It seems as if I had one good week of focusing on quilting, but that is gone. I flip from one project to another. The non focusing started when I started the 21 day sewing room declutter. I did focus on that.

The 30 minutes a day of organizing magazines (day three) is still in progress. There is a pile of magazines to move on to someone else. I am taking the time to read the articles that I hadn’t before and am learning a lot of new things.

Days five, six, and seven are combined. Day five was patterns. Days six and seven was archives and resting. I combined the three days because I keep some of the patterns in a note book. I found a lot of new patterns that I just had to have and never made. The archives that I keep in folders and the file cabinet has been purged. I have three empty folders and lots of new ideas for quilts in my head.

Day eight is thread. This will take a long, long time as I have drawers and boxes filled with embroidery thread. It will be nice to have all that in order again. I did find some soft plastic to wrap the cones so the thread isn’t unrolled and tangled.

I jumped ahead to day 16 which was batting. I had already organized the batting so I can consider it finished.

This project will continue on. It will take many more days than 21.

Two more small pieces are finished, except for hand sewing the binding.

This one was machine quilted using the walking foot.

It used leftover half square triangles. I think that this pattern and coloration would be very nice in a bed quilt. I would extend the tan half square triangles into the border.

This little quilt was a single block that has sat around forever. I added a border and free motion quilted it.

The dark center was quilted using a leaf stipple that is an old standby. I left the star points and corner triangles unquilted. I have a practice piece of top, batting and backing that I use to audition free motion quilting. Using Angela Walter’s book about meander background quilting, I tried several of her patterns until I decided on a leafy meander.

This pattern is a keeper.

I have been working on other projects, but not finishing any of them. I’ve made eight Grandmother flowers for a wall hanging. I’ve started another Stay At Home Pandemic Round Robin.

I have three small pieces to hand sew the binding. I did a little free motion quilting on the Ugly Quilt. When I was cleaning the archives, I found the pattern for one of my ufos and put it aside to work on that project. It actually was the top one in the pile of ufos.

If I can get my focus back, maybe I can finish one of the above.

Spring is here and I’m in the process of refolding my quilts. I saw a You Tube video on how to “correctly” fold your quilts and am folding them this way for now. I didn’t realize that I folded the quilts the wrong way all these years. The Program chair of the Guild has asked me to do a demo on this method. As soon as I present the demo, I’ll explain it here. It’s easy and it makes sense.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

It’s amazing what can be accomplished if you focus on one thing. I decided to focus on Dear Jane. Rows A and B needed attaching to the main body. Twenty five blocks needed to be made, finished and attached. That was completed and Rows A through J are finished. All the blocks are hand quilted, bound and sewn into the quilt.

There are three more rows to make before I start on the outside triangles.

Being focused, I continued on and pieced all thirteen blocks of row K.

My focus will be on something else now. These blocks will be worked on at sit and sews unless I decide to focus on Dear Jane later on. Focusing once a month on something is enough.

I am still following the 21 day sewing room declutter. Day 1 – remove garbage. That was easy. Empty the waste basket and sweep the floor. The only problem with that is it has to be done on a daily basis.

Day 2 Return items. That was done. Again, it has to be done on a daily basis. Put things where they belong when you are done with them.

Day 3 – magazines. I thought that was going to be an easy one. I keep my magazines in a Shaker bucket. It was overflowing.

It wouldn’t take long to clean it out. I found that I hadn’t read a lot of the magazines and had to stop and read them. It is going to take forever. A new magazine came yesterday. There are recipe, quilting and housekeeping magazines. All have to be looked at before they go to a new home. In order to continue on with the 21 day declutter, I decided to work on this project for 30 minutes a day. It will be done sometime.

Day 4 – books Fortunately, I had already alphabetized by author all of my books. The new ones haven’t been listed in the computer. I’ll do that after I finish the 30 minute purge of the magazine. Eventually both will be done.

Day 5 – Pattern pile. This will take more than one day. Most of my patterns are in a file or a note book. Sometime this weekend, I can gather them all together. Then I can divide them into three piles. Ones that I have made and want to keep, ones that I will make, and ones that I will never make along with the ones that I have made and will never make again. There are a lot of patterns that I just had to have and never made. There are probably patterns lurking in places that I will find later after I think that this is finished.

The March Mini quilt is ready to quilt. I saw this quilt on Love of Quilting show 3113. It is interesting because it is made with sixteen blocks that are alike. The block uses two cats cradle blocks and two double half square triangle blocks. The smallest cats cradle block on the cats cradle ruler is 1 1/2″ square. The half square triangles were easy to oversize and trim down. The blocks are 3″ finished. The nine patches on the border were made with 1″ strips. The finished size of the white inner border width is the difference between the length of the nine patch border and the length of the main quilt divided by two.

The “Ugly Quilt” is staring at me every time I open the closet door. It’s telling me to finish it and move it on. It’s basted and partially quilted. There is a story about how this quilt got it’s name. When this quilt is finished, I’ll tell you all about it.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

Last week was the finish of the Stay At Home Round Robin. The last seven weeks went by very fast. We were prompted to use pinwheels on the last row.

