AHIQ monthly post update

Here is the current state of my Chinese Coin quilt

I am debating on which fabric to use for the sashing piece between the main body and the borders. I have two vintage Marimekko pieces that I tried out. I think the one with the black background is a possibility

This Jay McCarroll - this is a no

This print - no

A spiderweb print - this is a maybe

Boo Crew - no - print is too small

Large skeleton print - not sure - maybe too bold

I plan on quilting this with different colors of thread so I don't want to add too much other color. I have a bit of red in a couple pieces of fabric already.

I made these most delicious chocolate sugar cookies last night for the guys at work. The recipe didn't even make 3 dozen cookies, but they were very easy to make and tasted so good!

It has been so warm that the daffodils are already forming flower heads! Crazy!

Major progress

I was at training on Friday - Confined Space and Silica Dust. Once I got home I got to work on the graduation t-shirt quilt. The fabric arrived Thursday and was washed, dried, and ready for me to cut it up. Here is what the quilt top looked like on the design wall for two weeks while I waited for the Essex fabric

At the end of Friday night this is what the top looked like. Lots of pieces and parts made and ready for sewing together

On Saturday I got the top made, pieced the back, pin basted the quilt together and started quilting. Here is what it looked like when I went to bed

On Sunday I quilted all day. I now have 66% of the quilting done. I never left the house all weekend and only took short breaks to get something to eat or drink. I am very comfortable with where I am at on this and it will be done so I can take it with me Saturday morning for gifting.

On Thursday while I was waiting for the Essex fabric to be laundered, I worked on the nine patch star quilt. I got two of the motifs quilted. All I have left to do on this is to quilt the other two motifs and the star block.

Plugging away

After I spent a half hour straightening up a section of the garage, I sat down and hand quilted. I had 5 steps short of 15,000 so I was good there. I quilted 2 plus hours and this is where I am at on this project.

I have all four of the nine patch blocks quilted

I have all the 1/4" away from the edge borders done on the stenciled squares. I still have all four motifs to quilt.

And I have the 1/4" border stitching done on the star block.

I had some leftovers from the last batch of soup I made so I threw them together. I had leftover chicken broth, chicken, and some kale. I dumped that in a big pot

The traditional wedding soup I learned how to make from my late x-MIL had beef in and used endive, but I am using what I have. I was surprised how the kale tasted so much like the endive. I have done this with spinach, but the spinach flavor is much stronger and takes over too much. To finish the soup off I used one egg since I didn't have that much soup and beat in graded parmesan cheese.

I then dripped the egg and cheese mixture in the hot soup while stirring. This distributes the egg and cheese throughout the soup. Here is what it looks like then

Usually I would cook some beef with the chicken to make broth and shred both to throw back in the broth. I would also make little bitty meatballs, cook them in a fry pan and then throw those in the soup. I was surprised that the soup was still very tasty with those two items. I am going to make more of this for sure.

Hand quilting

I spent last evening - about 2 1/2 hours - hand quilting on the nine patch star quilt. My fingers are toughing up to the point that my iPhone sometimes doesn't work because it doesn't sense that it is a fingertip touching it. LOL! Sometimes I have to use my pinky since it is not calloused. Here is a picture of the back. It's getting there!

I still have not received my Essex fabric yet. The package is in a town that is 16 miles away and delivery is scheduled for tomorrow.

Adding more

I just can't make a small quilt. Even my baby quilts are big! I thought I would just make a small Chinese Coin quilt, but that is not where it is headed. I went thru and cut more fabric from my blacks, greys, and whites to add to this quilt. Here you can see I have a border laid out and ready for stitching.

And I have a pile of pieces for a border for the top side

My goal was to use up the strips of black, grey, and white fabric I had on my design wall that I had cut up last year. With those strips I had made five baby quilts with other colors thrown in, four quilt tops for veteran's quilts, and now this Chinese Coin quilt. As I said before I keep going back into my stash and cutting more fabric! This is the pile I now have left. There are all sizes of scraps in this pile from small 2" x 3" pieces up to full width 3" wide strips. I think there is one more quilt hiding in this pile!

I made peanut butter cookies for the guy at work. The house smelled so good last night!

Chinese Coin quilt progress

I spent the majority of my Saturday and Sunday working on my Chinese Coin quilt. Here is what my design wall looked like shortly after I had already started sewing pieces together.

