Quilting update

Sunday is dedicated to finishing up long lasting projects. I did a bunch of this:

Which means I got a good chunk of the large snowflake done.

I also prewashed the white fabric that will be the sashing!

MLK Day I finished sewing all the Mario Squares and all week long I've been pressing them.  Today, Kevin layed them out how he wants the quilt.  I need to cut sashing and assemble now.  I'm pretty excited about this one!

 

 (Sorry, no idea why that loads sideways.  It looks right until I submit.)

Making Progress

In addition to the snowflake quilt, I have two other projects going on: Express Your Love and the Super Mario Quilt.

This weekend, I made progress on both.

For Super Mario, I found the painter's tape, so I can cover the bed of my machine and prevent any more Sharpie marker lines from forming as the interfacing rubs over the bed of the machine.  I also pressed the two blocks I had finished.

 

Neither of the blocks are 18.5" square.  Sadly, the place squares on a grid and sew method does not ensure perfection.  But I still think the shapes match up a heck of a lot better than if I was trying to do this through normal piecing methods!   I also think that having the lines for all the individual squares makes the pixelated pictures look more authentic, and if I pieced them individually, I would have definetly done larger "chunks"- not cut every single block. So I'm still glad I did it the way I did, even if it still isn't perfect. 

 

For Express Your Love, I did all the outlining, except the hair- I'm still not sure what color to do that in.

 I also quilted the Green part of the Earth.  I don't like it, but it is staying.  I echoed the outer part of the earth, and I should have taken the line inside and echoed the shape of the water- oops.  I also didn't use Isacord (didn't have green) and selected the closest match I had, which was Dual Duty.  The thread is not pretty (neither is the picture, sorry).  It is dull looking and thick.

Not sure how to do the water.  I'm thinking about pebbling for a bubbles look, but I'm going to wait to see what Leah shows us.

I've decided on a few of the phrases I'm going to put into the ribbons (or at least pick from), but am a bit scared of getting them there, because my handwriting is terrible, and I need to mark the words to fit the ribbons.

"Live in the now and design your future."
"Let your dreams fly free."
"Have an open and willing heart"
Live life courageously"
"Release all fear of failure"
"The future is bright and happy"
"Surround yourself with love"

The end is near!

Today I decided to really make a focus on my snowflake quilt.  It isn't snowy at all this winter, and at the pace I'm going it will be summer before this is display ready.

But I did get the 12th and final small snowflake done.  The design I did is inspired by Leah Day's Circuit Board, but I'm not sure whether or not it is that.  The organza is very shiny in the photo, so I'm not sure how well you can see it.  To me, it is like a medatative labrythith that you walk for reflection- not a maze, but a single line that has a start and end point (although since I trimmed the sides, it doesn't really work.)  If you knew where I started, you could trace your finger over the entire design.   You should be able to click and enlarge the design.

So how much left until the snowflake quilt is done?  I need to put in the giant middle block!  I am not entirely sure whether I want to stipple or do McTavishing.  I am leaning towards stipple.  My McTavishing isn't bad, but I always think it looks better in matching thread colors, rather than this big contrast of the white and pink.  But after all the hard work of this quilt- will people look at the big block being stippling as a cop-out, using an easy stitch?  At this point, do I care?

Work In Progress Wednesday

I have a few things in progress right now- I need to stop starting new things!

So here are my updates:

Mario Quilt: 1 block finished (Boo), 2 blocks finished seam but need final pressing (pressing those final seams is a pain in the butt!), 3 blocks have horizontal seams sewn, 6 blocks are fused with no sewing yet.

I need to find some painter's tape to put on my machine.  It is developing two faint red lines from the permanent marker I used to mark the grids on the fusible interfacing (I did the backside wanting to keep it off the fabric, I really didn't think it would rub off onto the machine!!!)  Kevin tells me it is only cosmetic and won't hurt the machine- but my Bernie is only a year old, I don't want her messed up (despite the few scratches I've managed in that year.)

Express Your Love:  This is the quilt pictured above, and is a quilt along done with Leah Day.  I finished piecing my top and she is laid out on the batting and backing and needs to be basted.  I've selected phrases to go on the quilt- a little different from the ones suggested by the quilt a long.  To me, the idea of a goddess quilt is really personal, and it seems odd to copy someone else's.  So rather than thread painting affirmations I would say to or about myself, I am instead going to write positive thoughts that someone watching over you would say to you- the thoughts the Goddess is blowing down to Earth for us all.  Oddly, the first thing on my list was "Have an open and willing heart" was the first thing I wrote down- and that was a suggested phrase this week (except as "I have an open and willing heart") so there will be a lot of similarities.

The next step is to outline quilt the sections.  I need to decide if I want to do them all in white, or do them in the color of the section.  I might end up doing the hair in a dark color but everything else white, but since I plan to use color thread in the background, I'm not sure how white dividers will work.

It is a fused quilt- so all the pieces shown are fully fused down to the fabric, with quarter inch overlaps when they join another piece of fabric.  I used freezer paper to trace the sections and get all my positioning right.

 If you are following the quilt-a-long, you will notice the background rays are missing.  I drew them in with marking pen and plan to use yellow and orange threads to fill the alternating sections- that way it appears like the suns rays radiating out behind the Earth.

Snowflake:  This might be entering WIP territory again.  I keep putting it off for other things.  I need to do the final small square and the large square.  But then there is the whole "put quilt together" thing.  And that is going to take a while. Even longer still because the white used in the Mario quilt and the background for Express You Love was supposed to go on this quilt, so now I don't have the fabric- haha.

(I can't get the button to load- but join the link up party at http://www.freshlypieced.com/)

Work In Progress Wednesday

One of my goals for the new year is to blog a bit more.  Since I rarely blogged last year, hopefully I can meet it.   One thing I am going to try to do is update WIP Wednesday.  It is a really big link up party, so I'm not sure many people will visit my blog from it (since I'll have to blog at the end of the day) but it is a fun way to find other people's blogs- so I am looking forward to finding them.

Today the reason I can post right now is I am skipping Sh'Bam (my wednesday workout).  I did something to my feet and it hurts to walk.  It is like I have blisters on the bottom of my left foot toe and on the top of my right foot toe, but they aren't blisters.  Web searching leads me to believe I may have frost nip or Chilblains (except it doesn't itch).  Hopefully whatever it is, it goes away soon.  It has gotten gradually worse over the past week- which is one of the reasons these blocks are WIPS, not finished.  I couldn't stand long enough to work on them New Years Day, and had to stop.

So these blocks have all had their horizontal seams sewn, but not the vertical ones yet.

I also started Leah Day's "Express Your Love" quilt.  I am going to do raw edge fusing to put it together. Assuming I have enough fabric for it- I can't buy anymore!  It is a much bigger quilt than I thought it would be!

The other WIP is the Snowflake quilt, no further progress has been made on that one.

And I just took Laura Wasislowski's Craftsy class- and it was amazing and now I want to make a bunch of fused quilts!

WIP Wednesday