Spring Fever is Finished!

I decided last week that I was going to concentrate on getting Spring Fever finished and I did!

I named this quilt Spring Fever but it was originally named Cabin Fever. Cabin Fever was one of the Five Fat Quarter Fun patterns from Amber and Amanda.

I washed her to remove the blue markings which all came out. Here are close up photos of the quilting.

For the back I used this fabric with cute little forget-me-nots. You can't see the quilting but I really liked the fabric.

Spring Fever details - She measures 56" x 71". I used a Hobbes 80/20 batting and hand quilted her using a variegated King Tut quilting thread. I will never again use King Tut for hand quilting, What a mess! I've never had such problems with knotting from any other quilting thread I've used. Karen from Quilts...etc. commented that she never has any problem with King Tut thread. I don't know what I'm doing differently than she does but I hated it! The next quilt I hand quilt will be quilted with YLI thread.

I did get two corners of border for the Pastor's Attic quilt appliqued. 

This pattern is block #56 from the 1857 Quilt which was a BOM from Sentimental Stitches several years ago.

I have made a start on the next 2 corners. Hopefully they'll be done by next Sunday.

I did find the perfect fabric for the borders of Nearly Insane at Yoder Dept. store in Shipshewana. However it is directional fabric so I'm going to take my time prepping it.

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away, Fiber Tuesday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

Pastor's Attic, Spring Fever & Nearly Insane

The middle sections of the outside borders for

The Pastor's Attic Quilt are finished!! One step closer to a final finish.

Now I need to prep the corners for applique. If you look at the picture of the quilt in the above link, you'll see I changed the border. I don't like the zigzag and I don't like the corner stick flower either. The red circles I added for fun.

Like most people interested in antique applique quilts, I monthly downloaded the patterns for the 1857 Quilt from Sentimental Stitches. And like the majority of you, I've not done anything with them.

In my search for a design for the corners, I've decided use block 56 from the 1857 Quilt. I can't show you the pattern right now since they're copyrighted but hopefully next Sunday I'll have some applique to show you.

I did toy with the idea of not having any applique on the corners but they looked too bare compared to the rest of the quilt.

More quilting progress happened on Spring Fever. The two narrow borders are quilted and I'm ready to start the outside border. 

The most exciting news is Nearly Insane is also close to being finished! I just need to find the perfect fabric for the outside border.

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away, Fiber Tuesday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!, UFO Challenge

Spring Fever & Other Handwork

This post is going to be written in two parts. I'm writing the first part today, Wednesday evening, because tomorrow I'm off to my guild's annual quilt retreat. I'll finish the post when I return home Sunday afternoon.

I've quilted a lot this week and I was able to finish the top section of this row.

All of the blocks are now quilted and the borders are remaining.

I took a close up of one of the blocks so you can see the quilting easier.

This is the first time I've used a design like this on top of pieced block. This is going to happen more often.

I've rolled and you can see I've unattached the quilt top from the top leader and pinned it onto the batting/backing. Progress is happening! I so enjoy quilting on this quilt, she stitches so nicely.

Two leaves and the red circles need to be appliqued to finish this border, then one more to do.

I guess I really shouldn't say these borders will be finished when these flower vines are finished because . . . there is applique for the corners of the borders!

I'm home from the retreat now, stuff is put away and I'm ready to show you a little of what I work on this weekend.

I took embroidery along for hand work but only embroidered a couple hours Friday evening. I embroidered another circle for the Bless My Garden Wall Quilt.

And I finished this little circle that I had started sometime but I don't remember when.

Bless My Garden Wall Quilt is from Gail Pan's book, Patchwork Loves Embroidery.

Later this week, I'll show you more of what I worked on.

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away

First Row Quilted

The first row of Spring Fever is quilted! 

I took the picture from the other end of the quilt for a change. 

The quilting on the blocks is an overall design. I'm liking how this looks and it quilts fairly fast too.

I've rolled and started on the next row. I don't know how much quilting will happen this week, the dreaded cracks are starting to appear in my thumbs!

A couple weeks ago I made the comment about how the King Tut thread was tangling and knotting so easily. Someone suggested waxing it. I probably have some beeswax somewhere from my candlewicking days back in the 80's but I pulled out my little blue box of Thread Heaven to use. This has helped immensely so thanks to whoever it was who suggested it. 

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away, Quilter's Monday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

Quilting Progress

I've finished the row I was quilting. The markings are still there but you can see the quilting pretty well in this picture. 

Since the picture was taken, I've rolled and have started quilting on the top half of those blocks. 

There are 3 rows of blocks and they quilt fast. Will I be finished quilting this quilt by the end of January? Guess I'll find out in a month. 

The name of this pattern is Cabin Fever but I don't think it fits this quilt. I'm going to change the name to Spring Fever. If you want look at the pattern, click here.

