Blogger's quilt festival--Burgoyne Surrounded

Hello friends!  Today I am taking the plunge and entering a quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side.  I've never done this before, so I'm a little nervous about it, but I do love the quilts I'm entering, so it can't be that scary, right?

If this is your first time visiting, welcome! My name is Mari (rhymes with sorry) and I am a college professor who usually has some stray threads stuck to her somewhere, even when I'm in class.  I love sewing of all types (except hemming, really) and generally spend time every day sewing, or at least planning to sew. I love traditional patterns, especially when they're given a modern spin.

Here is my entry for the large quilts category:

I love this quilt! This is Burgoyne Surrounded by Snow, made from a traditional block pattern using my stash of 1-1/2 and 2-1/2 inch solid scraps.

As you can see, I finished this quilt a few months ago when we still had snow on the ground.  My quilt took forever to piece because of the individually cut squares.  The blocks are about 15 inches square, with pieced sashings to complete the pattern.  The whole quilt ended up at about 85 by 85.

Burgoyne Surrounded by Snow was long arm quilted in a traditional feather pattern and I bound it in a solid orange, mainly because I had enough of the solid orange already on hand.  I love the juxtaposition of the traditional pattern and the modern colors. This quilt is now on display in my family room and I can personally attest to its coziness.

Hope you all are enjoying the virtual quilt festival.  Happy sewing, everyone!

Surrounded by snow

Hi all! Wow, is it cold! Even for Wisconsin, it's really cold. I thought we were supposed to be thawing out by now, but we're not! We're getting a lot of sunshine, though, and I'm loving that after virtually all of December was gray.

So, this week I have a fun finish to show you. I finally, finally put the binding on Burgoyne Surrounded! It's now a finished, snuggly quilt!

This quilt turned out beautiful, but it was so hard to photograph! I don't know what possessed me to try to photograph a white quilt in the snow on a sunny day.

It was really, really hard to get a good picture! It didn't help that it was 4 below zero (-20 C), either. No fussing with placements when it's that cold out! At least it shows off the quilty texture. And it amused some dog-walkers who were out when I was trying to photograph this.

Closeup!

 I love all my quilts (okay, most of my quilts), but I really, really love this one. I think I love it so much because it percolated for so many years. Plus, it used up a ton of solid scraps and 1 1/2 inch squares. Those bins are almost empty for the first time in a long time. And have a look at the binding--orange! I'm surprised too. I was going to use a stripe, but believe me when I tell you that it looked pretty bad. The only solids that I had with enough yardage for binding were orange, blue, or pink. At first I was disappointed that I only had those colors, but now I really love the orange. I think it sets things off perfectly.

About a week ago Bernie at Needle and Foot had a small giveaway to celebrate 51 posts and 51 followers (you go, Bernie!) and I won! Look at the beautiful package I got:

 Tea, candy, and sparkly tissue paper! Thanks Bernie! And congratulations again on your success!

Everyone have a great weekend. I am spending my weekend at a conference in Chicago, right on Lake Michigan. (I am obviously not on the site selection committee. I might have gone with Miami or Phoenix in January, not Chicago.) It's sure to be very educational, and I suspect there will be a stop at a quilt shop on the way home!

Hope you get a few stitches in this weekend. Stay warm!

[At the risk of being a complete downer. . .
On a completely different note, I want to add to my friends reading from France:  Je prie pour les victimes de la tragédie à Paris. Et je prie pour qu'elles reposent en paix, et que le Bon Dieu peut consoler tous ceux qui pleurent leurs morts. Vive la France.]

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Amanda Jean at crazy mom quilts. 

Burgoyne Surrounded

Hi all! Doing the happy dance again here today, because Burgoyne Surrounded is finally a finished top! She was very temperamental, though, and didn't want her picture taken, so she looks better in person than in pictures.

I am so happy with this quilt!

This quilt looks really complicated, but it isn't. It's mostly 9-patches and 4-patches. If you could strip piece everything instead of using little pieces like I did, you could seriously knock this out in no time. And if you have 1 1/2 inch scrap strips already cut, you are halfway there already. Almost all of the colorful pieces in this quilt are 1 1/2 inches, except for the center block squares, which are 2 1/2 inches.

I did not use a single overall pattern for this quilt, but did use several different resources. I can't really recommend the book I showed last time. It's not bad, but it is better for people who have previously made the same quilt. Eleanor Burns's book was very helpful for the main block, and then I paged through several other books from the library for setting and finishing options. There are several options, so it's worth looking at different books.

My quilt ended up at about 85 by 85, with 16 blocks, each of which finished at 15 inches, plus the sashing and borders. All of the solids were scraps, with the largest pieces in the stash being 10 inch squares. I would guess there were about 3 yards of scraps, plus 5 1/2 yards of one white fabric. You could do it with scrap neutrals, too, if you had pieces big enough. I also think it would look great on a black background.

I almost never make the same quilt twice, but I would totally make this again. Wouldn't it be great in just two colors, as it's traditionally made? I'm putting a blue and white one on the list. It will be a little while, though. I need to recover!

