Quilting

I thought I’d pop in for a minute and take a yoyo break.  I’ve been yoyo obsessed and I’m spending almost all not-at-work moments sewing those darn yoyos to their quilt.  The Count?  Yoyos: 688, Me: 180.  I’m getting there!  Progress will probably slow down as the project drags on though — you probably know how that goes.

Before I started sewing the yoyos down, I managed to make a few more of the pieced stars that I started making a few months ago.  This is a project that will reeeeally be slow, but that’s ok, I’m enjoying the process.  I also had two happy discoveries that will make this project more fun.

I wasn’t terribly happy with my joining stitches and I remembered that MeMum always used silk thread when she was stitching applique blocks.  I decided to order a few spools and it makes all the difference.  The silk thread is so fine, it gets partially buried into the fabric.  Yay for less visible stitches!

I also realized that one little charm square will give me 3 or 4 diamond pieces.  A charm pack has 42 different prints, so that means that two charm square packs will make 42 different stars.  That’s perfect for my scrappy stars.  My Avalon and Glamping charm packs arrived with perfect timing!

I probably should be trying to come up with a plan or a color scheme for these stars. Maybe I can think about it while I’m sewing down yoyos LOL!

I hope you’re having a good week!
XOXO,
Anna

WooHoo!  I finished quilting (and binding!) the yoyo quilt.  Too bad it only looks like this:

I’m so happy to finally have the quilting finished.  I’d put it off for so long because I was afraid of that big grid in the middle.  I thought it would be too easy to get it skewed into some odd shape.  I’m sure the rows aren’t perfect, but the overall shape is good and I think it will be fine.   I love the way the quilting looks on the back too.

So, now the fun of laying out the yoyos begins.  This will be hard for me — I can overthink these things and be pretty indecisive.  I decided the easiest way would be to throw all the yoyos into the air and see if they would sort themselves out.

That didn’t work (although PaulKitty thought it was a fun game) so I’ve sorted the yoyos into bowls by print.

Now I’m shuffling and arranging.  And then, I’ll sew each yoyo (868 of them) onto the background by hand. There are many different ways that this quilt could have been done.  I could have sewn each yoyo onto it’s own little square by machine (which would have been faster than by hand) and then pieced those squares together.  But I couldn’t see quilting the quilt with all the yoyos on there.  Much too bulky for my little domestic machine.  And I can’t see machine stitching each yoyo on either — too much turning of the quilt with all that bulk.  So, hand sewing it is. There’s still a. lot. of work left in this quilt.  But I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

And the good thing is that I’ve finally found a use for that dumb basting gun that MeMum and I bought years ago.  We hated it for basting, but I think it will come in handy to hold the yoyos in place while I’m hand stitching them down.  The other option was to pin the yoyos down, but I could only see that ending with me being stabbed a lot by all those pins.

I’m off to go play some more with the yoyos now.  I hope you’re having a good weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Sometime before Christmas, my lovely invisible friend Brigette and I were chatting about all the gazillion quilts we want to make before we die.   The conversation turned to Pinterest (as they do) and we ended up discussing this quilt.  We decided that this quilt would be perfect for gifts that we both needed, so we decided to make versions of it.

I started mine before Christmas but didn’t get very far — too many other things demanding my time.  But, it really wasn’t a time consuming quilt and it proved to be a great project for lazy January weekends.

This quilt is big — weighing in at 95″ x 95″.  I’m not necessarily a fan of square quilts, but it just worked out this way.  I started out to make it 90″ x 95″ (based on the amount of drop and tuck in that I wanted for a queen sized bed), but I didn’t like that one edge had the gray and white block row.  The quilt just looks better when it’s “framed” by black and gray rows all around.

Each of my squares is 5″.  Now that I’ve made this quilt, when I look back at the original, it looks to me like maybe she used 4″ squares.   I probably would have liked the smaller squares, but since this quilt is so big, this is fine.  I chose to bind my version in the lime green too, which I really like.  I think this quilt would look great bound in most any color.  I used Bella Solids White (98), Black (99) and Silver (183).  I backed the quilt in the silver, so, between the front and the back, I used almost 9 yards.  Well worth buying the bolt!

It was snowy this morning and I had fun traipsing around taking a few pictures.  I couldn’t find any place tall enough to hang it.  BigDaddy’s old swingset was as close as I could get but it’s about 10″ too short.

This was a fun, quick and easy quilt to make.  My version is for a male, but Brigette is going to make one for a female (bound in hot pink — how cute!).  Most importantly, making this quilt proves a point:  All that time spent on Pinterest hasn’t been completely wasted! ;-D

XOXO,
Anna

Well Hello. Are you keeping good and busy? MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I have been so busy with hospital etc., that we’ve forgotten our names. It’s ok though — we’re here to remind each other. We seem to have a pretty good system of coordinating all the things that need to be done, but what, oh WHAT did we ever do without iphones?  I can’t imagine our daily tasks without them.

Before the big heart event, I had started to hand piece a few stars. It’s my first foray into hand piecing and I’m loving it.

The first star (the green one for inquiring minds) didn’t work so well, but I soon figured out the technique that works best for me. And see that star in the bottom right corner? I was so careful to fussy cut the little blue and green flowers, but then I didn’t space them every-other-one. Grrrr. So. Not. Unpicking. It!

I haven’t really been working on them in the hospital as the light levels there aren’t always the best. I have been gift knitting there though, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that there has been craftiness happening.

Hey — before I forget to tell you, Ali is starting a fun new game that you might want to play over at The Compound Word Project. It looks like lots of fun!
And, finally, I thought you might like to see how we bring a little cheer to a hospital room. My CrazyMomQuilt has been having a lot of fun keeping BigDaddy warm.  I’ve loved looking at all the fun fabrics in this quilt all over again.

Ok, must dash. It’s my afternoon off — must get some errands done so that I can have a hot date with Daniel hubby tonight.

Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna