Snow Day!

Crabapple Hill Studios has a great winter quilt pattern called Snow Days.    While I like their colour scheme for the quilt, I do find it a bit dark...so I decided to make my version as a Snow Day.  The kind of Snow Day that we had as kids, where its the first big snow of the winter, when we've woken up with inches of freshly fallen snow, the sun is shining, and its time to play outside...no school!!  With that in mind, I've chosen a light tan, pink, blue and steel blue, dark red, to brighten up the quilt and reflect the fun and spirit of a Snow Day!

 

[caption id="attachment_1292" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Snow Day, block one[/caption]

 

I chose the Wimsicals line of fabric called Simply Imagine, and spent a lot of time choosing the embroidery background fabric.  Do you know many different shades of white and cream there are!! lol.  I finally chose Pearl by Free Spirit (Pink Chalk fabrics has the best selection of solids from all kinds of lines!).

The piecing and embroidery in this quilt isn't difficult, but there's a lot of it!!  Many of the embroidery blocks are joined to pieced blocks then the embroidery runs from the plain block over on to the pieced block. I really did want to complete each block's embroidery as I went along, rather than leaving all the joining and embroidery finishing to the end.  The disadvantage to this is I can't lay out the quilt before assembly to possibly re-arrange placement.

I  roughly drew the quilt plan on EQ7 and coloured thefull blocks.  There are a number of full blocks, and lots of  small filler blocks.  Knowing I had to make the main fabrics last as far as possible, I prepared rough pre-cuts of all the main blocks on the border and centre, to try to arrange the colours as best as I could.  Now I have the scraps to make the filler blocks,   and I'm ready to sew each  block section as I complete the embroidery.  This quilt will likely take the year to sew and if I'm very lucky I'll have it ready for next Christmas!

 

No quilting, just piecing

My Janome Horizon is still not fixed properly...I don't know why a sewing machine tech can't determine the problem and repair a machine!  When the machine came back from the tech shop a few weeks ago, I encountered the same problems as it had when it went in, the top thread shredding and breaking during free motion.  I'm doing nothing different than I did when I had the best quilting ever with this machine, and these problems are really frustrating.  After a few weeks of putting up with constant thread breaks, but still getting some necessary quilting done, I sent it back to the tech shop complete with video of what is happening.  The machine came back "fixed", but not...so back it will go again on Monday.  The gift quilt and table runner is ready to be washed and wrapped, I'll post pics soon.

So, I'm piecing.  I put together a top which is a variation of Summer Reigns by Kathy Schmitz.

[caption id="attachment_1285" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Summer Reigns, variation[/caption]

 

Piecing the Past is a scrap quilt presented in a Craftsy Class....I had  completed the main blocks and it was time to dig through the repro scrap drawer to sew  a number of setting blocks  to make the quilt as presented by Kaye England.  Now that these are sewn, I've put them away with the main blocks and I'll put the quilt together at another time...still thinking about the borders!



 

I did put together the Just Takes 2 quilt...wow!  There is a lot of pressing to do on the finished top, the picture will have to wait until I can manage that...and find a place to lay out the top in all its glory!

So, all this piecing is just adding to my collection of tops!!  I want to be quilting!  I've stocked up on batting and backings and have several quilts that I'm looking forward to finishing.  Since my machine has been out of commission, I've managed to finish one top, have two ready to put together, a pieced one started and kitted, and Bonnie Hunter's  Easy Street on its way! Oh - and Snow Days!..that will be another posting.

 

Just Takes 2 and Easy Street part two

I was so excited to see the December 1 instructions for Just Takes 2.  I got to see it assembled.  Here's the quilt that Gay at Sentimental Stitches completed....click here and scroll down a bit for a full view...isn't it wonderful?!

Part way through making my Just Takes 2 quilt I got to worrying about having enough red fabric.  I had had a few oopsies, and I know my red may not be found six months later, so I ordered an extra emergency yard.  So after receiving the last block instructions, I had to drop everything to cut the red pieces required.  I did have just enough left without touching the extra yard...this is all of the leftovers.



 

 

Despite wanting so badly to finish that Just Takes 2, reason took hold and I got back to work on the Easy Street flying geese for part two.  And I did have Christmas decorating to do, Christmas baking, a present or two to finish up, so Just Takes 2 has to wait for now.

 

[caption id="attachment_1279" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Easy Street, part two[/caption]