Category: Trip Quilt

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A Thursday Night Productive Jag

Boy, I got a lot done today and tonight.

I worked the early shift today and have to work the early and late shift tomorrow, so I took a couple hours off this afternoon to step away from my desk.

I decided to take advantage of this time and whip out another quilt backing. So I grabbed a quilt top and some yardage and started measuring the cutting. I decided to make a backing for this quilt… the one that I have a love/hate relationship with.

I’ve had a piece of fabric in my stash just waiting for this quilt. So I measured it, cut it up and put it Bach together with another strip of fabric that appears in this top.

That strip of Kaffe’s Lake Blossoms will connect the two large backing pieces. Both of these fabrics are in the quilt top.

And look at this fabric. I mean COME ON!!! Definitely one of my favorite Philip Jacobs designs with Kaffe’s gorgeous color way.

This went together quickly. It feels good to have it done.

This strip of fabric looked so pretty on my black wooden sewing chair.

Once that project was done I decided to pull out my Ice Storm quilt as I thought I needed to fix the backing I made previously.

When I made my KFC trip quilt I messed up the backing. I had to go get it from my long arm quilter and add a strip of fabric down the center. I thought I had to do the same for this quilt. It’s the same pattern and size.

But after measuring the quilt top and backing several times, it seemed like the backing was, indeed, the correct size. It took me a minute to figure out why this one didn’t need to be fixed.

When I made the backing for the KFC red trip quilt I sewed the backing into two horizontal strips. For the Ice Storm quilt I sewed the backing into two vertical strips. Here’s an illustration of how the two quilt backs were pieced.

I finally convinced myself that the backing of the Ice Storm quilt was correct by laying the top and backing out on my guest room bed.

So that’s another project that’s almost ready to get quilted.

After our evening walk I dug in and finished putting the borders on my starburst quarter log cabin quilt. And I was reminded every inch of the way why I don’t make larger quilts. I really hate wrestling with all that bulk.

I had previously put the borders pm top sides of this queen quilt. So the remaining two borders went on quickly tonight. And it’s done.

This is going to be a really lovely quilt when it’s all done.

And the really good news about this one is that I don’t have to piece a backing since I’m using a wide backing.

I still need to wash and dry that wide backing. I don’t typically prewash my quilting fabrics, but someone recommended washing the wide backs because of potential shrinkage.

So, that makes five quilts that are ready for the long arm quilter. I still need to make binding for all of them.

I’ll pick out one more from my done pile to have quilted. I have a couple ideas but need to look at what’s there.

More blooming happening in my yard. My lilacs blooms are finally starting to open.

My snow ball tree is also starting to bloom.

It rained all day today but our walk this evening was cool and dry.

Rico was a bit of an emotional mess last night. After his trauma with the thunder on our walk and the fly stuck in the house, we had some storms roll through early in the morning and he was very attentive and concerned about far off and mostly imperceptible thunder. He started waking me up at around 4:00. I had to finally kick him out of the room so he’d let me sleep. And then he JUMPED the doggy gate to get to me!

I felt bad for him. And Bender was unphased by it all. He seems fine this evening. We’re all looking forward to a god night sleep.

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My Scrappy KFC Trip Quilt is Done!

I dug in this afternoon and pinned and sewed the final three horizontal seams for this bright quilt and can now count it among my finished quilt tops in the last year — number 16.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. And I can’t believe I waited so long to make one.

Because of the mistakes I made the last time I worked on this, the final assembly was a little harder… I had a harder time keeping track of how the rows should go together. I had to do a lot of checking and rechecking as I prepared to sew the final seams. But It’s all correct and my previous mistake didn’t cause any terrible issues with the design.

Here’s some eye candy…

And the obligatory close ups because these fabrics are so amazing!

When this was done I decided that I needed to get organized and ready to finish the scrappy KFC starburst half log cabin quilt that’s been on my design wall for months. I’ve decided to gift this quilt to my brother and his wife for their bed and needed to figure out how many more blocks I need to make.

They want the finished quilt to be 84 x 104. I have 88 blocks done and need to make 17 more full size blocks. I’ll also need to make around 15 additional blocks that are a little bigger for the setting triangles. See this blog post to see what I decided to do for setting triangles.

My design wall isn’t big enough to accommodate this entire quilt, so I’m using the Styrofoam extension that I made a few months ago and am laying the quilt out sideways. I plan on putting several borders on this to get it up to the size I need. Unbelievably… I’m almost out of my KFC scrap strips. I’m hoping I have enough to finish the blocks I need.

Once I made the notes I needed to wrap this up, I took all these blocks off the design wall and put them away.

Then, to wrap up my time in my sewing room I took all my Ice Storm blocks and put them up on the design wall.

I’ll look at this for a couple days before I start sewing it together. Tomorrow I plan to work on some of my new Ruffled Feathers blocks and will probably crank out some sunburst blocks.

I’m starting to think about the next quilt I’ll start. I pulled out all my Brandon Mably Jumble fabrics the other day and stacked them all up together. They are so pretty!

I’m thinking of combining these with a bunch of the more whimsical low volume fabrics I’ve purchased recently. Thinking it might be another fun trip quilt.

I did go online and order a few color ways of the jumble that I’m missing. I’ll wait to decide what to do with these until I get that order.

I took the boys for a nice long walk this morning before the rain started. We walked five miles and ventured into a neighborhood we don’t typically walk in. It was nice to have some new surroundings.

