Nearly Insane Blocks

I haven't sewn any Nearly Insane blocks since October. I'm sewing a row at a time but since the quilt set is diagonal rows, each row has more blocks. This row has 9 blocks, two of which are cut in half.

These are the four half blocks; the inset triangles. I piece each half separately. Two will be used in this row, the others will be saved to use in a different row. 

A close up of block 22 which has 132 pieces. I'm pretty proud of myself, I've completed this block but of course there is something I would change but I didn't see it until she was completed. I wish I would have put yellow fabric in the center square. But I am NOT going to make a second block. I can easily live with it the way it is.

When you piece blocks with lots of little pieces, you end up with a pile that looks like this.

Apparently Lucinda did too because in amongst the many stars in this row is this block, a good use for the little scraps. Sorry it's blurry.

Pictures from the rest of the blocks because they want their five minutes of fame.

Sometimes my fussy cutting turns out great. I think this little flower in the center looks nice.

The dark fabrics all look the same in the pictures but I am trying to vary the fabrics.

The soft blue fabric in the borders is one of my favorite fabrics. 

These fabrics are more muted but the yellow brightens them up.

I really like this block even though I got the dark and medium fabric mixed up in the inner border. You never know what you are going to end up with.

Now the blocks are attached to the body. I still have room for the body to hang on the display wall. As you can see, my quilt is pieced with scrappy blues and yellows. She is making very slow progress but I enjoy looking at her as she is displayed.

I would like to have the quilt halfway pieced by the beginning of May. Three more rows and she'll be there but each row has more blocks!

There are two blogs I peruse in my Insane journey, Nearly Insane Fans and Nearly Insane Quilts. Sometimes I have trouble visualizing fabric in the blocks when I have the copied pattern. I check these blogs to see the light, medium and dark fabrics. It is interesting how different they are even though they both made the same block patterns. What really amazes me is they both pieced these blocks! I wouldn't be making this quilt if I weren't foundation paper piecing her.

Alyce, from Blossom Heart Quilts, is having a paper piecing BOM, the Milky Way Sampler. The block pattern is free for a month, then there is a charge. If you are interested in learning to paper piece, I encourage to you to download these patterns when they are free and try them. They look like fairly simple blocks and would be good ones to learn with.

Linking up to Esther's Wednesday WOW!, My Quilt Infatuation, Finished Or Not Friday, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Nearly Insane & Other Retreat Projects

The focus this week has been on adding the borders to Nearly Insane. The first narrow blue border measured 1" finished and the zigzag border is 3" finished. The outside border was cut at 5 1/2". She is 86" square.

It was very windy outside and I had trouble getting a good picture of the flimsy.

And then the wind really picked up.

And then, even windier!

So I gave up and laid the top on our bed and took a boring picture.

Normally when I add an outside border, I cut the fabric the length of fabric but I couldn't with this fabric because it was directional.

First I had to find the repeat which was 6". I opened up the fabric and cut 6" strips across using this flower as my reference point. The pencil is pointing at the flower. 

Sorry the photo is blurry but this is a close up photo! And yes, this was a posed picture, I just noticed I have the ruler backwards.

I used a white Sewline pencil to mark the strips for my repeat seam. 

I cut a 1/4" seam allowance, put the 2 pieces together and sewed them.

In this picture the seam looks obvious but if you stand back, you don't see the pieced strip.

I sewed the borders to the body, making sure the vine was on the end.

This is one of the mitered corners. You don't notice the miter because the vine was on both ends and it blends in.

I pieced the first block for Nearly Insane on January 11, 2016. I kept track of the number of pieces in each block. The pieces in the blocks total 4687 and there are 564 pieces in the zigzag border for a total of 5251 pieces. I didn't figure how many pieces with the sashing included, maybe I will sometime but not today.

* * * * Update * * * * I have been asked by several commentators if I am going to hand quilt Nearly Insane. The answer is, yes, of course I am going to hand quilt her. Nothing against quilting on machines but it would cost me a fortune to have Insane custom quilted the way I want her quilted. And I can't stand the thought of overall quilting on this quilt. It will take me some time to get her in the frame. Hopefully that will happen in another week.

I had told you I would show you the other retreat projects later. I've finally got them photographed and here they are.

Over New Years weekend, I pieced a Regatta Quilt. This was through a sew-along-at-your-own-pace with Roseanne and Peg. I haven't quilted my Regatta yet. There were a lot of leftovers from Regatta. I wanted to piece those leftovers and then quilt them both at the same time. This is my version using those leftover fabrics. All that is left of the original jelly roll is 13 - 2-1/2" squares. 

I'm not sure when I will get Regatta and Leftovers quilted, they'll just have to wait their turn.

Last fall at the Jane Stickle Retreat, I made rail fence blocks with a jellyroll. I cut yardage for the red fabric. After I had sewn quite a few strips together, I remembered I had planned to cut the red into 1 1/2" strips not 2 1/2" strips. Oh well, I certainly wasn't going to take those strips apart so I sewed the rest of them that way.

