Carolina Christmas Border

I've been working on the border of my Carolina Christmas quilt.  Tonight while I was handing out Halloween candy, I got most of the pieces cut.

 

If the weather is as bad tomorrow as they are predicting, I'll get some of them sewn.

 

Linking up with Jo and her Bonnie Hunter quilt challenge:  http://www.joscountryjunction.com/challenge-update/

Selvage Stars, Bound at Last!

Regular readers of my blog have seen this quilt multiple times.  I've been trying to get it done since 2011.  This morning I finished up the binding.  Here is my Selvage Stars quilt:

 

This quilt was inspired by Karen Griska's book 'Quilts From the Selvage Edge', and it contains selvages from one of my quilting friends as well as mine.  This quilt is busy, and it didn't need elaborate quilting, so I chose a simple meander.

 

 

 

 

 

The backing was left over from another quilt.  I had just enough.

 

 

I thought about giving this quilt to my sister for her 50th birthday. 

 

This quilt is 56 x 81 inches.  It is a mystery to me why it took me so long to complete!

 

Linking up with:  http://amyscreativeside.com/2014/10/24/bloggers-quilt-festival-scrappy-quilts-3/

 

http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2014/10/finish-it-up-friday.html

 

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2014/10/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-little-things.html

 

 

Bonnie Hunter UFO

I'm late to the party, but I pulled out my old Bonnie Hunter UFO:  Carolina Christmas.

 

I've got 48 poinsettia star blocks and 52 fox and geese blocks done.  There is no sashing in this quilt, and that is keeping me from putting the blocks together.  In  a scrappy quilt like this, it is hard to get all the seams to nest, and I'm quite OCD about nesting my seams.  I may put that part off for a while and just work on the border.

  I started this last October when Jo had her first finish up for old Bonnie Hunter UFOs.  I didn't have a BH UFO then, but I did have many scraps and love her patterns, so I started one of her quilts..  I have a lot going on right now, but I may be able to get the border going before the new mystery comes out.

Linking up with Jo: http://www.joscountryjunction.com/bonnie-ufo-challenge/

Four Blocks To Go!

Here's my POD progress so far:

 

This is The Standard Book of Spells block times six.  All the same title, but the Roman numerals are different depending on the volume.  This is mindless embroidery and my least favorite set of books to do.

Twenty-six blocks already pieced, four to piece, nine to embroider.  I'd like to complete the piecing by  this weekend, so I can spend the following week cleaning the house.  We are having overnight guests, so both the upstairs and downstairs need to be clean.  At the same time.  It's a challenge for me!

If you think you might like to make a Project of Doom quilt yourself, check out the free pattern:  http://www.fandominstitches.com/2011/05/harry-potter.html   It is all paper pieced, but paper piecing isn't as hard as you might think.  I taught myself how to do it about a year and a half ago when I did my first POD quilt.


Linking up with Patchwork Times:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2014/10/27/design-wall-october-27-2014/

Two More Blocks

While I was at my parent's house this week, I finished the embroidery on two more blocks.

 

 

  The vials are labeled Doxy Eggs, Pond Slime and Bubotuber Pus.  The books are New Theory of Numerology, and A History of Magic.

 

 

 

 

The books are Modern Magical History, Prefects Who Gained Power, and Quintessence: A Quest.  If I had this block to do over, I'd chose different color for the saucer and handle.  They blend a little too much into the background.

 

Here is  the teacup block from the first quilt:

 

 

 

 

Exciting news:  I only have 9 more blocks to do for the center of this quilt!

 

 

 

 

October Gypsy Wife Blocks

I completed all of my October Gypsy Wife Blocks this weekend.  I just realized I made two Nurses Cross blocks instead of two Old Maid's Puzzle blocks.  Since they are the same size, I'll just sub one for the other.

 I'm tempted to go ahead and do November's because November is going to be super busy here. 

Paper Piece Fail and Flying Key Block

I've gotten pretty good at paper piecing, but every once in a while I have a block that I can't save.  Here's my first attempt at the Flying Key.

 

After I started sewing the main sections together, I noticed that one of the small pieces I had done in black was supposed to be yellow.  I attempted to rip it out and fix it, but would have had to rip out multiple seams in order to do that.   I use a tiny stitch when I'm paper piecing tiny pieces, and it is almost impossible to rip out seams like that without stretching or tearing the pieces.  So instead of fixing this block, I reprinted the key pattern at 150% and did it again.  This way I got a bigger, less lumpy key block, and it was much easier to piece.

 

 

This block is not included in the original Project of Doom pattern, but the key is available on the Fandom of Stitches site, and the book is from another of the POD blocks.

 

Zonko's Bag

I had some trouble with my Zonko's bag a few weeks ago. I wanted it to look like it was sitting on  a shelf, not hovering in mid air.

 I played around with it and consulted with my son before I got a design I was happy with.

 

 

This is Jennifer's old pattern.  I like her new one better, but not enough to redo this block.

Howler

There are a few blocks in the original Project of Doom pattern that I'm not going to do because of the color of the objects.  My background is black, so black things like Harry's glasses or brown things like the hat will not show up very well.  My solution is to come up with other HP blocks based on the fandom in stitches patterns.

Here's my Howler block:

 

This is another 'quick' block (about 5 hours, I think) since it has no embroidery.

The Monster Book of Monsters

I finished The Monster Book of Monsters this morning.  I chose to make this book red, not brown because I'm using a dark background, and I've had some problem getting good contrast between browns and the background. 

