Folk style sampler done and done :)

I was so anxious to get this quilt washed and on the wall...next thing it's up there, but I hadn't taken a picture.  It's place is on the front stair landing, a great spot for large wall quilts, but no place to get a decent picture.  So this is all that I can share.

I use Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 in all my quilts - I love the crinkly effect that happens after a washing, its easy to quilt with on my home machine, and doesn't require a lot of quilting if I want.

I do hate hand sewing binding, so while I told myself that I wasn't allowed to do any other handwork until the binding was done.  So instead I procrastinated by finishing the centre of Garden at Dusk - I hope to put the borders on today -

Lookee what I found!

I am working on a Dear Jane b.o.m. through Stitchin' Heaven quilt shop.  I was looking for a place to store last month's completed blocks, and my eye fell upon a large sewing box that was hidden under a scrap box, under my ironing board.  That's where I kept some "orphan" Dear Jane blocks.  The yahoo group Canadian Quilter's Online had started a Dear Jane group (in 2006), led by Sandy, who introduced the blocks for the month and gave us suggestions and lessons on the best way to make them.  I have no idea now why I stopped... but I was surely shocked to find 41 - forty one! - Dear Jane blocks in my basket.  I had to count them twice!  That's enough to make a nice size wallhanging, or a medallion with a floral centre, or...or...  Well, another project to think about :)

Folk Style Sampler quilting

The quilting is done on the Folk Style sampler.

What made this free motion design work for me was to try to not make any kind of pattern - sew a few parallel or mirrored curves, but mostly try to fill areas in a random way, change direction, size and shape of the curves.  For the most part, this wasn't hard - but there were a few times when I was so "in the moment" that I kind of woke up and realized I had got myself into a pattern, or stuck in corner, or somehow got myself into a position where my curves were going backward, or upside down, to where they should be.  But it really didn't matter, because there was so many random moves of stitching that there are very few places for the eye to pick up a pattern - it mostly just looks like fill lines of random stitching.

I tried a few different free motion filler stitches in the light coloured column of sashing - but to me it just added confusion.  To give the quilt some peace, I just straight stitched one line of quilting in the centre of each black sashing, and two lines of stitching in the plain sashing.  The stitching in the black sashing was done in a dark brown, just to add some interest - it can't even be seen in these pictures!

Pick and Choose quilt finished

Another quilt top finished!  This is a scrappy quilt, using the Buckeye Beauty Block, from American Patchwork and Quilting.  My original writing about it is at these blog dates where I thought it might be and  ugly quilt (which it isn't!) and in this blog where I think about the quilting.

I had planned to do some machine embroidery quilting in the open spaces, but in the end decided to go ahead and free motion quilt in those areas.  I did learn something in the process.  Its too bad that quilting details don't show up in pictures - here's what happened.  In the sashing I decided to free motion a large swirl on each side of the sashing in the open square, connected by a doodle line and one or two smaller swirls.  When I was done, I was not at all happy.  The connecting line looked scraggly and out of place.  So I went back and kind of echo quilted that doodle line, branching off and making more swirlies in random places.  It looks so much better - so twice quilted, twice as nice!

My son took off with it before I got a good picture - here it is on his bed - notice the sock in the bottom corner, and the clutter on the right side - I couldn't kick everything under his bed before the picture :)

A bit of this and a bit of that

This past week I've been making blocks for quilts in progress; still playing with fabric settings for the Baltimore & Bali pattern; practicing paper piecing; and searching for just the right pattern or idea to use some Fig Tree charm squares I have.

No pictures - but I can say I did successfully finish my first block of Moonglow - not too much fun I  must say, but when it was done I could say I learned a lot!  I finished the second applique block with the theme I had in mind, but in the end I wasn't entirely happy with the result - so I bought some fabric which is on its way and will I hope solve that dilemma and get me stitching again.  I also made several little blocks and mock ups of blocks with the Fig Tre charms (Dandelion Girl and Gypsy Rose); still not sure where that's going.   I think I have a good idea for a spring wallhanging from a paper pieced block by Carol Doak, we'll see where that ends up!

I wanted to be quilting something - I pieced together a few large  batting scraps so I could start quilting the  Folk Style Sampler - got it laid out for spray basting and it was an inch or so short on one side...arrggghhh.  So I'm waiting for batting so I can do that.  I'm also waiting on getting the upgrade for my  D1 installed so I can finish quilting  the "Pick and Choose" with outline embroidery in some open areas.

I think that this mucking about with things will end by the weekend, and I'll be back on track to doing the quilting I want; and making blocks and things that are keepers :)