It Is Finished... Easy Street Complete!

 
And so, it is complete.
The longarm quilter did a nice job with a pantograph flower. I asked her to do whatever she wanted, but to make it blend. She chose well!
I did a purple binding (also from my stash--yay). The backing was 108" I bought at the quilt shop when I dropped it off for quilting. The measurements worked out perfectly--I didn't have to cut or piece a dang thing for the back.      

Looking back through time from its humble beginnings as a stack of fabric...

No, I'm not a whole lot more thrilled with it now than I was before. However, my husband really likes it and it fits the bed in our son's bedroom (now mostly a guest room). And it's soft and cuddly now that it's been washed--nice and wrinkly like I like them. I'm not sure it'll ever grow on me, but that's okay. I don't feel the need to absolutely love everything I do. If I don't love it, or love the process, I at least have to have learned something, and that I did. So it's all good. 


A Near Finish: Easy Street Top Complete

Phew!



  (Not a great picture--the only place big enough for me to use as a design wall on this was my bedroom floor and the lighting in there isn't exactly made for photography.)

I'm planning on (weather permitting) dropping it off with a longarmer tomorrow. I'm not going with borders because I ended up with the same fabric running all along the outside edge of the quilt and I like the idea of it just ending there. May bind with that same fabric since I believe I still have enough of it, or I may pick up the red or purple from the quilt.

If you want my full review of my experience doing this, including my feelings about the end product, listen to the episode I just posted tonight. Suffice it to say that my feelings have NOTHING to do with Bonnie Hunter. She does a bang-up job with a mystery quilt, descriptions of steps, and so forth. And I love her designs. In terms of my end result, however...well...you'll just need to listen to the episode!

Catching Up...WIPs, BOMs, and Finishes, O My

Boy, howdy, has it been awhile since I've written a blog post! My apologies. It's not for want of quilting to show, it's for want of time to write the posts about the quilting I've been doing. It's time to play catch-up, and the fastest way to do that is with a little photo-essay...

The Progress Down Easy Street (not in strict complete weekly order)










 
 

I have everything pieced--just have to put the top together. I'll be talking about this in an upcoming episode.

My Guild Paper Pieced Block of the Month
We're using Carol Doak's 300 Paper Pieced Blocks book. The BOM leader is choosing the block each month. I'm using only scraps from my scrap bin as much as possible--so far, with only two months under my belt, so good. We'll see what happens when I get into months 10-12! I'm trying to keep all the colors at the same intensity and saturation level, with scrappy white backgrounds, so no matter what the blocks are I'm hoping they'll all hold together at the end. But I'm also being flexible--if I can't get them all into one project I won't sweat it.

January's block


 
  February's block already done (woot! I'm ahead!)


My little growing village. 
@verylazydaisy said they looked like gnome houses; 
so now I think of this as Gnome Village. 
We'll see what the next block brings!


An Impulse Project: Christmas Tablerunner

I bought some Christmas fabric on sale that I really had no right to be buying given that (1) it was a couple of days before Christmas and (2) I already had a respectable stash of Christmas fabric at home that hasn't been used. So, to waylay the guilt factor, I immediately made a table runner out of it that weekend and successfully used up all the Christmas fabric I'd bought plus some white from my stash. So while I still have the aforementioned respectable stash of Christmas fabric, at least I didn't add to it! (My apologies--I stuck a black border on the picture and belatedly realized it makes it look like there's a black border on the tablerunner itself. There's no black border on the tablerunner.)

I also poked away at a quilt for a family member but it got set aside until I can finish Easy Street. That one really isn't picture-worthy yet--mostly a bunch of cut fabric at this point.

We have family in from out of town for the rest of this week/weekend so no more sewing for a little while. Things should settle down next week so I can get back into a blogging routine again!

Easy Street Weeks 3 & 4

I didn't finish Week 3 until the night before Week 4 was posted so I didn't do the linky last week. And I still haven't finished trimming the blocks, so technically I'm not sure I consider that I've completely finished week 3. But there it is, move on. I can finish trimming later.

I really like the way these blocks look--the colors work well together.







I got Week 4 finished tonight--all trimmed and everything. (Netflix got me through!)

For some reason, even though these are all the same colors as the above blocks, I'm not as keen on the way some of them turned out. Some of my reds are more of a brown-red that isn't quite as striking next to the purple. However, I'm relying on having all of it work together once I'm looking at the entire pieced top rather than individual units.

(Sorry the picture is a little blurry--it was pretty late when I finished!)


Be sure to check out Bonnie's blog and link-up to see how everyone else's are turning out--it's been fun watching how all the different colorways are playing out!

Finish! Disappearing 9-Patch

Disappearing 9-Patch WheelchairI completed the Disappearing 9-Patch I pieced during the Black Friday Sew-In. I've posted pics of this in progress so the finish isn't quite as exciting a reveal as usual, but there it is. They always look that much more interesting when they're completed!

For those of you jumping into the middle of the story, I'd been wanting to make a Disappearing 9-Patch for awhile so I decided a bit on a whim to grab a charm pack I'd had in my stash for a year or more--Moda's "Portugal" line--and just went to town without worrying about how big it would end up. The center came out to something like 26"x26". Since I wanted to make it for a person in a wheelchair, I looked up what other people had found to be a successful size, and the suggested size was a rectangle. Since I wanted this done quickly, I opted for the simplest solution, which was putting honkin' big borders top and bottom with more reasonably sized borders on the sides. I wasn't sure about it at first but it's grown on me. (I put all the measurements in my original post on this linked above. Frankly, I don't even really remember them now! Too many other quilty projects in between.)

Dis9P detailEverything was out of my stash. I got to use not only the charm pack, but about a yard for borders, a couple of yards for a backing (yellow--not pieced), and gee, maybe a quarter yard of the blue for the binding. Probably less.

I did a simple meander with yellow thread in the center and a pretty dark red shinier thread in the borders, so it blends but still gives it a little spark with the shine. (Sorry the picture's blurry--the lighting was bad.)

It turned into quite the happy little quilt. Originally it was going to be a donation quilt but then I realized after I had the top pieced that I didn't have a gift yet for a family friend that I always do something for at Christmas, and since she's in a wheelchair, this was perfect. So it got repurposed for her, and I know she'll love it.

I'll be making more of these in the future as donation quilts, I know--although next time I'll use two charm packs so they'll take up more space!

I got Easy Street Week 3 done, technically, before Week 4 was posted, although I'm still trimming up some dog-ears. I've started the cutting on Week 4. It's going relatively quickly since I had a lot of 2" strips of the required fabrics left from previous weeks. I don't have much doubt I'll have them done by Friday, although we're decorating our tree tomorrow night so I won't get back to my machine until Tuesday. I didn't do the linky on Bonnie's blog last week; may not get to it this week. I'm still playing along, though! (I'll post pics of 3 and 4 together later this week.)

Reporting In...WIP (almost done!) and Easy Street W3

Easy Street Week 3 Progress

I got all my pieces cut for Easy Street W3 today, but decided I was going to space out my work on it this week for the sake of my soul. I get irritable when I have to do the same thing over and over again--it loses all sense of joy for me. (Something I've learned from my approach the last two weeks!) So this week I'm doing it in parts--cutting today, sewing tomorrow. Not sure I'll get all the sewing done tomorrow since I'm not sure how long I'll have to work on it, but I should be able to make significant progress after work.

Still can't post pictures of my postcard for Sandi yet, since she hasn't received it. I'm trying not to panic that I somehow misaddressed it! Meanwhile, I've received hers--it's wonderfully fun! I won't post pictures of that one either until the whole story is over. So that gives you something to look forward to. I'll also post more info about how I made mine once she gets it (I'm trying to think positively here....).

Another Work in Progress


Meanwhile, here's what I spent all of Sunday afternoon working on. This was originally going to be a donation quilt when I realized it would actually make the perfect Christmas gift for a family friend who is wheelchair bound. I do usually get her something every Christmas but haven't made her anything quilty yet. This will be a nice bright spot in her apartment, I think.

Hoping to get binding on tomorrow night, and then I'll be able to post it as a finish!





NOTE TO MY PODCAST LISTENERS

I just discovered that Podbean is down because it's moving everything over to Amazon Web Services. I don't know if this means anything to the administration end of my podcast--we didn't get any notifications that it was happening so I'm hoping for the best. (Working on the "no news is good news" theory.) However, it does mean that my podcast, as well as any other podcasts hosted on Podbean (which includes several of us quilty folks) are currently unavailable. Supposedly it should be back up tomorrow morning. Again, here's hoping for the best....

Easy Street Week 2 Progress and Sew-Day Report

I've completed Week 2 of Easy Street--so far, due to some well-timed days off, I've been able to keep up! I hadn't used the Companion Angle or Easy Angle rulers before (Bonnie Hunter's recommended rulers for her mystery quilts) so this was my first run with them. It took me a little bit to figure out the best way to use them without having my hands at odd angles while cutting and risking lopping off a major appendage. I used an Olfa rotating rotary cutter mat, which helped tremendously. If you don't have one of those, add it to your wish list! I use mine frequently.

I was cutting a lot of the purple pieces from small scraps so that took longer since I had to cut all three sides of each piece in most instances (to have straight edges) rather than a strip and a few slices to get multiple units at once. It felt good to use up some scraps I've had around for awhile, but it took so long that I'll be thinking long and hard about that trade-off in future steps, if it comes up again.

I had a sew-day on Friday and half of Saturday with one of my groups of quilty peeps, which is how I was able to get Easy Street done on the day the clue was posted. Woot! I did also get some other stuff done. I can't post a picture yet of my other completion this weekend until the recipient receives it. But it's of the postcard variety.

For more results from Easy Street Week 2, visit Bonnie Hunter's blog and linky.

Quilt Top Complete and Easy Street Prep

You're Getting Sleepy
"You're Getting Sleepy" (aka Poppies) top complete.

 I've ordered more of the poppies fabric to use as the backing. I didn't have enough of any of the fabrics to piece a backing and I love the poppies fabric enough that I really wanted more of it anyway. Haven't decided how I'm going to approach the quilting yet, so it may be a few more weeks before this gets done.

Meanwhile, just a few days left until Bonnie Hunter posts the first "clue" for the Easy Street Mystery Quilt. I was just checking out the Flickr group to see everyone's fabric choices so far--very cool! Here's the slideshow from the group (if the embed works correctly).


 If you're on Threadbias, be sure to check out the Easy Street group I've started there as well--more pics of fabric choices.

Succumbing to Peer Pressure on Easy Street


So a few Twitter folks talked me into it. They talked me into walking down Easy Street with Bonnie Hunter and the crew.
Today I simply dug out my probable fabrics. May still swap some out. I still have a couple of weeks to live with them until it starts.


Care to join along?

Katie of Katie's Quilting Corner, Pam of Hip to Be a Square, and I have a Flickr group for anyone who wants to walk on Easy Street with us.

I've also set up a group in Threadbias (because you can post pics to Flickr and then simply import them into your Threadbias account--easy peasy to post them in two places at once).

Tomorrow is my sew day with my guild peeps. I've made pumpkin bisque with smoked gouda for our potluck lunch. I really have to remember to post that recipe someday. I guess I should start doing Food Fridays again, eh?