 

This block took about 3 hours for me to make because of all the teeth.  In the long run, though, it is a quick block because it doesn't need any embroidery.  Here's the monster book from my first quilt.

 

 

Bertie Bott's Block

I finished one more block this past weekend.  Here is Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean block.

 

The books are Enchanted Encounters; Where There's a Wand, There's a Way; Hairy Snout, Human Heart, and Voyages With Vampires.

 

I'm halfway through with the blocks for the bookcase:

 

 

To see more design walls: http://www.patchworktimes.com/2014/10/13/design-wall-october-13-2014/

 

Printing on Fabric: The Marauder's Map

Once upon a time, I was a biochemist working in research at a pharmaceutical company. Then I had my first baby and knew I wanted to stay home with him.  But I still like to do experiments. 

I saw another quilter on Facebook who is doing a Project of Doom quilt.  One of her blocks is the Marauder's Map.  She found a picture of one online and did some editing of the picture so that the map is tinted like old parchment and looks like it has been folded.  She then printed it out  on fabric using her ink jet printer.  She very graciously shared her jpeg file with other quilters.

I haven't tried printing of fabric before.  One of the reasons is that I don't want to make a quilt like that unless I'm sure the printing is going to be of good quality and colorfast.  I've seen a lot of memory quilts with faded pictures on them and don't want to make a labor intensive quilt that doesn't last. 

My first step was to choose the best printable fabric I could find (Dritz's Printed Treasures).  This kind of cloth backed paper isn't cheap, but I used my JoAnn's coupon.  It still cost over $30 for 12 sheets.  There WERE less expensive brands available, but they all said things like 'hand wash' or  'washable, but don't use detergent'. In my world, I use detergent when I wash things, and I think most people do.  This quilt is meant to be used.  I expect it to get dirty and need a good washing .  So after I printed out 3 test sheets, I started my experiment.

I removed the paper backing like the package said.  One peeled of fine, one stuck a little and one stuck a lot.  The paper that was stuck to the back of the fabric came off when I soaked the sheets in water as the package recommended to wash away excess ink. Then let the sheets dry flat, again like the package said.  The package didn't say to heat set the ink, but it did say it was safe to iron the printed fabric with a warm or silk setting on the iron, so I did that.  I zig zagged the raw edge of my test sheet and got started. 

Printed sheet number one got washed twice in cold water with a low temp dry (like the package recommends) and twice in a load of jeans with warm water and high temp dry.  I wanted to do a worst case scenario, I'm sure the girl I give this quilt to will be careful when she washes it, but I also know that sometimes other people want to 'help' do your laundry for you, and they aren't always careful.  I think most people have a laundry horror story:  the time you washed a sharpie, crayon, or chap stick, or the time your husband turned all your baby boy's onesies pink.  I wanted to make sure this quilt could survive a basic error like wrong water temperatures.

 

The sheet on the left has not been washed.  The sheet in the middle has been washed once in cold water.  The sheet on the  right has been washed twice in cold and twice in warm.  You can't see from the  picture above, but there was some fading on the sheet I washed in warm water.

 

 

For my purposes, that amount of fading is acceptable.   Here's my completed Marauder's Map block:

 

 

Thanks again to Sue for making her file available!  She did a lot of work to make this map.  If you want to see more of her work, search on for the Project of Doom group on Facebook.

 

 

Stash Report

I've been sewing a lot, but still have nothing used to report because nothing is finished yet.  I've been having a difficult time with the RR.  I had the perfect idea, but it would have been way too time consuming to do what I wanted to do.  Instead I made 3 of the paper pieced blocks for one side and made fifteen 6 1/2 inch pieced blocks for two of the other sides.  I'm still considering the fourth side. 

We are only allowed to show teasers, so here's one of the paper pieced blocks:

 

I added one half yard of fabric this week when I went to one of the area LQS that is part of a shop hop this weekend.  There is too much going on this weekend to hit the other stores in the shop hop.

 

Used This Week:  0 yards                                                    
Used Year to Date: 67.125 yards
Added this week: 0.5 yards  
Added year to date: 71.625 yards
 Net Added:  4.5 yards

 

We had a family party at my sister's house yesterday.  It was a small group since we were competing with my nieces' and nephews' Columbus Day soccer tournaments, but it is a good thing that it was a small group.  My sister's house is undergoing a major kitchen renovation that was supposed to be complete last month.  She still had no appliances, sink or cabinets in the kitchen. We had food from Chipolte and ate in the basement and on the back porch.  All three of my boys were there, so I was happy!

 

To see more stash reports:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2014/10/12/stash-report-week-41-2014/

The Time Turner Block

I finished the time turner block this week.

 

Here are Men Who Love Dragons Too Much and One Minute Feasts- It's Magic!  I have to make sure to get all the cookbooks in this POD quilt because the girl who will receive this one loves to cook.

 

For comparison, this is the same block from my fist POD quilt. The first quilt was nice, but I'm liking the black background more and more. I like the way it make the bright colored books pop.

One More Block

I finished the titles on another POD block last night.

 

This block has Jinxes for the Jinxed, Important Modern Magical Discoveries and Flesh Eating Trees of the World.

 

For comparison, here's the same block in my first POD quilt.

 

 

 I unintentionally  used the same scrap for the test tube in both blocks.  You can also tell that I don't always follow the same order of the books or even the same embellishments on the covers, it just depends on which scraps I grab.