Sunday, February 17, 2013

DaGMT 2013 Update 2

It may have been overly optimistic of me to think I could do a consistent 20-30 minutes a day of sewing for this challenge this year. I am still adjusting to my new schedule and more often than not by the time I get home, make dinner, help with homework and do a small chore or make lunch for the next day I am beat and in bed before 10:00 pm. Which for me is akin to hitting the sheets as soon as the sun goes down.

However as I mentioned in Update 1 I did use this month's commitment to really look at my UFOs and see if it was just a matter of minor finishing touches, or did I actually have projects that were not even started yet.

Blue and Yellow Sampler
  
This is my OLDEST UFO. A sampler quilt I made more years past than I am even willing to admit to at this point. I had started by hand quilting it. However the more I work on it I realize I am not that happy with the colors and fabrics to put that sort of effort into it. I want to finish quilting it on the machine just to say it is DONE.

VQF 9-Patch Round Robin



Several years ago I had participated and even coordinated several group projects. This was our last group project and also our most simple. Just a selected fabric and at least two 9-patches per participant. I finally put them into this setting during this past summer while I was out of work. I need to make a back and then it will be simply quilted by machine.
Candlelit Quilts Orphan









I did not make this small quilt. One day as I was at Candlelite Quilts during an open sew day the owner was cleaning out a cupboard and was going to throw this away. I rescued it. It needs a back then to be quilted also.
Green and Gold




This lap quilt has been kicking around for a while. If I remember correctly the top had been made during a guild workshop around 1999. And I sandwiched it together for an afternoon session on learning to machine quilt about 4 years ago. I worked on this today and hope to finish it in the next couple of days.
Christmas Ripples

 This is a sample I made for the same quilter that came up with DaGMT. I had thought about perhaps making a cut to turn this topper into a tree skirt. However I think I like it better as a topper and will leave it that way. This needs a backing and then to be quilted.



Sudoko Quilt
I think this one is about four years old. The local guild did a sort of round robin where everyone was given a sudoko puzzle to begin with - then assign your fabrics a number and recreated you completed sudoko puzzle into a patchwork. Which I had to have a coworker complete the puzzle for me as I never seem to be able to solve these puzzles on my own. I must say that when I first got this project back I was rather disappointed. The other people in my group I felt had much nicer tops with a lot more effort put into them. Some had pieced borders or applique and mine looked like a poor cousin next to them I thought. And the print I chose as my focus fabric seemed to just get swallowed up with the other colors. I did not even recognize that this was mine for several passes. I am thinking it needs the blue border replaced and large applique in the two white corners. Because as it is I really am not sure I like it at all.

Class Sampler in Purple & Green

Between 1998-2001 I taught a beginner's quilting class though the Employee Recreation Committee of the company I was working for at the time. As a result I made sample blocks of all the patterns I was teaching my students / coworkers. Sometimes I would make two in different color ways to show them how placing the same fabrics in different ways could completely change the look of even the simplest block. The last year I taught my class finally guilted me into putting the blocks together and I basted the quilt. I have been working on it on and off because I really want to hand quilt the entire thing. However as it is almost king sized I am not sure just how long this is going to take .....



Old Comforter

I don't remember just where this comforter came from. But I do know it had been filled with untreated cotton which after a washing had all balled up and migrated to one large lump on a corner. So I opened the bottom seam, removed the ties and emptied the resulting "pocket" of the raw material. I need to insert the new batting I have and re-tie it.

Sunshine Delft Blocks
A few months ago I read an article in Quilter's Newsletter called Collecting Beauty about a collection of New York Beauty quilts owned by Bill Volckening It included the templates to make a variation called Suspension Bridge. Of course not having nearly enough other things to do I decided to try my hand at this. Except, whether by design or not, when I photocopied the foundation pages I realized my blocks will be half the size of the original. Oh well - perhaps smaller means I will finish it.


