Survival Update

I hope all has been going well with everyone out there.  

My sewing got interrupted because of COVID.  I came down with it the last part of January!  I was blessed to have a mild case.  I call myself being cautious and evidently it creeped in on me.  To be honest the fear of what could happen probably freaked me out worst than having it.  

The only symptom I had was "pink-eye".  No cough, no congestion, nothing else.  Evidently a small percentage of those with covid develop pink eye.  But I thank God I had very mild symptoms.

Needless to say I just completed my vaccine shot on last week.  So I am fully vaccinated!  YIPPEE!!!!

Once I got thru COVID, I started back to walking everyday for 2 hours.  Well, I live in Colorado, and we had a major snow storm in March.  As I was walking a couple days later, I stepped on black ice and fell. 

 First the doctor thought I had just a severe hip sprain, but turns out I actually slipped a disk!!!

What's that saying if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have NO LUCK AT ALL.  At least that's how it feels right now.  So I have very limited mobility for the last month and am working mainly from my bed, since even a couple of steps causes extreme pain in my leg (Can you say sciatica?).  I'm under a doctor's care and hoping to make a recovery soon.

These event's had me thinking of two things my dad always says:

1. Getting old is not for Whimps!
2. If you fall don't try to break the fall, you'll cause more harm to yourself trying to stop the fall!  It's best to just fall.

It's amazing that when you are young you think your parents are talking crazy, or that what they say doesn't apply to you.  Then one day you discover that your are getting old, and there is so much wisdom in the things they say.

So in the meantime, I can't sew 😢.  So I've been thinking and reading about sewing.  I've been reading some articles on fit and quilting techniques.  I've also been doing some quilt designs in EQ8 for future use.  I've been trying some contemporary quilt designs: 

Interlocked V's

Crossing Ribbons

I saw this design in a German American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine, and was immediately drawn to it: 

I was working on this before I injured myself.  Here is my diagram of the block:

Block Diagram (24" square)

My Test Block

Once I am mobile, this will be the first project I complete!

In the meantime, everyone stay safe and get vaccinated!

Happy Sewing.......

Continuing my 2020 survival sewing . . . A Quilt Along (QAL)

I've been continuing to do my survival sewing. I was hoping my survival sewing would end with 2020; but looks like this will continue into 2021. So I'm calling this my 2020/21 Survival Sewing. I'm hoping to get back into garment sewing; but that may be a while. My company is officially switching us to a remote working environment. This is going to go on at least thru the first quarter of 2021. So I'll continue to sew to keep my sanity! 

I've been quarantingint to the max!  I've also continued to work on my quilt tops. The latest was a quilt along sponsored by Janome, Maywood fabrics, and "Love of Quilting" magazine.

Quilt photo from Quilting Daily

The quilt is a 6 part series.  The entire quilt instructions can be found at Warmth of our Stars.

It is available in its entirety till Jan  7th (along with videos).  After that it can be found monthly thru 2021 in "Love of Sewing" magazine.

Of course, being that I get impatient when it comes to finishing quilts.  I've downloaded the instructions, and completed my quilt top last week (just need to add border).

Center Star with Flying Geese

It's starting to come together

The total top, completed just need to add border.

This is the first time I've made a pieced a quilt using flannel.  I did a rag quilt a couple of years ago, which is totally different from from doing piecing with flannel.  I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of using flannel for piecing; but may give it another try later.

Some of the take aways I got from this: 

1. Pre-wash the flannel.  I wasn't sure of how much shrinkage would occur, so I prewashed it.  I'm glad I did.
2. Press your seams open.  Using flannel the fabric is bulkier, so pressing the seam allowances to one side creates too much bulk.
3. Definitely PRESS AS YOU GO!!!  Makes like so much easier.

On to the next quilt top.....

Happy Sewing Everyone!

2020 Survival Sewing: Log Cabin Block

 One day I'll get back to my garment sewing; when Covid has subsided and I can go places.  So for now I continue my sewing with my quilting.

My next design uses the log cabin block.  

As usual I scanned in my fabrics and played with quilt layout using Electric Quilt 8.  

After some playing I came up with the final layout: 

Line Drawing of the final quilt layout.

I chose to set the blocks on the diagonal. Once I had my fabrics scanned in, the final quilt design turned out to look like this: 

My original design used 3 borders of 1" in width.  I decided to switch to single border 2" wide.

Here's a preview of the design in Electic Quilt 8

Now for the final completed quilt (Sorry for the lighting, had to do my photo's inside due to the cold weather): 

The FINAL QUILT!!!!

I love me some Electric Quilt!  Before I would have done this using paper and color pencils!  

Talk about saving tress!!!

Now onto my next quilt.  I'll be making the infamous John Lewis quilt seen in this photo.  

Photo from Reddit.com

I've already drafted my pattern in Electric Quilt.  I figure this would be great for using scraps.

On to the next quitl.

Happy Sewing!!!

2020 Survival Quilting (continued):

This is emotional and trying times for all of us.  So as I've said before my sewing has become my therapy.

Initially, I was making lots of clothing; but decided that wasn't going to work for me. When I make clothes I feel the need to wear them.  Well since I've been working from home since March, 2020; there really is no place for me to wear them.  I don't leave my house unless I have a need.  So having all of these garments with no pl
ace to wear them, was just making me more sullen.

So quilting to the rescue!  

I visit one of my local quilt shops almost every weekend.  The store is "A Quilter's Corner" located in Eric, CO.  They have some of the most amazing fabrics.

Well I fell in love with the M&S Textiles Australian Aboriginal fabrics.  They have some of the most beautiful colors and prints!

From A Quilter's Corner website

From A Quilter's Corner website

The prints are so vibrant!  I knew I needed to use them in a quilt.  My concern was that thy might be too busy.

So I decided to try to do something that would allow me to use the different prints.  Something like a scrap quilt, but I'd use the aboriginal prints instead.  Then I was inspired by the "Diamond Luau" pattern by Bluebear quilts.  It looked like the perfect way to use all of these prints.  I purchased 1/4 yd pieces of 25 of the prints.  I used a somewhat muted tones of red, black, and white for the background and the alternating block.

Of course my Accuqult Qube came in very handy for cutting the quilting pieces.  

As usual I enter my designs in Electric Quilt so that I can get a feel for the look of the pattern, and then I did two test blocks, and then was on my way.

After the first 3 rows, the layout looked like this: 

 

Needless to say I just feel in love with it!  

After another week, the quilt was completed and will be going to the quilters with the others.

Completed Quilt!

Closeup of quilt layout

The completed quilt is approximately 90 x 90.  The quilt design used, allowed me to use all of the prints in a single quilt without it being overwhelming.

I've got some left over of the 1/4 yd pieces to consider making another quilt from the pieces,

Happy Sewing!

Quilting Part 3 (2020 Survival Sewing).

So I have decided to call these quilts my "2020 Survival Quilts" .  I don't know about everyone else, but everything that has gone on this year is taking its toll on me mentally.

So sewing has become my therapy.  I've been averaging a quilt top every 2 weeks or so.  Ive been doing this since about September timeframe.

I call this part 3 but this is actually my 6th quilt top.  The first 3 were lap quilts.  But for some reason I just don't feel like that size is very usable for me.   I tend to do quilts that are queen/full size. These latest quilts are 80 inches in size or larger.  I like for my quilts to be "used" by the people that received them.  I learned that I am a "UTILITY" quilter; meaning that I like for my quilts to be "utilitized".  (Don't you love the sound of that 😀).

My husband asked me what were we going to do with all of these quilts.  I told him I haven't thought that far yet!  However, I do think I've just about got him convinced that he needs to invest in a Long Arm quilting machine for me.  My husband even mentioned that it could be an investment towards retirement.  Plus with as many quilts I'm making, its cost well over the monthly note for a long arm quilting machine.

Now onto quilt #3: 

I saw this pattern on a stroll thru instagram, and fell in love with the pattern.  It's called "Bright Hope" from Blue Bear Quilts": 

Image from www.bluebearquilts.com

Althought the quilt design looks very involved is based on one block.

Image from www.bluebearquilts.com

I did some "reverse engineering" (The engineer in me creeps out every once in a while). I entered the design into Electic Quilt 8 (Quilt design software). Then I added images of my fabric and was able to get a preview of what the finished quilt would look like. This is my variation of the design from my Electric Quilt software..

During my 2020 survival journey I've had a couple of goals in mind: 

1. Learn to use my Electric Quilt 8 software
2. Use my Accuquilt cutter to cut out my design as much as possible (I own all of the qube sets, so I can create just about any block design.
3. Use as many of my exsting fabric stash as possible.

I used my Accuquilt quilt dies to cut out the block pieces.  This reduced my cutting time tremendously!

If you want something that looks complicated, but is simple to put together definitly visit Blue Bear Patterns and give this pattern a go.  They have some really interesting quilt designs.

This quilt along with the previous one, will be going to the quilter by next week.

Maybe by Christmas I'll get that long arm quilting machine 😉

Happy Sewing Everyone!

Quilting part 2

 So here is my 2nd quilt completed during these pandemic/unrest times.  My sewing is what is keeping me sane.  Its become my therapy!

This is my second quilt in this journey of learning my Electric Quilt software.  This time I set the blocks on the diagonal, in an attempt to reduce the amount of bias edges.

Quilt Design in Electric Quilt

I love the fact that I can scan in images of my fabric to get a somewhat true vision of the final quilt.

Here is the actual completed quilt.  It measures 86x86, and will go off to the quilter on Monday with 2 other quilts.

Photo of completed quilt

This quilt was done using sttip peicing and making half-square triangles and quarter-square triangles. I am so excited that the quilt looks like the EQ image.

Photo of completed quilt taken outside 

I've already started the third one.  I designed it in Electric Quilt and will be using my Accuquilt dies to do the actual cutting. At the rate I'm going it should be completed in about 2 weeks.

If I keep paying a quilter to do the quilting, I may as well look into buying a longarm machine.  I figure by the time I pay the 10th quilt to be quilted, my husband will be agreeable to it. 

So 3 down, 7 more to go! 😉

Happy Sewing!

Quilting

 So I've been taking a break from garment sewing for a while.  The more garments I made with no place to go just got me even more depressed during this time of Covid.  So I've switched to making quilts for a while.

So much has been going on lately that it is taking major effort to maintain my sanity.  

When it is quiting time, I shut it down completely!  No running back to the computer.  It was stressing me out way too much.

I've learned little things like I need the "decompression" time that I used to have driving home from work.  So now when I shut down work, I automatically sew for at least an hour.

Lately I've been focusing on my quilting.  I'm working on becoming more proficient with my Electric Quilt (EQ8) software.

Here is my most recent EQ8 quilt design: 

My Design from Electric Quilt 8 

I was actually able to import pictures of my fabric so that I could see the actual design in the fabrics I've chosen. I used fabric from Blanks Quilting Company (Dotsy in Black adn White) used for stripes.  The background fabric is Wilmington Fabric (Essentials in Dark Asphalt).  The "Dotsy" fabric was in my stash, and of course I was short of fabric for each.  But luckily, ,I was able to locate it via online from a little shop called the Hideaway Quilt Shop in Missouri.  My background fabric was purchased at my local quilt shop, A Quilter's Corner in Eric, CO.  ( I love this shop!  The owner is amazing. And they are open on Sunday for a few hours, for those times when I'm in desperate need for something).  I always try to shop my local fabric shops first!.

Picture of photo for lighting

Full Quilt

The final quilt is 98" x 98" in size.  I left off the corner triangles; I think it give it additional character.  

I'm hoping to get it off to the quilters next week with another quilt top that I am finishing off.

 

Happy Sewing. . .