More Piece and Plenty.

Today we awoke to snow! My little ones are ecstatic and sad at the same time! They both love the fact it is snowing but due to the fact it is supposed to get worse, the schools are closed today. Therefore I have a sad little ballerina who really wanted to go. I ,though, am relishing in the fact that a snow day means staying in and quilting! Yeah! I might still get a finish in for the challenge!

On the finishing note, I have managed to get 3 more blocks done for the MODA U Piece and Plenty over the weekend. Here they are:

Block # 13

Block # 14

This one is actually the filler block for # 14 but it is applique so I am including it in the blocks that I am finishing. The 2008 is to signify the year of the BOM not the finish.

Block # 15

So this puts me even closer to finishing at least the quilt top. Then I have to figure out how to quilt it.

Until the next set of blocks...

Cara

Oh and on a sad note, I read here that Mar of Pincushion Diaries passed away this weekend. It is very sad indeed. I never actually had the pleasure of meeting her in person but she was one of the first people I met when I started blogging. In fact I entered and won my first giveaway from her! She made this wonderful cherry pincushion and sent me some fabulous ME gifties. We have worked on similar projects and shared comments back and forth together. She was a very sweet, talented lady and I know I will miss her greatly. I hope her family realizes that she was loved in the blogosphere and that we are all keeping her loved ones in our prayers through this difficult time. Thank you Mar for showing me what wonderful people there are in the blogger world and may you Rest in peace.

Moda U - getting closer!

Yippee! I am getting closer to the end of these blocks! Here is the latest of my MODA U Piece and Plenty blocks. Below I finished these 2 blocks while watching the Ravens game and the inaugural coverage from the past couple of days.

Block # 9

Block # 11

It has been nice to pick this back up and the fact that it should have been finished last year makes me want to finish it more. I have now prepped all the remaining applique blocks and once I finish them, I will be working on the rest of the pieced filler blocks. Well, back to work- it is still cold here and stitching by the fire and continuing to watch the parade has been nice! We actually even had snow yesterday- the kids were ecstatic!

Happy stitching!

Cara

WISP's and a new group!

Do you remember this from before? My pile of hexagons I was working on last summer...

Well, this is what the result was.....

I have since been re inspired by at Lissa at Moda Lissa to pull these out. You see she has a very interesting way of piecing these that might help progress. Don't get me wrong, I love hand work but I find my time for doing some is fairly limited AND I have too many on the go...so I am going to attempt her tutorial and see if progress can be made toward a finish! Yeah! I will still hand piece them too as it is definitely an on-the-go project and they are fun! I also then found that Robyn from Daisy Quilts has started a Hexagon group to inspire, support and share our love of hexes! Here is the group:
I think I have several hexagon ideas now and am anxious to get some done!

On other notes, I have joined May Britt and Kris in their one-a-month WISP challenge. I have way too many of these and feel the need to finish some started projects! In the interest of this (oh and the fact that the new one has just arrived! :) )I pulled out my 2008 Moda U project. To refresh, this was a 12 month, 15 block (plus filler blocks) applique/piecing mystery quilt! I have seen our shops sample finished (by the wonderful and talented Susan!) and it is gorgeous! So I am piecing the remaining blocks and prepping the applique to finish those blocks. Here is the most recent one I have finished:

Block # 7

and here is my progress along with that:

Blocks #1-6

I have some of the fillers done but no pics yet. I stopped working on them because I wanted to see the finished blocks, then do them, as I was inserting some of my own color choices to make the quilt less of a carbon copy of Susan's. So I have blocks # 8, 10, 11 and 12 prepped and will be prepping the other 3 today. Once the applique is finished (hand work) then I will finish the fillers and put it together!

So I am off to continue on this project. Hop on over to see Robyn and the Great Hexagon Quilt- Along and join us! I will be back with more progress reports and of course a sneak peak of my new pattern set to come out in February. I also will be talking about the ornament swap Stefanie and I did and all the great BOM's out there in blog land that I have added to my list of must-do's!Until then....

Happy hexagon quilting!

