieced strips up to make sure I had the right lengths, and also to make sure I didn't have the same right next to itself.

Some strips are more than long enough; a couple need to be a few inches longer so I can adjust them slightly.

Once measured, I built the corner assemblies and attached them to the center medallion. Then I put the whole thing back up on the wall to figure out the size needed for the corner triangles. I had two 7" squares of green Grunge and I was hoping they would be enough to manage all four corners. Just barely, whoo-hoo! You can see one of the squares folded in half in the corner here, and it'll be just big enough. (Because I'm making my version smaller than the pattern, the size specified in the pattern is larger than I need.)

Before attaching the corners, the whole top needs to be squared up. Using the top/bottom and side blocks of the center medallion and my largest rulers, I marked where to trim the corner assemblies. Measure and mark all four corners, make sure the diagonal for sewing on the green corner triangle measures the same on all four corners; measure the length and width of the quilt; adjust, measure and mark some more; measure again; and finally trim.

The green Grunge corner triangles were just big enough so I could add them and then square up and trim off.

Because of all the bias edges, Kevin recommended stay-stitching all the way around the outside edges of the top. After stitching I put the top back up on the wall to admire it. My version finished at about 53" square.

I auditioned a few fabrics from stash for binding. The fabric I chose is the one on the right in the photo above. For backing I have a light green print in my stash, leftovers and off-cuts from backing something else, that I can cobble together. This bias stripe will go nicely with the backing as well as the front.

If we ever get some nice enough weather to take outdoor pictures, I'll get a better photo of the flimsy. meanwhile, I'll put this away to focus on other projects for awhile. I'll quilt this one myself, but there are other projects in the to-be-quilted queue first.

Although I still don't consider string piecing my thing, it's definitely another skill and design element I can add to my arsenal. Thanks, Kevin, for gently pushing me out of my comfort zone!


Link Ups:
Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Em's Scrapbag
Love Laugh Quilt

Merciful Plus - Finished!

Finally, after the delay caused by the jigsaw puzzle, Mercyful Plus is finished, bound and even labeled. This quilt came about thanks to the Blogger Bundle provided by Bernie at Needle and Foot. 

After I finally got Mercyful Plus basted, the quilting went quickly. I just gave it simple diagonal lines across the squares, using medium grey thread. 

The backing is pieced together from two text prints, a very large one and a small scale one, both from stash.

Mercyful Plus will be donated to Bernie for her hospice effort called Mercyful Quilts.

Mercyful Plus, 60 x 76" 

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Peacock Party, My Quilt Infatuation