In The Nick of Time

The Grand Old Flag Gathering at Country Sampler is fast approaching, and my rule for myself is that I need to finish last year's projects before I go again this year.  As of this weekend, all projects are done!  One of the projects from Chessie and Me last year was the needlebox shown above, with the sewing roll, sewing book, and scissor fob.  At the Gathering last year, I was able to complete the sewing roll and scissor fob, and got the outside of the box covered.  I wanted to pad the inside of the lid of the box so it could be a pincushion, so I brought it home unfinished so that I could do that.  It took me almost a year to get around to it, but it's done now!  I put several layers of batting under the velvet, and then also added some twill tape I had left over from the kits we received.  The little needle book was extremely time-consuming, with lots of stitching over one thread on the girl, cat and flag.  It's really cute, though!

Here's the box and contents sitting on the three quilting projects.  I can't even remember the names now, but they are all Civil-war related and all are complete!  I'm really looking forward to the retreat again this year. I believe there are still spaces; if you are interested, look on Coming Events on Country Sampler's website.  It's a really fun retreat, and they provide all the food, so all you really have to do is stitch, shop and stop to eat every few hours!  Hard to beat that.

I'm also enjoying the Snapshots Quilt-Along from Fat Quarter Shop.  They present a block each month.  My colors are pretty bright, but I like the way they look together so far.  This month was the Kindred Kitchen apron.

Here's the first five blocks together.  I'm hoping the bright stripe will kind of tie everything together when it's done.  I couldn't resist the paw-print fabric for the basket for the puppy. 

And last but not least, my Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt is put together as a top.  I added the black sashing to calm down the spinning of the blocks, but this quilt is still way out of my comfort zone in every way!  In hindsight, I wish I had used pink instead of yellow as cornerstones, but I'm not taking it apart now.  I like it now that it's together, and it will definitely brighten up the room.  I imagine I'll enjoy using this one in January when it's gloomy.  I don't know when I'll get it quilted - it's pretty big. I think it ended up to be 103" square or something like that, so that will be a challenge on my sewing machine.  Maybe it's time to think about a long-arm!  This was the Bonnie Hunter/Quiltville mystery quilt last year.  I've only done the mystery a couple times, but really enjoy the process, and learn quite a bit from it.  I also enjoyed shopping with a friend to get the fabrics for this one.

I hope to be back next week with my Hands 2 Help quilts!

Old Dogs, New Tricks

Civil War Crossroads is done!  This is a wall hanging by Red Crinoline Quilts that I started last year at the Grand Old Flag Gathering at Country Sampler in Spring Green.  It has languished in a plastic box since last June.  My self-imposed rule (more of a guideline, actually) is that I have to finish all projects from last year's gathering before I allow myself to go again, so this one is done, done, done.  I really like it, but it was a lot of piecing - each 7" block has 53 pieces.  Those half-square triangles finish at one inch.  They were pretty easy to do using the Star Singles, though.

The old dog, new tricks part of this is that I watched the Patrick Lose video on Youtube regarding bindings, and I learned a great new trick from him.  I used his technique and I have four square, unlumpy corners on this wall hanging.  I'm really pleased with them, which isn't usually the case with my corners!  That's one of the things the judges commented about the last time I was in a show, so it's time I improved my technique.  If you aren't happy with your corners, here's the link to the video.  Very helpful - thanks, Patrick Lose!  If he's ever anywhere I can take a class with him, I'm going to.

And I'm caught up with the Snapshots Quilt-along blocks.  The cake is from January, sewing machine from February, and teapot from March.  You can tell I started this in the winter - I tend to grab the really bright fabrics when it's cold and gloomy outside.  I have a half-yard of the stripe that has black and bright colors, so I'm going to try to put a little of that in most of the blocks to tie it all together.  My color palette is much different than The Fat Quarter Shop used!  I like theirs, also, but I wanted to use some stash fabrics, and I always enjoy using the brights.  If you want to get in on the quilt-along, here's the link.  The free patterns are released the 15th of each month.  They requested donations to St. Jude's Childrens Hospital, which I was happy to do.  They've already exceeded $20,000 in donations, so everybody wins.  I think this is going to be a really cute quilt.

The quilt top from the retreat I attended in early March is together.  I wanted to get it all put together before I lose all the parts!  I already managed to lose the pattern, so I don't know if this has a name - I guess it's Pieceful Gatherings Retreat Quilt.  I don't plan to quilt it right away, but am glad to have the top together.  It's very pretty in Kim Diehl fabrics and wool applique.  I did the wool by hand, which I'm not sure was the wisest thing, as they got very monotonous by the sixth block!
 

I've gotten into the Modern Quilt movement a little bit, too.  This is Fancy Foxes, a pattern which has been all over Pinterest and Instagram lately.  The designer has some other cute ideas, too, so I think more of her patterns are in my future.  The hedgehogs are calling my name!  These foxes were so much fun to make, I'm sure I'll use this pattern again.  Very easy piecing, and fun to pick out the fabrics for each one. I had five foxes left over, so I put them with some solid gray and made a second one.

