WIP - A Rose for my Boyfriend

Time for a work in progress check. I think I'm 1/3 done with the quilting now.

As much as I complain about the process of quilting I always feel very proud of my final projects. Piecing is my favorite part, and quilting is fun on smaller projects. If the project I'm quilting on is larger then a crib sheet size then it's a major pain in the butt. I mean I could avoid this by paying a long arm quilter to do it but I do enjoy when a project I'm working on was all me.

Updated work space

My arms have actually been hurting from pushing and pulling this quilt around. Up until now I have had no support around my sewing machine. It made me want to stop constantly.  It also makes me want to skip doing any of the fancy stuff. I've just been going around the block so far. I did one area with extra stitching on one of the big blocks. I figure since there's a lot of space there I need to fill it more.

My biggest issue with this has been space. I don't have a separate sewing room to spread stuff out. Today I managed to squeeze a folding table in behind the table that has my sewing machine on. This has worked wonders. I wish I had room for a table this big all the time.

I've gone through 5 bobbins so far and I may run out of this color thread before the end of the quilt. I got it as part of a limited edition set one Christmas. I don't really want to go out and buy more. I have a back up thread that is close in color to use once this does run out. I have used it to hand stitch around in flowers in the second to largest  block. So it won't be unusual for a change in color. Plus I was thinking of going back with dark grey or black when I do the largest and try to do some of the stripes in that block also. I do my best design decisions on the fly sometimes. If I hate it I will find a way to fix it. I think Bob Ross said "there's no mistakes, only happy accidents."

Hopefully my next update will be me putting the binding on and finishing this thing.

For tea this morning I'm just going to make some of the royal palace tea. Nothing new, sorry. It's very refreshing and it has grapefruit and lemon in it. The grapefruit flavor it's as obvious, but it has become more obvious as I've had more. I'm glad I bought two containers.

WIP - Spooktacular Halloween Wall Hanging/Quilt

It may be a bit early to be thinking about Halloween but since I was dipping into my WIP pile I have this one I started but didn't get far into. In Oct 2016 I did a small shop hop that consisted of 4 shops.

It was near the end of Oct. I don't know why I didn't blog about the shop hop at the time. I know that was around the time I lost my job and was very depressed. I did not get much from the hop because I wanted the patterns but needed to be conservative with my money. I am still very happy I got them because Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year and I don't really have many projects I've done with a Halloween or Fall theme.

The pattern was of an applique of a Halloween scene of trick-or-treaters that says Happy Haunting. The samples I saw were a cute play on the silhouettes that ranged from a quilt to wall hangings. I have the kits for all the people but the words.

At one shop they used part of a quilt pattern to make a quilt/wall hanging that looked a bit like a calendar. I wanted to do that with my project. I had a layer cake of Haunted Gala by Moda already in my stash and picked up the Tri Tri Again pattern for the day slots from the shop. I started this almost immediately and then something happened to make me put it aside. I don't remember what but it's over two years later and I've not picked it back up.

I have 29 of the Tri Tri Again blocks complete. I want the hanging to have 5 rows of seven so it matches a calendar page. Two of the blocks are going to be of the circular details in the center of the panel. I'm most likely just going to use the top part of the panel for the hanging since most of the colors are leaning to that color scheme. I will save the bottom house in orange for another Halloween wall hanging project.

I plan to work on it next. I'm still forcing myself to work on the Rose for My Boyfriend and I've not been able to work for the last week on that. I can't let myself switch or I'll never get this done.


The Shops that participated were:

Atomic Fibers - Oak Ridge TN
Gina's Bernina Sewing Center - Knoxville TN - This is where i picked up the pattern.
Lana's Quilts and Sew Much More - Cleveland TN
Chattanooga Quilts - Ooltewah TN (Also found this awesome article about them in the Badass Quilters Society blog)

I always like the trek from Lana's to Chattanooga Quilts because the path takes me by the Little Debbie factory. They have their factory store there and it's fun to stock up on snacks.

Today's tea is Bigelow's Orange & Spice. One of my favorite teas is the Hint of Orange that Petros sells. The celestial seasons Orange tea is closer and this one a bit bolder then the other two. I have a habit of picking up Bigelow's though because I don't always think of that. I just think "Ooh! Orange Tea", and grab it. I like the Bigelow's a lot also. I wouldn't buy it if I didn't.

UFO - Block Rockin by 627Handworks

Few years ago, when Craftsy was still around, I used it to look for cool paper piecing patterns. I had gotten a taste of paper piecing with my first Row by Row quilt and I wanted to do more.