The colored wall hanging was easy. I made four pinwheels, one for each corner. I had planed, all along, to use the Ginny Beyer border prints for the sides. I thought that it would pick up the border print in the center and be the finishing touch. I had just enough left to make four borders. When the cut border print was laid on the outside of the piece, it didn’t look right. On to plan B. I would use a piece of died fabric. There was just one piece left that was large enough to make the border. It was almost the right color. Things do work out. I can change the color somewhat with the quilting thread. It will be a design element.

Miss Molly examined the quilt and approves.

The black and white quilt needed a light last border. The white and black fabric stash was almost gone so I had to be creative in the piecing. I had enough of one fabric to use on one of the elements of the pinwheel. The second part was made with two different fabrics. After the pinwheels were made, the remaining fabric was in small pieces. I cut small pieces to sew between the pinwheels. That filled the row it looks as if I planned to make it that way. Looking at the photo, I don’t like the two white pieces on each side of the corner square. It would be easy now to remove them and add something at would look better. That’s a job for tomorrow.

The black and white is my favorite of the two. It looks much nicer than it does in the photo. I’ll quilt part with black thread and part with white thread.

One of my UFOs is finished. It was a sample for my orphan block demo. I still have several orphan block quilts to finish. This one was small enough to quilt with the walking foot. I like to free motion quilt, but I really love to quilt with the walking foot. I just aim for the spot that I want and the foot takes me there.

I’m following a blog from Ontario, Just get it done quilts. On the blog is a 21 day sewing room declutter. My blocks of the month are finished. I’m not going to start a new one so will do the 21 day declutter.

Day one was to take out the garbage. That was easy. I emptied the waste basket, swept the floor and put the small pieces in the trash can. The larger pieces went into the scrap basket.

Day two was to put everything back where it belongs. That took a little longer, but everything is back where it should be. The room looks nicer already.

Tomorrow is day three. Magazines. I don’t keep them in the sewing room. I do have a stack that I haven’t read. I have both quilting, cooking and housekeeping magazines. It might take more than one day to go through them. In the meantime, I’ll finish some more ufo’s, decide which new quilt to start and just have fun quilting.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

My computer has been in the hospital. It’s amazing how much it was used and missed. Anyway, it’s home again and very healthy. In the meantime, I have been busy doing a lot of little projects.

Before the computer became ill, I downloaded several 3D or illusion quilt pictures. They are fascinating. I’ve decided to make a series of 3D mini quilts. One a month is my target. The mini quilts can be finished and will not hit the UFO bin. My first illusion mini is called empty boxes.

It is about 12″ x 12″. I have chosen the mini 3D pattern for March and will start it as soon as I finish the project that is on my sewing machine.

The Stay at Home Round Robin is in the seventh and last week today. I’ve checked the web site, but today’s last row is not there yet.

In the meantime, row 6 is a log cabin. I have a mini log cabin quilt on the back of a chair in the dining room. It is a miniature of a larger quilt in the Quilters Newsletter magazine. The article had small log cabin blocks with color coding. I printed the small log cabins and used the print out for paper piecing.

This quilt is 22″ x 22″. The block size was perfect for the Stay at Home Round Robin row, so I printed out several copies. The colored version was the first one. When choosing fabric, I wanted the Ginny Beyer fabric for one side. One of the stripes would be one of the logs. The stripe size was 7/8″. It didn’t fit the paper pieces so I cut all the logs at 7/8″ and squared up the block as I want along. The paper was put aside for now.

Now it was time for the black and white quilt. It was so easy to just sew the logs and not paper piece. I decided to cut the logs at 1″, square up the logs as I went and not use the paper. I don’t like removing the paper anyway. Now, I have a stack of paper and can piece a mini log cabin at some later date.

When the last row is posted for this challenge, it will be made with a light fabric. When I saw the picture, I noticed that it looks like a dark block on point in the middle of the piece. This is a learning point. Take a picture several times when designing a quilt. The visual effect will be obvious. If there are any color or hue mistakes, they will show up in a photograph.

I still like the black and white better than the colored.

Scrolling through Gail’s website, (she’s the designer of the 7th row), I found a wealth of information and new quilt terminology. Gail makes DREAMI quilts. Drop everything and make it. I call them squirrel quilts. She works for a PHD. Projects Half Done. I make UFO’s. She is very organized in working for her PHD.

I’m finally using the Cat’s Cradle ruler. It is made by Creative Grids. The block is used in a quilt on the Love of Quilting TV show. I’m making that quilt using the 1 1/2″ finished size Cat’s Cradle. The center is finished. It is tiny. The nine patches are made for the border. When it is finished, it won’t take long to quilt.

The Love of Quilting mini quilt is a new project. When it is finished, I have to finish three UFOs. That’s my rule. I should consider it working on my PHD.

Have a great day and happy quilting.