Hand Quilting

Did I ever mention I love Hand Quilting? It is one of my favorite things that I learned when I started quilting. The problem?.....Not enough time, unfortunately. This quilt on my frame is the only 'big' project I have tackled the hand quilting on. I have done little projects and some practice squares but I found that I was not to fond of using my 12" hoop for bigger quilts. First off, it was obviously too small. Second I found I was constantly struggling with the hoop and quilt trying to get my hand underneath and just in general. So I put off doing it. Then I found a wonderful company - Hinterberg Designs. They make these wonderful frames and I figured why not try a frame. I decided to ask for one for Christmas. Last Christmas my wonderful DH surprised me with the Hinterberg frame in this picture.


This frame is actually their Easy Build Plus kit which makes it way affordable- especially if you have never used a frame and want to try it out. It comes with everything but the rails ( my DH purchased these at the hardware store and cut them to my specified size). So I finally have a place to set it up and have been slowly working on finishing my Star of my Heart quilt. This quilt is actually a class I took while Jeff was deployed to Iraq in 2003 (I know it should be finished by now but life got in the way...and of course the hoop issue). My friend Shelli is who designed and taught this quilt and she is also the wonderful person who taught me to hand quilt!

Anyway, in working with the frame, I found that I loved that there was always perfect tension and of course the best part- NO BASTING! It is like when you use a longarm machine with the leaders and what not. This gets me to why I am writing this post....You see, in using a stationary frame, I have had to make some adjustments. The first adjustment I made was learning to quilt with my thumb for the ditch quilting that went away from me. I found this to be fairly easy (I used Alex Anderson's book for the technique) and it helped then to go away from me with the thumb and towards me using the traditional hand quilting method. So then I found that I needed to get a thimble for my thumb- but could not find anything I liked -until I went to my LQS Lil Country Shoppe . My friend Susan was working and is a hand quilter and helped me remedy this by recommending the Ultra Thimble. Let me tell you- that is one amazing little tool! It was so much easier than trying to jam a thimble on my thumb! So that solved that problem- thanks Susan! My issue is with the curves. I am having trouble figuring out how to do these comfortably. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

So I will leave you with a couple of pics of a couple of the blocks that are finished:

Thanks for sticking with me till the end of this very wordy post! I look forward to hearing the suggestions that you may have for easier quilting using a frame!

Happy Stitching!

Cara

Happy 2009! Do you make 'Resolutions'?

Well, here we are in a brand new year....made any Resolutions??? I am not really one to make resolutions per say but I do like to make a list of things I would like to accomplish during the new year.

Most of those things have, of course, a lot to do with quilting. To start with, I would like to finish my seemingly never ending list of WIP's and To Be Quilted (TBQ's) list on my sidebar. In recapping my 2008 finishes, I realized my list to be finished consists of quilts started in the past couple of years. In light of that, I would like to get those finished and make sure that this time next year anything started in 2009, get finished in 2009. Lofty eh?! I am up to the challenge! Are you with me?! I would of course also like to get my patterns made, written and into my Etsy and further my aspirations of being a designer proper. Hmmm, of course I would like to attend the markets again and go to the retreat from my LQS Lil Country Shoppe in November.

On a more personal note, there are several rooms in my house that I need to update in color (read paint) and of course do more decorating with Quilts around my house. I also would like to do more cultural things (ie. museums, aquarium etc.) with my children as we do live so close to Baltimore and D.C. It is a shame to waste those opportunities! And of course I really would love to get back to reading more. I used to read all the time and finish several books in a month but since the little ones and quilting keep me so busy, my reading time has diminished greatly. This past few months those I revisited my love for books and started back at the pile on my night stand. I also started re-reading and continuing my journey of the Elm Creek Quilters- in fact I just picked up book # 6 "The Master Quilter" today at Barnes and Noble! Yippee! So far a good start! To help me with this accomplishment, I moved the Shelfari up on my sidebar to remind me of those books I already have in the queue. Well that about sums up the various things I am already wanting to accomplish in 2009.
Thanks for humoring me and if you have made a list of things to accomplish or resolutions or whatever it is you call them, I'd be interested to see how many of us have similar ones!

As I leave, I realize that there are no pics in this post so I will leave you with a pic of what's on my hand loom and maybe I will elaborate on it in the next post!

Hope you are making your lists of 2009 accomplishments to achieve!
Cara
P.S. I forgot to add "blog more often" to my list of things to accomplish in 2009! LOL! :)