Adventures in Quilting - 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - December 2018 - Block 6

Quilter's Haven 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - December 2018

Sew Simple Northern Lights Sampler

One Spinning Pinwheel Block

Two 9 Patch Blocks

December's blocks were a breeze! I'm finally getting the hang of this. I didn't have to take any of them apart to reset a square or fix a corner. That is a great feeling. I am starting to feel like I am not so horrible at this. 

I really like how the pale blue looks against the background fabric. I also LOVE the pink that we used this month for one of the nine patch smaller squares. I hope we end up using more of this color. It's a great vibrant pink batik with flecks of dark purple. It really brings out the tiny hot pink polka dots on the background fabric. I like the orange as well. It is really soft and brings to mind orange creamsicle floats. I think overall the three colors used this month look really great next to each other. 

I am not completely sold on the design of the center of the block, but I think it will be okay once the whole quilt is assembled. Along, depending on the angle, it reminds me of a swastika, and I'm not thrilled about that. From other angles, it makes me think of a child's pinwheel toy or a wind mill. I'm trying to train my eye not to see the first one. 

I'm a little nervous about the bright red square we did during our second month of the BOM. That one just seems very harsh when looking at it next to the other squares we have done so far.

We will see though. I do not know what other colors are being added in as we go, so I am sure it will all work out to something harmonious. I mean, at worse, if I do not like it at the end I can always remake the block in a different color. 

Adventures in Quilting - 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - November 2018 - Block 5

Quilter's Haven 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - November 2018

Sew Simple Northern Lights Sampler

One Friendship Star Block

Three Shoe Fly Blocks

Friendship Star Block

The November blocks went pretty smoothly. No major hiccups. I had already learned the technique for creating the pinwheel centerpiece on the large block when I made the trio of smaller blocks last month. That really was the hardest part. I like how rich the purple looks against the cream background.

I am beginning to see the benefit of using a dark background with the blocks because on the samples it always looks as if the brightly colored shapes are floating on a solid sea of black. That's a really nice affect. I can't quite achieve that using the lighter background because you can see all of the seam lines so much clearer. That's okay though. I think overall I am still going to be much happier with the finished product that I end up versus if I had made it on a black or dark gray.

Those border pieces that are repeated on all of the 15 1/2 inch blocks are getting easier. They were sort of the bane of my project the first couple of months. Now I seem to have that part down so that they turn out right the first time instead of the third or fourth time around.

Shoe Fly Blocks

This month we also completed three of the 6 1/2 inch blocks. The design on those were pretty simple as well. No problems to report. The green one is a bit weird. It's an odd shade of olive green with little gold flecks. We aren't going to be using that color anywhere else in the quilt, and I just find it a bit muted and drab beside all of the other brighter colors. If I dislike it too much by the end, I may switch it for a different color. I have a bag of scraps I have been keeping for my border and any last minute changes.

Christmas / Yule 2018: Who Needs to Buy Presents When You Can Make Them? - Part 2

Part 2 of this tale is everything else I made while taking little breaks from working on Darth Vader (because my eyes can only take so much black thread ... don't laugh ... when you see the other projects, you'll understand).

I made a wolf silhouette skyline piece for our friend, Chris. I know he likes wolves, and we live in Minnesota. The night-time winter skyline called to me.

I actually started on this one before DV. I hadn't done any cross-stitch in years, and I wanted a smaller project to start with. It is not super complex, but I think the simplicity really is part of its beauty. I love how it turned out, and I wouldn't want to change anything about it. I am particularly pleased with the matting choice. I think the bright cobalt blue really makes the blues in the stitching pop. Clean, simple, beautiful.




The next item isn't technically a Yule gift, but I wanted to include it here. And it's my blog ... so I am. Two of our friends, Cass and Torrey, moved into a new house, and we finally got to go visit them at

the end of the summer. I wanted to make something special for them, and they are both big fans of Zelda. That's what inspired me to do this piece. I so wanted to do one of the big map pieces, but I was afraid to jump into a project that large with a shorter timeline. I have never cross-stitched any word art before, but I would definitely do another in this style.