Since the premise of this challenge was based on improv piecing, there was no way I was sewing straight edges together. What I did was the following:
first I cut the edge of the fabric at an angle

Second I overlapped the angled edges over the piece I was attaching. I then made sure the edges at the top met and used my rotary cutter to trace the edge of the cut angle onto the underlying piece of fabric. The fabric does not have to line up at the bottom as I will be sewing from the top to the bottom.

Here you can see how the two pieces nest into each other

Here is the section after it was sewn and pressed. This is how I sewed all the pieces together. I call this technique tracing.

Here is what I have so far. This section is about 44" by 71"

I also got a bit of hand quilting done on the nine patch star quilt.

Yeah it is Friday!

Last evening I made cookies for the guys - chocolate chip with additional white chocolate chips and walnuts

I had about an hour and a half to quilt on the nine patch star quilt and I got a box of goodies I ordered from Wawak - a 100 yard roll of 1" black webbing, sewing machine needles, 11" zippers, and some hand sewing needles. They had the best price on the webbing. I didn't really want 100 yards, but nobody could beat the price. All of these items are for some projects in the near future.

The weather is suppose to be nice this weekend, so I may be spending some serious time outside - 63 tomorrow and 58 Sunday. I will work on the nine patch star quilt and try to get some work done on my Chinese Coin quilt too. Always lots to do!


Have a great weekend!

In the meantime

Since all I can do is wait for my Essex to show up, I have to continue to be productive. I finally sat down at 4:00 p.m. after clocking in this many steps

Besides my morning walk I have been packing up files at work and cleaning the trailer so all the back and forth added up!

When I sat down did some quilting on the nine patch star piece. I am not a good hand quilter, but I get the job done. I got one nine patch block done and got started on a stenciled block before I was just too tired to even hand quilt. I need to build up some callouses on my fingers for hand quilting!

This was the scene this morning on my walk. It is still snowing a bit, but tomorrow the high will be 52! Crazy weather!

Since the fabric didn't show ...

Yesterday I found a screw in my rear right tire and I was able to get an appointment in the afternoon. Usually I have to wait a week! I had two other tires that were also losing air. There was a nail and a screw in the right rear which would mean I have had four punchers in the same tire and all in the same area. I had to replace that tire - no fixing it. The other two just needed the rims resealed.

Since the Essex navy fabric didn't show up and it was 51 degrees, I decided to wash the car. It needed it bad. So after finally finding a bucket without a hole (the third one!) that job was done. Then today is recycling and trash day so I cleaned up the garage a bit and gathered all the recycling from the garage and house, and took the bins to the street.

Since the fabric didn't show up I started working on finishing a UFO. I first had to make a stencil/template to replicated the design.

I then marked up the quilt with Crayola washable markers. It is now ready to be finished. Since the fabric hasn't' shown up yet, I will work on this until it does.

So where is my fabric? I got an email yesterday from fabric depot that they were a 1/2 yard short of the duck cloth I ordered. They wanted to know if I still wanted the fabric or not. So I sent them my answer and they said they would ship my order. I just hope I get it by this weekend so I can spend some serious time getting the that t-shirt top done. I need to have the quilt done by March 4.

Maybe today

Last evening after work was dropping off a book to the library, to the grocery store, strip the bed to wash sheets, make some hummus for dinner, and make cookies for the guys at work

I was hoping that my Essex navy fabric would have come, but it didn't. Maybe it will come today. After walking 16,433 steps yesterday, I was too tired to sew anyway.

Every little bit and more

I worked on the graduation t-shirt quilt this weekend and I am happy with the direction I am going. I loosely did a bit a math to give me a general idea of the pieces I needed to cut from the improv pieced sections. Those sections are made of interfaced t-shirt and Essex cotton/linen.

There was not enough t-shirt fabric in those 7 small t-shirts to do what I wanted. I used the backs and will use the sleeves if I need to in order to use every bit of the shirts. But even that won't be enough fabric so I spent time going thru my t-shirt collection to find shirts that I could cut up and use the backs. There was only one problem - the closet was a mess!

Straightend out - much better!

So after straightening up I found a dark gray, a red, and a black t-shirt I could cut up. I didn't find a medium gray shirt, but I remembered I had a huge gray t-shirt I use to sleep in and it was the perfect color. I cut up all the shirts and ironed on interfacing so they are ready when my order of more Essex navy comes - hopefully today. Here is what the quilt looks like so far and the backs ready for improv cutting and piecing. It doesn't look like much, but since I ran out of the Essex this was all I could do.

I also cleaned off my other design wall and started laying out my pieces for the Chinese Coin quilt. I will be recutting the pieces improv style before sewing them together.