This one looks even more modern to me, but I really like it.  I was trying to teach myself to free-motion the woodgrain quilting.  The solid quilt was the first one I did, and I decided the lines needed to be closer together, so I did that with the second one and was happier with it.  Anyway, I have two new baby quilts to give away.  I think the next one I make will have a couple more rows to be more of a lap size.

Now you're caught up on all the happenings at Troublesome Creek Quilts!  We're on vacation this week, so some quilting and blogging is actually happening, along with some painting and decorating.  We're having a lovely spring day today (finally), so I'm headed out to the yard to get some of the fall cleanup (that didn't occur) done!

It's Hands 2 Help Time

If you're interested in making a charity quilt for some great causes, it's time to sign up at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  Sarah does a great job of putting this together and getting some charities set up for us.  It's a fun way to help other people.  There are prizes and lots of tutorials on the way, too, so be sure to sign up!  I've done this the last few years and it's always a lot of fun, and hopefully the recipients have enjoyed their quilts. I need to look in the charity closet and see if any of the quilts I've made in the last few months meet the needs of the charities this year.  If not, I'd better get going!  The quilts don't have to be sent until the end of May, so I've got time.

Last weekend I got to attend a retreat in the north end of the Chicago area.  It was held at the Techny Towers Retreat Center, which is a religious retreat center.  The retreat center was a very neat, well-preserved old building.  It was really cold there last weekend, so I didn't get to explore the grounds as much as I would have liked, but maybe I can go back sometime and do that. 

This was the door to the rooms we stayed in.  As you can see, the door is at least ten feet tall.  I've never stayed in a place with such a huge, heavy oak door before!  It was a really neat place to stay.  The retreat project was a log cabin/courthouse steps quilt with some wool applique.  I don't have it done yet, so no picture of it, but hopefully that will be coming soon.  It was a fun retreat and a nice getaway.  My plan was that, after this retreat, it would be spring, and that seemed to work pretty well, as we have had 50-degree weather all week and the snow all melted. 

I did finish a couple quilts in February that I haven't shown yet.  I made a modern quilt for my older son for his birthday.

This is BQ4 by Maple Island Quilts.  This isn't the greatest picture, but you get the idea.  The quilt was king size by the time I was done with it, so it was pretty hard to get it in one picture, and pretty hard to hold it up, too!  The large rectangles are a print fabric - that isn't all pieced.  It was a fun artistic print with squares of color with the name of the color under each square.  I quilted it on my Juki, so that was quite a project. 

The other quilt I finished in February was Urban Cabin by Atkinson Designs.

This was made in brights and batiks and was sent to a friend who is undergoing some health challenges.   I think she liked it!  This pattern is one I would do again.  The rectangles are made from a striped print fabric here, but there are also instructions to make it from strips if you want to.  I like making the fabric do the work for that, though.

So that is the report from here.  I'm hoping to have my retreat quilt together and ready to show next week.

Finally Back!

Well, that was a long break, wasn't it?!  Since I started using my phone to take pictures, I've been having trouble getting them to load the correct way into Blogger.  I finally found a way to turn them around, so now I need to get caught up with my blog pictures.  And now they even have a watermark.  This was a painful learning curve.

I haven't been idle during this break, and have finished several quilts during this long cold spell we've had for two months now!  We haven't been getting the snow that lots of places have this winter, but we've had more than enough cold to make up for it.

The first finish of January was Pork A Dot Pigs.

This was a fun quilt to make.  (I always say that, don't I?)  The ears and tails on the pigs are loose,

and all the pigs are machine quilted in a different pattern.  I tried to match the quilting pattern to the design on the background - you can see it in this pink pig.  It has circles to match the black and white background.

The pattern called for pinwheels for the borders, but I thought that would be too much trouble, so I did string pieced blocks instead.  That probably took ten times as long, but it was more fun!  I like the look of the string pieced blocks, and string piecing is really relaxing when you don't want to think too hard.

I had a lot of help with this quilt, as usual.  Why is it that the minute you lay a quilt on the floor, the cat appears and has to roll all over it?  She usually keeps me company in the sewing room, but she generally stays up in her basket of wool, until I lay something on the floor.

The second finish of January was this Kim Diehl pattern called High Cotton.  I'd wanted to make this quilt since the book came out a few years ago, so it's finally done.  This is a double-bed size quilt.

This quilt is really two-for-one.  I didn't have anything I wanted to use for the back, so I used a lot of leftovers from previous projects and pieced them all together to make a back for the quilt.  I had several strips, lots of fat quarters and 10" squares, and some leftover blocks from a couple projects.  I was a pattern tester for Quiltmaker for a couple issues of their 100 blocks magazines, so there is a whole strip of 12" blocks that I made for that.  They were great blocks, but only one of each to test the pattern, so I sewed a bunch of them together and at least they got used in something.  I kind of like this back, even though it has an everything-but-the-kitchen sink look to it!

