Christmas Tree Napkins

 Unbelievable, Christmas is in 7 days! We might not have pilled of snow in southern Ontario to prove it's winter here, but the blasting winds at our face is a constant reminder that it is colder. My dog Merlin passes his time in my company while I pieced together blocks or free-motion another quilt. My husband appears once in a while for a good chat, and all this is great during our longer stay indoor.
 Christmas projects aren't my forte, because the season is so busy with events and visiting, that I rarely find the time to do anything at all. But today, I was in the mood to sew something related to Christmas or winter and I pulled out my ONE bin of Christmas fabric -I'm not kidding, I've about five meters in all - and I made napkins with my little bitsy stash of fabric. Maybe after the holidays, I will purchase additional Christmas fabrics, but for now, I'm content with what I have.

               Christmas Tree Napkins by Jordan Fabric

Pattern: Christmas Tree Napkins

For the year 2020, I want to design my own patterns, something I've done only once or twice,  and refresh my Quilting Planner for 2020.  One rule I've kept when I planned my next year of quilting, is to keep it simple. I divided a binder into a few sections and spread the work throughout the year.

Ask Yourself Questions

1. How many UFOs are you planning to finish this year?
2. What techniques are you planning to learn?
3.Set a due date for all the in-progress projects.
4. What quilt-along or free-motion tutorial are you going to follow?
5. What quilter will help me to achieve my goal?
6. Which category is my project: EPP, Free-motion, long arm, piecing, applique,...)
7. List any new project
8. What are my expectations, goals, motivation for this year?

Hum, that's enough brainstorming for now. Let's go sewing or quilting. Enjoy your shopping in this busy season. Be kind, patient, and loving. We're all going through this together.

Spin the Wheel

Most quilters have purchased precut kits of the jelly rolls, charm packs, layer cakes, or fat-quarter bundles from a designer's collection of fabrics that made our cutting session painless and to a minimal effort which is awesome. Until recently I realized that my beautiful precuts were left on display on my sewing shelve or either in my bathroom downstairs as home decor for years. So it was time to unwrap those bundles or jelly-roll and put them to use. The fat-quarter was unwrapped and added with my statch. My one jelly-roll was cut into pieces to make two small quilts. 

My chosen activities like quilting, writing, study the Word of God, training my dog Merlin, walking, are already on a tight time schedule. How much can we accumulate in our lives that have no meaning or worth spending time on?  We're living in a fast economy that plagued us with advertisements that say, "You need this or that."  But do we really need it? Yes, I've been caught in that same frenzy of spending on 'want' rather than my 'need'; or how much time do we spend 'time' on them?

 Well aware of my mid-fifties I came to the realization some of my youth's dreams will never come to fruition. It cast a shadow on my mind and this train of thoughts was added to my personal spiritual struggles. For months I kept saying aloud,  "What's the point."  The more I said it to myself, the more I became detached from wanting anything at all. Depression doesn't need to be deeper. Lies that we put in our minds will lead us away from a joyful life. It's not wrong to dream or have a goal in life, but if they don't come through for one reason or another, how do we deal with it, is another matter.

Through God's Word, I came to trust  Him further. Instead, to live bound to this world,  I wanted to be bound for his glory and not for this earth. Whatever achievements I would set on now would be reflecting upon Him, not this world. No more time spend on regrets over things of the past, but to live my life with joy, peace, and love.

What then should you do that will serve a purpose in your life? Or what you're doing right now that will help someone else in need that is worth spending money, time, and energy on it? So if you have things that need to be dealt with, start without hesitation. Roll your sleeves and get to it done. Like my friend, Leah Day would say, "Put yourself in jail, till you've done what needs to be done."

Lets's Go Quilt

 The pinwheel block assembly was really easy by sewing a square on a rectangle, then trimmed. That way you are not sewing on the bias. Next time I show you how I've done it. These blocks were done with 2 1/2" strips.

                                                 

I sewed a square. Trimmed. Press, and voila

This is a jelly-roll I purchased about 10 years ago. It was time to unfastened it and used it.

This cute baby quilt was made out of a jelly-roll. Fabric line Honey Honey by Kate Spain (Moda). I was able to make two, except for background fabric. A pattern can be found in Jelly Babies: Adorable quilts from 2/ 1/2" strips.

