Fractured Birds wing way to challenge

Birds In the Air Challenge 4 for Project Quilting Season 11 sounded like a great challenge. I knew I had at least 3 fabrics featuring birds.  I knew I could find 2 of them in my sewing room.

Fractured Birds

Then, I read past the headline.!!! Project Quilting 11.4 request to use a Birds In The Air block almost meant I was skipping a week. I had lots of good reasons:

• The grandtwins turned 1 Sunday. Of course, grandma wanted to help with the party. It is my chance to do what I wanted to do as a mother but I was limited by the need to work 
• My husband’s birthday was yesterday (Monday).
• Our wedding anniversary is Thursday.
• We are continuing our Ken Burns Country Music Passport tour.
• We are visiting Atlanta for a luncheon with a dance corps, bingo with friends and a movie blitz. 

Most importantly I hate construction of triangles from fabric. Still I did make 12 triangles into squares. I tried following the pattern but it just isn’t me. So I took the block basics and rearranged them. I dove into the ric rack stash, grabbing the jumbo dark blue. I covered my perfect points!

So here is my Fractured Birds wall hanging. It is 8 inches by 10 inches. It was made in Tennessee. This is my earliest finish in Project Quilting. 

I thought I was done earlier in the day. Then I played some more. That led to adding the yellow ric rack.

Birds in the Air

Oh yeah, here’s a more traditional Birds In the Air block. This is a Civil War reproduction quilt block by Barbara Brackman

You can see the other projects completed by quilters in a week in this collection of links.

Project Quilting is open to all. A challenge is posted at noon CST Sundays. The completely finished project is due the same time the following Sunday.  

I have added a personal twist to my involvement - no new purchases. 

Crazy love: Finding a path to the heart

The challenge was to “Put a Heart On It.” That led me to a pile of red and pink fabrics and then to this: Crazy Love: Finding a path to the heart. After all, isn’t the path to love always crazy?

The finished piece is at least 12x12 (I am on the road so used a magazine to measure the piece.) It was created in Tennessee. My husband and I are doing the Ken Burns Country Music Passport tour. That took us to western Tennessee. We now have 4 of 22 stamps on our passports.  The stitching, yarns, laces, ric rack and more went on in between stops at Sun Studio and Beale Street in Memphis.  There was a stop at the Carl Perkins Visitor Center and one of the cabins he lived in as a child in Tiptonville. We spent hours at the Legends of Tennessee Music  Museum in Jackson. https://jacksoncarnegie.com/. I will update with links when I arrive home in middle Tennessee.

I was lucky. I had spotted the valentine bouquet fabric while assembling some greens for my 2020 project. I set it aside in hopes there would be a Valentine theme announced last Sunday. Put A Heart On It was close enough.

Read about Project Quilting and see what others did with the Theme this week. Happy stitching.

ABC grandkids help grandma out

The fifth theme of Project Quilting’s 10th season is abecedarius. That sent this wordie on a search through Wikipedia, the dictionary and the Internet. 

Basically, an abecedarius is a special type of acrostic in which the first letter of every word, strophe or verse follows the order of the letters in the alphabet.

Fortunately, my daughter made this easy. First came Amelia. Then Baylor and Collin.

I finished up this 8-inch by 28 inch-wall hanging with a family portrait. 

The small project let me experiment with some June Taylor fabric, my ink jet printer and some iPhone apps. 

The challenge is issued on Sunday and you have one week to finish. Read more and see all the projects. 

This challenge quilt was made in Greeneville Tennessee.

#pqSeason10

Challenge met with the blues

Time for the Blues

 Progress. I finished the second challenge of Project Quilting in real life. We had one week to create a project that included only the colors red, white and/or blue.

This is the first time I have successfully sewn or embroidered since surgeries on both eyes starting in October 2017. (Not 2018 as originally posted). Only two needles, three threaders were lost during this project.

I pulled red, white and blue fabrics from my limited stash. But as you can see I only used the blues. Lucky me I could find the box of blue threads and flosses. Still not sure which of the boxes in the craft room or garage holds the lace motifs or charms so as crazy quilts go this is a rather plain block. Make that really plain for me.