Framing and matting was the hardest decision for this piece. I knew right away I wanted to do a simple, black poster-style frame. I have used a similar frame on several of my artwork pieces, and I really like that it doesn't compete with the art. I wanted the outer mat to a charcoal gray or a little lighter to bring out some of the variations of silver and gray in the weapon and shield. I just couldn't find an inner mat that I really liked. It also looked kind of squashed. I decided to play with it and cut out two vertical mat pieces to create the borders on the right and left sides. I think it turned out nicely. I like how it accentuates the length of the cross-stitch piece and brings out the lighter grays/silvers in the stitch-work. Cass and Torrey both seemed to like it, so that made me very happy.

The next piece is NOT a cross-stitch. My friend Tami loves the Disney Villains, especially Ursula, so I wanted to make her something featuring the villains we all love to hate (or hate to love?). It's cold and blustery here a lot of the time. I wanted to make her something cozy that would be just for her. No blanket or shareable. One of the pattern groups I am a member of (Stitch Upon a Time) posted a hooded poncho pattern last fall, and I fell in love with it for this project. It has POCKETS! I wanted it to be warm but not too warm, so I opted for cotton on the outside and polar fleece on the inside. I scouted out the fabric selection that Joann's released around Halloween and kept an eye on it hoping against hope that it wouldn't disappear before Black Friday. And it didn't! They still had one bolt of the villains print that I had in mind when I went shopping on Black Friday. So, I snagged it along with some lime green fleece and set to work. To the left is Tami modeling it because I forgot to snag a picture before gifting it for Yule. Doesn't it look great?! I just love it.

The last item was for my wife. Steffie very rarely asks for anything handmade, so when she does, I
make sure to make it a priority. When I was first learning to knit, she asked for a hat like one her mom made for her as a kid. Her requirement was that it be able to stand up on its own. I think I almost broke my fingers knitting that hat (and did break a few knitting needles during the process). She loves it though and wears it on puppy walks during the winter. It keeps her head nice and toasty even when it's windy.

I was showing her some fun crocheted items on Pinterest right around the holidays, and we saw a fun Grinch scarf that she really liked. She wanted it winter colors (white, blue, silver) instead of red so that it would not be as Christmasy. I couldn't find the pattern anywhere. I found out later the creator had to pull it because of copyright issues even though she was offering it for free. I looked at a lot of pictures, went and bought some yarn, and thought, what the heck ... I'd give it a try on my own. I'd never done any C2C (corner to corner) crocheting before, which is what the original pattern was. I watched about ten YouTube videos on how to do it and set to work. Once I got the hang of how the C2C worked, it went really quickly. I found some free snowflake patterns on the Red Heart yarn site and added those to break up the blue. Getting the eyebrows and eyes just right were probably the hardest part. I am very happy with how the finished piece turned out, and it looks so nice with her hat that stands up.

Christmas / Yule 2018: Who Needs to Buy Presents When You Can Make Them? - Part 1

For Christmas / Yule 2018, I decided I was not going to buy any holiday presents this year. I was going to make all of the presents myself. Before you go all, "Girl, what were you thinking?!" ... I did start making the items in April because I knew it would take quite a bit of time for at least two of the presents. 

I made a Darth Vader wall hanging for one friend, a landscape wolf wall hanging for another friend, and a Disney Villains hooded cape for another friends. I also took a couple breaks during the summer to make another friend a Zelda themed house warming present and to start up a block of the month quilting project.

I am almost done with all of the darkest blue sections.
The Death Star looks like it has a boob.

The Darth Vader project was definitely the most challenging and rewarding of the group. I bought the cross-stitch pattern Needlework #002-10 on Etsy from StitchLine. I decided to stitch it out on a light gray Aida fabric I bought from JoAnn's. There were only about seven colors in the pattern, and almost all of them were shades of dark blue, gray, and black. 

Early on, I was pretty sure my eye-sight would never be the same. With the colors being so close to the same shade, it was easy to  miscount. I cannot tell you the amount of times I had to take out stitches because I was one square over from where I should be. I kept at it though, and things started to come along.

