Snow Days (Yes! in Florida!)

We've had some weird weather here in Northwest Florida the past few days...  the kind that drives you into the house and you don't leave.  Living in this house for almost 25 years, I can't remember ever seeing icicles on the roof before.

Or seeing a forecast like this very often.  (Notice how it will be back to normal by the weekend!  Sheesh, if we don't all have pneumonia, it will be a miracle!)

And while we've had snow before, I don't recall ever seeing snow on top of a layer of ice like this.  Or having it stick around for more than a few hours.

It was kind of pretty, though.

And since my husband was stuck in all the madness that was snow in Atlanta over the last several days, I had the house all to myself.  (Thankfully, he was warm and dry and out of this mess!  But certainly not trying to head home - especially with both airports closed.)

It was the perfect opportunity to stay indoors and sew, and I'm happy to say that I've made some progress.

Hoping for two 14 in 2014 finishes in January, I worked on the circles quilt.  Officially called Spot On, the pattern is from Camille Roskelly's Simplify book, and is part of my goal to make every quilt in the book.  I think I only have a couple more to go.

As you can see, I quilted a large spiral in the center to outline the circle, then swirls in the borders.  I used the Bernina 4 stitch for the sashing.

I wanted something with rounded edges in the borders, and I thought I would try something new, so I quilted hearts in the inner border.  Or at least an approximation of hearts.  I never did get them down perfectly, but I am satisfied with them as a first try.

I decided I wanted to try feathers in the outer border, but I didn't want to just go for it.  I had this quilt (which was one of the first ones I made when I got back into quilting after my long working-mommy-hiatus) which had no quilting in the borders, and was just screaming for something - anything.  So I practiced my feathering skills around the borders of this disappearing 9-patch quilt.

After some helpful critiquing via text message from my friend Krista, I revised my technique a bit, and while not perfect, they are much better.  I'm not displeased with them for a first try.  (It seems like every quilt I make is a practice quilt.)

And so this one is finished and bound, thanks to mother nature, and since the sun is {finally} out today, maybe I'll get a chance to take some real pictures.

Photo courtesy of Riley Blake

Because I was stuck indoors, I finally started work on my project for the Riley Blake MQG challenge. I've been staring at these 6 fabrics on my design wall for months (literally!) without a clue what I was going to do.  But the deadline for our guild is a week from Saturday, so it was time to dive in.  I honestly had no idea what I was going to do until I did it.  This is certainly a great example of being led along, one step at a time.  Or as my mother would have said, I work better out of desperation than inspiration.

I decided I wanted to do something Dresden-style, so I started with that.  I cut the wedges (some of which I had to piece because of the way I wanted the design to go).  Then I decided that narrow black strips between would unify these disparate pieces.  The rules said you could use any solids with these Riley Blake prints, and since I was stuck inside, what I had on hand was Kona black.  I used the gray/brown (I never could decide which it was, but the gray thread looked best) as the quarter circles in the corners.

I had only two bolts of fabric on hand for the background - yellow and white.  I decided I liked these wedges better on the yellow.

I appliqued the circles into blocks, then spent about an hour on Pinterest searching Dresden blocks.  Finally, I decided on this block arrangement.  (I apologize for the clutter in the photo, but my sewing room is small, but it was the warmest room in the house during this crazy weather.)

I found a white sheet in the stash that I bought on sale at Target several (maybe 4) years ago to use as the backing, and I just bought a 25-yard bolt of batting on sale at Joann's which was delivered last week, so I had batting on hand also, which was a good thing, because all the stores were closed for two days.  I might have made a trek to the fabric store to find backing if I hadn't been trapped in the house, so this is a case where having things in your stash was a big plus!

I tried my new spray basting skills, and had a bit of a disaster.   Notice how alike these two cans are?  Yup, yours truly picked up a can without looking and sprayed blue stencil marking spray all over her quilt batting.  Omgh!  But, I figured that since it was meant to wash out, maybe it would wash out of the batting, so before I sandwiched the quilt, I took my batting-and-backing sandwich, which had already been bonded with adhesive, to the kitchen sink and scrubbed.  I'm glad to say the stencil marking spray washed right out.  (Yup, the painters tape on the bottom of the stencil spray is so I don't make that mistake again!)

Note to self:  put on your glasses and pay attention.

I sewed, and I quilted and just had a great time in my nice warm room...

And I ended up with this.  I'm in the process of binding, and it should be finished in time.  Whew!

And while I was in my toasty sewing room, I decided to finish the pillows that I started months ago and never finished for my daughter to go with her Wallflowers quilt.  I made the blocks a long time ago, and they have just been sitting there neglected on my design wall.

So I bordered and quilted and zippered and backed and am now in the binding phase with these too.  

All in all, it was a pretty productive couple of days.  And today the sun is out and the ice is melting and the husband is coming home, so it will be back to normal very soon.

Two Finishes for Project Linus - an FMQ Journey

Awhile back, I promised to share real pictures of my May Finish.  But more exciting to me is that I got 26 blocks out of my WIP pile. 

Most of the blocks were from several rounds of the 3x6 bee. I love the way they all look together.

They say the only way you will improve at anything is to practice, so I did a different motif from Angela Walters' Free Motion Quilting in each block.  I love that book.  Her instructions are super easy to follow, if maybe not so easy for me to execute.  Something about hand-eye coordination, and the disconnect between my brain and my muscles.

I decided on this block that I don't like pebble quilting any more than I did the first time.  But I do like the texture when it is finished.

I kind of wish that Angela would come out with a practice book like we used to practice penmanship when I was in school (I understand they don't teach cursive in school any more, let alone penmanship!  What's up with that?)  Then you could really do as she suggests and practice the designs with a pencil over and over and over...

I did the yellow quilt before I did Krista's quilt as a practice quilt so I would get at least a little better at FMQ.  It really doesn't come naturally to me at all.

This block is far from perfect, but it ended up being one of my favorites.  I tried 3 different motifs in this block.  I really love how it turned out.

I think I just got tired and did stipple quilting in this block.  Never a bad choice, right?

These were bee blocks, which have a tendency to vary in size, so I sashed all the way around each block to even them up.  I ended up trimming to 15", so each block finished at 14-1/2" square.

I tried paisleys on this block.  I really love paisley anything, and this motif was very fun to do.  I obviously need to work on the size consistency of my paisleys though.

 I used another stripe fabric from my Stripes That Bind bundle for the binding from my favorite fabric shop.  I think it looks like it was made for this quilt.

 In her book, Angela talks about not getting stuck in a corner, and that wasn't really my problem.  It was more that I would finish the block and find that I had left a whole big area unquilted, so I need to work on how to get around the quilt more logically.

I really love that these blocks are all so different, but coordinate with each other so well.  This one is more seafoam than aqua, but it still works perfectly.  And the yellow in this block blends so well with the sashing.

I pieced the back together from the two extra blocks and some leftover yardage.  I really like that blue swirl.  Despite its faults, I am fairly pleased with how it turned out.

The second aqua/red quilt is my ALOYF finish for June.  I sashed this one in aqua.  I like how it gives it such a different feel.

For this quilt, I decided I wanted to improve my swirls, as they are such a basic part of FMQ, so I did swirls in all 12 blocks.

 I hope my swirls improved over the course of quilting 12 blocks.

 Still pretty rough, I think.

 I used a different motif in all of the sashings in this quilt.  I like the wood grain.  Not polished, but really fun.

 Wavy lines in between some of the blocks.

 I tried pulleys up this one side (and then covered half of them up with the binding).  I think here they look a little like safety pins.

 These swirls are far from perfection, but I will keep practicing.

 The figure 8's were really fun too.

 These swirls might be {a little} better?

 The triangles were fun, but it took me awhile to get the hang of it.  The first dozen or more were backwards. 

 The wavy lines were harder than they look.  I never did get the hang of keeping them even, so I decided to just let 'er rip and have fun with them.  I really like the texture.

And stripey binding again.  This one was from my stash.

 This fabric was some that Krista gave me that her mom's friend's family had given her.  She brought it home to Arizona from Seattle in a Coleman Cooler, so we call it Cooler fabric.  LOL  This was a pretty large piece, although not quite wide enough so I added a couple of coordinating pieces to make it work.

The print reminds me a bit of Tarzan, or John Steinbeck's The Pearl.  In any case, I think it will make it boy-appropriate.  The ECMQG is participating in a large quilt request from Project Linus.  They specifically asked for gender neutral or even numbers of boy and girl quilts.  They are specifically to go to Camp Corral, a local camp for military children who have a parent who is deployed, wounded or fallen. 

I really had fun quilting these quilts, and perhaps I made a little progress in the FMQ department.  In any event, though, I hope they will keep a child warm, and perhaps let them know that someone cares.  These men and women have given great service to our country, and as always, it is often the children who suffer most.

With a husband who served 23 years in the military, a good bit of it in combat, I often think, "There but for the grace of God go I."