Linking to Sunday Slow Stitching.

Hand Quilting

This week I've concentrated on hand quilting and I've made good progress.

The narrow white border has been quilted and the first long inside border that divides the blocks has been completed too.

I've started quilting the blocks. Three of the blocks have been half quilted!

I know the quilt looks a mess with the blue marking pencil. I'm looking forward to washing this quilt and seeing what she really looks like.

I also took a picture of the side quilting.

The border seams have been stitched in the ditch. The light blue thread doesn't look blue at all. 

The thread is a variegated King Tut thread.  I don't like the way the thread quilts. I have to watch it constantly, I keep getting little loops or knots. I had thought I would try King Tut once but never again! I'll finish this quilt with this thread for consistency but I'm sticking with YLI thread from now on.

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi,  BOM's Away,  Esther's Wednesday WOW!

Slow Sunday Stitching

I was gone a week to visit our daughter and son-in-law in warm, sunny, beautiful Phoenix while northern Indiana was getting its first real blast of winter.

I embroidered during my time in Phoenix. Several months ago I was working on small designs for needle book covers and pincushions but didn't finish all of the squares. I'm still not finished with them, but I'm making progress.

The designs came from these books, patchwork loves embroidery and Christmas Patchwork Loves Embroidery, both by Gail Pan.



Here are some of the blocks I've completed.

I use a Frixion pen when I marked the designs. Gail tells you to use a permanent pen but I'm not talented enough to cover all the markings. I will press with a hot iron when all the embroidery is completed and the markings will disappear, unless, of course, you stick the blocks in a freezer which I won't do.

I've used regular DMC embroidery thread to embroider these blocks. 

I rolled the border of the quilt I'm hand quilting just before I left for Arizona and forgot to take a picture. I'm working on the next borders now and I have 4 needles going. Three needles are stitching in the ditch along the white edges and the 4th is to quilt the design in the border.

The thread is a variegated blue King Tut thread. It will be interesting to see how much the blue thread shows after the blue markings are washed out.

I am right handed but I quilt from left to right. I didn't used to quilt that way but several years ago I started having shooting pain in my right wrist. Since I've started quilting towards myself this way, I have my wrist bent in and no longer have the pain. Whatever works!

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, Design Wall Monday-Small Quilts, BOM's Away, Quilter's Monday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

The Pleasure of Ordinary Days

It was with a sigh of relief that I turned the calendar to December. November was absolutely too busy! I'm glad to see there are very few commitments for this month. For me, there is great pleasure in the sameness of routine. 

We don't have any large family gathering to attend this month, my extended family gathered in November and the Farmer's family hasn't gotten together in years. We will have our local son and his family here for a large breakfast on the 23rd.

We don't get into the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping and definitely don't do the black Friday thing. I admit I did attend Wana Night Out in Shipshewana last Tuesday but waiting in line at Yoder's isn't anything like waiting in lines at Wal-Mart or another large box store. 

I do have some special days planned: Advent services at church, Grandparents Day at our grandson's kindergarten class, coffee with a neighbor lady(s) and a special shopping day with my DIL at local stores. Some baking is also going to happen here at home.

I'm going to spend the monthly slowly working on the many projects I worked on at the Jane Stickle Retreat including this small quilt which measures 74" long and probably 60" wide. I know I have the measurements written somewhere but can't find them now!

I had originally made the this quilt at the April 2017 Jane Stickle Retreat and added a white outside border. All summer I thought, "I don't like that white border!" 

The fabric had come from Yoder's so I checked there and fortunately they still had some yardage from this collection. 

At the fall retreat, I cut the white border to a narrow border and added the blue border, much more pleasing to my eye. I also sewed the backing fabric and the binding.

And now she's marked and in the hand quilting frame. 

When I was quilting my blue & white churn dash quilt, I was often asked how I marked the quilt. I took pictures while marking the outside border.

I've never had a professional marking lesson so this is the method that works for me that I have come up with over the years.

For the various marking tools I use, check out the post I wrote  on March 12, 2017.

First I marked the 4 corners. That is your starting point. Make sure you mark all 4 exactly the same.

Next I marked the long sides. Laying the stencil on the border, I pin each measure of the stencil. I need to see how many times the design fits or repeats.

I have 3 repeats of the stencil. I have 3 1/2" space I need to adjust for.

What I do is move the pins. I moved the first right pin 1", the 2nd pin 2 1/2" which left 1" for the 3rd pin. Carefully I add an extra feather to the design and carefully make the curve on the bottom. You will never notice the addition. Then I repeat this on the other long border. 

Now for the short borders. I do the same thing, seeing how many times the stencil fits. 

For this border, it is 2 times and I need to fit in 6".