Of course, I also worked in a few minutes for a couple of rainbow scrap blocks:

I was skeptical, but I think they'll fit right in!

Everybody have a great weekend! We will be celebrating our anniversary with dinner out. Plus, the hubs brought pizza home on Thursday, which was our actual anniversary, so I got out of cooking twice. Best husband ever!

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazy mom quilts, and SoScrappy. Stop by and say hi!

Almost there!

Hi all! We have definitely taken a turn toward fall here. It flirted with freezing this weekend, but I don't think we actually made it to that marker. It was rainy and cold outside all weekend, and there were apparently a great many very important college football games, because that's what was on our TV constantly. Can you guess what I was doing instead?

Well, I was working on this quilt, which I will definitely finish this week:

That's one section of Burgoyne Surrounded. Doesn't it look good? There are 4 sections, and they are going together quickly. The main thing I have to do now is figure out the border. The border is pieced to finish the trails in the blocks and involves "partial" 9 patches. A little weird, but it shouldn't be hard. I love how they look together here, but can I just say that Kona cottons, while they come in a lot of colors and are very pretty, are so thready that I just don't want to use them again? Seriously, these pieces lost threads everywhere. It's not that bad when you mix one solid with prints, but all of these solids together are like a thread bomb. Can't they just charge a tiny bit more per yard--like 25 cents or so-- and use better fabric? 

[Deep sigh.]

One of the other things I did this weekend was go fabric shopping. It was great. There is so much pretty stuff out there right now. I got this small pack of Elementary fabric by Moda:

It's so pretty! No idea what I'm going to do with it, but I think one of those browns could just become an Odd Fellow's block. And I usually don't like text prints, but I love these. Either one would be a great backing, too. I'm going to have to go back and get some yardage before it's gone.

I found some gray fabric for the paper pieced projects, too.

Not a lot of choices beyond the solids, but they'll make a nice squirrel and raccoon. I only got the small pieces because I know it will be hard for me to use them up.

Speaking of those paper-pieced projects, here is the fabric I pulled out for the Halloween one:

I can't wait to start working on this one, just as soon as Burgoyne is finished. And look what scraps I found for the RSC:

I was so worried that I wouldn't have anything to use this month, but I'm almost there! There is just enough of the gray leaves on black for an Odd Fellow, and the colored dots will be enough to make a 9-patch.

On a completely different topic, Vicki Welsh is hosting a Drunkard's Path quilt-along on her blog. I may be crazy, but I'm thinking of quilting along. Drunkard's Path is another one of those that has been on my list for a long time. I'll be thinking hard about it while I finish Burgoyne. [On a side note, would anyone out there in blogland be willing to point me towards directions for putting those buttons and such on the sidebar? I need directions for non-technical types. Thanks!]

So that's what I'll be doing this week! It's midterm here also, so there's a lot of "real" work to be done too. And it's our anniversary Thursday, so we'll work in some time for a small celebration, too. Should be fun!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Happy sewing!

Fall Friday

Hello all, and welcome to October! Hard to believe, isn't it? There are a lot of leaves already on the ground, so there will be some raking this weekend. Not my favorite thing.

I am sorry to say that I did not finish the Burgoyne quilt this week. Or the Ocean Waves, either. I don't even have a good excuse except that it was starting to feel like work, and who wants that? I did have a lot of actual work to do this week, and that seriously cut into my sewing time. Doesn't everyone know that I have a few quilts to finish?  I'm disappointed that I didn't finish either quilt, but all the blocks are done and all the sashing parts ready. Here's a picture of that happy little pile:

Blocks among the leaves!

Don't they look friendly? This quilt would be MUCH further along if I had been able to strip piece everything. Since I was using squares, I kind of invented my own method of "strip" piecing:

These are the individual colored squares stitched to long strips of white. They kind of look like paint chips, don't they? After this picture I took them in and cut them apart then pieced them into 4-patches. It really made that chore go faster. Purists everywhere are having a heart attack over this, but it worked out well for me.

The only other thing I finished this week was an RSC14 block. October's color is brown, but I don't have brown. Okay, I have a little bit of brown, but nothing that I want in my quilt. Angela did say that black and even gray are also good for this month, so I pulled something out of the black scraps for the triangle quilt.

Mary Englebreit to the rescue! I think it looks okay and will look good in the quilt. It's as close as I can get to a "happy" black fabric. Now I'm really stuck, though, because I've got nothing else. Maybe I could find some black polka dots? How about a black and white print? I'll dig through and see what I can find this weekend. Otherwise I'll have to add it to the shopping list. I'm totally stuck for the Odd Fellow's blocks too.

I hope everyone has had a much more productive week in the sewing room and a less busy work week. Enjoy your weekend!

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazy mom quilts, and SoScrappy. I do love looking at everyone's projects. Stop by and make some new friends!

