Easy Street...all packed up!

I wonder how many participants have completed their Easy Street quilts...and how many have got so far then put it away for another day  .   The blocks are easily broken up into four patch units, and what I would call centre 2 patch units.  So I got all those sewn, made the four corner setting triangles, and did a count of the remaining parts to make sure I had enough to complete the remaining setting triangles.  I ended up using the same green for all the setting blocks, as I was pretty much out of a good enough assortment of greens.

Then I packed the block parts, the sewn example block, and the block picture, into bags...three bags, one for block A, one for block B, and one for setting triangles.    I even remembered a binding fabric...I think I have enough of the brown to use, but I think a pink might be good too.  Still a lot of sewing to go before this quilt gets put together!

[caption id="attachment_1311" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Easy Street, block A[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1312" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Easy Street setting triangles[/caption]

I've been on a sewing break

I've taken the last week or more to just not sew or quilt....but I have done a bit of hand applique and embroidery.  I am more worn out than I thought from Christmas and the various family happenings, so I've taken a bit of time out from the sewing room.  When I do this, I usually spend some time browsing through my saved quilting files, my EQ projects, and of course lots of quilty web sites!

I think I really need a change.  I want to break from my usual style of reproduction and country style fabrics....I still have plenty to use up but every time I see a pattern that might work, I think, meh!  (that's my daughter's word for so who cares!).  I also know that I have way too many full sized quilts, lol, both as tops and as almost finished tops.  I want to make smaller wallhangings and minis, and use some of those designs I have in EQ.  I need some fresh fabrics to get me started!

In the meantime, I've stepped back into the sewing room and the Easy Street pieces are all over the place!  So I'll spend today and tomorrow sewing up some more units that will make up the blocks, which will reduce the piles, and then I can put it away for a rainy day to finish.

I also started, just barely started, quilting a top that has no name....Farmer's Wife blocks set into a pattern by Lori Smith.  Once I get the stitch in the ditch done, I think I'll have fun with the rest!



 

Some piecing and quilting!

My son came home from hospital yesterday afternoon, and until his next surgery at the end of the week, he is happily in his cave with his technology at hand!  My daughter has cleaned out her cupboards from all gluten items that she might crave, and reports that she is managing ok and even found a decent gluten free chocolate chip cookie :)  And, my kitchen is at the stage where it is definitely functional, much better than the old design, just waiting for floors and trim and touch up paint.

So I got to go into my sewing room without much distraction and quilt finally on my Horizon that came back from the tech on Christmas Eve.

I quilted a stippling design on the small brown squares, and a free-flowing leaf vine on the outer border area...all without one thread break!  My horizon was just like she used to be!

 



Next on my really want to do list was Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street.  I really wanted to see what my blocks might look like.  Well, first I realized that some of my greens were just far too yellow for the rest of the fabrics, so they had to go away.   Then I realized I lost or maybe didn't cut the setting triangles.  I hope I have enough of the other greens left to make up for what I'm not going to use and what I still need to cut.  Anyway, the blocks show some potential to be one of the ugliest quilts I've ever made, lol, or just an interesting scrap quilt.  We'll see!

Happy New Year!

Its been a very busy time in our home so nothing to post about quilting!  My daughter has been home for the past ten days or so, my husband decided that Boxing Day would be the perfect time to start the kitchen reno (who would say no that?!) and then my son wound up in hospital on Sunday with a collapsed lung (a spontaneous condition apparently caused by the fact that he's very tall very skinny and very caucasian, lol).  Surgery fixed him up, but since this is the second occurence in two years (one in each lung), they're keeping him in hospital till next week when they will do some kind of preventitive procedure.  And the hospital is now a 30 minute drive from home!  I nearly have a fantastic kitchen, my daughter is learning to deal with her gluten intolerance, and we have great medical care for my son, so I think it is a great start to a New Year!  Blessings to all!

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]