And the beat goes on . . . . .

. . . . but of course, it's not our usual beat, is it?  

How are you coping?  

I don't have more people underfoot than normal and I'm still a retired teacher.  

Have you cleaned the entire house from top to bottom?  No, me either.  

Although I think I understand why it was so important for my mother to do this annually.  She did work full time outside our home after all of us were in school but prior to that the house (in the 1950's) was her world and it probably wasn't a fun place to be when everything was messy.  So she had a cleaning schedule which we all participated plus every spring, the entire house got a scrub down!  I'm doing deep cleaning chores that I haven't done for . . . . years???  But just one a day. 

She was right -- a clean, tidy house is a nicer place to be stuck.

(My office book shelf is now clean though not necessarily tidy, but it's all very important stuff!!)

As part of a workshop through my church this week (on-line), my pastor suggested "writing a lament" as a good way to vent anger and fear.  I know from past experience with depression that writing is a good strategy for me.  Plus several years ago, I participated in a little workshop on writing Haiku.  They have been a fun way for me to preserve little outdoor memories but Tuesday I used the technique to pen a lament.

Isolation sucks!!

Stuck at home with all my stuff --

wishing this over!

Fortunately, right after writing this, I opened my Bible and found myself looking at Psalm 71:19 to 21.  At some time in the past, I underlined a phrase in verse 20 . . . "you will restore my life again" . .

That's what I'm counting on today!!

Of course, I'm lucky to be "stuck with stuff" -- not everyone is that fortunate.So instead of whining about the inconveniences, I'm trying to embrace the slower pace and praying that we can all hold it together!

Last week I unloaded one half of my big cutting table and discovered how pleasant it is to have access to a large cutting area -- challenge is to keep it uncluttered.  As you can see, I'm making a few washable fabric masks every day.  I gifted some to friends in the medical field in case they need them and can use them.  All the varying opinions on these fabric masks has been very confusing to me but when I found a pattern from craftpassion.com that has a pocket one can slide a disposable mask into which will hopefully extend the life of a mask, I decided to give it a go.  Now I'm working my way through family members and close friends as the CDC seems to be leaning towards urging everyone to wear a mask when they are out in public as another line of defense.  

I've made a few more of those sashed 9-patch blocks which I shared with you a couple posts ago -- HERE's a quick link back to it if you missed it.

I've settled on blues, greens, and browns for my color palette for the main squares and anything goes for the sashing.  I'm going to make twelve blocks and see where things go.  My first thought about setting them with 2 1/2" strips for sashing might not be great and I'm also puzzled about what color that sashing might be???

No hurry -- I'll be here for rest of the month?!? 

I've also been puttering with this pattern which my long time student followers will recognize as my Mississippi Mud pattern (definitely the most popular pattern I ever taught or wrote).  I always said "never use lights" for the background of this quilt and all the stars have to be the same color.

So I'm experimenting with breaking those two rules of mine!!

I was thinking of doing a "sew-along" in April but there are so many bloggers and pattern designers trying to lure us into mystery quilts and sew-alongs right now that I've decided to hold back.

I've been quilting for 30 to 45 minutes every day for the past week on the kaleidoscope quilt I shared in last week's post and today, I'm starting the border -- wahoo!!!

My quilting time is limited by my back (it starts to whine when it's unhappy).

However, if I work for 30 minutes almost every day, by the end of a week, I've accomplished 2 to 3 1/2 hours of work which my back could never tolerate in one sitting.

I think two or three more sessions will get this quilt finished and I'm so excited!!!

It got me to thinking that perhaps instead of having a sew-along to start a new project, it would be more beneficial to challenge all of you to quilt for 30 minutes a day as often as you can for the month of April.  

Wouldn't it be fun to see how much we can accomplish?

I have this stack of quilts (backings included) to deal with -- some going back 15 years!?! 

Here is the shelf of charity quilt tops . . . . . 

. . . . plus a few more on the chair in the dining room!?!   Arrgghh!?!

So let's do this instead of starting something new!  

I challenge you to set a time limit that is good for you and try to maintain it daily.  Take before and after photos and keep a log of your daily progress.  I predict two things will happen -- first, you'll finish a UFO in less time than you might imagine and second, your quilting (machine or hand) skills will improve because you are doing it daily.

Pick a quilt top and layer it up (see my post HERE on how to do that by yourself on a table).  Then leave a comment below or post to your Instagram account (I'll only be able to see it if it's a public account) with the hashtag #Aprilquiltingmarathon and tag me @hueymary

If you are uncomfortable deciding about the quilting design/strategy for your top, I'll share photos on my Instagram account of some pieces using simple quilting strategies to inspire you!

If I could get a couple charity quilt tops finished and make lots of progress on one of my big UFO's, I'll be a happy quilter!!

Let's do this!!

Mary

Linking up this weekend with Whoop, Whoop
and Oh, Scrap

A BIG Finish!!

It's been almost two years of off and on hand quilting, but it's finally finished!!

I'm currently stitching the binding!  

The quilt is headed with me to a weekend retreat and soon it will be ready for a bed . . . . somewhere.

I pieced the blocks along with a group of other English paper piecing addicts following the direction of Karen at Faeries & Fibres during 2015 -- you can visit her blog HERE and scroll down the page to link to all of the posts relevant to this follow along.

And now here are close-ups of all the full blocks -- basically, I'm going to let them speak for themselves with just a few remarks.

 If you focus in on the drab brown pairs of hexagons in the motif below, you can see the quilting motif I used quite a bit to "connect" three hexagons together.

I've fiddled around unsuccessfully with the photos to get better views of the quilting I did since it's not the traditional "outline the hexagon" without much success.  Sorry.

I did rather simple fussy cutting on this quilt -- basically centering motifs here and there.

 

All the fabric I used already lived in my stash and is a combination of several eras of reproduction prints that I accumulated during the final years of owning a quilt shop.

The block configurations were inspired by an antique quilt sold by Christie's auction house at some point.  I saved it in my "enormous" hexagon board on Pinterest -- HERE is a link.

I haven't looked at that board for quite a while and boy, do I have a lot of great ideas saved there!?! 

 I used Quilter's Dream Wool batting -- it's easy to needle and gives a bit of puff.

I recall some of the fabric choices taking quite a bit of time but once that was done, the stitching was easy. 

I used a big stitch quilting approach and worked with size 16 pearle cotton.  

That thread size was an accident -- I had picked up a spools of cream, pink, and soft green somewhere and the colors were perfect!

Trouble was I needed more than I had and could not figure out my original source.

Thank goodness for some nice quilter on Instagram who steered me to the Colonial Needle Company who stock a wide assortment of pearle cotton in size 16!! 

 Some of the motifs felt off balance and that made it challenging for me to chose fabrics.

As you can see, each motif is outlined with a row of background hexagons and then set with a path. When I realized I didn't have enough of the soft floral I chose for the path, I added "intersection" greens and tan.

The border fabric is a gorgeous piece I hoarded just before closing my shop for the backing of some quilt, probably started but still not finished.  

It surfaced during one of my stash hunts and is just perfect!!

I haven't tried the quilt out on my own bed yet, but when traveling in Michigan during the fall of 2017, I had it along to use in a trunk show and was quilting on it during the evenings.

I stayed in a charming bed and breakfast and there was this perfect bed!!

The room was even painted the perfect color!

It would have been a shame for this quilt to be left in the UFO stacks and risk the chance of it being sold for "nothing" at the Big Yard Sale.  

Now I'm pretty sure one of my children will be happy to have it when I'm done with it!

Finishing the quilting was my February One Monthly Goal and so having it completely finished is a bonus!!  Check out all the other finishes HERE.

Update -- February, 2020

I entered this quilt in our local regional show and it earned an Honorable Mention ribbon.  I haven't seen the judging sheet yet so don't know what the judges thought of it beyond that.  I was disappointed to find the quilt which is hand pieced and hand quilted had been lumped into a category with machine pieced and machine quilted pieces.  Apparently there weren't enough quilts entered to warrant a class for all hand work pieces.  I need to think this over before entering quilts in that show in the future.

Mary

Hand Quilting Tips

One of the perks of being under the weather with bronchitis for most of the past three weeks has been lots of quiet time in my little stitching nest.  I've made terrific progress on the hand quilting of my huge reproduction English paper pieced hexagon quilt.  I pieced it during 2015(?) and I started the quilting early in 2017 and my goal is to finish by the end of this month!

Many years ago (1975) when I took my first quilt making course, the teacher taught us to hand quilt in a hoop.  Her name was Fran Soika and she is a legend in this area -- partially because of her distinct design style and skilled workmanship, but also because she was teaching quilt making when no one else was.  It would be interesting to take a survey of how many current quilters were impacted by Fran's teaching.

I invested in the best quality 14" hoop many years ago and use it to this day.  The one drawback of hoop quilting is managing the edges of the quilt.  I can't recall for sure that this is what Fran taught us to do, but I can't think who else would have shown this to me either -- so Fran gets the credit!

Easiest way is to baste a 6" wide strip of fabric (about 20" long) to the edge.  I baste it just to the quilt top, not the batting (which is usually wide enough).  If the backing is also too narrow, I baste a second strip to the backing.  And thread basting is the best solution -- I've tried pin basting (felt lazy that day) and that was inefficient to say the least.