 

See you next year:)

Mini-Goals #4

By writing weekly goals, it has kept me on track and my stalled project moved forward. In the last few weeks, I didn't reach all my goals and that is fine too. The mini-goals are there to help me focus on what is at hand and I have got the freedom to work on other things too.  Eventually, I will return to those project and they will be done. 

The Cross:

1. Order fabric
2.Drawmaster pattern
3.Copy master pattern
4. Colour pattern
5. Cut the pattern out and number each piece
6. Cut out the pattern on the fabric

Millefiore Rosette 9

1.Sewed pieces together
2. Sewed block together
3.Sewed larger rosettes

Rosette 9

Dress:

I still haven't work on that yet

Quilt Tops 

- A designed pattern for 2/5 for finished quilt tops.
-Quilted Trinket

                          TRINKETS Quilt Pattern by Monika Dunkley

Jean Bags

I've been working with other ladies of our church to sew jeans bags for a senior home. We're making 60 of them. What an accomplishment in such a short time.

An old pair of jeans is so useful for a project like this one.

Rosette #9

This is one of the smaller rosettes I've done on my millefiore. Love the combination of blues in it.
This is a perfect long term project if you want to do hand-sew while you watch TV.   Some quilters have spent 4 -5 years doing it, but they are so beautiful and that what makes me want to continue my project. So I will be entering my third year doing it and it's taking shape.

Rosette 9 has:

9-hexagons of 6"
3 different blocks
55 pieces in all

And it's all stitch by hand.

Organize-Declutter-Minimize

Will it make a difference if I organize or declutter or minimize something around my house? Will the end of my effort be worth it? Sometimes I don't even think about organizing until it does happen. Then BAG!  And then you start organizing something you hadn't plan to do at the moment.  Perhaps you find something that was left to be classified but you didn't. Should you deal with the undone task or run in the other direction and forget all about it.

Organize

But where do you start something that is definitely time-consuming?  When I decided to remove a small dresser from my basement and replaced it with a small 6 unit shelving for my art supplies and books.  First I had to empty the dresser of all the miscellaneous supplies so I could store the dresser in my shed. After that, I emptied the unit of all the old photo albums and boxes which we have accumulated in the last 30 years. That's when the 'BAG' happened. I needed to rid of some old photos and I shredded hundred of blurred photos, some were doubled ones, other not so significant. I rather quilt then go through this, I thought, but once I started it, I was on a roll. My husband helped me too.

Declutter

 Another thing I dealt with is the surplus of batting growing in my crawl space. Batting tends to be bukly and does take room. If I can use it on a project, then it's not laying in one of my bin.  I pulled all the pieces out and was surprised how much I had.

1.  First I organized the batting by type even if they were all cottong. Some batting cotton are different in thickness and softeness.

 2. I sorted the long pieces, square ones and smaller pieces in piles.

 3.  Then I trimmed them to equal size and they could be used for practicing my free-motion quilting.

4. I zig-zagged the longer strips together and had enough for a small quilt top.

Minimize 

 As I'm going through this mindset why not extend this to other areas like my old patterns. Why am I keeping all this if I'm not using it or will never use it or look at it ever again? It just takes space that I don't have.

The binder holds patterns that I've used once and will never do them again and I've copied pages from a magazine for inspiration. Those are left in binders and I'm not interested in half of them now. So why keeping it? I wonder:0 

The file organizer boxes I have purchased are of good use this time and I've decided to store my patterns in them instead of old binders.

That's all was left from 4 binders and many old tangs. Those old magazines will eventually go too.  As I'm getting older, I tend to of unessary stuffs that filled space. Yes, it was time-consuming, but I had fun going through the family photos.

Now it's time to go quilt

Mini-Goals-3

My mini-goals for this week were:
1) Cross: Create quilting patterns
2)Millefiore Rosette #9- Glue pieces on the fabric
3)Apparel: Cut out dress

1. Creating Quilting Patterns- Done!

This idea of expressing my faith for Jesus Christ through the expression of designs on fabrics has been in my mind for many years and my first attempts with my Creation quilt didn't go too far. After only two blocks, I just left the idea alone unsatisfied with its result. Maybe because my idea is not quite develope on paper. Also, I didn't like how dense quilting made the fabric pulled at its center, so  I abandoned the project. But at the back of my mind, it nagged at me constantly.