One of my favorite block series is by Julie Hirt of 627 Handworks. The blocks are called Block Rockin based off rock groups. I printed a bunch out for myself to do as a block of the month attempt.

I know I still have 11 of the patterns and made several of the blocks. I'm glad I had kept the patterns safe in one of my pattern binders. I was looking for links to them for this post and found out about Craftsy. It's sad I haven't been to the site in so long  that I missed a huge thing. However never fear. If you want to do the blocks yourself Julie has them on Etsy for sale.

You have blocks called Led Zepplin, Icky Thump and Penny Lane. They all are really well designed and the patterns easy to use. They unfortunately suffered from my short attention span and I didn't finish all the blocks. I managed 8 of the 12 patterns and one came out small. Probably a print size issue, but I'm not sure what happened there.

All in all I think the blocks came out really nice. I know several of the fabrics are still in my stash. I keep telling myself I'm going to get back to it and finish them. I think I need to border up the small block and make one more. A small project will work out with them. It's still a project on the to do pile. (sweating at the size of that pile right now.)

State of the Blog

I'm going to try to keep up better with this blog then I have in the past. I've posted a lot of content lately and am trying to think of more. I want to use it to show off my quilts and help keep track of the quilting process I'm going through on some of my projects. I always like to be able to see where I started and the origins of some of the fabrics and patterns told as part of the quilt's story.

Every quilt tells a story from the quilter. It shows this persons likes, and what they may be focusing on at a particular time. The fabrics and patterns can tell a story of where they've been. No one but the quilter will know this story. If I share mine here more people can see them.

I plan on trying to do certain types of regular posts.

• WIP on Wednesday to get my mind on something I'm working on or half started ideas.
• Shop Hop on Saturday or Sunday. This won't be every weekend or even necessarily an actual shop hop I've done. Sometimes it will be planning for a trip or just talking about shops I visited while I was on vacation. It also may talk about past shop hops that I have completed while I wasn't blogging.

Now there are other ideas that I've thrown around in my head I would like to see a regular thing, but maybe not a weekly thing.

• Fabric Party- So here can be two concepts. Pull a random fabric from the web or my stash and talk about it's designer and what I have that would pair with it for a great project. Or spot light recent releases from the web that I like and would like to get.
• Video Vision- I usually watch YouTube videos while I sew. I use to have my computer read books to me with a free online text to speech software. The company that ran the app took away some of the voices it used and now it sounds too jarring to use for reading. With my recent video craze I thought I can spot light a YouTube video that I've watched that inspired one of my quilting ideas or projects. 
• UFO - Once or twice a month I will talk about a UFO I have hiding around here. Some of them may eventually get picked back up and finished.

I'm still going to end a daily post with tea. One of the ideas of my blog was because I drink so much tea and love to see all the variety. If I do more then one post a day I plan on only doing one post that features a tea. 

Today's tea is a short one. It is one I have shown before. It's my Jasmine Silverneedle tea. I made a cup just before starting this post. I know the last photo of it I stole from another website, so this time I'm using mine. 

Panels

I've a collection of a few panels. I can't help myself. I see them in the store or in magazine samples and I want to do THAT quilt so bad. I get them and pull together some accent fabrics. I take them home with all the intention of working up a great panel quilt. And that's as far as they get. I

 have the fabrics and panels in my stash and they get buried with the next one. I will admit to having a bit of ADD when it comes to thinking of, starting and finishing quilts. My finished ones are very few and far between compared to what I have waiting. So here are some of the great panels I have, excluding what I went over in a few of my recent posts.

• Natural Thicket by Gingiber. Woodland Critters that's what drew me to it, but Alas I don't know what to do with this thing. I've got it in the pile to find ideas for.

• Geisha Woodprint blocks. This is one that I got from a friend. She got it in a thrift store in Florida but I believe it's by Kona Bay Fabrics. Every time I go to their website it says it's inaccessible so I can't look up manufacturer information. This is another beautiful panel that I've not made up my mind on what I want to do with it. Hopefully I'll come up with something soon.

• Cat-i-tude by Ann Lauer for Benartix. I have a couple of fabrics already picked to go into a project with the panel. I just haven't planned it out. I love cats and the jewel tones in this one is gorgeous. This was one of the panels I got from my recent shop hop post. 
• Van Gogh Iris Panel by Robert Kaufman Fabrics Another much beloved artist. I do love when paintings are turned into something I can use. I don't know what I'm going to do with this either but I have two panels to play with once I figure it out. 