That was a busy day!

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Almost Finished, but Messed Up Instead

I felt really confident that I would finish this Scrappy KFC trip quilt top this evening. I had a quilt guild Zoom meeting and pinned and sewed the final three rows of blocks while I listened.

I would have completed this tonight except that I sewed two of the rows together wrong, which meant that they wouldn’t work with the rows they were supposed to be next to. Rather than pick them apart I was just able to move the top row to the bottom of the incorrectly sewed two rows and it will all work.

See that single row across the middle? That was supposed to be the top row.

I think it will be fine to sew it together this way. But I will turn that top section of two around the other way to see how it looks before I sew it all together.

I walked into my sewing room at one point in the evening when part of this was sitting on my cutting table and it was just so pretty!

It’s definitely prettier close up when you can see the variation within each fabric.

I decided it was better to put this aside and wait to finish it, rather than plug on and make more mistakes. I should be able to finish this up tomorrow night and then put the Ice Storm blocks up on the design wall.

Here’s my boys from our afternoon walk today. They were very excellent posers… even Rico!

And such a beautiful sky tonight as the sun was going down.

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Here Comes the Sun!

My favorite day of the year is the day the time changes in the spring. I just love the long light in the evenings in the summer. This day tells me that time is coming and that winter is on the way out. Unfortunately, it was rainy all day here in Portland so I didn’t get the wonderful sensation of sun at 7 pm. I will get that tomorrow.

I didn’t have a terribly productive weekend as far as sewing goes. I did finish the final eight blocks for my ice storm quilt.

Now I need to finish sewing the scrappy KFC trip quilt blocks together so I can get that off the design wall and get this one up.

After I finished these blocks tonight I wanted some mindless sewing so I whipped up ten more sunburst quarter log cabin blocks.

I really need to measure what I already have done for this quilt and figure out how many more blocks I need before I make more. I should be close to having what I need for the main part of the quilt top. Plus, I’m actually seeing the end to my pile of KFC fabric strips! I thought that would never happen!

You can see more about this quilt here, here and here.

I really enjoy making these blocks. It’s all very free form, nothing is precise, and the way they go together means that no seams have to match. It’s the perfect sewing to do at night when you want to sew but don’t want something complicated and precise.

On Friday after work I sorted through all my KFC fabrics and got them all back in their drawers… including all the new fabric that his been stacked up on my sewing table for months.

A few months ago I had virtually NO blue KFC fabrics. I guess I took care of that problem!

Saturday I had my regular sheep herding lesson up in Battle Ground, Washington, and Rico did an amazing job, as he usually does! He’s so talented. Then we hightailed it down to Mollala, Oregon, for another lesson with a different trainer. And again, Rico was amazing.

While in Molalla we took the opportunity to have a nice run in a big field between our turns on the sheep. When we were all done we took a nice walk on BLM land before we headed home. The dogs had a blast running around and it’s really good for me to spend some time in the forest.

The sun coming through the trees was so beautiful.

Saturday was an absolutely amazing sunny and warm day. I’m so glad that I got to spend almost the entire day outdoors. It was just what I needed after another stressful work week.

Rico was so exhausted from all his activity during the day that he could hardly keep up during our after-dinner walk! He certainly slept well last night!

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And Just Like That, the Weekend is Over

It’s Sunday night at 10 o’clock and I’m wondering where the day went. Since I was up for herding lessons yesterday, I had a bit of a sleep in today. Then it rained for a good part of the day so I dug in and did some sewing.

I was itching to make two more Ruffled Feathers blocks because I wanted to see four of them together.

I’ve decided to call this my “Secret Purple” quilt. Before I started sewing these blocks I really thought that this would read as a green quilt. But to me, it’s purple! And I love it!

These blocks are really big. I think they finish at around 16 inches and I’ll need 20 blocks for this quilt. So I’m already 1/5 of the way done!

When I finished these blocks the rain had eased up a little so we headed out for a nice walk. I had planned to walk three miles, and then walk two more around 8 pm. It was really nice out so we kept on walking and ventured into a neighborhood where we don’t typically walk. It ended up being a five mile walk and we got pretty wet at one point.

Not really sure what this sign means. Apparently we weren’t welcome at this particular home.

After dinner I hit the sewing room again and sewed up the final four strip sets for my Ice Storm quilt and got the pieces cut for the final eight blocks.

I’ll try to get these final blocks sewn tomorrow night.

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Not Very Exciting, But Very Productive

Spent some time in my sewing room this evening and really got a lot done.

I finished eight blocks for my Ice Storm quilt and started on the final four strip sets.

Then I sewed another row of the scrappy KFC trip quilt together and sewed the first two rows together.

Today I got one of the final two packages of black and white fabrics I purchased online. This was a big package of 20 pieces. The one I’m still waiting for has six pieces.

Here’s all the black and white fabrics I’ve purchased in the last few weeks.

There are some really fun fabrics in this stack. It will be fun to see how they work up in a quilt.

Amazingly, I’ve only duplicated one fabric in all the many pieces I’ve purchased recently. I think that’s pretty impressive!

We went for a sheep herding lesson this morning and we had a really productive hour on the sheep. It was such a gorgeous day and so fantastic to be outside after a rainy day yesterday.

After herding I took the boys for a five mile walk around Washington State University. There were a lot of people out walking on this beautiful day. Take a look at this sky!

They’re pretty worn out tonight. Bender is too pooped to play.