I was so sad that my hoop size was just shy of the full width of the cross-stitch pattern. Before I do another this size, I want to purchase one of the scroll type holders for the fabric so that I do not have to re-hoop and also so that it does not leave hoop marks on my fabric.

I started with the green and light gray shades and slowly worked into the dark grays, blues, and black. The black is the last color I did because it allowed me to mostly just fill in without any sort of counting at that point. I spent a couple of hours a night, maybe three days a week working on it from May until November. I spent so much time

So close to being done with this section.
Just filling in the black.

working on it that last week that the muscles in my hand started cramping any time I tried to hold something smaller than a fat marker. My hands ached and my wrist hurt. I ended up using a compression wrap to finally get it to not be painful.

The fabric looked kinda dingy when it was all done, so I consulted one of the local framing shops on how best to clean the fabric gently. The owner said she always used dove soap, so that's what I did. It did get out the unfortunate Dr Pepper stain and cleaned the general hand grime that always ends up on a project that takes this long to complete. 

Unfortunately, the process that fixed the stains caused the green thread to bleed. I have made at least a dozen wall hangings, and I have never had something like this happen with one before. I always use name brand thread and am careful about using only cold water. It looked like a small creature had peed on the fabric. After some research, I made a fast dash to the craft store for some Carbona Color Run Remover and followed the directions exactly to *cross fingers* remove the color bleeds. When I pulled the fabric out of the chemical solution, the whole design was dark chocolate brown. I was on the verge of the panic attack and a blind rage all at once but something made me decide to rinse it out as the instructions said to anyway. As the cold water washed over it, the colors slowly started to show through. The brown disappeared after about five minutes of rinsing. The flood of relief was real. I was almost crying. That product should REALLY warn you that is going to happen.

I got it dried, ironed out the wrinkles, and ordered a nice frame and mat set  for it since the framing store wanted way more than I could afford to invest this year. I think the finished product turned out quite beautiful, and my friend seemed to really like it. That was the most important part, and it made the aches, pains, and almost tears completely worth it.

Adventures in Quilting - 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - October 2018 - Block 4

Quilter's Haven 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - October 2018

Sew Simple Northern Lights Sampler

One Spinning Wheel Block

Three Small Pinwheel Blocks

The first two months included just one large block, the third month included one large and two small, and this month includes one large block and three small ones. You can see kind of how the smaller blocks will work together in each corner of the finished quilt by looking at the completed example to the right of this month's blocks.

Let's get this out in the open first ... I am very apprehensive about this yellow. It is SO bright. It kind
of hurts my eyes a bit to look at it. You may just think it is formatting on the photo, but no. It really is that bright. I am hoping that paired with my lighter, cream background it will be less glaring.

We receive our fabrics and instructions on the third Thursday of each month, so it's only been just under a week since I received the October 2018 set. But, I know that with Halloween quickly followed by a four day trip out of town, my after work time is going to be little and precious. I've really been working hard to finish these early, and I haven't done too badly at it.

My lovely wife who can cut so much straighter than I can helped me cut out my background pieces, so I was able to get started on the little blocks. I have the green one completed using the pop seam technique shown in the video by Adrienne Reid on my last post. It turned out beautifully. I have all of the pieces cut, pressed, and arranged for the fuchsia and red blocks so that I can finish those tonight.

Then, I will just have the larger 15.5" yellow block to complete on Thursday or Friday. We have Halloween in a few days, and we will be hosting an all day game at our house the following weekend, so prep and cleaning have to be top priority. That means that sadly my sewing stuff will have to packed away and moved out of the living room Don't judge! The living room is warmer and has better lighting than my current sewing room setup. I'm working on improving that. The sewing room is a Winter project.

I will post up new images of the finished smaller blocks and the hopefully less of an eye-sore yellow block when I finish those.

I've added a photo to the right of all three of the finished smaller blocks, and I added a picture farther above of the finished larger yellow block. The yellow is still a bit of an eye-sore to me, but I do not dislike it against the cream background as much as against the black background on the class sample.

