Showing posts with label Potholders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Potholders. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

What I Did This Summer

...And What I Didn't...


This foundation-pieced pine cone was designed by Cyrille Zellweger, who has an Etsy shop full of cute camping-themed paper piecing patterns. I bought several of them last fall...


...and promised myself that I would make them this summer. Full of enthusiasm, I started the pine cone right after my last post in June. I'd really enjoyed all the paper piecing I'd done previously, so I thought I would take it to the next level. My plan was to make the entire project with fabric by Art Gallery, which is really beautiful -- lightweight and with a high thread count. And it is great for paper piecing. The only problem...


...is that they seem to have banned forest green from their production line. So that didn't work, but fortunately I still had a lot of my trusty Kaffe Aboriginal Dots in forest green left over from Sedona Star 1.0. I used that in the first photo above, and also in my second block:


You can also see that I used a medium scale modern print for the aqua sky. The colour in the pine cone photo is more accurate. It was an experiment, but I think it worked quite well.

But, even though they didn't take too long and all the problems were solved, I lost interest at that point. The thing I like best about paper piecing is the rhythm of sewing all those points. You can pre-cut your strips, and just sew -- light, dark, light, dark. When I looked at the rest of the blocks, I could see that every piece was a different size, and that templates would probably be needed, and it looked more like stop-and-go city driving than driving on the freeway. So I put it aside. I'm not saying I won't go back to it, but it wasn't the big summer project that I planned.

The big event in Toronto this summer was the Pan Am/Parapan Games. Although I didn't seek them out, the Games still found me. Near the end of the last week I was driving home from the grocery store, far from any of the venues, when I passed a couple of cyclists from Chile dressed from head to toe in their team colours. They caught up to me at a red light, and I could see that they were having a fantastic time, laughing and smiling from ear to ear. Toronto cyclists are not usually that happy, lol. It was like seeing a couple of flamingos among the pigeons, and a very nice moment.

It was also in July that I became very motivated to work on Texas Star again. Surprised me! After reading EPP guru Karen's blog for a while, I noticed that she sections her large quilts in rows, and then joins the wide rows at the end. My diamond section experiment was a total failure, but I decided to try Karen's approach. So far it's been a lot easier to manage, and I now have 245 of the stars joined up:


That's 99 more than last time, and there are just 88 left now. Isn't it funny how the numbers keep working out?

In my Summer Break post I thought I might work on Down in the Garden (DitG), Jacks and Cats, and Best Friends Forever (BFF) over the summer, but I've done very little on any of them. I think I need to pack DitG away for a while, because I've totally run out of steam on it. I may still pick up Jacks this fall. BFF is on hold until Texas Star is done, and I'll probably be happy to get back to it by then. I'm embarrassed to say that I still haven't bound those Homegrown placemats, but at least the potholders are done:


I really like them, actually, they're like fun little mini quilts.

And, over the next three Fridays I have three finished flimsies to show you, starting with Collector. I was hoping to bring that up to five, but I promised myself that I would make a big push to get some things quilted this fall, so that's a higher priority. But then again, after less than a week of catching up in Blogland, I was captured by the Ad Hoc Improv Quilter's link up that Ann and Kaja are starting. I knew immediately what I wanted to make for that! And then the next day this order of Laura Gunn's Painters Canvas, for a completely different project, arrived in the mail:


It is awesome, so you can understand how I am torn between too many options.

I know it seems like I am picking up right where I left off before the summer, but the long break from blogging was actually very helpful, and I will probably do it again next year. It gave me chance to step back and gain some perspective on all my projects. I'm tired of working on ideas that are three or four years old, or more, so I'm very motivated to clear out some old UFOs this fall, and get more current with my projects. We'll see how it shakes out!

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Homegrown Kitchen Set, Part 2


Here, finally, are the three completed tops for the Homegrown placemats that I started before Christmas! We only ever use three, so that's a complete set for us.

I finished the last seam on them today with just 7 inches of thread left in the bobbin! Don't you love it when that happens? "Clean living," is what I always call it. :D

To refresh your memory, here are the two co-ordinating potholders as well:


The next step will be to quilt them, with a combination of straight and free-motion quilting. I'm hoping to buckle down to that soon. It's several years now since I last did any FMQ, and I was never more than a beginner, which is why I want to practice on these placemats before I do Highlands Houses. It's always the first step that's the hardest!

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Anti-Resolutions?


Well, I'm taking off early this year, so I'll wish everyone a happy winter holiday now! I did not have time to finish all the placemats from the last post, but at the least the potholders were finished before I packed it all away:


My internet access will be sporadic, but I'll still be sewing, I hope!

And, let me be the first to ask you, have you been considering any New Year's resolutions? I have! Last night I heard a local radio DJ who has resolved to gain weight over the holidays, lol. This made me think that maybe it is time for a whole new attitude to New Year's resolutions. Feel free to leave any of your "anti-resolutions" in the comments, and I'll be back around the New Year with mine!

Monday, December 9, 2013

Homegrown Kitchen Set, Part 1

The other day I was looking back through the last few months of posts, and I realized that there have been a lot of Best Friends Forever posts, and not much else! Except my big finish, of course. I figured it's time for some variety!

So today I pulled out this Homegrown collection of fabrics from Connecting Threads. A few hours later, I finished a potholder!


LOL. No, there's more than that!


You can see another potholder coming in the centre of the mat, and at the bottom right are strip sets that have already been cut 2.5" wide, ready to be added around the edges of these...


...which will be placemats.

The vegetable print is more like a light home dec weight than a quilting fabric. Perfect for placemats and potholders. It's almost all gone, but I see there're still some kits left.

I adapted the patterns from the kits to my own sizes, and I was able to streamline the construction by using the same strip sets for both the placemats and the potholders.

Normally I put everything away at the end of the day, but today I am living dangerously and I have left it all out and hope to finish the construction tomorrow. They probably won't be quilted until after the holidays. My plan for the new year is get more serious with some FMQ practice, so these are the first to be prepared for that.

See you again tomorrow, with luck!
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