The first item on my list is done – the Four Patchwork quilt is finished.  It feels good to have a completed quilt finish for the end of the year.

So now it is back to the Rocky Mountain Bear Claw.  I have six blocks which is an interesting number to place in a quilt.  The layout that I was considering was placing a 4 patch on point and cutting the other two blocks on the diagonal for corner triangles.  Before cutting I wanted a visual look

and didn’t like it at all.  To me it looks abrupt and angular with no connection to the center.  Even though I was fairly sure that I also wouldn’t like it if I cut the extra two blocks horizontally, I tried it anyway.

And I was right.  I don’t like this any better than the first one.  So the final decision is to make a small two block runner for the coffee table and a small four block wallhanging.

All that is left to do is one block and borders.  My schedule this week has become very busy, but it should still be done by the end of the year.

This quilt top was sewn together before I made my end-of-year list.

The pattern is Lattice Quilt by Beth Donaldson.  The directions call for 3″ strips, but I used 2 1/2″ strips from my scrap bin so my top is a bit smaller.  It was easy to calculate the new sizes especially since there are only two shapes – squares and rectangles.  I think that next time I will size it up using strips from my 3 1/2″ bin.

Lattice Quilt uses a lot of partial seams, so I used my Juki with the thread cutter to put this top together.  This is a great way to use up scraps, so I plan on making more of them.

Check out all the quilt inspiration at Judy’s Design Wall Monday.

Marlene

I have made my list and checked it twice – of the projects I want done by the end of the year.

First up is the machine quilting and binding of Four Patchwork.

Charity quilts are a great place to practice, so I am quilting this top with a clamshell template.  I don’t have a lot of experience with using tools for machine quilting, but I can already see some improvement.  With only 1/3 of the top left to quilt, I should be able to finish it tomorrow.

There has also been progress on the Rocky Mountain Bear Claws.

With only two blocks left to sew, the top should come together fairly quickly.  Now that I understand the process of flat blocks, I am happier with these blocks.  Now I am reminded how much I like this design.

Number three on my list is to finish the Winter Diamonds wall hanging and number four is a green Lincoln block.  It would be great to start 2017 with only the Lincoln quilt as a project in process.

Marlene

I survived Black Friday and Cyber Monday – did you?  Last week was pretty crazy with menu planning, grocery shopping, cooking and family, but a good kind of crazy.  It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that I finally found some time to sit at the sewing machine.

A stop at the local quilt shop provided me with some help in selecting the inner and outer border for the One Block Wonder.  We decided on a grayish green for the half triangles for the top & bottom and a soft black batik for the outer border.  Friday I cut out all the half triangles and sewed them to the columns.  Any spare time on Saturday and Sunday was spent sewing the columns together, so now I have this on my design wall.

My plan is to incorporate some of the leftover hexagons into the outer border.  Hopefully the top will be finished by the end of this week.

There has been progress on my leader/ender projects – Four Patchwork is now a completed quilt top.

Currently I am sewing basket blocks as leader/enders for Charlotte’s Baskets quilt top.  I wanted a basket block with more background than the one shown in the pattern, so I substituted Fancy Basket from Bonnie Hunter’s Addicted to Scraps column in Quiltmaker $168.

This top should come together quickly since all the string triangles are ready.

Probably the most exciting thing to happen on Friday was that I now have an answer to my problem with the Rocky Mountain Bear Claw.  I received an email from a quilt store that said that they would have people around on Friday to answer questions or help with a Judy Neiemeyer pattern, so off I went.  As you recall my block looked like a volcano (the sales lady called it a D cup) and the answer was to aggressively steam the block flat.  Now I am a dry iron kind of gal, so this approach didn’t occur to me.  But as you can see it worked, so this must be the way to deal with it.

I am glad to get an answer and as soon as the OBW is finished, I will be working on the bear claws.  Hopefully I will be able to find enough time to finish these projects before the end of the year.

Marlene

I was going to write this post yesterday, but I was – well, grumpy and it was all my own dang fault.  Thursday I worked on the LeMoyne stars for the corners of the Lincoln block and Friday I attached them.

Doesn’t look too good, does it?  Here is a side view of the block sitting on my ironing board.

What I realized was that I had used the wrong diamond template for the stars and they need to be redone.  I use Marti Michell’s templates for the 6″ LeMoyne star in the setting triangle and grabbed the smallest diamond template from the set for the corner stars in the block.  It is really close to the same size as the diamond template from the pattern, but – as you can see – not exact.  So now I am grumpy because I will be removing all four stars, remaking them and sewing them back on.  At least I know what happened with this block.

Before I left on vacation, I had mentioned that there were issues with the Rocky Mountain Bear Claw block.  When all five pieces were sewn together, I had a small volcano.  After removing the stitches, I used pins for the seam allowances to try and figure out what is going on.  I have no clue!

Look at that gap.  The only thing that I can think is that the center square is the wrong size.  I need to check on Judy Niemeyer’s website and see if there are any corrections to the pattern, but I am just not in the mood to figure it out right now.

Since I was grumpy about these two sewing disasters, I did the only logical thing – started a new project.

This pattern is the Make It Mini Cartwheel from the August 2015 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting.  Each block is 6″ finished and I only need 6 for a small wallhanging (17 1/2″ x 23 1/2″).  A quick and cheerful project is just what I needed.  I think that I will have the top finished by tomorrow afternoon, then it will be back to the problem children.

I hope your week was better than mine.

Marlene

It is difficult to get a good picture of the Scrappy Trapunto quilt, but here it is.

The quilt top was 57 1/2″ square, but with the trapunto, machine quilting and washing it ended at 54″ square.  It surprised me a bit with how much shrinkage there was, but that is something to remember for future quilts.

I like the soft look of the trapunto and will use this technique in other quilts.  How about some trapunto bats and ghosts on the Happy Halloween quilt?

This is my design wall – the Rocky Mountain Bear Claw by Judy Niemeyer.

I started this project the beginning of June and got the claw parts of the block finished.  Now it is time to get busy and sew the bear paws.  The pattern shows a table runner of 4 blocks and 2 pillows, but my plan is to make a quilt top.  I still haven’t made a firm decision on the layout.  Let’s be honest – 6 blocks is a strange number to set into a quilt unless you want a long skinny quilt which I don’t.  I have several ideas, but I will be able to make a better decision once I can play on the design wall.

Marlene Read more »