Still despite a few days of sleeping around the clock, another day and a few sessions with the wonderful 2 year old granddaughter who no longer enjoys watching grandma stitch, I finished.

The 10.5 inch circle is encased in an embroidery hoop. Every seam is decorated with a stitch or trimming. Best of all, it is done. It was made in the house on the hill in Tennessee. 

While the world chooses its favorites from all finished projects, I hope to work on unpacking more of the boxes. Maybe. 
#pqseason10/
See all of this week’s entries and read about the challenge. You can even vote.

Detail of a few seams

Time to start stitching again

I hereby resolve ..,,, OK, I know it is Christmas and not the new year yet. But I cannot wait. I must get back to stitching, sewing and creating.

The ideas have been whirling in my head. My daughter expects to deliver twins iMarch 6. My fingers are ready. And the eyes?

The new eye doctor suggested I match glasses to tasks. That means buying a bunch of readers with different magnifications.  I will use one when writing on the laptop. Another set will work for hand stitching and reading. I will use a third for reading the newspaper.

Funny, I thought I was losing the glasses with the fancy lens implants.

Still, it was good to learn I can now use readers as much as needed. This is the best the eyes will get. It was unsettling to hear the new doctor disagrees with the diagnosis and what was done. But the world is brighter and less painful so something was right.

Four major projects planned:

1) finish repairing my sister-in-law’s quilt. Her grandmother made this well-loved quilt in the 1960s. The quilt of recycled materials was a reward for breaking a habit. But age and lots of use led to holes in the quilt. The blanket used as batting has turned to threads. The binding is barely there.

She wants to keep as much of the quilt as possible. But I have had to replace some blocks. I found some material in the quilt itself. I found some shopping on the Internet - thank goodness for fabric lovers. The owner also shared some from her stash.

Everything is pinned into place. Some stitching done. But I need to finish stitching the new pieces and blocks onto the quilt.

2) start - and FINISH - the 2019 crazy quilt challenge of  a block each month. Each block must be at least 8-inches by 8-inches. I still haven’t decided if I will use my collection of Japanese materials or finish the calendar hangings. The guidelines allow us to complete  a previous challenge. It would be nice to finish the UFO. But that stack of oriental materials is so compelling.

3)  complete a crazy quilt using 2,020 materials, stitches, dodads, and other embellishments.  The deadline for this challenge is Dec. 31, 2020.

I am combining this with a long-time dream of a fabric Christmas tree wall hanging.

Of course, I have other UFOs to finish:

1) Katie’s quilt using T-shirts collected through the years.
2)) A quilt for my husband
3) A Nativity quilt

... and so many more. Unfortunately, I haven’t unpacked the sewing room so I can’t list them all yet.

Sacrifices required

Sometimes you do what you have to do to indulge in a favorite hobby. Yep. Glasses. Add in the special maginfiers. It is not pretty but if I used both I could almost see well enough to add a few more stitches.Oh yeah. I should have said this was a year ago and a lot has changed since then - a few eye operations, lots of eye training and I can see much better.

Day 264-5

1 year of stitches

Day 262

1 year of stitches

Day 261

1 year of stitches

Day 259

1 year of stitches

Day 260

1 year of stitches

Day 258

1 year of stitches

Knotted fan finished

I am trying to stay up with a stitch a day. Here is a fan I recently finished by adding a row of French knots to a series of stem stitches and long-and-short stitches.

That pink is part of another arc on the piece.

Stitching

I committed to stitching every day in 2017. I thought that would be the challenge. It turns out documenting what I've done is harder. Here are a few stitches I have added.

Remembering mom

This month's block for the Crazy Quilt Challenge 2017 is dedicated to my mother. 

First, the base is from her clothing and stash. Second, she loved her garden. Her favorite flower was roses. Third, I remember learning the chain stitch from her and spent hours doing it while she tried to recover from her last fall and a stroke. 

Each stitch was a memory and prayer.

Project Quilting 8.6 = happy husband

See that happy man? He's smiling because his wife finally found the time to make him a quilted project.

The last Project Quilting challenge for Season Eight was about time and deadlines.  A nice twist to a challenge that gives us  7 days to create and finish a project that fits the announced theme and has at least one of these three things: Three layers stitched or pieced or includes appliqué.

