2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge - January

Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) is my favorite type of quilting. This year, blogger SewCalGal is hosting an FMQ Challenge. Every month, there is a new video by a different FMQ teacher demonstrating some kind of FMQ. The challenge is to practice and learn that method and then post a photo of a completed sample.

I pledge to do a new sample every month as part of this challenge!

January's challenge was presented by quilter Frances Moore, who featured freeform leaves. My leaves have NEVER looked this good and I still have room to improve.

My sample is about 10.5 x 16 and uses a rather thick polyester batting from a roll at Hancock's. It's pretty thick - I used 2 layers of this stuff to tie my Dad's train quilt and it was often too warm for him to use. I also used my Bernina Stitch regulator and the clear foot (kindof like "The Big Foot", an accessory foot). It stitched beautifully on both sides. My biggest difficulty in the past was to make wider, more realistic leaves instead of long thin leaves. By consistently training myself for this teardrop shape, I only have a few of those skinny ones.


Front of January Challenge Sample


Back of January Challenge sample

What am I going to do with the sample? Trim and practice machine binding!! This particular one will likely end up as a cat pad, but next month's will be part of a tote bag. For more information on the Challenge, go to my sideline and scroll to the bottom buttons. Click on the 2012 FMQ Challenge button.

Progress on Apple Core!

Here's my progress so far on the Apple Core quilt. I am currently attaching rows 15-18 and will get that done today. I have one more 3 row section nearly done, so I think by the end of the weekend, I will have attached 21 of the 28 rows. I had great sunlight, but poor positioning for this photo, but you can see how colorful it is. I have already bought the green flannel for the backing. Not sure what I will use for binding yet - will come to that when I get it quilted, I think.



I went for both Kindle and Nook training over at the library today (I have both). I am considering buying ONE quilting book to keep on my Kindle - just not sure it is worth the trouble or expense. The only time I would use it is if I am house sitting for my sister and I usually take a project that doesn't require any new knowledge. I'll have to think about that. I can read most craft books because the type isn't so close together - it's the paperbacks that are hard.

NYE Mystery Top Completed!

Here it is! The New Year's Eve Mystery Quilt top designed by Anne Smith. This thing just shimmers in the light with all that quilter's gold. Mom really likes it, so is looking forward to using it next December. That puts a fire under me to get it quilted and I'm still looking for suitable flannel for it. The top is about 70x96 inches, give or take an inch. I plan to use what is left of the green fabric for the binding.

What would I change in this quilt? Well, had I known the pattern (this was a mystery after all), I would have used the gold in the center of those 9 patches and the red where the gold is now. I'm not complaining. It's great the way it is . However, the border was purchased with the assumption that the red would predominate and while it looks nice, it overpowers. I like to analyze quilts to see how I could do better - it also helps in picking fabrics for the next mystery.

So far, I'm the only one who did this mystery using Christmas fabrics, most of which are Hoffmann prints.

Another BOM Block

Here's my QATW 2012 BOM Block 5! Log cabin done in more holiday fabrics.



Still working hard on the Apple Core quilt. Having some trouble with my hand, so it's going slower than expected. Still pushing to finish the top before the end of the month.

Happy Thermal Solstice Day!

If you have nothing else to justify buying a half price DQ ice cream cake, try celebrating Thermal Solstice Day!!



What is Thermal Solstice? While the Winter Solstice starts on Dec. 21, the temperature lags because of "thermal capacitance of the atmosphere-ocean-land system." Thermal solstice is about a month after the Winter Solstice - we just pick a day and that is Jan. 21 this year.

By the way, you could also celebrate National Squirrel Day and thank a little rodent who plants all your trees pretty much all over the US.

QATW 2012 BOM

Yes, BOMs (known to the greater needlework world as Block of the Month) are addicting. This year QuiltingAroundTheworld.com (QATW) is having a Block a Week so that everybody is done in plenty of time to quilt the finished quilt before holiday gift giving. It is a mystery and there are other finishing secrets. What is the layout? What is the setting? Don't know, but she mentions numerous finishing steps. I'm excited.

This year, I am trying strongly to use stash and I hope to make this entire quilt from said stash. The top will be. Most of these fabrics are Joann's Noel line over the last decade - so kindof thin compared to quilt shop fabric. However, they are all Christmas and Christmas quilts are only used during December, so works for me. Most have quilter's gold as well, which really gives it a luxurious look. I'm using white on white (WOW) fabric left from the 2009 QATW BOM as well as some leftover from a long ago project.

I continue to work on hand piecing the Apple Core quilt. I have 9 rows connected together and hope to be up to 12 before the end of the weekend. My row 28 has gone astray and will hopefully be found soon!


