Fish Hope for Zach, One Monthly Goal

I've been working on another graduation quilt for another nephew who will graduate from high school next June.  So far I've made seven  of my nieces and nephews graduation quilts.  Eight more to go!  I'm trying to get a jump on next year by making one this summer for Zach.  Zach is fisherman who is also on the school's track team.  I hope he will be happy with the quilt I'm making for him.  The piecing is not as intricate as quilts I usually make, but that was on purpose because the fish print is large.  I finished the top yesterday.

This is a long, narrow quilt, perfect for an extra long dorm bed.  It is 62"x 101".  The pattern is a variation of  Vicki Bellino's The Big EZ.

I am happy with the way it turned out, and I like the fabric I chose except for the way it feels.  It is digitally printed, and the fabric feels silky and slippery to me, not like cotton even though it is 100% cotton.  For this pattern, it worked fine.  I would not like to make a quilt with lots of small pieces or bias using this fabric.  

Linking up:  https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2019/06/one-monthly-goal-june-finish-link-up.html

Used this week: 16.0  yards (scraps to Alison, Hal's pillowcase, Fish Hope top)

Used year to date: 89.0 yards

Added this week:  0 yards

Added year to date: 80.375 yards

Net Used: 8.625 yards

Arrow Point Path

A member of my bunko group, who I see about once a month, is getting remarried. I went back and forth over what to get her for a wedding gift.  I had almost decided on a gift card to a nice restaurant, but I was too lazy to go out and get it.  I had a quilt here that I had made a couple of years ago that was not spoken for, so I decided this afternoon to make a label and give her this quilt instead.  I was going to give it to my sister-in-law a couple of years ago, but my husband didn't like it, and I was worried she wouldn't either

My favorite part is the batik border print I used as background fabric.  The rest of the fabric came from my batik scraps.

I brought it over to her house, just planning to drop it off with one of her kids, but she was home, so she invite me in and opened the gift.  I have rarely had anyone react the way she did to one of my quilts.  She was so excited that I had made her something. She loved everything about the quilt, the color, the pattern, even the shot cotton on the back. It was like I had been reading her mind and made her the perfect gift! I am so happy I was too lazy to go and get that gift card as my friend is truly quilt-worthy.   She just sent me pictures of the quilt tonight and thanked me again.

Practice Makes Perfect?

I have spent a lot of time this week playing with Sew Kind of Wonderful's  Quick Curve Ruler.  I am a novice at curved piecing, and probably wouldn't attempt it at all if it required a lot of pinning.  With this ruler, there isn't any pinning required  to sew the curve portions of the block.  That's a plus!  There is a lot of squaring up, though, an with that comes some fabric waste.  To me, the waste is ok.  I have a lot of fabric, and wasting a little doesn't matter that much to me.  I'll use a lot of the 'waste' in scrap quilts.

The directions for some of the Sew Kind of Wonderful have complicated cutting instructions.  If you don't do a good job at cutting out the pieces, the block can be way off and unusable. There are good video tutorials for a lot of the patterns.  I don't think I would be able to figure out how to make these quilts without the tutorials.  Even with the tutorials, I made many, many cutting errors.  My advice is if you don't like to cut, don't try these patterns.

I first tried to make some Chic Kisses practice blocks. I cut the gray piece on the left incorrectly by cutting on the wrong fold.  Fortunately, I only made this error once and was quickly able to determine what happened.

I made the following arc incorrectly many times for many different reasons, including not having a scant enough 1/4" seam, and a printing error that left a template 1/16" off.  That 1/16" mattered enough that it took me a long time to figure out the problem.  I checked the 1" test line, but the 1" test line was only off by about 1/5 of 1/16, and I couldn't tell when I checked it.  Lesson learned the hard way!

The next block seemed promising at first.  But my copy of the Chic Kisses pattern was in a magazine, and the squaring up instructions were incomplete.  I should have followed along with this part of the video tutorial instead of just trimming it the way the instructions indicated.  If I had, the squares in the corner of the blocks would be actual squares with 90 degree angles.  That's an important part of this pattern, so this block is a fail. 

So I tried again and came up with this:

The corners of this block are better.  My issue with this block is the orange center. 

You can clearly see that the top orange piece is narrower than the bottom piece.  I think that the problem is with the way I sewed the curves.  I haven't done enough to get consistent results.  Inconsistent curves was the problem I had back in 2017 when I first tried this ruler.  I know I need more practice!

One Monthly Goal: June

My goal for this month is to get my Fish Hope quilt sewn together.  It is hanging on my design wall, and I want it off!  I need a little motivation, though, because the hard work is done, and I tend to get bored once I know how a quilt is going to look.

This quilt is based on Vicki Bellino's The Big EZ pattern, but since I want it to fit an extra long twin bed, I have changed the block dimensions and the border. 

Linking up: https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2019/06/one-monthly-goal-june-link-up.html

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/2019/06/design-wall-monday-june-3-2019.html

Will's Quilt Bound

It takes me forever to bind a quilt by hand, but I chose to do a hand binding on Will's quilt because it has flying geese on the edge.  I knew I would cut the points off of all of them if I did a machine binding.  As it was, I still cut off several points, but this quilt is for a teenage boy, and I'm sure he won't care!

Why airplanes?  Will is going into the Airforce ROTC program at college next fall.  This quilt measures 88" x 73".

This quilt is based on an airplane quilt I saw on a Facebook group, but there was no pattern to follow.  I made it up as I went along, and it took me a long time to get the layout the way I wanted it.  I was working with 2 out of print layer cakes, so I had to find other fabrics too.

Vicki Johnson of Threads That Bind Us did the quilting.  I let her choose the pattern, and she chose a swirl that reminded her of wind.  I think it was a great choice!

Will is also a cross country runner, so I chose this for the back:

I still have to get a label sewn on.  He will graduate mid-June, so I have some time.

RSC, Orange

I finished my RSC blocks for May.  This month's color was orange.

I only had to make six of them, but the crumb piecing is very time consuming.  It took me about 6 hours, an hour for each block, to do the piecing.  I am getting excited about the way this quilt is coming along.

 Two thirds of the blocks are done!  I want to use purple and either red or pink for the last colors.

Linking up:http://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2019/05/scraphappy-saturday_25.html

Stash Report:

Used this week:  0

Used year to date: 68.50 yards

Added this week:  22.875 yards (Will's quilt, solids)

Added year to date: 91.375 yards

Net Added: 22.875 yards

Goose In the Pond Variation, Quilted and Bound

This quilt really deserves a better name than Goose In the Pond Variation, but Goose In the Pond is an old block, and I wouldn't feel right calling it something else. I got it bound last week.

 I was thrilled with the quilting Denise Zapf of Quilting Mojo did.  This quilt has a lot of empty spaces and it is going to be for display, so I asked Denise to custom quilt it.  She chose the patterns, and it was like she read my mind. I could not have imagined more beautiful quilting. Denise said she quilted this one as if it were her own.

Goose In the Pond Variation is going to hang over the railing of my foyer with other red and white quilts.  I have space for 2 more.

Linking up:  http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/2019/05/design-wall-monday-may-20-2019.html

http://busyhandsquilts.blogspot.com/2019/05/play-date-baby-quilt-finished-or-not.html

Stash Report:

Used this week: 4.5 yards (GITPV back)

Used year to date: 73.0 yards

Added this week:  0 yards

Added year to date: 57.50 yards

Net Used 15.5 yards