 
My Tree Skirt
And lastly my Christmas Tree Skirt. Which I started several years ago after realizing that I had made one for several members of my family and yet was still using an old pink sheet for myself. However this was begun without a pattern and I think I have seriously mis-measured the angles of the "slices" In fact it is so large in the middle currently that I could actually make a REAL skirt out of it for myself. I need to do a lot of gathering in the middle. I don't mind that it will had a LOT of fullness elsewhere - and I had planned to do a ruffled edge. We shall see....






Of course I have other projects which I consider UFOs as well:

  • A wool appliqued coat dress
  • An 1806 style day dress
  • A Regency over-coat
  • My Holy City quilt that has the city and one angel completed
  • My underwater quilt using the cool marbled fabric wave I bought a few years back
  • Some mending
  • A skirt that needs a new waistband




















Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Chocolate, Chocolate Everywhere

REVISED: Because of the winter storm which the National Weather Service decided to name "Nemo" - the town's winter festival and our church's chocolate festival are being moved to February 22-23, 2013. I will post again about this baking adventure then - when we are actually cooking. Fortunately the only thing I had completed before the store was the fudge - and that freezes very well.




This coming weekend is my town's annual WinterFest with such diverse events as a heated dance tent, human dog sled races, a soup competition and Trivia contest. It is also time once again for my church's Chocolate Festival.

For $5 a person you can come inside and get a sample of any or all of the different chocolate treats provided mostly by the women of my church. The task is to make anything you want - as long as it includes chocolate. We then cut the offerings into small bite size pieces that can fit in a small paper cup - a little bigger than one of those paper cups you get ketchup in.

And because I must be truly nuts I am thinking of making the following for this event:

          • Fudge
          • Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake
          • German Chocolate Drop Cookies
          • Texas Picnic Cake
          • Chocolate Chip Kahlua Cake

The last item I am probably going to enter into the amateur baking contest. Partly because it is pretty good even if I say so myself, and because it is different. I do not recall anyone else I know making this. It's an easy recipe too which I have had to many years.

Hmmmmmm .....

Reading over this post I can almost feel my hips expanding and my face breakout. Let's hope that doesn't actually happen !


Sunday, February 3, 2013

DaGMT 2013 Update 1

As I wrote about a few days ago I am making a commitment to a local quilters challenge called Drop and Give Me Twenty 2013. The idea is that by committing to even a small amount of time to sew or work on a project for a set period of time each day you can get more done than you may have thought. So I am going to try for 30 minutes a day at least. 

Being a very Type A person a part of my personal preparation for DaGMT 2013 has been to actually LIST the projects that are started and that I hope to move towards completion during February. I also moved my list around to put in order the projects I think have the best chance of being finished during this time frame. Just as a way to keep me motivated.




Project
Date Finished
Nate’s T-Shirt Quilt
3-Feb-2013
Blue & Yellow Sampler Quilt

Green Wool sweater jacket

My Tree Skirt

EvaPaige Table Topper

Muted Nine Patch

White & Purple Comforter

Green & Gold Lap Quilt

Blue & Yellow Brooklyn Bridge

Heavenly City

Autumn Table Runner

German Paper cut Designs

Cross stitch sampler

Sudoku Quilt

Green & Purple Sampler Quilt





However not being satisfied with just listing them - I took pictures of them as well. Partly for uploading onto the groups Flickr page but also for my own records.

Did I mention I was a little Type A ???





However I did get one quilt finished that I wrote about a few days ago that has been haunting my sewing room for months !!! 





















I also decided it would be nice to track actual time per day so I can have a record of my efforts.



Date
Time that day
Total time MTD
1-Feb-13
0
0
2-Feb-13
5 h 15 m
5 h 15 m
3-Feb-13
5 h 30 m
10 h 45 m
4-Feb-13


5-Feb-13


6-Feb-13


7-Feb-13


8-Feb-13


9-Feb-13


10-Feb-13


11-Feb-13


12-Feb-13


13-Feb-13


14-Feb-13


15-Feb-13


16-Feb-13


17-Feb-13


18-Feb-13


19-Feb-13


20-Feb-13


21-Feb-13


22-Feb-13


23-Feb-13


24-Feb-13


25-Feb-13


26-Feb-13


27-Feb-13


28-Feb-13