This winter I cut them apart into squares and then sewed them together at the guild retreat.

I need to add borders, piece a backing and sew the binding. This is a donation quilt and will become a knotted comforter at the MCC Comforter Bash in November.

Linking to Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Let's Bee Social, UFO Challenge, Sew, Stitch, Snap SHOW, My Quilt Infatuation, Finished Or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Finish It Up Friday, Show Off Saturday

Nearly Insane - Finished!

Nearly Insane is quilted! I started hand quilting March 23rd and finished June 21st. When I started, I mentioned I hoped to have the quilting completed sometime this summer and I did, the day of the summer solstice! I've been very busy and it just took me awhile to get the binding completed.

And as I promised you way back in March, a picture of the back of the quilt.

A close up of a corner quilting.

More pictures of the quilt.

I've been asked what I'm going to do with this quilt. I'm not going to do anything, this quilt is for me! When I am no longer able to have my own home, then I will gift it away but hopefully that won't happen for a long time.

For now the quilt resides on a bed upstairs where I can look at at it every day. I'm enjoying the pleasure of this accomplishment. I started piecing this quilt as a challenge to myself to see if I could do it and I did!

Here is some general information. I used a Hobbes 80/20 batt. It took 13 weeks and 519 yards of thread in the quilting. The quilting thread was white YLI.

My Insane measures 88" square and was pieced from a variety of blues and yellows.

There are 4687 pieces in the blocks, 196 yellow sashing in between the blocks, 112 blue cornerstones with 564 pieces in the zigzag border for a total of 5559 pieces in this quilt. Of course there is a narrow blue sash all around the quilt center and then the outside border too which is pieced but I'm not counting them.

The first block of Nearly Insane was pieced on January 11, 2016. After 2 years and 6 months, this is the final post about this quilt, unless I decide to enter her in a quilt show.

A link to all the posts I've written about piecing and hand quilting Nearly Insane. 

Special thanks to Edith for lending me her Nearly Insane book.

These are the last week by week photos of the individual blocks with the quilting if you wish view them. The blocks are 6" finished. (There are a lot of pictures!)

Week 11 of quilting, June 3 - 9. Another rainy week so more time for quilting. And, since the Star Dance applique is completed, I'm using that time for quilting.

This is not a block that Salinda designed, I did. The original block was very scrappy. I made the first block according to the book and sewed it into the row. It just looked out of place and I hated it.

I took it out and made my own design. I think my block fits in better with the other blocks than the original did.

This block has 233 pieces in it. How in the world do I quilt it? The HST row seams are pressed open. 

I decided the easiest way would be to just stitch down the center of the rows each way. 

The center blue strips are pressed to the side so they are stitched in the ditch. The blue center of the star is stitched in the ditch and I managed to stitch the corners of the star.

This block has the fan design.

Also that is a stripped fabric in between the dark strips, not pieced strips.

Row 6-1/2, yes, I completed 2 rows this rainy week.

Right side triangle and block 1.

Block 2. In the center I just quilted through the center of the block both ways but now I see I missed quilting the bottom row one direction.

I've quilted the missing stitches but I didn't bother to take a new picture.

Block 3. I remember piecing this block. It was to fussy cut the fabrics.

Close up of fussy cutting on block 3.

Blocks 4 and 5.

Block 6 and left side triangle which is the same as the right side triangle.

Row 7 and the inset top triangles. I'm getting close to the finish!

Quilting week 12, June 10-16. Finally, a week with lot of sunshine so we could work outside. The last of the soybeans were planted on Saturday the 16th. Harvesting is going to be late this year with crops planted this late.

I didn't get a whole row quilted but I did quilt 5 blocks. 

From the left side, blocks 1 & 2.

Blocks 3 & 4.

Block 5 by itself.

These blocks are from row 7, the last row of whole blocks in the quilt. You can see in the picture the half blocks on the top. I'm getting closer to the finish!

Week 13, another dreary, rainy week. There is such a things as too much rain. If I could, I would redirect the rain to places that are having drought. But rainy weeks do give me plenty of hand quilting time.  

First I finished row 7, blocks 6 & 7.

Then I started quilting the top triangles. I don't know why I didn't take 2 triangles in one picture but I didn't. 

Top left corner.

And the rest of the triangles.

Finally, top right corner which looks just like the other corners.

I rolled the triangles down then quilted the zigzag border and then finally the blue outer border. I used a white Sewline chalk marker. It was very hard to see with the white flowers. I had thought of using a different color but I was afraid it wouldn't brush out like the white does. I didn't want to try something different on this quilt. Some of my quilting is rather wonky but that's the way it is.

The next quilt to go in the hand quilting frame is The Pastor's Attic quilt but the marking hasn't happened. Marking quilts isn't fun but I will make it happen sometime this summer. 

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away, Design Wall Monday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Let's Bee Social, Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished Or Not Friday, TGIFF!