Adventures in Quilting - 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - September 2018 - Block 3

Quilter's Haven 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - September 2018

Sew Simple Northern Lights Sampler

One Spinning Wheel Block

Two Small Pinwheel Blocks

Month three of my Block of the Month adventure mixes it up a bit compared with the previous two months. Instead of just one 15 inch block, we will be responsible for one 15 inch block (the green block pictured above) and two smaller 6.5 inch blocks (the purple and light blue blocks above). 

This month, the instructor also introduced a different way to do the seams for designs like the pinwheel where multiple seams converge together. She suggested that instead of pressing the seams open, we should press them flat in alternating directions so that they fan out together in a flatter, stronger intersection. I had never sewn and pressed a seam like this, but the theory made sense. It's always good to add new skills to the repertoire.

The results? It is not as easy as it looks. I watched a lot of videos on popping / twisting seams to achieve flatter and less bulky quilt blocks. The standard blocks, it appears pretty straight forward, and I will probably end up using that technique for future blocks. There is a really good video on YouTube by Adrienne Reid that goes through the process step by step.

When it comes to twisting or popping seams for pinwheel blocks, it's a slightly different technique that actually involves breaking some of the seams after you sew the block together to achieve the affect shown in the image to the right. None of the videos I watched really show the process up close. I want to actually "see" what happens when the stitches are broken. I ended up just pressing my seams open on my 6.5" pinwheels because I could not get the seam work the way that it should. I will have to keep trying on scrap material until I figure it out. I am sure that it is going to be something simple that creates that Aha! moment for me, and then everything will work.

I do not think they turned out too poorly when all was said and done. I love the contrast of the bright purple and turquoise with the cream background. Along with the two 6.5" blocks, this month also included a 15.5" block similar to the one completed during the last two monthly installments. It has the same edging as those two blocks, but the center incorporates a pinwheel as well as a thin separating flashing. It has a blue green and spring green mingled batik as the contrasting fabric. I am not quite done with it yet, but I will post a picture of the center portion of it below. I just need to finish the border. It should be the easiest part considering I've done the same border on two other blocks, right? Not when you realize three-fourths of the way through that you've cut the center sections of each side a half inch too small. Many Grrrs were voiced. I was very frustrated with myself. Read, read, read! And then read again before actually cutting. And then measure and read again before actually sewing anything. So ... it was rip, rip, rip and re-cut new pieces. Luckily I will be able to use the mis-cut pieces on October's BOM blocks that call for 2.5" squares.

So here (to the left) is my mostly finished 15.5" block and last piece of the September 2018 Northern Lights BOM. You can see the point where the pinwheel slices meet is a bit lumpy. This is the square that I tested out the seam twisting technique on. The other two smaller pinwheels that I pressed the seams open are flat, but this one doesn't look as nice. I may tweak it a bit still before I complete the border around the edge. Better to do it now than after when I would have to take apart even more of the finished block. I will add the final picture when I finish this one up.






And below is the finished block. I'm not 100% happy with the little border. I may end up taking it apart to reset that eventually. We will see how much it bugs me as I look at it on my wall over the next several months.

Adventures in Quilting - 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - August 2018 - Block 2

Quilter's Haven 2018-2019 Block of the Month Club - August 2018

Sew Simple Northern Lights Sampler

Tick-Tack-Toe Block

As you can see, I still need to do a bit of ironing, but I have otherwise completed my second Block of the Month quilt square.

The cutting was a bit tricky on this one because we were given just enough to cut out the pieces exactly (less than 1/2 inch to spare once all the pieces were cut out). So, no room for error at all. We were warned because the instructor mistakenly used Thangles to cut her pieces out and ran out of fabric. For this one we had to do each piece individually. I will admit, I mis-cut one piece and had to go buy a small strip of fabric to finish my square. What have I learned? Measure 10 times before cutting anything.

The actual sewing on this square was pretty easy. It had some of the elements from the first square like the outside border design, but the inside design was new. I was a little worried that the red of the contrast fabric would clash too much with the pink in my background fabric, but I do not think it does. The pink dots are small enough that it isn't a glaring combo.

Two months down, ten more to do before I have a finished quilt.