• Haunted House Panel. This is one I got as part of a shop hop back in 2016. It was a fun trip with mom with 4 shops in Oak Ridge, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. I got a quilt pattern at my last shop on this trip and have started it. So this is a bit of a WIP. I'll have more details about the fabrics and the panels once I get the WIP post started for this one. 
  
• Day at the Museum Impressionist panel. I actually only saw the degas square when I had to have this. My cousin has a print of one of Degas's paintings at our house. I've always loved his techniques. Again don't know what I'm going to do but it will be fun when I figure it out. 
  
• Santoro Gift of Friendship Panel by Kori Kumi. I found this one while on a shop hope and couldn't pass up how cute it was. I did start trying to figure out what I wanted to do and then got distracted and put it away. I was unhappy with what I had started to do and unfortunately haven't had the motivation to go back. This is slightly a WIP but I need to give myself a fresh look. I love these sweet panels and want to do something with them.
  
• Santoro The Traveler By Kori Kumi. Another so cute panel, this one I split the panel with my mom so I only have half the squares. I picked it up at my local shop. I want to do a separate project with it and not use it with the other Kori Kumi I have. I think I picked up more accent fabrics that was part of it's collection. 
  
• Crab Shack Panel by Two Can Art for Andover. This one I got lots of fabrics to do something with because I had picked it up on a shop hop and making a project with the panel had been on my mind. I just don't know the lay out yet and I've always tried waiting until I finish a project to start it. Then I forget that it's there waiting for me. I put it in my reorganized project piles so hopefully it will get something done to it this year. This will have to be another project planning/ WIP post soon.

Today's tea is Harney & Son's Royal Palace tea. I made a mistake of getting a glass at Barnes and Noble Cafe and then had to have it. I did end up buying two tins because they had a special on two for $15 when they're regularly $10 a piece. It's a Earl Grey with lemon. I've never had lemon in my earl grey but I do like it. This one is part of their Historic Palaces Collection. It is part of a charity that takes care of the royal palaces.

Ten Pinterest favorites

Pinterest is a fabulous source of inspiration. I have a whole board of pins with stuff I'd love to make and a couple of quilts I did make. I always see a pattern and tell myself I'm going to make that later and well. Never get to that but it's nice to browse. So without further ado, I'm going to give you 10 of my current favorites off my pinterest board Quilt to Share. 

1. Fox Quilt by Shwin & Shwin They have a free downloadable PDF of this cute quilt. A few years back fox's became a very trendy subject along with owls. You saw foxes or owls on everything. I think this is a baby quilt pattern I would love to do. I don't remember the exact time frame this craze went through but the publish date on my pin is in July of 2016. That is the same year I made stockings for all my younger siblings and my cousin's kids of Owl's and Foxes. I was listening to that Ylvis song "What does the fox say?" on repeat that year, a lot.

2. Go West By Bonjour Quilts. This one looks simple to do but that's the beauty of it. It doesn't have to be simple. It's got a mix between some bold fabrics  and low volume fabrics setting the design areas apart. The quilter Kristy did a fabulous job. I've had this on my pin board for a little while the original publication date was May 2015, but I probably added it last year. AGF has a similar one called Oscealo that was made to show off their Capsules- Craftbound collection, but it's a bit more complicated then this one. I think I like Go West better.
3. Dr. Who Tardis Quilt by Pat Henry Quilting. This was not a pattern for sale but an actual quilt for sale on Etsy. The one in the pin since sold in 2014 but it looks like as of today there is another one available in her store. It's a 74 x 81 inch quilt, that she designed and quilted.
   
   It also features a Police box sign that she had professionally embroidered. I love this design and my inner whovian wants to do something like this. Since she's not selling a pattern though I will probably just use it as inspiration and come up with something on my own.  Sorry for not putting the photo in.
4. Mountain Horizon by Lo and Behold Stitchey. It's the purple version done by Patchwork and Poodles that makes me want to do this quilt. The pin is a screenshot of Cottoneer Fabrics talking about the design and having a kit of the fabric and pattern together on Instagram. The post was in June of 2018 so you may still find some kits. Since purple is already my favorite color I want to do this quilt so much. I don't think I've done enough purple quilts.
   