Pressing matters

Hello everyone, and happy first day of fall! I'm feeling a lot better, although we've now reached the point in the year when I'm hoping the first freeze comes soon. Fall allergies are the worst allergies for me, so the sooner that all those nasty plants die and stop spreading their spores around, the happier I will be. Sometimes I get really bloodthirsty towards them and wish I had a flamethrower or something. Then I remember that a large part of California is in flames and I stop thinking that way. But I still want them all to die.

I've got a lot of things going on here, sewing-wise. I'm still making sections of the Ocean Waves quilt. There are a LOT of pieces.

Even though I had all the small parts made already, it's a little tedious putting them together, what with how they have to be oriented all "correctly" and everything. I might have to actually cut into some white yardage to get big enough pieces for the triangles because I'm running out of scrap pieces that are big enough. We'll see.

I'm also still making parts for the Burgoyne quilt.

This quilt may pass Ocean Waves as the next to be finished. It's just so darned happy and fun to work on.

One thing that is not fun is the constant stand-up, sit-down exercise involved in pressing all of those units. The 9-patches (and the 4-patches) are made of individual squares, so no strip piecing. I had a lot of these already cut, because 1 1/2 inch squares are the smallest pieces I save, so I already had a bunch. They're getting used up here, so a LOT of pressing.  I needed a satellite pressing station that I could keep by my sewing machine. My legs could use the exercise, of course, but it keeps breaking my sewing rhythm. So I made a pressing station.

I started with a wooden TV tray that came from my mother-in-law's house, so it's been around for a while and is quite solid. On top of the table I layered a piece of 1/4 inch foam, which I had left over from padding a bench, then a layer of Insul-Brite, an insulating fabric that I use in potholders and such.

Then I added another layer of thin polyester batting on top of the Insul-Brite.

I thought polyester would be better, but I see that my actual  ironing board has cotton. Huh. Well, at least I didn't waste batting that could go into a quilt on this.

What to put on the top? I didn't want to use any quilting fabric on the cover here, so I rummaged around and found this generous half yard of upholstery-weight cotton.

Not sure why I had this fabric, but it made a great cover! After a struggle with stretching and fastening everything, here is the finished ironing station!

The silly thing is perfect! It fits right next to me and doesn't take up room on the sewing table. Very helpful!

I mentioned struggling with stretching and fastening the layers. I saw a tutorial online that showed how to sew a cover for a tray table, but I wasn't going to do that. I'd rather sew quilts! I decided just to use my handy electric stapler and staple everything to the underside. Well. . .

Yeah, the stapler and the table didn't really get along. Not sure why. I ended up pulling out those staples and then using upholstery tacks and a hammer to fasten everything down. It took longer, but the hammering part was fun. Be sure to put an old towel or something on the table or bench (or the floor) under the piece to help hold it still.

For the rest of the week, my plan is to make good use of this pressing station and get closer to finishing one of those quilts. I'm close to ready to be done with fiddly little pieces, no matter how great they look. I also basted some things and am ready to quilt them up. Plus, today is my birthday and I see chocolate cake and a dinner out in the very near future. Wins all around!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social.  Happy sewing everyone!

Short week

Hello everyone! How was your week? I love and hate short weeks. I love them because, hello, an extra day off. I hate them because all the work has to be compressed into fewer days. And there's never less work!

This week had a couple of finishes. No finished quilts, but I finished two sections (8 blocks) of the Ocean Waves quilt.

 I almost always construct quilts in sections rather than trying to put it together row by row, which is boring and unwieldy. It's going really fast. I did have all the units already made, so that helped a lot. Here's a tip if you're making this quilt yourself--don't cut down the pieced 9 patches before you cut them in half to make the triangles unless you're a perfect piecer. I'm finding that I wish I had a little extra wiggle room when putting the final blocks together. Plus, they have to be trimmed at the end anyway, so why trim twice?

I also finished two more blocks for RSC14:

Man, orange and white is a really happy combination! They would make a really great quilt all on their own, because I don't have enough projects already. But I'm putting it on the spreadsheet!

The last thing I finished was one test block for the Burgoyne Surrounded quilt:

Wind was bowing this out! Not actually curved!

In theory, all solid scraps work together, but I needed to try it in fabric to be sure. I think it worked! I did pull out all of the darkest purples, the navy, and the red scraps. I thought they were distracting. I'm using this book, that I got from the library, for basic directions:

I don't know why I thought for so long that this was a very complicated quilt. It's just squares and rectangles. These are 15 inch blocks, and 16 of them will make an 85 by 85 quilt, with sashings and a small border. So only 14 more to go!

While I was out taking pictures for this post, I ran into a friend:

I can't believe he sat there and let me take his picture!

Finally, my post on Monday was my 50th post! I promised myself I would assess how it was going after 50 posts. I think it's going okay, don't you? I think I'll keep going for a while. Thanks to all who have stopped by so far! I think we may have to have a small giveaway on Tuesday to celebrate. Hmmm. . .

That's it for me this week! I think it was successful, even though my floor is covered with all kinds of colorful confetti. Those solids are very thready. Everyone have a great weekend!

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazy mom quilts, and SoScrappy. Stop on over and say hi!