I measured the stencil. It is 6" from the center feather on the right side to the next center feather on the left side.

All I need to do is trace that 6" onto the border. Turn the quilt and mark the other side!

For the all white border, again I marked the 4 corners first but just the left part, not the right cable.

Once the corners are marked, I start making the rest. I don't measure how often this stencil fits like I did with the feathers. 

When I'm about 10" from the corner, I slide the stencil shorter or wider the make it fit. 

This corner looks slightly different than the above picture. No one is going to ever notice once the marking is washed out.

I used the same marker for the next border. I am going to mark those blue squares as I quilt them using the white chalk marker. My experience with the Sewline white markers has been the mark doesn't last a long time so it is less frustrating for me to just mark them as I am ready to quilt that block.

I taped the stencil onto the inside squares so it won't slide around as I am marking. I used the blue marker on the white fabric and then marked the blue fabric with the silver pencil. 

After awhile my blue marker ink was getting very faint so I pulled a newer different blue marker. It makes wider lines and it actually showed up on the blue fabric so I used that instead of the pencil. In the white corners, I marked straight lines 7/8th" apart. Where did I get the 7/8" measurement? That is how far apart the lines are in the stencil hearts. 

I don't have a separate picture of the marked square but I'm sure you'll see it as I make progress with my hand quilting.

I've started quilting and this is how far I've gotten.

You will notice I am marking straight lines every 1 1/2" to give stability to the unquilted fabric in the border. I'm also doing it because I don't like baggy quilted quilts!

A close up view of the corner.

When I'm not quilting, I keep the quilt covered to protect from direct sunshine and little fingers. 

The pattern for this quilt is Cabin Fever, a five fat quarter fun project from Jedi Craft Girl.

Linking to - Slow Stitching Sunday, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away, Quilter's Monday

Retreat Review - April 2017

I recently spent 5 days at the Jane Stickle Retreat held in Shipshewana, Indiana. As always, I had a wonderful time. Some people say "What happens at retreat, stays at retreat", but I haven't done anything I need to keep secret. I'm going to share my retreat time with you on a day by day diary basis. Be prepared for a lot of pictures.

Wednesday - The retreat officially starts at 3 pm when we are allowed into the conference room. See my sewing space for the next several days. See how nice and organized it is? Hmmm, maybe it isn't so organized.

I received my tulip quilt from Lori Null who long arm quilted her. For a great photo, I draped the quilt on the buggy in display on the west lobby.

Lori did a wonderful job with the quilting. I did select this feathered pattern for the large spaced area.

I wanted something similar for the border and she pulled this design, excellent choice.

She came up with her own design in the tulip blocks and in the chain squares.

She did a wonderful job and I am very please with her talent and skill on my quilt. 

Would you like to see the back? I had purchased the floral fabric several years ago for a different quilt and never used it. It wasn't wide enough so I added this section of white fossil fern fabric which shows the quilting quite nicely.

Another view. She used red thread to quilt the tulips. You can see the thread on the white fabric but not in the busy flower fabric.

I spent the rest of my day attaching the binding by machine then turning and finishing by hand.

I know the new have to have tool are the little Clover clips. I think they look like they could easily be knocked off. I use these hair clips and have for years. They cost a lot less too, at least in the area I live in.

I also sewed a sleeve on the back. When I went to hang the quilt Sunday afternoon, the sleeve wasn't wide enough. I removed the hand stitching Sunday evening, sewed a strip onto it and will hand stitch the sleeve this evening.

 Thursday - Starting around 5:30 am, I spent most of the day Thursday sewing the square blocks I need to surround the Wilfred & Cloves Medallion center. This is a pattern from Carolyn Konig's book Creating Heirlooms, One Stitch at a Time. These blocks are stacked several inches high.

Of course I'm making it larger than the quilt in the book, so I've made double the number of blocks. Sometime this summer I will lay them out and then move blocks around; sometime, not this week though.

Also on Thursday, Nancy Mast Troyer, an employee of Yoder Dept Store, came and gave us a demonstration on applying misty-fuse to fabric. 

She also demonstrated using specialty rulers.

She used the misty fuse and rulers in making the Kaffe Clam Shell Quilt from the book Hearts and More by Sue Pelland Designs. 

Nancy did not make her quilt with Kaffe fabrics, she used her stash of 30's fabrics.

I and several other friends intend to make this quilt. My friends spent most their time at the retreat prepping for their quilts. I didn't. I do prepping in the peace and quiet of my home. I don't know what fabrics I'll use. I'm hoping to make a practice clam shell crib quilt sometime this summer using the rulers and see if I like this technique before I jump into a large size quilt. If I don't like them, the rulers and book will be for sale at the resale table at the November retreat.