5. Little Black Dress Table Runner by Amy Friend. When I first started this board I was only pinning stuff I thought was simple or I could use. Now it's full of whatever looks pretty. This easy table runner became an actual project for me in the early 2010's. She blogged about in her During the Quiet time blog on April 24, 2012 so it was after that but, I don't remember the exact year, but It was done before Christmas. I also am not certain about the date from the photo data. It was given to my best friend as a Christmas gift. She still uses it for special occasions. My version was red, black and white to match her dinning room. I enjoyed doing this one and I think it had been a project I had managed to complete quickly.
6. Hogwarts Crest Quilt by Pieces by Polly. This one is another one that speaks to my inner geek. It actually was the inspiration for the back of my own Harry Potter quilt I did a while back.
   
   I was looking for an easy layout that expresses the essentials of Howarts. I did not get the pattern but I'm still up to downloading it for a future Harry Potter themed quilt.
7. Frank Lloyd Wright inspired quilt by Quilting in this Universe. I had been looking at a lot of his art at the time I found this. I always want to do something with his style.I'm still worried about doing curves. I will have to tackle this some time. I have a degree in art history and art has always been something special to me. I love the art deco movement pieces and the modernism in his work. 
   
8. Gypsy Wife by Jen Kingwell.  The pin is actually a solids version done by Cathmosely and had been posted on instagram. This is one of those quilts that looks like a large undertaking project. I've seen people take months at putting one of these together. Each one a unique and beautiful creation.I keep telling myself that one of these days I'm going to start it.
   
9. Good Stitches Fieldcrossing Quilt by Stitched in Color. Like a lot of modern quilts this one has a wonderful use of negative space. I don't think I've ever quilted a white quilt with this much negative space. Usually when I'm pulling stuff together it gets recolored or uses a lot more patterns. I hope to do something like this that has a fantastic use of negative space with solids. 
10. Storm at Sea this version is by Margaret AKA Supermom. I've always wanted a Storm at Sea quilt. My grandmother did one for me years ago. She didn't lay out the blocks to where they go seamlessly into one another but it's still pretty. I want to do one where it makes a beautiful picture like a sunrise or something. One of these days I'll plan it out. I have downloaded a grid pattern before that lets you lay out the color scheme you want. I also probably have a dozen more of these quilts pinned. 

I do hope in the end I manage to make one of the fabulous designs. I also have found some non-quilt designs on pinterest I may turn into a quilt pattern.

For today's tea I'm going with another Grapefruit tea. I believe it's another one of the master Kong teas. I'm going by the look of the bottle and label since I can't read the Kanji. I do enjoy the grapefruit tea a lot. I need to see if I can get a similar result from a loose leaf tea that's brewed or if they're adding grapefruit juice. If they are that would make sense. 

Pre-Planning Projects 2019 Pt 5

I'm hoping my busy year doesn't overflow into next year. This one is a project where the fabrics took the lead. I got these cute fabrics from Mountain Creek Quilt Shop and knew I had to do something with them.

 I play a game called Ingress. Most people know of Pokemon go. It's the precursor to Pokemon Go. There are two teams Enlightened and the Resistance. I'm one of the Enlightened and they're nicknamed frogs. So when I saw this cute from fabric I had to have it.

The mushrooms were part of the same collection and matched perfectly with it. The rest just spiraled out of control from there. Rarely do I pick the fabrics first then find a project to fit them. This is what I've done here. The floral I have is only an eight of a yard so it's going to be an accent piece. The solids are fat quarters I got as a prize for 2017's row by row quilt. I believe I have enough of the first three fabrics to make up for the shortage of the others.

When I was looking through my Modern Patchwork magazine for the other two projects I came across one that I think will fit these fabrics perfectly. I had not planned on doing this one but I think I can make the fabrics fit it so well. I may have to go back to my stash for more.

It's called Jams and Jellies by Gosia Pawlowska. Their sample is bright and colorful. I will most likely make mine a lot smaller then the one here. I am going to work on the logistics of that problem later. I'm kinda glad all of them come from the same source. It means I'm getting a lot of use out of this magazine.

Also check out Gosia's Flicker account. She has lots a beautiful work there.

Tea today was my Jasmine Silver Needle loose leaf tea. I got it from Teavana before they closed the store in our local mall in early 2018. This is going to last me a bit longer still. The sample picture is not mine, I did swipe it from Tevana's site.. I didn't get that much. It's a smooth Jasmine tea and one of the fancier ones. Because the store was doing random sales for stuff I caught it at 75% off one day. I almost wish I went ahead and got double what I did but I think I got a 4 or 6 ozs of the stuff when I bought it. These leaves are so light and airy that's a lot of tea.