I used up some blues and golds -- his alma mater's colors -- to piece together a bag for him. My plan was it would be a good bag to stash dirty clothes in on short trips. He says the project is too good for that.

He came to Tennessee to drive me home to Michigan as I end my 2-month stay watching my granddaughter. The three-month-old is now in a daycare program. She has gone three times and starts full time on Monday.

That meant this was a busy week as grandma finished up two quilts for the nursery's big window.

It was a complicated week as I strained something in my back when I picked up a small piece of material that is part of a US fabric map swap. That swap was intended to be completed by March 17. Ha ha. Then the granddaughter and I came down with horrible colds. (I blame her as the carrier as I had not been outside the house for two weeks).🤧

But I wanted to participate in the final challenge. It would be the first season I did all the challenge projects. So I pushed myself. And pushed. And pushed.

See up in Michigan I had the fixings of a clock. I had materials featuring newspaper pages and some with stories. As a journalist, who worked many years at newspapers I know deadlines. Up in Michigan. 😥

Also up in Michigan was computer novelty fabric -- perfect for deadlines a web writer faces. Up in Michigan!!!  😢

In my room, I had 44 sets of unique fabric for 50 states but there was not enough time to finish that project this week.

My fabric choices were limited -- mostly the mint, peach and lilac needed for the nursery quilt curtains.

And then I spotted the small pile of blues and yellows i had hoped I might squeeze in time to work on a lap quilt for my husband. No time for a big quilt but I could do a bag for him.

The finished piece is about 17 inches by 19 inches, not counting the handles. Larry's Michigan Bag was created near Knoxville, Tennessee.

You can see what others did for this Project Quilting Challenge 8.6 at http://persimondreams.blogspot.com/2017/03/time-is-upchallenge-6-of-project.html

Crazy woman adds monthly challenge

I rarely keep what I quilt for myself but I am trying to change that with a Crazy Quilt Journal Challenge,    The CQJP is about promoting the art of crazy quilting and expanding the participant’s individual artistic creativity and technical knowledge. Participants must embellish 12 blocks -- 1 per month ideally -- and share them on the joint blog. The challenge, created by Kathy Shaw, aka Shawkl, is simple because each quilter can determine what will be his or her challenge.

I finished this block in mid February and finally remembered to send it to Katie Bock, who took over the project, to be posted.

The block actually was pieced much earlier but not embellished.

Detail

Detail

Birthday fun

My granddaughter celebrates each new month of her life. The family continued the sign tradition with recent birthdays of my daughter and husband. What fun!

Stitch progress

1 year of stitches

Bowtie patch honors Fred Astaire

Finished bow tie patch

The fifth challenge theme in Season 8 of Project Quilting is the well-dressed man. I pulled some blacks and kakis from my tiny travel stash, thinking that covers the formal and informal states of dress. I wished I had my collected ties with me.

Then, I looked closer at one material -- those were not random splotches of white. They were top hats and canes -- the accessories dancer Fred Astaire would only wear with a tuxedo. The ties were no longer needed as only bowties belong with a tuxedo.

(You can see the images better on the back side of the fabric.)

I remembered bookmarking a free 3-D bowtie quilt tutorial. Find it at http://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/3d-bow-tie-quilt-block.html

Back side of fabric

You start with 5 patches cut the same size AND there are no Y seams. Here's the block half done. Strange right?

But that's what leads to the center of the bowtie having dimension and  4 "pockets." It would be interesting to make a patch for the center so the undersides were a complimentary color. But even this version is interesting. I think I'll use it the next time I help a beginner who wants to learn to piece but doesn't want a "boring 4-patch."

A finished piece in a wedding party's colors would make a nice gift -- especially if the details were embroidered in a white square.

The finished wall hanging is 10 inches square, stitched and quilted by hand in Greeneville, Tenn.

You can see how others interpreted the theme and vote for your favorites at Persimmon Dreams.
http://persimondreams.blogspot.com/2017/02/well-dressed-manchallenge-5-of-project_26.html

Block half done. Unexpected, right?

Trying to show a pocket