And then last Fall, another design came into mind. I kept brainstorming this beautiful design in my mind, never letting it go. At times I drew pieces here in there in my notebook. And it grew bigger and I really wanted to make it.  That idea cames last Fall and still, I hadn't done it on paper, so it was time to make it happened. I drew a Cross on my drawing tablet and used a thin tracing paper over it to draw my quilting designs.  A Cross would be definitely simpler and my quilting designs would develop furthermore my skill in quilting.

Now can you imagine this done on fabric?!

2.Millefiore Rosette #9- Glue pieces on the fabric

Not done, because I realized that doing rosette 8 would be more effective. Also, I have started to sew the bigger pieces together as I watched TV.  I've made tremendous progress in three weeks and it's very encouraging to see this long term project taking shape. 

One hexie of rosette 9

3. Apparel: Cut out dress

That, I did not do this week, because I was just too busy working and getting ready for  Holloween gathering with kids and parents.

 My daughter and I made a very simple display and candies and hot chocolate were given for free to local children. It was a fun night. Indoor and not in the pouring rain and windy night.

Quilt it!

Now that I've many completed tops, I can have fun quilting some of them. I've done a few already from my pile of the 18 quilts. Last year I subscribed to a quilter's blog that gives ideas for your tops. It has been very inspirational and interesting to see other quilters' work done too.

 I drew all my lines before pinning the layers together and used a white thread.

  For each square area, I used my square ruler to draw my lines.

Simple and effective design. 

This is the back of the quilt. To keep the cost down, I've started using left-over fabric and other pieces that would go well with it.

Mini-Goals-2

.My mini-goals for the week are:
1)Quilt the charity quilt
2)Sandwich a small quilt
3)Millefiore rosette #8- Plan & cut out pattern
4) Create a simple patter as a bag-gift for a home-care

1.Charity Quilt- Done!

Charity quilts are great for a beginner or advanced quilter for developing their skills in a new design. This quilt was entirely done with a Walking Foot. I drew curve-8 lines and echoed them without a guide-foot.

The design for this quilt was taken from Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day.

2. Sandwich Quilt

This quilt took about 3 hrs to quilt and binding is done on it too. I traced continuous lines and I had very little breaks between each section. I stitched in the ditch in the grey area and free-motioned on the lines.

3.Millefiore Rosette #9

Yep, you read right. I'm not working on rosette 8, but #9. Changing my mind on mini-goals for this week is not going to affect my overall purpose in completing this long-term project. Why did I change my course of action, you would ask curiously. It's because I've started to sew together the larger pieces and it's so encouraging to see the project as a whole. And for this reason, I'm working on Rosette #9 that fits the left top corner. Rosette 8 is centred. 

4. Bag Simpler

After a few trials and errors, I figured out the size of the bag that would fit our needs as a gift-bag. For this one, I use old jeans and scraps Batiks. Instead of using interfacing, I used small scraps of batting. All this will keep the cost down for that bag.  We need to make 60.

                                            It took 30 minutes to make this bag.

Same bag in its original size.  For this one I used interfacing and it didn't really stiffen the bag as I would like it to be.

True Woman 

Have you wondered during those long hours sitting at your machine that it is a great opportunity to listen to a podcast?  For my part, I enjoy listening to women and men of faith. It is always a blessing.

Quilt Simpler

 One of my mini-goal for this week, a quilt sampler I started in 2017 with the quilter's guild in Prince George. I'm so glad it's done and I will work on another smaller top quilt next week. Maybe the charity quilt that has been on my cutting table for the entire month of September.

 Simpler Quil

 Lazy Little Hands

The free-motion stitches on this quilt are in many spot irregular, crooked, and ugly.  Even in some areas on the front and back of the quilt, there are buckling. What happened to my nice stitches? Lack of practice just does that. I had no control over my pulling-pushing and my hands were trying too hard to stay where my eyes were telling them to go. Have you ever dealt with those issues? Well, you know what they say

Practice. Practice. Practice.

 First-time free-motion feathers in the border. Not perfect.

Which I haven't done since last June. In fact, I've done much quilting at all since 2017. Yes, a little here and there, but not continually have I should have.  And it okay. Sometimes I have to go back to the basic and retrained my brain and my eyes. It's not easy when I introduce a new design to the whole ordeal. But what would be the fun with the same-o-same-o?

    Backing

Thankgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family and friends.  Time for the plentiful harvest from our garden or from our grocery stores. And the beautiful varieties of colourful from the leaves. Weather is getting colder and colder and it's almost time to get ourselves ready inside with our hand-sewing with a hot chocolate. My millefiore stalled for most of last year, but after I figured another way to sew my pieces together, I was on a roll. Also to keep myself at a good pace, I've written down on a simple line of paper, mini-goals for the next two rosettes. Even if this Millefiore is a long-term project, I want to be going forward with it.

Rosette #7

Flat-Back-Stitch

 The Flat-Back-Stitch works great for me.  Each individual piece is paired and tapped together with Scotaped to hold them together. You can also use that quilter-clip, but I prefer tapping them together. Instead of folding the piece and stitching it, I laid it flat and stitched from that position.                              

       I've sewed this block into smaller segments of 2s, then 4s.  My pieces are held by Scotch tape.

                  I'm using the same thread and you cannot see my stitches. What a success!

  There wasn't much planning for this rosette and it turned out quite nicely.  Six more hexes to make for this rosette and it will be completed.

                                

                                              Not bad. Not perfect. It will do *smile*

Knock-Offs- Blue Dress

Here is my first 'knock-offs' dress I made this week. The dress was slightly modified. Higher V neck enclosure and waist. I haven't sewed apparel for women in years. This dress has many errors I'm not proud of, but it's still very cute. 

                                                                            FRONT

                                                               BACK

CopyRights for Utilitarian Clothing

I've learned fashion has no limit on what you can copy or modified to make it your own because clothing is utilitarian. You are not allowed to copy logos or used fabric that has a designer logos on it.

So Sew Easy has made a very good article on the subject. 

Lining to Bodice

After you sewed your lining on your bodice, trim the excess of fabric from 5/8" to 3/8". Then sew a  near the edge of the lining. This will help the lining to stay inside the apparel. Press, making sure the lining is inside the apparel. Tack the lining in the side allowances.

Rosette #6

                                                                        Rosette #6

As I listened to one of  Leah Day's podcasts about Ten steps to Finishing Your UFOs;   I became very aware of why certain projects got unfished or set aside for a long period of I particularly my. Millefiore Quilt Along

I started the millefiore with a great passion for a hand-sewing project I could to during my evening park in front of my TV.  Since 2017 I've learned much about fabric selection for that type of project. And just like that, my millefiore was left in a box untouched for months.

 Ugly Stitches

                                            You shouldn't see any stitches if it's done right.

At first, I thought it was the lack of motivation or interest for the EPP  but that wasn't it! As I progress with each rosette, the hand-stitches got uglier and uglier. The stitches appeared on the right side of the fabric in big loops. After that, I got very discouraged because I had spent hours on that project and wanted it to be beautiful as a wall hanging, maybe put it in a quilt show.  It was then that I left rosette #6 in its box. Until podcast #115!

The main reason the millefiore wasn't moving forward to completion was that I didn't know if there was another technique for sewing the hexagons pieces by hand-stitches. I wasn't interested in doing it by machine. With a bit of searching on Youtube, I find another lady, which I don't remember her name as I wrote this, but she called this the flat-back-stitch and it worked. Just after a few tries, I got nicer finishes on the right side.

                                 Can you tell which one is the flat-back-stitch on this piece?

This project is a self-taught and would have stayed in its bin if it wouldn't have been for quilters who are so passionate about sharing their techniques with other people. I'm greatly thankful for that. I encourage you to listen to Leah Day's Postcast #115

Challenge Completed 2017

It has taken me just over two years to complete a challenge I started in September 2017, which was to sew all 18 patterns from the Quilty: Easy Modern Quilts- November 28, 2016.  The purpose of it had twofold.  One was to use mostly fabrics from my stash and minimized the expenses by not buying new fabrics. The other one was to reduce the bundles of quilts I would need to pack in boxes because we were in the process of moving, which we did, twice in a very short time.

Stash Reduction

 While I used most of the unwanted fabrics from my statch. Some which I purchased years ago for the reason that I couldn't remember.  The fabrics lingered sadly on my shelves unloved. Those were sad, sad days.  To tell you the truth, I was quite surprised how some of the quilts come out, even if I didn't like the colour of the fabric. It's not always easy 'to fit' some fabric with other ones. It takes time and playing around with your stash just to get the right combination. Sometimes I changed everything around after passing hours in blending a few fabric combinations together. But in the end, I love them all. They all have a story and a purpose.

Did I Cheat?

As difficult as it was to only use my stash,  at times, I  had to purchase fabric because it was a very good deal. I purchase Batik during the retreats but use little of it. I also purchase black, grey, and white as background.

Fabric Inventory

 After we moved, someone suggested I made an inventory of my fabrics. After hours of sorting out all my fabric by size, instead of colour theme, I was amazed at how much fabric I had in store. It doesn't look like much, but I do have enough to last a lifetime.  If only it was this easy with quilting, but it is not.  My entire stash of fabric consists mostly of darker tones, very little medium tones, and none existence light fabric.  Also, I don't have blenders: White, Black or greys. Anything that would break the business of certain fabrics.

Happy Ending

Since then a few top quilts got quilted, one was given away to my mother-in-law during a kemo recovery, a few tops are hanging on my walls so that I visual a quilting design for them.  And I am not overwhelmed by having all those top quilts unfinished on my shelves. On the contrary, there are tons of opportunities to develop my quilting skills.

Next Challenge

Yes, I have thought of other challenges for myself. Not sure yet which one I will go for.
Here are a few I'm thinking about:

• Use my fabric with EQ8, which I just purchased a few months ago
• Make 12 top quilts from Canadian quilters 

Not sure yet which one I'll pick, but I would love to use my own creativity by using only my fabrics again. That was so much work...and fun!

Quilt #18-Chain Link

Last quilt! No, I'm not done quilting or sewing, but this was the last one of many quilts tops I completed since starting in September 2017.

 This quilt was made entirely from 2 1/2" strips scraps. I didn't plan to look this good and was very happy with the results. The modified the pattern and reduced it to a smaller version.  I have done that with a few of them. 

Quilt #17-Spring Thaw

With all my seeds planted, I can now return to my quilting. My husband built three boxes for my Square Foot Gardening, which is very effective and practical if you don't have a large backyard. I've adopted raised-bed for my gardening years ago I read all about Mel Bartholomew new ways of gardening for home-gardeners.  It doesn't take much space, and weeding isn't a tedious task. Also, watering can be controlled to a minimum. It all depends on how you set your boxes.

 This box is 3' x 8' and has 24 square foot gardening spaces available. For beans, I planted 9 seeds in one square foot. A total of 216 seeds planted in 24 square feet!! Imagine the volume of beans I'm going to eat this summer. Well, that's IF the rabbits, snail, and whatnot eats my baby plants before they grow.

 This is another great time to take beautiful pictures. I'm enjoying so much outdoor. Yes, even if we have more days with rains, then sunny ones.

                                   Even in the evening, the sky has its beauty.

Now back to quilting. The quilt-top gives the impression the pattern is somewhat complicated, but it's not at all. It has two different blocks, which are similar in how to sew them together, and then you alternated giving your this effective one busy look.  

 It's such a challenge these days to take a decent picture of my finished tops outside because of the raining days or if it's sunny, there is a strong breeze that flipped the corners of my quilt all over the place, before I can take a shot.  Oh the joy of quilting and photography *smile*

I have ONE quilt left to sew for this challenge to be completed. Then I can work on my other UFOs.
What have you been doing this month? Are you enjoying the outdoors as much as I have? Is your budget for quilting very limited as mine? How can you work around that when you cannot spend one pennied on fabric for your backing and batting. Or you don't have enough fabric for your next project.

I'm always interested to hear from your feedback.
Until then, Let's used our scraps fabric and turned them unto beautiful quilts!

Spring Thaw Quilt Pattern