Block 1 Ohio Star QATW 2012 BOM


Block 2 Friends Coming Together 2012 BOM


Block 3 Dutchman's Puzzle 2012 BOM


Block 4 Sawtooth Star 2012 BOM

Crocheting Again

Well, it finally happened. I can crochet again. Not for a long time, but hey better than nothing at all for over a year. I joined the Ravelry 2012 BOM for crochet. I also starting some amigurumi toy manufacturing. Since I just started playing Angry Birds (and totally love it), I'm making an angry bird. There are a few patterns on the internet and for the small amount of yarn, I will probably try them all until I figure out which is the keeper for me. During my year of absense from crocheting, I was only so-so at not buying yarn, so I'm also going to be working on reducing the stash down to 2 containers - one for wool and the other for everything else. I'm more or less going out of afghan making for awhile and going for little projects. Yeah, and maybe I'll get that ladybug afghan done!

NYE Mystery Clues #6 and #7 Done!

Finished 6 and 7 today. Haven't pressed them yet. I learned long ago to never press when you are tired. Irons are hotter when you are tired, did you know that?


Part 7 is the 9 patch, Part 6 is the HST piece.

NYE Mystery Clue #5 Done!

Yes, it just takes me all day to get these done! Actually, I work on them for awhile, stop and do something else, then putter back. Slow process mostly because my sewing chair is broken and I have to use a folding chair which isn't all that comfy. I've been waiting now 2 months for the replacement parts to show up for my sewing chair. I'm almost, but not quite, ready to just buy a new chair. However, I would then have to sell the old chair because I have no space for 2 rolling chairs permanently. Hmmpf. I digress. I think, but am not sure, that this is the last 'parts' step and that we now move into block assembly. That's the most exciting because I have no clue what this is going to look like (it's a mystery).




Snowy sky caused the lighting to be funky

NYE Mystery Clue #4 Done!

Here it is! Waited until this a.m. to cut since cutting when you are tired is a sure trip to get bandaids.

NYE Mystery Clue #3 Done!

I'm getting there. 140 of these little puppies done now. On to 4. Probably won't get this done before the weekend as I have to spend some time tomorrow working on a project for a class.


Here's some of the rows for the Apple Core quilt I've been working on. All 28 rows are now done, so I'm focused on sewing the rows together. Bought a nice 108 inch wide sage green flannel from Joann's.

Little Houses

In future, I will just post a photo of the latest houses. A gal in Holland created a quilt-a-long to make a little house each day of 2012, then one large house to represent day 366 since we have an extra day. Members of QuiltingAroundTheWorld.com also wanted to do this, but created options for other sizes. I am doing a 4 inch finished house. I am not at all good at paper piecing, so this will force me to get with the program.

My first house uses a little leftover from today's NYE project. I have not yet selected a sashing.

My first paper pieced house.

NYE Mystery Clue #2 Done!

I'm a little slow on this, but finished Clue #2. It takes a lot longer when you haven't done all the precutting, but I'm happier with my color choices. Anyway, on to the next step.

Clue #1 Done

It's 10:06 p.m. and I am finally done with Clue #1 of the NYE Mystery!! I'm sure you will notice in the photo that I have a different fabric. I discovered that I hadn't bought a border for this quilt. Visiting another quilt shop to pick up something, I saw the perfect green to go with the red, so the poinsettia fabric will be used in my border. Makes sense. Turns out clue one cut pieces into 2.5 inch squares and this print is better used in a larger element.

Why so late? My Mom's replacement Ipod showed up yesterday and she wanted to fill it. It's an 8 Gb Nano, not the paltry 4 GB one I bought her (used 1st gen nano). Did a pretty good job. I have 5.4 Gb on it now, but it took from about 4 until nearly 9 p.m. to do so. I know she has more music, but that will probably have to wait until I buy a new, larger drive. This hard drive isn't big enough for the both of us (said in a Clint Eastwood mutter). We have 2 large music/audiobook libraries. I plan to buy the new hard drive later this month. Then, I get to reload all her CDs.


This is a lovely emerald green. Sorry, the 'daylight' fluorescent makes this look weird.

New Year's Eve Mystery

I'm participating in the New Year's Eve Mystery quilt-a-long done by Ann and Cal. Yes, I'm a little behind, so it is more like the NYE Weekend mystery. I have my fabrics, photo below. The requirements were a background,2 medium colors and one pop color. Since I didn't get to the precutting during the week, I've opted to do a lap size instead of a full/queen size. I'm primarily using Hoffmann fabrics (half off at the quilt store!). I will post as I get clues done. I know that the rest are already done with clue #2 and are awaiting clue #3, but that's ok. I didn't even have my sewing machine back from getting an adjustment until last night!


L to R: goldish marble, red w/quitlers gold, gold w/quilter's gold, poinsettas on black

If you are interested in participating, the quilt-a-long is at Yahoo Groups. Search for the group at QTMysteryQuilts. There are several other New Year's Day mysteries - I usually enjoy the one at the quilt group at About.com, but won't be doing that this year.

In addition, completely unrelated to quilting, if you know anyone with a 1st generation Ipod Nano, they should know that if they have a metal back, those Ipods are being recalled. In many places, you will be getting an 8 GB 6th generation Ipod (current model) as a replacement as they've run out of 1st generation refurbushed. The recall is ONLY for the Nano due to batteries that potentially catch fire as they get older.

A House A Day

A gal in Scandinavia is spearheading an international quilt-a-long for all of 2012 featuring a little paperpieced house - one for every day of the year and a larger one at the end of the year (to account for the extra day in 2012). She asks that we don't share photos on our blogs until the end of the year, but you can discuss your progress. At my group at QATW, we are going to do a modified block with options for other sizes. For one thing, some of us (me) are terribly paper-piecing challenged. No matter what size you do, be part of a 2012 quilt-a-long and well, quilt-a-long. A free paperpiecing pattern in .pdf form is provided at the link. I've also included it in my buttons at the bottom of the right panel.

Peek-a-boo Bag

Peek-a-boo bag front

Made this bag at a quilting shop class last night. The pattern features a vinyl window so that you can see what it contains. It also has a zippered top and box bottom. I plan to make several more of these to contain my sock projects in safety from my cat.

The bag took 2-3 hours to make the first time out. Now that I know what I'm doing, it can easily be done faster. If you do this bag, a GREAT tip from the instructor is to use a teflon foot for the vinyl. Really helps as the other feet tend to grab on the vinyl and not let go. I'm going to also try it with leather rolling foot. Maybe I'll make a few to sell to help buy the new foot.

Anyway, I really needed this project to get myself going on making bags. Have another class tonight for another bag. Maybe I should join that group that makes a bag every month. How soon would I be overloaded with bags? Hmmm...

Happy Birthday Sis!!

Yes, my sis is now another year older than me. How does that happen you wonder? Well, I stopped advancing in years at 39. So, she's getting up there a little faster than me. I'm also late with her birthday card (again), but that seems to be me these days. I just can't manage deadlines very well. On the plus side, she will be getting a gift this year, but I can't post it until I give it to her.

With that in mind, I am doing the Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt this year. Yes, I'm behind on that, but I dithered over whether to participate because I didn't want to buy a bunch of fabric. My Orca Bay is going to be in holiday colors - red/green and cream with black highlights (I did buy the black since I have none on hand).

I'm making a lot of progress on my 2 HST quilts - Zig Zag and Lady of the Lake (LoTL). I want to get all the rest of the cutting done this weekend and then sew, sew, sew. I might even have one top done by next weekend.

On the knitting front, I'm going to try to do a pair of socks every month. While I love, love, love patterns in socks, you don't really see if unless you are wearing it. So, I'll give the patterns a break for awhile and just get 4 or 5 done.

Grumpy Witch Quilt is DONE!

I always seem to be apologizing for my photos and today is no different. However, I will update these with better photos when the sun comes out.

I finished the Grumpy Witch quilt a couple of days ago. I've been waiting for the sun to come out so that I could take good photos, but, alas, not only is it not out, but the ground is pretty wet as well. So, here it is! I entirely machine stitched the binding using a type of zig zag. Yes, I prefer the hand stitched look, but with bursitis issues, I thought it was time to start learning to do it with the machine. My corners are horrible. I can live with that, but I need to practice on smaller projects so that the next quilt will have better corners. The only thing I regret on this quilt is using a solid black border. Just not something to do when you have cats with white fur. I'll live with it though. The bats came out pretty good. Quilt is about 76x96 inches.


Cat help as always.


Closeup of the quilting. I did modified feathers in sashing and spiderweb in the center witch blocks with a filler stitch in the rest of the block. Thanks again to Leah Day and her wonderful videos for doing filler stitches.

Here's a closeup of the bats that I quilted around the whole border.

I Won!! I Won!! I Won!!

One of my local quilt shops had a drawing to celebrate their 7th anniversary. I won one of the quilts!!! It's called Autumn Braid. The leaf fabric that surrounds the braids is very sumptuous color with quilter's gold. Just makes this quilt sing. This quilt will be going on Mom's bed, at least until Christmas season, which obviously is not far off. I'd really like to find a good place to hang it though. So exciting!! I couldn't believe it. Sometimes my impulse buying of quilting stuff pays off. (he he he )