 And last but not least, I can finally show you this project that I got back from the framer a couple months ago.  This was a kit purchased at Primitive Gatherings.  This will go onto my sewing room wall.

Hopefully, it won't take two months before I'm back to show you the February finishes!

Mystery Link Up - Clue #4

Clue 4 is done!  I also went back and finished the rest of Clue 2, so I'm all caught up to date at the moment.  This week's clue was much less labor-intensive than the first and second one.  I'm really wondering how these blocks are all going to wind up together!  This mystery is definitely mysterious so far.

This was a cold, gray weekend spent indoors, so it was a productive one in the sewing room.  I finished up the Primitive Gatherings ornaments:

They are signed, dated and hanging on the tree. I also finished the free pincushion that was included

 in orders from their Christmas Open House.  I filled it with sand, and it turned out pretty cute.  I may make more of these.  I forgot how to do the flystitch Lisa designed, so mine has a feather stitch instead. 

 

Mix and Match, the quilt I started in a Labor Day Quilt Along, is quilted and bound.  I tried some new free motion motifs on this one - dragonflies and flowers.  My goal for this year, and for 2015, is to improve my free motion quilting skills and finish some of these quilt tops!  I seem to be lots better at piecing than finishing.

So that's my weekend!  This week will include lots of Christmas festivities, so probably not much sewing room time.   That's OK - I am looking forward to the time spent with my family!  Hope you all have a Merry Christmas.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Christmas decorating was in full swing in this house last weekend!  The big tree is up, decorations are out, and the Cathedral Mouse tree is up.  I added the Packer Fan Mouse to my collection this year.

A cute mouse complete with beer can and teeny cheesehead!  The church ladies do a great job with the mouse details, don't they?  A group at St. Paul's Cathedral makes hundreds of these mice for sale each year.  I've been collecting these for 22 years, so I've got a tree full now.

It's always fun to get these out and put them up each year.

I've been working on my Quiltville mystery, too! 

This picture shows all 100 of the Clue 3, and 70 of Clue 2.  I've got to go back and finish Clue 2, but that's going pretty well and I should be caught up by Friday, when we get the next clue.  I'm wondering how well these colors will all play together in the finished quilt, but we'll see when we get there!  I trust Bonnie to come up with a good plan.  I've been trying all her sewing and pressing techniques, and I have to say that these eight-patches for Clue 3 went together pretty slick using her method.  I guess we can always learn something new even if we've been quilting a long time.

I would have gotten more sewing done, but I got distracted by these:

These are the free Christmas patterns from Primitive Gatherings.  They are cut out and fused down, but no stitchery has occurred yet.  I always love their patterns and have several on my big tree.  You can find the free pattern here if you want to make a set for yourself!

It's a Mystery!

The first mystery is where I've been since my last post on September 30!  I don't know - October came and went in a flash; November came and went in a flash, and here we are a week into December already.  I've been too busy to blog, I guess!

The second mystery is the Grand Illusion mystery on Quiltville.  Are you joining in?  The first clue came out on Black Friday, and we're on our second clue now.  The colors this year were inspired by the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.  I've been to Mackinac Island twice, and would love to go again. I haven't been to the Grand Hotel, but that is definitely on my bucket list for the next time I get there.

Here's my Clue 2 prepped and ready to sew:

I love these mini design boards made of foamcore, batting and leftover binding strips.  They really help me stay organized when putting together these units.  The tutorial for making the design boards is here.

Clue 1 is done, and about 40 of Clue 2 are done.  I have until Friday if I want to stay caught up.

This is 100 Broken Dish units with aqua, pink, black and yellow, along with 80 half-square triangles for use later on, and about 40 of the diamond units.  The diamond units in Clue 2 were very challenging for me, but the instructions are excellent, and my units are getting better as I go along.  After 100, I hope to have mastered this technique!  Bonnie's instructions are really good, and I feel like I'm learning a lot.  These colors are a stretch for me, but I'm enjoying using something different and it's a nice way to brighten up the gray of December.

What else have I done lately?  I made a cute birthday placemat for my mom:

This was a fun free pattern on the Bee in My Bonnet blog.  She always has very cute ideas.  I'd like to make more of this one - it was very fun to put together.  It looks like I'm into bright colors lately!

I got three things back from the framer, too.  Two were cross stitch pieces made this summer.

Both of these were patterns bought at Country Sampler.  The one on the right was from the Grand Old Flag gathering, and was a companion piece to the Civil War sampler we did last year.  I had this one framed the same way, and they look great together.

I'd love to show you a picture of the third piece, but it seems to be upside down and I can't turn it in Blogger, so that will have to wait until next time.  I hope it won't be 2+ months before I blog again!  This mystery quilt is keeping me busy and I hope to post my progress weekly.