Friday - I spent Friday working on 3 charity crib quilts. I always stick some projects into my kit bag just in case I need something extra to work on. I had prepped these crib quilts last November and took them to the fall retreat as just in case projects but I had enough to keep me busy. I decided to sew them this spring.

The pattern is titled Go Baby! and is found in the January/February 2013 issue of Quiltmaker magazine.

That year Quiltmaker was taking a block from a quilt in each issue and enlarging the block to be used as a Big Block Baby Quilt. I thought this was an easy looking pattern and it is. 

I'm an early riser, so I was sewing along, making good progress when the lights flickered then the electric went off. I turned off my machine, then the lights flickered again and the electric came back on. 

I decided to go for breakfast. I didn't like this on and off bit. As I was eating, the lights flashed on and off several times. This was strange; this has never happened before at retreat. 

After eating, I went back to the sewing room and was considering trying to sew again when the power again went off. This time it stayed off. Then an announcement was made. There had been an accident on State Road 20 west of State Road 5, a vehicle had crashed into a transformer pole. NIPSCO had to replace the pole, hook up downed lines and repair the transformer. All of Shipshewana and the surrounding area was without power.

I had planned on driving to Caroline's later in the afternoon but quickly changed my mind and went in the morning. They were not in the outage area. {I forgot to take my camera along but here is link to Rosemary's blog where she makes a visit to Caroline's.} I purchased a some fat quarters for future projects and a few for my Nearly Insane quilt.

When I returned to the Farmstead Inn, the power was still off. I had taken along some embroidery, you know, just in case, so I sat, embroidered and visited with friends. I didn't get many stitches stitched when the power came back on. By then it was noon and I resumed sewing on the crib quilts.

At retreat, we often have an Amish meal or some other kind of activity at the Carriage House. This is a business run by Elaine Jones and her family. They are Amish and I enjoy visiting her place. She invited the retreat participants to an appreciation open house on Friday afternoon. Refreshments were her wonderful, delicious cinnamon rolls and coffee. 

One of the activity she provides is an old fashioned quilting. People can come and hand quilt at the old style sticks and stands frame. Everyone who quilts is allowed to put their name and phone number in a box for a drawing that is held at the end of the season. The prizes are one of the quilts that were quilted by the varying groups through the summer and fall.

She had several of the quilts to be quilted on display at the open house.

This quilt is in the frame and was standing on the sticks again the wall right now. There is a light colored border on the edge.

She said there was also a 4th quilt which was not yet pieced.

All of her quilts are made with solid fabrics, no prints.

She also has wall hanging for sale made by Amish women from her community. I asked permission before taking these photos.

Soon after I took this picture, the blue bargello was purchased and now resides in California.

I tried to get the pictures to be several across the page, but blogger and I are not agreeing how to do that. They will trail down the center of the page.

I loved this one, maybe I'll try it someday.

This one is my favorite. It looks a little dark here but the colors just glow.

These two were hanging on the west wall and the sun was shining in very bright which makes the colors look off. 

This is a full sized quilt. A lot of the quilts use light gray instead of white.

The fabrics in this quilt are blues, not gray.

There were more wall quilts but they were in a different room. There was a group in there who eating and I didn't want to interrupt their meal.

Show & Tell is held Friday evening. I didn't take any pictures, Rosemary always does and here is a link to her smilebox pictures.

After show & tell, I finished the 3rd crib quilt which I forgot to take a picture of.

Saturday -  Every month Amber of Gigi's Thimble and Amanda of Jedi Craft Girl have a Five Fat Quarter Fun project. Before I left home, I packed the January pattern, Cabin Fever, a bundle of fat quarters along with white background fabric I had on hand.

Because I hadn't done any prepping ahead of time, I cut my pieces early Friday morning. (I like early morning cutting, there are very few people in the sewing room up that early!)

I sewed during the day and had this top completed by 1:30 pm. This was a very good pattern, good directions and simple to make. I highly recommend it. However, there is 1 correction to the pattern. The directions say to mark all the 2 1/2" blocks with a diagonal line. You only need to mark 96 of the blocks with diagonal lines.

After I finished sewing this project, I cleaned and packed up my space. There were thunderstorms and heavy rains headed our way. I wanted to get my sewing things loaded into the car before the rain started.

Sunday - I had completed all the sewing projects I had brought so I pulled out the knitting needles and finished this dishcloth I had started at home.

I like using up leftover variegated yarn with a coordinating solid yarn.

I visited with my friends and finished it shortly before it was time for me to head home around 2 pm.

I hope you enjoyed my review of the retreat. I had a wonderful time and have many great memories. I really appreciate the great pictures Rosemary Youngs takes so I can link up to her blog and you can view what I miss.

Linking to - Show & Tell With Bambi, Fiber Tuesday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!,  Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Finished Or Not Friday, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict