Quilting

September 30. I'm beginning to learn how to quilt using techniques I'm finding on Youtube. I'm so grateful to all those creative people who take the time to teach! I don't know if any of these pieces will end up in a quilt or not...so far I'm just practicing.

As I worked on the facemasks, I had tossed the leftover scraps into a popup bin. By the end of the project, it was overflowing. The photo at the top shows how I then layered the pieces to both smooth them out and save space in my small work area. When I realized I really was going to make a quilt, I (almost with regret) deconstructed my lovely pile and sorted the fabrics by color.

I decided to dive into this brand new venture by working first with the colors I probably would not want in a finished quilt. Red is not one of Julie's Preferred Colors, so I started with it. I chose some of the fabrics I liked best, and following the Youtube video, further sorted them by large design, medium design, and small design. I arranged, rearranged, and rearranged again until the design was pleasing to my eye. It's going to take a while before my eye gets good at knowing what pleases it.

I can tell that I need to get better at keeping my seams straight!

I had a lot of red fabric, so I made another one, trying to improve upon my large-medium-small pattern placement. Actually, I think I did better in that regard on the first one. If I were going to do this one over, I would replace the large blue flowered piece with something with a smaller pattern.

October 1. Browns came next on my list of not-preferred colors. I used the same technique of combining odd-sized pieces, looking for an eye-pleasing design. It came out okay, but not particularly great.

October 2. For my next piece, I divided the greens into light and dark, and when I combined the light green with pink, I loved the effect! This time I used a different technique, cutting same-size blocks, sewing them into two-block pieces, and then making sure each one of them was perpendicular to all the adjacent blocks. What I learned on this piece: It's really important to cut all the pieces EXACTLY the same size. And then sew them using EXACTLY the same seam allowance. Also, for some reason, combining four-block pieces so that they would fit into the design scheme was easier than combining six-block pieces. I thought perhaps I was going crazy when initially something looked correct, but then suddenly it became apparent the pattern wasn't right at all, and I had to re-combine the pieces. I'm still puzzling over that.

It was also at this point that I realized I simply HAD to find a solution to the dull blade in my rotary knife. It seemed to get dull right after I had changed the blade, and that mystified me. I found a rotary blade sharpener on Ebay. Who knew they even had such a thing? I'm semi-patiently waiting for it to arrive.

And then I did the dark greens. There was a lot of changing around going on as I made this one. I learned not to use colors that wouldn't actually be complementary to the piece, even if they matched the idea of the color. Yeah, they might be green, but they were UGLY green!

October 4. I wasn't happy with the way the brown piece turned out, so I decided to make another one, this time with pink added in. I also found a new technique to use called crumb quilting. It's really free-form, and it's REALLY labor intensive--it took eight hours to make this 18-inch by 18-inch piece--but I love the way it turned out. There are more than 150 pieces in it. I got tired of counting, so I'm guessing. You can count them if you want to.

I learned the same lesson on this piece that I learned on the dark green one: Don't use colors that don't really go with the scheme. I ripped out and replaced some of the pieces that I had originally put in, and I was much happier with the result.

Which brings me to my philosophy of ripping out and redoing. It's all part of the process. If I realize that I'm not going to be satisfied with the result, I don't mind discarding what I've done and doing it again. I do it in knitting all the time. As John Denver said to one of his fellow musicians in response to the question, "Is this practice?": "It's all practice."

On to the next one.

October 6. There were so many blues that I had enough for two blocks. Many of the fabrics were used for kids' facemasks, so there are lots of dogs and cats and other animals, as well as flowers and other fun designs.

October 8. I watched a video that showed "string quilting" with strips of fabric. Using this technique, I'm working on getting better at combining colors. The blade sharpener came yesterday, and I had fun sharpening my first blade. It took about five minutes. I was VERY careful not to cut myself.

I think my next purchase has to be an Omnigrid ruler that will help me cut blocks with straighter edges.

October 9. After researching the prices of Omnigrid rulers (!!!), I went to ScrapsKC to find either a used one or something that would work as well. Since right now I don't care about exact sizes, all I needed was square or rectangular things that would work as templates. I found a bunch of things in different sizes at a total cost of $3.00.

Using my newly sharpened blade and the templates from ScrapsKC, I reworked the gold blocks and cut some green ones, still using the string design. They're looking better, but they're still not as crisp as I would like them. I'm thinking the unevenness and waviness is caused by the differing weights and content of the fabrics. If I were using all cotton "official quilting" fabric, I think the final product would be smoother. I learned that with this design, I need to press all the seams in the same direction.

Whoo, boy. I watched a video yesterday about ironing for quilting. No wonder I haven't been happy with how these pieces have been turning out. I was ironing them incorrectly, which stretched them. I now know the three-step process of pressing quilt pieces: set the seam (press it with fabric front-to-front), open it and finger press the pieces apart, and then press the front without moving the iron. Those steps have already improved the look of my pieces!

October 10. Big news! I've been puzzling over how I'm ever going to get a quilt actually put together after I finish the top. It shouldn't be a big deal to find batting and the muslin that constitute the other two elements of a quilt. But putting it all together? THAT's a big deal. Fortunately, Fabric Recycles offers a quilting service that does all of that, plus adding the binding. I'm a happy girl!

October 11. I spent the morning practicing my cutting. I'm getting better...decided to move the blade away from me instead of towards me, as I've seen in most videos, and for some reason, that really does work better. Although I bought a quilting ruler yesterday at Fabric Recycles, I don't find it as useful as the 18-inch ruler with the metal edge that I've been using all along.

I thought I was going to do a block with the gray pieces, but they were so dull and uninteresting, I decided to make a black and white block instead. I'm still not happy with the waviness I see, but since the fabrics are of different content, maybe that's just the way it has to be. For now. The fabrics are darling!

October 12. Yesterday I watched a video on coin quilting. Today I found some fabric that I had intended to use for facemasks but then discovered the pieces were too small. However, cut lengthwise, they were perfect for this technique. So here's my first coin quilting. I'm working on both my pressing technique and the accuracy of my seams. This one came out better because of both of those factors, but also because all of these pieces have the same content. They may have even been originally sold as part of a quilt bundle.

I watched a video about pillowcase quilting. It's a technique used for smaller pieces to eliminate the need for binding. As it happens, it's the exact same process as the one I used for the 3,566 face masks I just finished, so no learning curve will be required. I also found a video about how to use my industrial machine for freeform quilting. Now I know how I'm going to finish the smaller parts that don't make it into the final quilt. This is getting quite exciting... :)

October 13. Learning to do sashing, the fabric that connects the two blocks. In this case it's white, but that's only because I didn't have enough of anything else that was more exciting. If I wanted to continue the sashing, I would put another strip above and below the blocks, and then connect more rows of blocks.
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Flamingos! I wasn't able to use this fabric for face masks because the design was too large. But it's perfect for quilting. I already see some things I would change if I were to do it over. But for this stage of my learning, I'll just leave it the way it is and know what to do differently next time.

Took a little trip to ScrapsKC this afternoon to find batting. What do you know...they had some. I'm going to experiment with the pillowcase finishing technique on some smaller pieces.

Another piece of learning from a Quilty video: Use water sparingly while pressing, and preferably ONLY on the finished block or quilt. Otherwise, you risk distorting the fabric. Aha! (Again.) She recommended not using the steam feature in the iron, but spraying water from a bottle.

October 14. Playing with pink panels. I wanted to do a kind of mobius effect by putting the outside strips over and under at each corner. It was complicated to do...I'm not sure there was an easier way to do it. But I like the effect. (BTW, I bought a set of rulers today from Arteza. It was a good price, and I think I'm going to continue playing with quilting for a while.)

October 15. Oh, my. This is getting to be too much fun. I've starting adding batting to some of my practice pieces, and I can't believe how it changes them. Even the brown piece that I didn't like is now looking pretty good. I'm using the pillowcase technique, so there's no binding. The funny thing is, the pillowcase process is exactly what I was doing to make the face masks: the top piece goes front to front with the back, with the batting on the bottom. Sew the edges, leaving an opening for turning. Turn right side out, stitch 1/2" from the edge, and there you have it. I used "stitch in the ditch" for the quilting on most of these. I'll add free motion quilting later, after I've practiced a bunch.

My 31-15 does passably well with sewing curves, but I've ordered a free-motion foot to help me with that. I also found a new Youtube channel where I downloaded a helpful pdf, 101 ideas for quilting. It'll help me figure out how to proceed with the brown one.

October 16. Having fun adding batting to all my small pieces. I've used stitch-in-the-ditch (stitching following a seam line) for each of them; I want to add some free-motion quilting to them at some point. I'm waiting for that foot to arrive. Patiently waiting.

I have to say something about the piece with the cats. I'm sorry I didn't take a before photo of it...it's an ironing board cover that I got from my sister. The design was just so dang cute that even though it had a couple of burned spots on it, I wanted to do something with it. It's now a quilted wall hanging. And it's also waiting for some free-motion action.

October 18. Kris helped me manhandle the lever on my machine to change the stitch length to zero so I can start practicing free-motion stitching. I think that particular lever had not been moved in a looooong time, and it was frozen in place. It's still hard to move, but I can manage it. So now I'm practicing the alphabet on batting sandwiches.

October 19. I love Sundays. I can play in my studio all day. I had so much fun--after I got over my self-doubt about my ability to put fabrics together. It's rather daunting. I'm at the bottom of the learning curve, and it feels like there's so much to discover. But I plowed ahead, and I'm pretty happy with how this piece turned out. I used some fabrics from Fabric Recycles in addition to the scraps in my stash. I also did some "fussy cutting," which is when you cut out a particular piece of a design. I did that for the elephants, zebras, and giraffes.

I also used a technique I learned from Karen Brown of the Youtube video channel Just Get It Done Quilting. She says when a fabric is ugly, you just haven't cut it small enough. I did that with the two multi-colored strips above the yellow and below the orange. As a two-inch strip, it was pretty dang ugly, but I wanted the colors. I split it into two one-inch strips, and it worked! I have the colors without the icky design. (I had also alternated the ugly fabric with some red pepper fabric.)

I asked Kris to replace some bulbs in the overhead can lights, and it's much brighter in the studio now. From there, I found a new way to photograph hanging pieces. The piece is hanging from a ruler braced against the two knobs on the closet doors. I cut a piece of mat board to cover the opening between the doors, and now I have a good background for photos.

I'm going to revise this piece just a little...I see that the yellow block above the tigers is a little off. I know it's because of the foot I'm using. I need to get a walking foot in order to keep the three layers even as I sew. Otherwise, I'll get the "creep" I see on the top layer and the resulting unevenness.

Yesterday I also redid two of the three flamingo pieces. I had finished them as standalones, but I decided I wanted them in the quilt. I had taken them apart earlier in the day, and just before I stopped (it was hard to make myself go to bed!), I added the polka dots that had been on the back as layers on the front. Love it!

October 20. I'm so happy with this panel. I saved my favorite colors for later in my learning process so I could commit my rookie mistakes on the earlier ones. I LOVE these colors, and the design is SO pleasing! I like showcasing a design in the center and framing it with multiple layers. This one gives the feeling of being on the outside looking into an aquarium. Or the ocean.

I used the same technique I described above (regarding ugly fabric that has good colors) for the horizonal bands. However, this time the fabric wasn't ugly, but the design was very distinct; I was avoiding the conflict between its design and the main one by making the bands so skinny that all you can see are the colors. Maybe I can use that fabric again somewhere else; it's cats and dogs, and how can I not feature it somehow!

Both the new blades and the grid rulers came today. I used both of them as I made this panel. Gosh, it's nice to have a sharp blade!

October 22. So much to learn! My new Juki free-motion quilting foot came yesterday. I've begun practicing with it. To be honest, I'm intimidated. It's quite different than anything I've done with my machine before, requiring several adjustments (stitch length -> 0, foot pressure adjustment, and of course, the new foot). The hard part is going to be training my hands, foot, and mind to coordinate well enough to create designs on the "quilt sandwich." So far my practice pieces look downright awful.

In the meantime, I've also finished another panel featuring pastel greens and oranges. I started with the six-inch square (-ish) that I made a couple weeks ago. Since I still had lots of scraps with those colors, I decided to alter it and expand it. I took out some of the solid orange in the middle and added a floral pattern.

When I ran out of the lighter oranges, I started looking around for scraps in the other color bags and found more that would go with what I already had made. I ripped out my first "final" border and found another that I liked better. Ripping is my friend.

I ordered a walking foot from Singeronline.com that will help me keep all three layers of the quilt even as I sew. It may be my final purchase for my quilting adventure. We'll see.

October 23. Well, that idea didn't last long. I ordered an Ott-Lite floor lamp from Jo-Ann Fabric this morning. It's my third floor lamp, in addition to a desk lamp on my sewing machine. I just HAVE to have good lighting in all work areas of my sewing room. I've been moving the lamps back and forth every time I move from one to the other. I'm not sure if this purchase is a luxury or just good sense. You can be the judge. :)

This morning I altered the dark green panel both to make it square it and to eliminate the large green band. I love how malleable this craft is--at least, when you're doing it free-form like I am. I'd imagine using a pattern is very different. The before and after photos show what I did.

But I've skipped over what I did last night. At the suggestion of the many video instructors I've watched, I made a big pile of sandwiches for free-motion quilting practice from sheets left over from the face mask project and batting scraps from ScrapsKC. By the time I've used all of them, I should be making some progress.

Sneak peek into today's panel: I left the purples for last!

I love the colors in this one. I was thinking about perhaps adding more pieces, but I'm going to leave it as is, at least for now. The yellow makes a good frame around the darker colors. It's not nearly the same size as the other panels; I'll have to work around that when I put them all together.

October 24. The black and white panel was too small compared to the others, so I added some new 2-inch strips.

Tomorrow I'll make the flamingo panels larger and start a new pink block. I guess the purple one wasn't the last one after all.

October 26. Yesterday was another lovely Sunday. I began the day by enlarging the two flamingo panels. I realized if I'm going to meld all of these into an actual quilt, they need to be more similar in size. I deconstructed one of my practice pieces in order to use some of the pink strips from it. Again, I'm enjoying the flexibility of this art. I'm saving the other pieces for another time. If I stick with quilting long enough, I'm sure I'll find some way to use them.

I'm particularly happy with the pink panel. I went back to the original idea of putting patterns together by using large, medium, and small prints. I think I did that well in this piece. I'm also happy with the way I was able to use several blocks of each smaller print surrounding the larger prints. If you look closely, you'll see two strips of the bright circles, two strips of the large polka dots, two strips of the pink, blue and yellow flowers, and three of the strawberry shortcake.

I love having to work within particular parameters. Having to choose among the fabrics I have requires me to consider, reconsider, and consider again as I try out different combinations. It's fun.

I ended the day by practicing FMQ, and this time--finally--I began to feel more comfortable with it. Trying to control so many things at once was hard, so I created a wooden block to put under the treadle to limit the speed of the machine. (BTW, it IS electric...I'm not pumping it with my foot!) I thought maybe that would eliminate at least one variable so I could concentrate on what my hands were doing. It seemed to help.

This morning I added another quilting aid. Rather than spending $30 or more on a slick surface for my machine table (I forget what they're called), I found a $3 sign blank at the hardware store that works just fine. All I had to do was poke a hole so the needle will pass through it. With my purple sticky garden gloves and hot pink slick surface underneath the quilt piece, I think I've got as much (colorful) help as I'm going to get. Already I feel more in control. And as I know about myself, that is VERY important! FMQ is beginning to be fun.

I added some strips to the light green panel to bring it up to 18 inches square.

Here's my cutting area. Please note the plastic container that holds all my teeny tiny scraps of fabric and thread. I'm determined not to waste anything, and I get a kick out of putting my cuttings in it. When I was making masks, I threw many larger scraps into the wastebasket, which is totally unlike me, but I wasn't thinking about how they might be otherwise used. When the project was over and I finally realized I could have used them for stuffing dog beds or other donatable items, I was horrified at my thoughtlessness. I'm trying to take a live and learn attitude about it, but it still bugs me. Never again! As the container gets full, I empty it into a pillowcase. Those tiny bits will continue to have a use, at least until some dog chews up his bed.

October 27. Another new panel...blues and yellows this time. As it turned out, all the larger pieces I found were kid fabrics, and even so, I had to piece together a couple of them to make them come out relatively even. I paired the smaller designs to match larger panels they framed. Because the larger panels were not exactly the same size, I had to do a lot of fiddling to get all the seams even. This is another standalone because of its odd size. I'm waiting for the walking foot before I finish it, because I plan to stitch in the ditch, and I don't trust the regular foot to do a good job. The back side is a sheet that I had used for lots of masks; while I like it, it doesn't go especially well with the front side. It's the closest I could come to a fun blue fabric. Considering what I had to work with, I think it came out pretty well.

October 28. Two things worth noting today. I found the perfect batting for my quilt at ScrapsKC this afternoon! Queen size, 100% cotton, and brand new. Twenty dollars. Yippee! Also, after almost an entire week of practicing FMQ, I'm finally to the point where my output is not totally embarrassing. Here are the front and back of my "best" piece to date. Urghh. I'm continuing to watch Youtube videos to learn more about how to do this well.

October 30. I'm practicing every day. I'm improving...but there's nothing to show until I make some REAL progress.

November 3. I'm continuing to practice FMQ and awaiting my walking foot for straight-line quilting (which should be here tomorrow). But finally, I have something new to show. Yesterday I put together yet another pink panel, this time with some aqua/turquoise added in. It appears that this quilt is going to have quite a bit of pink in it. Perhaps the back will be pink as well.

November 5. Dang! Still waiting for my walking foot, which is finally supposed to be here this evening. And I've ordered quilting gloves (Machinger's) and a slippery mat (Sew Slip) for my sewing table from Ebay to help me improve my FMQ. I haven't totaled the amount I've spent on this endeavor, but I think at this point it's about $250. Maybe $300.

While I've been practicing FMQ (thank you, Man Sewing and Just Get It Done Quilts and Sugaridoo on Youtube!), I bought a $4 bag of fabric scraps from ScrapsKC. I wish I had taken a "before" photo of that pile of wrinkly stuff, because I've made a beautiful panel from some of it. Doesn't everyone like a before and after story, no matter what the subject? I just loved choosing the pieces and putting it together. I'm thinking this is my style...not a quilt made with a pattern, but random pieces that fit whatever parameters I've set. In this case, it was:

1) Made from only pieces from that bag of scraps (plus one cheat...I used some material from scrubs I cut up a couple days ago to make more masks for Mark)
2) Purples and lilacs
3) 18" square

You can probably tell that I like symmetry. And I just adore these colors.

November 8. I've been practicing with my new walking foot, and to be honest, I don't see much difference between what it does and the foot I normally use. It took some thinking to understand how it works, but now that I've figured it out, it still seems to pucker the cloth as much as the other one does. I'm still working on how to hold my hands and how much pressure to use. I've also used free motion quilting on my first project--the blue and yellow hanging. I'm not quite finished with it yet. Stay tuned.

I've made a bunch of squares from the ScrapsKC four-dollar bin fabric. I especially love the two with the cats (of course) and the one with the dog. I've already changed the one on the lower left in the first photo. The middle part wasn't very inspiring, so I cut it up and redesigned it.

I've filled the scrap jar with thread and fabric scraps three times now, and I'm in the process of filling another pillowcase for the next "dog bed" (Or pillow. Who knows?) (Update: I used a bunch of it to make a pillow form--December 17 entry.)

November 8. Another lovely Sunday. I spent hours playing with pink and red, mostly the scraps from ScrapsKC, but adding in pieces from the mask project. I didn't finish anything, but just pieced things together. I discovered angles. I love them! I also practiced with the walking foot, finishing the blue and yellow hanging piece in the process. New learning: When using the walking foot, lighten the pressure on the quilt sandwich (there's a setting on the machine) in order to lessen the possibility of puckers at the end of the line of stitching. Also, sew in short bursts, using my hands to move the material toward the foot. The foot will even it out as it sews. It is important to quilt the entire piece evenly in order to keep it from curving or twisting.

I wasn't thrilled with this little blue block, so I rearranged it. Lesson: if you're going to frame something, make sure it's interesting enough to frame!

November 9. I spent another day piecing, adding to the ones I made on Sunday. I added to and then split and rearranged the red panel.

I also practiced free motion quilting with my new Sew Slip mat. It really does make a difference...I can move the quilt sandwich so much more easily, which makes my FMQ much smoother. I don't remember practicing on anything this much since I took violin lessons as a kid. I feel a twinge of dread as I do it, knowing how bad the results look (still). I don't know WHY those curves are so hard to do! But if I don't practice, I'll never get better. Sigh.

November 10. More piecing. It's so fun putting these designs and colors together! These are yet more scraps from the face masks. I'm getting better at combining the designs, and my sewing is more precise, too.

At this point, I don't know how I will incorporate these long strips into the quilt, but I'm sure I'll think of a way to do it. As I said, it's all practice.

November 11. I LOVE aqua!

November 12. More piecing, more practicing. My new gloves should be delivered today. I sure hope they give me more control over that pesky quilt sandwich.

November 13. I remembered that Karen Brown showed how to put up a temporary "board" to help figure out the design of your quilt. I taped a flannel-backed tablecloth to one of the only walls in the house that was open enough to accommodate it...the wall of my staircase. I used the opposite wall, too. It helped somewhat, but since I can only see one wall at a time, it doesn't really help me see the overall design. I'm thinking the floor is going to be my only real option for that.

And both tablecloths fell down that night. One hit the floor just before bed (with Sunny's help, I'm pretty sure), and the second one fell after I had been asleep for a while. I instantly recognized the sound of the tape giving way. Everything ended up in a heap on the ironing board until morning.

November 14. I spent my play time constructing new blocks and reconstructing others. I want an entire row of "framing" blocks somewhere in this quilt...the ones that highlight a central character. It's hard to explain...just look at the photos. I'll alternate them with the ones that don't have characters. I also created another blue 18" block from some of the strips.

November 15. I took a major step today. I laid out all the panels I've made and began to design the quilt. I had to keep all the cats out of the bedroom so I could use the bed. They did not like that at all.

After I played around with them for a while, I discovered I had almost everything I needed to finish the quilt. I added height to the cabbage rose panel and created two new panels from some of the strips I had made, adding in new colors to match the adjacent panels. I'm going to play around with the rows some more to get the best color arrangement, but I'm pretty happy with what I've done. Only one more purple panel to make. Then it's on to the task of actually fitting them together. The finished quilt will be 84" by 92". It'll be quite the trick to get all the rows to come out even. Another consideration is that I'll need to add a border so the little pieces of the panels don't get cut off during the quilting process.

See the blank spot? That's going to be a purple panel...

I took a little time to run to ScrapsKC to choose more fill-a-bag scraps for a new panel (or two or three). While I was there, I also bought 10 yards of muslin that Julie Morrand had saved for me.

November 16. All three cats claimed the bed this morning. They are so funny!

BEFORE...

AFTER washing, drying, ironing, and folding. A new pile of bits and pieces ready to be made into...something.

November 17. I had an adventure while making this one. After I had constructed it, I saw that there was no contrast between two of the layers. I had read about that situation, and I didn't want to let it go when I knew I could make it look better. So even though I knew it would be tricky to replace a middle layer, I took it out this morning and replaced it. The only way I could insert the new pieces was by top-stitching over a layer I had already sewn. This is one of those times when perfectionism just has to be tossed out the window. It ain't perfect, but I like it a whole lot better! Tomorrow I'll lay everything out on the bed again and see what design shows up.

November 18. After shutting the cats out of the bedroom, I laid everything out again. I switched things around quite a bit, and I eliminated a few panels from the mix, realizing that less is more. The rows will work better with only four panels across rather than five, which will allow for a border around the edges. Also, I decided I needed one more (!) black and white panel to give the bottom row balance. So that was my project for the evening. When I finally looked at the clock, it was 12:30. Where did the time go?

Oh, now I remember where the time went. I had told Mom a few weeks ago that we could lay everything out on her rug, and she could help me with the design. Since she's in lockdown again (Covid 19 is rampant in Johnson County right now...that's another whole story...), I can't visit her in her apartment. We decided I would print photos of each panel. She no longer takes pictures, so she suggested that I number each panel. She can play around with them (like paper dolls!) and call to tell me the order she likes. So I collated all my pictures in Publisher and printed them. I need to add this one last panel, and then Kris will take them to her today. I'm happy to give her something interesting to do, and I'm curious to see how her vision is different than mine.

I cut strips on the diagonal this time, because I had never tried that before. When I was almost done with the panel, I realized I had more black and white fabric to choose from. That led to another redo. Can you see the one strip I changed?

November 20. After playing with the puzzle pieces myself and re-watching a video about sashing, I decided I should enlarge the rose panel that was smaller than the others to make it easier to put this thing together. Fortunately, because of my recent foray to ScrapsKC, I had just the right color fabric do to it. This is definitely one of my favorites.

I'm still puzzling over the beautiful blue-purple-yellow panel. It's about 21 x 13 rather than 18 x 18, and I'm considering leaving it out of the quilt because it would be tricky to fit in. :( On the other hand, I could alter it to 18 x 18. But it looks great the way it is. Decisions, decisions.

...Well, I made the decision. It's too pretty to not include it in the quilt. I'll just have to figure out how to handle the sashing. Here's the widened panel. It's now 21 x 18.

Kris came up with the BEST idea! He was looking at these two panels and he said, "These are so pretty, and they're so different from your whimsical ones. Why don't you make two quilts? One with the whimsical ones, and another with the pretty ones?"

Light bulb moment! Of COURSE that's what I should do! I'm already rearranging the paper pieces--literally! Here are the panels that will go in the pretty quilt. It'll be twin size. I may have to make a few more...

November 21. I still had some long strips of pink pieces, so I reconfigured them into another panel. Can't seem to stop doing that...I have some blue ones left, too.

November 22. And...here's the blue one. Okay. I think this is REALLY the last one for this quilt. But I do want to make another pretty one for the twin size quilt. I found a few possibilities for the center of it last night.

It's another Sunday. Yay! I want to update my paper pieces one more time to include these two, and then (maybe) create a "final" design. We'll see how that goes.

I changed this panel. I guess I just don't like horizontal strips. The smaller pieces appeal to me much more.

I just had to change two of the smaller pieces. They were bugging me! I love that this art form is so malleable. To a certain extent, you can change things when they don't work the first (or second) time. However, it's a real treasure hunt as I'm searching through my scraps to find a piece of the right color that's big enough to work.

I used the paper pieces to decide on the layout of the small panels. What a fun and effective technique! So now I'm in the process of adding sashing (2 inches wide) to connect them. As I'm doing so, I've discovered that the panels aren't exactly even. Since the sashing needs to match up from one set of panels to the other, I'm changing them on the fly, so to speak, so the whole thing will come out even.

November 23. I stayed up way too late playing with these small panels. I tried one kind of sashing that I had had in mind for ages--strips that I had used in a rag rug. I thought this would be a perfect use for them, but unfortunately, the pattern was way too big and overpowered the designs in the panels. So I started all over again with a wonderful purply-blue sheet that I had used for many masks. I never looked, but I'll bet that sheet was a king size. I have plenty of it left. Because of the stripes in it, I can't use the entire thing, but I'm willing to bet it'll be the background for the whole quilt. If I don't have enough, I'll figure out something else.

November 24. It took a looooong time and a lot of adjusting, but all the small panels are put together.

November 24. After I finished the rows of small panels, I decided I wanted to add yet another two panels to make the piece wider. This would make eight panels in each row, which would be easier to match with the rows above and below them. Kris laughed at me. I laughed at myself, and then got busy. It does appear that I'm finding excuses to do more piecing.

I LOVE the way the last two came together. I'm really getting good at choosing complementary fabrics.

November 26 (Morning).I skipped a day of journaling, because I was using all my brain cells to figure out how to put these things together! Turns out, I wasn't the best at making all the panels the same size. I'd imagine this doesn't happen if you're following a pattern, because it would say in black and white, "Cut all blocks the same size!" Since I'm making this all up as I go along, there were no instructions to tell me that. (I should have realized it, nonetheless.) Bottom line is, I've had to add and subtract pieces in order to get the panels to line up. All the blocks are approximately the same size now (with the emphasis on "approximately"). I've had to physically compare each block to the one below it before I attach the sashing on its left and right. There's been a lot of mathematics involved, too, because the quilt has to fit the batting I bought, with 4 to 6 inches to spare on all sides. Oh, and I needed to leave room for a border, also, as I mentioned before. If I don't, some of my piecing will get cut off in the quilting process.

So here's what I've got so far: three rows attached, two to go. The sashing connecting the rows is one inch wide. The sashing between panels is two inches wide. As you can see, the no-cats-in-the-bedroom edict was overruled by Scuti. Sunny has gotten her way, too.

Oh, yes. I must mention another change in plans. Remember the black and white and red panels that were going to be at the bottom of this quilt? I changed my mind on that. Even though this is supposed to be a memory quilt of all those face masks--red, black, and white just won't fit in this color scheme. Guess they'll have to have their own quilt. And now I have to make more panels in colors that will work. Too bad! :)

Evening. I spent all day today making three more panels. I focused on using up as many of the pink and green scraps as I could. It's getting easier and easier to do this! I feel downright skillful at figuring out a pattern, choosing fabric, and piecing it together. Along with the brown and pink block from way back at the beginning of this project, I have enough now to continue connecting them and finish the quilt.

November 27. I've learned so much along the way that now I want to make some of the earlier panels better. Here's one I wasn't crazy about and how I changed it this morning.

Evening. I put together the fourth row this afternoon and added it to the quilt. I was two inches short of the sashing I needed...so I pieced together the last little bit from the scraps. I'll need to find something else to use for the last row. I tried to find something today, but ScrapsKC didn't have what I needed, and Fabric Recycles was closed. I wasn't ABOUT to go to Joann's on Black Friday!

I decided on the back of the quilt. For years, I've had a lovely pink flowered queen size sheet that has been sitting in the closet. It will be PERFECT!

November 28. I had a brainstorm last night. I'm going to change some of the blue sashing to another color to make this quilt more multi-colored and to make it work better with the green and the pink sashing. There's just too much blue in this quilt! This morning I took the last (blue) row off in preparation for its new sashing. And then today my thoughtful sister, Mara, gave me a gift card to Fabric Recycles for my birthday. I immediately went there and bought a bunch of new color choices to finish the sashing. I don't yet know how it's going to go together, but it will be a lot more colorful and fun!

Evening. I used this lovely yellow/gold material that I found at Fabric Recycles to replace the blue vertical sashing. It took hours to do, but I love the results. The colors look much more balanced. Now I'm thinking about the sashing colors for the last (top) row. I love the design process!

The cats have taken over.

November 29, my birthday! Decisions, decisions. I thought and thought and thought about how to finish this quilt. It seemed the closer I got to finishing it, the more in doubt I became about how to complete the sashing. Since my trip to FR yesterday, I had several choices for the top row, but none of them were IT. I considered replacing the pink sashing on the second row to a darker color and using a small pink print on the top row. But that would entail replacing all the sashing on the second row, AND it wouldn't match the theme of plain (no pattern) sashing. Then I thought about keeping the pink sashing on the second row as it was and using a contrasting color on the top row (which is all pink panels). I had some pretty blue green material with a faint pattern, but I was pretty sure I didn't have enough of it for the vertical sashing AND the one-inch horizontal sashing. I knew FR had a little bit more of it (I had seen it on Saturday), but I didn't know if they had enough for what I needed. And then...I had the perfect idea. I was thinking about aqua, one of my favorite colors, when I realized I had an old tablecloth that I rarely use that I was pretty sure was the exact right color. It's a large tablecloth, so even after poaching it for the sashing, it's still big enough if I ever want to use it again. Voila! Except for the border, the quilt is finished.

And for good measure, Sammie finally made it into the bedroom.

December 2. Just a few niceties to accomplish now. I added the border to the top and bottom yesterday, which makes the final dimensions 80 x 90 1/2. (It was so long, I had to cut off about ten inches from the bottom before I added the border. That took a lot of courage!) I'm going to cut the batting and backing to 8 inches bigger than the top and buy thread for the binding, which is going to be the pink print. FR will put all of this together, leaving the back side of the binding for me to do.

Kris took the quilt top to Mom this afternoon so she'll have a chance to hang out with it before I take it to Fabric Recycles for quilting. It'll probably be six weeks before I get it back, and neither of us wanted to wait that long for her to see it. She's my most enthusiastic fan. I'll pick it up from her on Saturday.

Mom called to tell me how wonderful the quilt is, and how proud of me she is. She was so excited! I'm proud that she's proud. :)

I spent quite a bit of time today measuring 20 times and cutting once...well, actually twice: the batting and the back sheet. I think I did it right. They each measure eight inches larger than the quilt itself: 88" x 98 1/2".

Uh-oh. I was talking to Kris, and another commitment fell out of my mouth. I'm going to REALLY learn how to free motion quilt by the time this one comes back so I can finish the next one myself. Yikes. Six weeks to practice!

I made a pillow for Mom, using the rest of my sunflower fabric.

December 9. I took the pieces to Fabric Recycles last Saturday after picking up the quilt top from Mom. She was so excited about it and so impressed with my handiwork, that I'm going to share the quilt with her. When it comes back, I'll finish the binding and then let her keep it for a while.

She mentioned that after the quilt is put together, I won't be able to see the stitching I did. I had never thought about photographing the back side...but once she said it, it seemed like a good idea to take a few pictures.

I'm still practicing FMQ and really beginning to see some progress. It feels so much easier now to control the machine speed. I've figured out all the settings on the machine, so I'm not constantly wondering if there's something that needs to be set differently.

I've been in touch with Singeronline.com to because I finally determined that the walking foot I bought does not fit my machine. There's two problems: the hook is too far to the left and doesn't reach the screw that keeps the needle in place (which it's supposed to fit around), and the hook is too small to fit around the screw. They're sending me a smaller screw. If the screw itself doesn't fix the problem, I'll need to bend (gulp!) the hook to the right until it fits around the screw. There is no other walking foot for the 31-15.

December 10. I took time out from quilting the past few days...I've been sewing nightgowns as gifts. Ava is getting a nightgown and a knitted hat for Christmas (space theme). Mom is getting a nightgown for Chanukah (butterflies). Mara is getting her annual nightgown for her birthday (cats). As a Chanukah gift, I'm going to make a pillow to go with her afghan from last year.

December 11. And then it's back to quilting. I offered to make Eve a pillow for her new bedroom. She told me the colors are teal and green, so I selected the appropriate scraps from my pile. I decided to insert a zipper into this pillow--the first one I've done in DECADES--so Eve could clean the pillow case if necessary. It was off to ScrapsKC to find a zipper. Or two or three. Or seven.

December 12. I gave Mom and Mara their presents today, and they were both delighted. And both showed a lot of enthusiasm for the pillows I offered them as Chanukah gifts. We spent some time on the floor...at Mara's, choosing fabrics from my scrap box to go with her family room carpet, and at Mom's, choosing fabrics that didn't particularly match anything, but were colors she liked. Oh, boy! More projects!

Now here's a little bit of minutiae that's a little hard to explain. I've been building quilt "sandwiches" from scrap batting and a top and bottom layer of sheeting left over from the face mask project. As I used them for FMQ practice, I filled them up with doodlings, lines, swirls, and circles. When they were completely full, I put them in my purple pop-up basket. I figured I'd re-use them somehow, as pillow stuffing or something. Today I tried covering one with another layer of sheeting, wondering if I could reuse it for practice. It worked! I suddenly have twice the practice material I had yesterday. That's a good thing...because I still need LOTS of practice.

December 14. I worked on Mara's pillow all day yesterday. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, zipper and all. I decided to separate the fabrics she had chosen into two sections because they seemed so different both in color and mood. I made them into the front and back sides.

December 14. Today I made my first potholder with the special heat resistant batting that came in a bag of miscellaneous pieces from ScrapsKC. I love how it turned out. We'll see how the cook/baker in the house likes it.

I spent the rest of the day (it's Monday, but business is slow!) making Mom's second pillow. She likes bright colors. I'm happy to report that this zipper went in much more easily than the ones I inserted in the first two pillows.

December 16. Oh, boy. These pillows are just TOO easy and TOO fun! After a trip to ScrapsKC to pick up whatever pillow forms they had (they had three) and more zippers, I quickly made another pillow from the stained-glass piece.

It appears I am now semi-retired. No business all week so far. No problem! I'm having fun playing in my sewing room all day.

I'm ready to show my latest FMQ practice piece. It's still not great, but it's better...and I think I've got my signature DOWN!

December 17. I turned another of my lovely panels into a pillow last night. Because it was an odd size, I made my own pillow form, using about half of the trimmings, thread scraps, and other materials from my "trash" pillowcase as stuffing. I used some of the muslin from ScrapsKC for the case. I just love the cabbage rose in the middle. I think I've mentioned that before. :)

December 19. Today was gift-giving day. We had a three-person party to celebrate my sister's birthday at Mom's apartment, and I gave both of them their Chanukah gifts. I had given Mara her birthday gift--her annual nightgown--last week.

I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of Mary Ellen's nightgown, which I gave to her today. She sent me a photo of her in it, though. Thanks, Mary Ellen! (I kinda hate to do it, but for privacy, I cropped out her head...)

I made two more potholders today, using the regular foot and making up the quilting part as I went along. They're a gift for a friend who told me she likes ocean colors. They're so easy to make, I want to do more.

December 20. Just to see what they were like, I made a couple of bowl cozies.

December 21. My FMQ is FINALLY beginning to look decent. It took a lot of practice pieces (84, with some of them used twice and a bunch of smaller ones) to get to this point.

December 23. I had a great time the past couple of days making potholders for Linda (green) and Helen (red), the friends I met at ScrapsKC who have been my creative mentors. I had wanted to use my walking foot, but the screws I discussed with Singeronline.com about two weeks ago are still not here. I used my regular foot in a wonky line pattern, and they came out okay. I had practiced Helen's name with my FM foot, but I chickened out. I'm not confident enough about my skill. And I'm not confident that the bobbin won't get stuck and create a snarl, which it does ever so often.

I delivered them today. I'm pretty happy about that!

December 24. Oh. My. Gosh. Got a call from Paige at Fabric Recycles to tell me that she accidentally attached the back sheet to the longarm machine 90 degrees off. She's done more than half of the quilting and just realized her mistake. It's a disaster...or it would be if I hadn't already realized that quilting is one "make it work" situation after another. I can't imagine how difficult that call must have been for her to make.

I had measured that sucker 20 times before I cut, so I was chagrined to think that I hadn't done it right. But that wasn't the problem. It was cut correctly. The instructions I left with it were to make sure the roses were facing up. (When I left it at the store, I had a nudge to pin a note to it saying "this side up," but I didn't do it!) Since the roses are at an angle, looking at it either vertically or horizontally it would appear that the roses were facing up. If she had measured the piece, it would have been obvious which way it went. But she didn't. I took the 16 inches of sheet that I had left to the store. It'll be interesting to see how she attaches it...I don't envy her that job. In the meantime, I had a chance to see it on the longarm machine. It's looking good!

December 27. And...the machine screws arrived yesterday! Only took a week after being mailed 2-day delivery. I've tried one of the three different kinds, and it fits. Still working out the stitch length. Even on the longest stitch setting, the stitches are tiny. I'll keep you posted. (Update: It's all a matter of finger pressure as the fabric goes under the needle.)

In the meantime, I gave three potholders to my sister...a beautiful purple/blue/yellow one and two that I had intended to give to Kelly, but then realized I could choose better colors for her.

Here's the one I made for Mark. It suits his energetic personality perfectly!

December 28. Yesterday was all about learning new techniques for potholders. I was using my regular "pillowcase" technique (sewing the pieces together front to front, then turning and topstitching, then quilting) when I discovered that the batting (along with the four other pieces I had cut) was actually the kind that adheres to the fabric when it's heated. I don't know how that's going to affect its performance as a potholder, but I'm hoping for the best.

After I had that realization, I decided to learn how to make and attach binding, which allows me to do the quilting BEFORE binding, and let the stitching run into the seam line. My first one is a little wonky at the corners. I'm sure the next one will be better. :) This is giving me practice for the quilt when it comes back...I will be hand-stitching the binding.

...I took out the wonky stitching and resewed it to make it neater. Of course I did!

December 29. I picked up the quilt from Fabric Recycles today! It looks better than I could have imagined. I'm going to be spending some time finishing the binding. Stay tuned...

December 30. It didn't take that long to complete the binding...just a couple hours yesterday and about an hour today. Here's the finished quilt. I love it. Not only is it beautiful, it's the perfect weight...not too heavy, not too light. Here's the ironic part: I can't leave it on top of my bed. The cats would make a mess of it, either by getting fur all over it or in the case of Scuti, biting it. She loves to play, and that includes nibbling on whatever she's playing with. So this will never be the top quilt. I'll put another, less important one on top of it.

I put together another pillow (18") from two of the leftover panels. The zipper was pretty easy this time. I'm getting better at that.

January 1, 2021. Happy new year! I've spent the last couple of days playing with potholders. I did quite a bit of musing and thinking about the colors of Kelly's potholder. Her kitchen is blue, but her living room (adjacent to the kitchen, and I'm pretty sure where she eats) has much more complex, muted colors. I'm so glad I took the time to think about it, because hers is really an art piece, in my opinion. Also, Erica at Fabric Recycles told me about a better way to make the loop at the top, and I'm having a great time playing around with that.

January 2, 2021. Here's a fun, practical item I picked up at ScrapsKC that has become my newest favorite tool. It looks like a plastic teapot, but it's actually a huge suction cup that lets me hold my plastic template down firmly in order to cut around it. I'm so glad to have it!

Potholders 'R Us! I guess I'm making these for future gifts.

January 3, 2021. Shelley's potholders. I love them! First a photo of the fabrics I chose...then the finished potholders. Can't wait to do more.

January 5, 2021. I mailed Shelley's potholders to her yesterday. Can't wait to hear how she likes them!

I've been creating a quilt out of the three remaining red panels. I added some strips to bring it up to 36" x 36" and then completed the rest of the steps I've learned in order to finish it. I am not particularly happy with the quality of my free motion quilting--the weight of the piece made a HUGE difference in my ability to move it around with any kind of grace. I'm going to have to play with my tables and other horizontal surfaces to support the next one. But other than that, it came out really well. I loved hand stitching the binding with invisible stitches. I'm not sure who is going to get this one.

January 8. I made two potholders for Joe and Nancy a few days ago.

Here are a couple panels I put together today. I just love displaying roses!

A friend asked if I would I make a quilt panel for a mutual friend who has cancer. Another friend is collecting 30+ panels to make a quilt to comfort her during her chemotherapy. I'm making a panel for myself and one for my friend to contribute. Hers is the blue-green one; mine is pink and green, to symbolize the heart and life. I signed it using free motion quilting (only because they wanted each panel to be signed...normally I wouldn't do that).

January 10. I took the quilt to Mom yesterday for a two-week loan. She LOVES it! I also showed her the red quilt and the panels I made during the time I couldn't see her (COVID rules got relaxed this week, so I can visit her again).

I have actual work to do today, so even though it's Sunday, I'll need to be at my desk. This is a hardship! My fingers are itching to do some sewing.

January 12. I found a new face mask pattern that's even better at keeping fog off of eyeglasses. There are only two pieces: the body of the mask and the nose piece. To satisfy my itchy fingers, I made three for myself and three for Kristopher, altering the pattern to fit his face. (For the record, I added about 1/4" in width at the fold and 1" in length. I also used 9" elastic pieces rather than 8 1/2".) He tells me they fit perfectly, and there's no fog. The original size fits me well.

January 13. Two more potholders...these are for Nicole and Lisa. Their new kitchen will have gray counters and melon accents in the kitchen. I love the design and combination of fabrics I chose.

January 15. Fun, fun, fun! Yesterday I made another potholder for Nicole and Lisa...then found a new pattern with hand pockets that I wanted to try. I made that, too (probably for us). Then there was this fun musical fabric that was calling my sister's name, so I made her another face mask with the new no-fog pattern.

January 25. It's been a while since I posted. I got totally caught up in an engrossing project and didn't take the time to write about it. Before that, though, I started a few fun potholders. Then they had to wait until the project was done, and I just finished them today.

I also cut the 18" green panel into quarters and made two potholders out of it.

So here's the project that had me going for an entire week. A friend--who is quite a bit bigger than I am--offered me her old chenille bathrobe, thinking I could cut it down and make a robe to fit me. Oddly enough, I had been sitting on an old well-loved chenille bathrobe of my own for many years, thinking I would one day take it apart, make a pattern, and create a new robe. I can't even say how many years I had been hanging on to it, waiting until I was smart enough to tackle it. Maybe ten. Maybe more. At any rate, her offer got me going. I thought with all my new quilting experience, I could figure it out somehow.

I was right...I did. I deconstructed my old robe, made a pattern on craft paper, and went from there. I had the very good idea to make a first-draft robe out of some fabric that I didn't care about. It was lucky I did: There was one piece that had me puzzled. It would have been a good idea to take photos of exactly how the pieces went together, but I didn't think of it until they were all apart. That piece turned out to be the back of the neck, which attached to the two lapels. Good to know! I learned a lot by doing the first one, and by the time I began considering how to alter her robe, I had an idea how to do it.

I took her robe apart and used the pattern I had made to make a new old robe. It fits me perfectly, and I am thrilled with it. I am also pretty dang proud to have made the leap from "oh, someday" to "today's the day" and to have made something so beautiful and useful. I also got to repair some of the worn spots on the elbows by embroidering a running stitch through the holes left by the disappeared chenille. Because I have every single color of embroidery floss in the entire world, I was able to match the bluish-purple color of the robe exactly.

My friend is happy because her robe has a new life. And her sister, who gave her the robe, is happy too. That makes three of us.

February 6. You wouldn't know it to read my posts, but I've been very busy quilting the past couple of weeks, learning how to quilt as you go (QAYG). I've just finished my second quilt using that method. I learned a lot making the first one, which was pretty sloppy. The second one is much different, because I figured out I needed to continually even out my edges so the blocks would match up properly. I also shortened my stitch length, which makes a big difference in the overall quality of the piece.

I pieced the blue quilt randomly and then tried to figure out how to place the blocks in some kind of coherent design. I'm surprised I was able to make some kind of design with them, considering I didn't plan it in advance. The first two photos were taken before the blocks were stitched together. I used a labeling system of 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B, 2C, etc. to designate the rows and columns. It worked very well to keep things in order before I stitched them together. My method was to do each row by itself, then attach two rows together, and then the two remaining rows. The last step is stitching the two two-row pieces together. That way, I only had to deal with the entire piece three times: once to sew the halves together, and then twice more to sew down the sashing pieces.

March Update: I did not have a recipient in mind as I made this one, but I gave it to Mom. In late January she fell in her apartment, broke her hip and leg, and has been in Rehab for the past several weeks. I thought she really needed something cozy to cheer her up. She loves it and mentions it frequently. I'm glad I can give her something tangible to remind her than I'm thinking about her.

I enjoyed using the QAYG method, so I decided to make another quilt, actually designing it in advance. After a few tries, here's the design I came up with. I had a huge amount of gold fabric left over from the face mask project, which I paired with a complementary striped fabric. I wanted to make diamond shapes in the corners of the blocks, so I made a template to help me place the triangles correctly on the blocks. I cut some triangles with vertical stripes and some with horizontal stripes. I used the former for the diamonds, and the latter became the half-diamonds on the edges of the quilt. As you can tell by the pattern, some blocks had two triangles and some had just one. I had to make the correct number of blocks with the horizontal and/or vertical triangles, which was kind of a challenge. When I placed the blocks on the bed to make sure they were correct, I discovered only one that I had done wrong...it had two vertical triangles instead of one vertical and one horizontal. I fixed it, of course.

In the QAYG method, you create each block with the top, batting, and backing in place. I made the backing 11 inches, with the batting and front 8 inches. After you quilt it, you use the extra fabric on the back to create the sashing, which is used to attach each block to its neighboring block. After the row is complete, you attach the bottom part of the backing to the top of the next row. At the end of it all, you use the backing on the edges to create the binding. And that's it!

In the first photo below, the first row is sewn together, while the remaining seven rows are still to be done.

The point of QAYG is that you can do the entire process on your home machine rather than taking it to a longarm service to have it quilted. It has its own challenges, but it's much more doable than trying to wrestle a huge quilt under a free motion foot.

I'm going to call this my Sammie quilt, because it's the color of my orange and white cat, Sammie. However, because cats have their own ideas about what they want to do at any given time, I could NOT get Sammie to pose on the quilt, even though I made a tempting nest out of it. Scuti did the honors instead.

I decided to create a potholder for each quilt I make. Here are ones to commemorate the blue and gold QAYG quilts.

This potholder doesn't commemorate anything...it's just fun fabric that I wanted to play with.

And now onward to a Valentine's quilt! It's taken a while to coalesce in my mind, but it's apparently going to be pink, red, and white with a bunch of hearts. And maybe one big one in the middle. I'm going to learn to applique to make this one.

March 3. And...it's a month later, and the Valentine quilt is finished! I didn't post all this time because I was so engaged in actually doing the work and learning the techniques I needed for this kind of quilting. I used another kind of QAYG, which I'm also calling Learn As You Go. Because that's what I did.

I feel like I've been on a long journey, and I'm a little intimidated about trying to re-create it in words. But here goes. I found a heart-themed quilt online, which I used as a jumping off point. I found a QAYG technique on Youtube that involved cutting the front, batting, and back of each block all the same size (as opposed to a much larger back, with its sides becoming the sashing, which I had used for both the blue and the gold quilts). With this technique, the blocks are held together with separate pieces of sashing that are the same length as the blocks. First you connect the blocks into rows, then connect two rows together (in this case four times), then four rows together (twice), and finally, connect the two halves. By that time, the quilt is pretty dang awkward to handle. But with this technique, you only have to deal with that bulk for a short time.

I decided on an 8 x 8 format: 64 blocks of 8 inches each, and I wanted to make it reversible. Why not? That way it would be pretty on both sides. (Mom had surprised me by loving the back side of the original quilt--which was that pink rose sheet--so much that she used it as the top.) Using almost entirely just the fabric I had on hand (with a couple of trips to Scraps and Fabric Recycles to fill in the gaps), I cut out all the blocks, sashing strips, and batting. That in itself took quite a while. As I worked on that, I was still designing the quilt in my head. I wanted to learn to applique, so I watched some videos on the topic. Using the turn-needle technique was not a lot of fun, whereas I LOVE to embroider and use pretty contrasting colors. So this is how it came together: A huge pink heart on a background of white. All the interior blocks would have some kind of embroidery on them, as well as lace or tatting or whatever I found in my stash. I would use up the leftovers from the pink rose sheet from the original quilt as sashing. I'd also design the back of the quilt in (almost) random pink, red, and white blocks.

While it was coming together, it became obvious to me that this quilt is going to be Mom's. She loves the colors, and I was incorporating the rose sheet she liked so much. She's still in Rehab, and because of COVID, I haven't been able to visit her in her room, so I've brought pieces and parts of the quilt for show and tell during our window visits. Her eyes absolutely light up as she looks at it. I can't wait for her to return to her apartment so I can make up her bed with the finished quilt.

Back to the process. While I was putting the blocks together in rows, I was very careful to keep them even and straight (although some of them still came out a little wonky. I don't understand how that happens!) The sashing process was interesting. The front sashing was 4 1/2 inches and pressed in half; the back was 2 1/2 inches. Both front and back pieces get attached to the first block; the the back piece gets attached to the back of the second block. Insert a batting piece that's 1 1/4 inches wide, and top-stitch the front of the sashing to the second piece. Then top-stitch the sashing itself and quilt it. I chose to make four straight lines down the length of it, first sewing down the middle and then dividing each of those parts in half with another line of stitching. I had to be VERY careful to keep everything even and straight during this process. And most importantly, when I began connecting rows to rows, hand basting was essential to keep the batting from rolling over on itself. I discovered this only after I had already completely finished one of seven of those long rows and realized that it was lumpy. Rats. I was NOT going to undo all that hand work.

Speaking of doing things over, I employed my usual philosophy of there's no hurry to get it done--just do it over if needed so I'll be happy with the finished product. And I did, on many parts of it.

I chickened out of doing free motion quilting (again). After working so hard on each block, I didn't want to take a chance of ruining it with bad quilting. So I did straight-line stitching at different angles on each row. Maybe next time...
As I laid out the blocks, I used a row number/alpha column system to keep them in order, as I did for the last two quilts.
I appliqued hearts onto the interior pink blocks, then realized that there wasn't enough quilting on those blocks to make the batting puffy. I went back and hand-stitched some semi-circles onto the corners.
I learned to make half-square triangles on this one so I could make the large heart shape. Thank you, Karen Brown (Just Get It Done Quilts)!
I also learned (too late to change it) not to use a dark fabric back-to-back with a white fabric, even if there's batting in between. Oh, well.
I learned how to hand-stitch the quilting by doing so on the seven long, long pieces of horizontal sashing. (It was a little boring). That's when I discovered the importance of basting the batting.
I learned not to use seersucker in a quilt. It's too stretchy.
As I was putting the two-row sections together, I discovered that there was a full two-inch discrepancy in width between the top section and the second section! That almost put me under. But I knew there was a way to fudge it with the miracle of easing. I eased the heck out of those sections! I gave up on the idea of the vertical sashing being perfectly matched in favor of being able to put the entire quilt together without whacking off pieces of the ends.
I really love hand-stitching the binding with invisible stitches. I used Karen Brown's technique by inserting one folded-over end of the binding into the other at the bottom of the quilt. Thanks again, Karen!

The finished Valentine quilt.

April 18, 2021. Oh, my goodness. I've made three quilts since I last posted, which was six weeks ago. I can see where this is going. My energy is going into designing and making the quilts, and not so much recording the process. So be it. I've learned a ton, and the journey is SO interesting. I'm going to post the photos, because I really do want to track what I've done. If some major learning comes to mind, I'll note that, too. But to take the pressure off, from here on it's going to be mostly a picture book.

In March, I made an almost-full-size, double-sided quilt-as-you-go (my preferred method at this point) housewarming quilt for Kris' daughter and her family. It got finished before the house did...it's sitting in my sewing room waiting for Kris to firm up his travel plans to St. Louis so he can give it to them. Kris had requested a "foodie" theme, since Nicole is a baker/cook/big-time foodie. I didn't have any food fabric, but I had this wonderful wine bottle fabric. I do hope they like wine. The back is made of large blocks of complementary colors, featuring orange, the color Nicole told me would be the "pop" of color in the new house.

Apparently my style is also design-as-you-go, because I planned out only the large strokes of this quilt before I began. I recall making a few trips to both ScrapsKC and Fabric Recycles to find just the right fabrics to complement what I had already made. I also tea-stained some muslin--another new-to-me technique--hoping to get the right tan/brown (it worked). I changed the sashing about a million times before I settled on the final pattern (I will spare you all the iterations), and I changed out some of the fabric choices as well. The quilting is wavy lines, done with the walking foot on each block before I pieced them together. The first two photos are the fabrics I intended to comprise the major part of the quilt; but because they were so similar, they competed with each other, and I couldn't make it work. I couldn't use the grape fabric on the reverse side, because I didn't have enough of it, and it didn't blend at all with the other, brighter colors I wanted to use. It ended up as the binding, and it was perfect...it reflected the exact color scheme of the wine bottles, but without competing with the design. The last two photos are the double-wide "potholder" I made to commemorate this quilt.

UPDATE: Kris finally visited Nicole in their new home in July, taking the quilt along with him on the train. She loved it.

And now a brief pause (paws) to look at the studio-turned-sewing room. It's constantly morphing from one iteration to another as I try to improve the flow of the space. The basic work area is a triangle: sewing machine, cutting table, and ironing board. I recently switched the placement of the sewing machine and the cutting table; then I added a table behind the sewing machine to handle the weight of the quilt as I sew the rows together and it gets cumbersome to manage. And then I replaced the five-foot table with a four-foot table. I sit on the futon for all my hand work. The "coffee table" holds many of my tools, which are handy to both the ironing board and my sit-down work. My stash is constantly growing, so I keep adding baskets to accommodate the new items. There are, of course, many cats in these photos.

April 19. After I finished Nicole's quilt, which took about three weeks, I found an intriguing cat face pattern on Joann Fabric's website. I had never used a pattern before, so I learned new skills by having actual instructions and templates to follow. Of course, the pattern was not QAYG, but that's the way I made it. I used yet more scraps left over from the face mask project. I'm still not all the way through them, but that stash is much smaller than it used to be.

Using a narrow-sash QAYG technique that I had found on YouTube, I made a five-block-across, five-block-down quilt. The cat faces were composed of pink, blue, green, and orange scraps. Serendipitously, I made just the right number of each color to place them diagonally in a cohesive pattern. What a pleasant surprise! For the background, I used a 30-year-old white sheet that I was no longer using as bedding. I had a pretty blue print in my stash that I used for the back side. To make the quilt bigger, I added a white border. Then I sewed strips of all the scraps I had used to make a colorful narrow border, and then added another white border outside of that. Because I didn't want to stitch in the ditch by machine, I hand-stitched the quilting. The binding (my favorite part) brought it all together. And then, of course, I made a potholder.

April 20. I learned so much making the cat face quilt that I wanted to make the same pattern again and do it better this time. I wanted to cut all the blocks more carefully so they would go together better and the rows would be even without having to manipulate them so much; I knew my quilting lines could be straighter if I used the water soluble pen to mark them before I stitched. And I wanted to use different colors for the faces and background to see how they looked. So, using yet more of the face mask scraps and other fabric I had acquired, I made a pink cat face quilt. I chose the colors for the front based on the striped fabric I used for the back.

April 21. And on to the next one! I wouldn't let myself start another quilt until I had written about the last three. Now that I'm up to date, I'll start on one with a new block style called "dancing 9-patch." It sounds like so much fun! The colors will be blue and yellow, one of my favorite combinations.

April 23. Well, maybe the blocks won't be dancing. I've finished all the 9-patch blocks, which entail a 3 x 3 grid with a border all around. There's not enough room in the borders to accommodate the tilted effect that's needed to make them dance. I'll settle for learning about 9-patches on this one. The next one will dance.

As usual, I'm using what I have, and I never know exactly how much fabric any particular part of the design will require. I made as many blocks as I could with the fabric I had. Then it was fun figuring out what design I could make with the 22 blocks of one set of fabrics and the eight blocks of the other. I think it came out pretty well, and I love the blue and yellow together. My next challenge is to QAYG an entire row before attaching it to the next one. I think I'm about ready to try FMQ on something besides a practice sandwich. Almost. Urgh. Scary.

Update: The non-dancing nine-patch has become my first UFO--unfinished object. I was in the process of making it as I was waiting for my new sewing machine, and I was just at the point where I needed to decide to do it as quilt-as-you-go or to put the entire top together, which would necessitate quilting the whole thing at once. I got impatient to see what it looked like and sewed it all together. I also designed and sewed the back layer. It's beautiful. And unfinished. I'm afraid I'm going to have to pay Fabric Recycles to quilt it for me on their longarm. In the meantime, it's sitting in my cedar chest.

April 27. Oh, boy. Now I've done it. I've ordered a new sewing machine. I spent a really frustrating hour last Friday trying to practice FMQ--but before I could even get to the point of practicing, I had to fiddle with different top and bobbin thread weights, different needle sizes, and pressure and tension settings on my Singer. I was getting absolutely nowhere with it. All I got was snarls and snags and completely wonky tension. I finally determined I would never be able to get a good result with this machine. Although I had been able to get quilting feet for it, it really wasn't built for quilting. Even when the tension is set correctly, no matter how much I practice, the bobbin thread still snags every minute or so. I end up with fairly graceful circles and then a snag. More graceful swirls, and then a snag. It simply wasn't going to work.

My research actually didn't take all that long, because I ran into the perfect machine almost immediately. At Joann Fabric a nice man named Charlie demonstrated a way-over-the-top Viking for me. Computerized, dozens of stitches, automatic everything. Not for me. I knew I wanted a mechanical, metal workhorse of a machine with not too many bells and whistles. At a second Joann's, there were no demonstrators, but a pleasant clerk pointed me to several machines she liked. I took the promo flyers home and began exploring the internet. The very first one I looked at is the one I bought (although I did look at others, just be sure there wasn't something I'd like better). It's a Janome HD5000. I could write all about it, but there are so many features that please me, I'd be writing all day. I'll wait to sing its praises until after I've worked with it a while. I bought it from Ken's Sewing Center in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and it's on its way, even as I write. It was their Youtube video that convinced me that it was the one I wanted. (The owner's actual name is Kevin, and he was the one who made the video.)

I think I spent more time trying to find a table than the machine itself. After briefly considering retro-fitting it into the Singer table, I decided I wanted to keep my Singer functional, so I needed to find a sturdy table of just the right size. I've just ordered it from Home Depot. And now my head is swirling with the exciting challenge of restructuring my little sewing room to accommodate TWO machines, as well as a cutting table, ironing board, and storage. I'm still working on it.

July 20, 2021. You might notice that there's quite a large gap between the last post and this one. That's because I've been so busy quilting and sewing with my new machine that I just couldn't make myself stop long enough to write about it. And eventually, I didn't even think about doing so. What follows is a photo gallery of the projects I've made, along with brief comments about who I gave them to or other relevant or interesting notes.

And, BTW, I love my new machine. The only drawback is that my body doesn't quite fit it...when the machine is high enough that I can see the needle mechanism as well as I want to, the table is too high for my arms and hands. And when I lower the table, the housing of the machine is in my sight line. So far I haven't been able to resolve the problem. But the machine is wonderful. The feed dogs give great traction and the stitches are beautiful and even.

I have restructured my sewing room and table many, MANY times since April. I love organizing as much as I love sewing. On some mornings I get out of bed, wander over to the sewing room, and check to see if I can improve on any little work-flow or storage option. It gives me such a thrill when I find something that makes the organization just a tiny bit better. Silly me! Here are a few shots of my sewing room over the past few months.

Place mats for Mom (May). As usual, I was watching a video on Youtube that inspired me to try a quilted place mat. I did a little bit of free motion quilting, including an almost-invisible "Joie" in each line of stitching. The matching round coaster will go under her candy dish.

May. Eve bought a pair of pajama pants that were WAY too big for her. I was able to take out the elastic, create a casing, and insert a ribbon. They look GREAT on her!

Dog beds! (May). I had made so many quilt sandwiches to practice FMQ, I needed to do something with them and get them out of my sewing room. I made dog beds and cut up the sandwiches to use for the stuffing. Which lucky dogs got the beds? See the photos.

The second nine-patch (May-June). This time it's dancing. I really enjoyed the nine-patch concept, so I made another one, also blue and yellow. This time I was able to cut the angles so the design "dances." However, if I make it again, I need to make the original squares larger so I can cut a sharper angles to make the dancing more obvious. I gave this quilt to my friend Joe, who was delighted to receive it.

Potholders and Oven Mitts (May-June-July). I found a large amount of Insul-Brite at ScrapsKC, so I had a lot on hand when I decided to make a few potholders. Which turned into a LOT of potholders and oven mitts. The pattern for the oven mitt came with the fabric, so of course I tried it.

Mom's Birthday Present (June). A while back, I showed Mom this whimsical fabric panel that I found at ScrapsKC. She expressed great delight in it, saying it reminded her of the Dazzlers, her former tap dance troupe. I tucked that idea in the back of my mind. As June rolled around, I started thinking about how to create something with that panel in a way she could use it in her apartment. She already has plenty of pillows, and her wall space is limited. I decided to make a wall hanging anyway, thinking she might hang it inside her closet. When she saw it, she immediately wanted it in her kitchen and was happy to move her current things around to accommodate it. I call that a score!

Pop of Color (June-July). Oh, my. I loved this pattern so much, I actually bought it. Choosing the fabrics was fun. I love every single combination of the colors and designs. Each large block (14 inches) is made of four smaller blocks that are then sewn together. I made this with the quilt-as-you-go method, which means I designed the back at the same time as the front. One of my principles is to use the leftovers from the front for the back, figuring out how to design it based on whatever scraps are available.

Mom loves this one too, so she's getting yet another quilt. She's willing to give up her current bedspread in order to receive this. That being the case, I need to make pillow shams so she has a complete bed cover set. I'm in that process now. I brought one of her pillow shams home to use as a pattern. Fortunately, I still have some fabric left over from making the quilt. I've decided to make the squares larger on the shams--three lines of color rather than two. We'll see how that turns out. Her current shams are closed with buttons on the back. Guess I'll learn how to use the buttonhole feature on my machine. Oh, boy!

...So I learned how to use the buttonholer, but I was too chicken to use it on the shams. Maybe next time.

July 25, 2021. So what are my unspoken principles about quilting? I haven't actually given this much thought, but I alluded to having them in a recent post. So now I'm thinking about it.

First, I never buy new fabric. I buy second-hand fabric from ScrapsKC or Fabric Recycles. I also buy it at yard sales or estate sales or thrift stores. I'm open to receiving fabric from someone else's stash. This isn't just about wanting to save money; it's more about the challenge of making something from "found" fabric--taking something that wasn't going to be used and making something from it.

I believe in buying fabric when I see it and not waiting until I'm working on a project that requires it . Of course, given where I shop, it's necessary to buy it when I see it, because the next time I'm there, it might be gone.

However, there's a corollary to that. If I need a color or pattern that's not in my stash in order to fill out a design, I'll go looking for it. I always find something that will work.

I generally start a project based on color. I choose a combination of colors I like and then seek out a pattern. Or make one up using a technique or block I've learned on Youtube.

Ever so often, like with the Pop of Color quilt I just finished, I start with the pattern and then choose the colors. I did the same with the cat face pattern.

Youtube is my go-to teacher. Everything I know about quilting, I learned from one of the teachers who share their knowledge on their Youtube channel. When I get stuck, I look for the solution on YT. Between Google and YT, you can learn just about anything.

Despite what all the teachers say, I resist joining a guild. I'm not a joiner in general, and I like doing things by myself.