Now I can work my way along the edges of the quilt and maintain the same smoothness and tension that I have throughout the center of the quilt.

I'm using a simple grid of straight lines on this border since the print is too busy to show off anything fancy.  I mark the lines as I go with a Clover Chaconer -- another tool I've had for years.  It's refillable and while I have several colors, the white gets used the most

I mark 6 to 8 lines at a time since they do rub off easily with all the handling. 

Another trick I learned from the gals at Old South Church in Kirtland to eliminate quilting thread knots has come in handy!  I start with a thread that is twice as long as I need for a line.

I take two stitches without a starting knot then stop and divide the length of the thread equally.

The two parallel lines from the center of the picture towards the left are my divided thread.

One half of the thread lays off to the side (the tangle in the picture) and I complete the first line (needle heading to the left) continuing until I get the waste fabric strip basted to the edge. 

I pull the needle off the thread and return to the starting point and repeat.

When a section is finished and I remove the basted strip of waste fabric, I have all these loose ends.

Now I rethread them on the needle, finish that line and take a few stitches parallel to the edge of the quilt securing them. 

The excess thread is snipped off and this edge is ready for the binding. 

It's a very elegant quilt and it doesn't fit any area of my home so not sure what it's destiny might be?

At the end of the month when the quilting is finished and the binding fabric chosen, I'll save a sunny day to take lots of good pictures to share it's beauty with you!

Mary

Linking up with FINISHED OR NOT FRIDAY over at Busy Hands Quilting 

and Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

The Quilting Progresses

I could not resist -- I had my current hand quilting project along to use during my lecture presentation and there was that beautiful bed!!

The location is the Cook room at the National House Inn in Marshall, Michigan where I stayed last Saturday night -- oozes charming!!

It's almost too perfect isn't it -- the color of the room and the bed with the canopy??

I'm currently working on the center row of the quilt.

I'm using Presencia perle cotton, size 16.

I had picked up a few spools of it here and there.  Somewhere along the middle of the second row, it became obvious that I wasn't going to have enough thread -- I searched locally in vain.

Then an Instagram friend tipped me off about the Colonial Needle Company and they carry a complete selection of the colors in that size!

The thread dilemma had me stalled but then I stumbled across the #100daysofhandquilting hashtag on Instagram and that sparked me back into action. 

Posting my progress daily and all those little red 💖's is just the incentive I needed. 

I hope my followers will not get tired of seemly repetitive pictures as I slog along. 

Today will be Day 14!!

If you are on Instagram you can find me @hueymary

(There is also #handquiltWednesday on Instagram for more inspiration!!)

It takes me three to five evenings to quilt one motif and I've steered away from the traditional "outline the hexagon" approach.  Another Instagram follower asked me to share close-up photos of the quilting designs from the back side -- that won't help very much, will it?

So I've made some sketches and taken a few photos to illustrate some of the quilting motifs I've created. 

This photo shows the double zigzag outline of each motif and the quilting of the path hexagons.

These drawings might clarify it a bit.

The pink lines are the quilting lines -- diamonds in the light floral print

and a trefoil-like chain around the green intersection hexagons.

Here's a closer look at one of the intersections.

In the diagram below, the pink lines illustrate the outline of the entire motif.  

The first line is approximately 1/4" from the seams and the second line (along the lower left corner of the drawing) illustrates the placement of the second line which uses the corners of the hexagons as guide points.

Does it make sense? 

The blue "snowflakes" in the central hexagons is a filler I'm scattering here and there.

The light green diagram (above) that "joins" three hexagons is my favorite and it's featured in the photo below.

Below is my favorite motif quilting design so far -- it's the one I'm currently doing in the photo of my hoop at the beginning of this post.  It's the second time I've used it in the quilt and it won't be the last!

The green hexagons represent the path around a motif.

The blue line traces the outside seams of the motif and the center hexagon (not quilting lines).

I begin at the center hexagon with the "snowflake".

The pink line traces the first line of quilting.  It is 1/4" from the seam lines where it traces the shape of a hexagon and as those lines (which I'm drawing with a chalk pencil) extend towards the center intersecting to form the "V".

The second quilting line is green and it's 1/4" from the seam lines.

The third line is brown and it bisects the center of the hexagons and echoes the "V"s.

Put your finger on the screen and trace each line to clarify it.

I thought long and hard before adding the third line, but there was too much empty space without it.

As I look at the drawing, I'm thinking I should plunge the "V" of the third line deeper.

Someone asked what inspired this approach to quilting the hexagons.

As I think about how to answer that question, it seems like it goes way back in my quilting experience when someone said to me to look at the "shapes" created by the patchwork rather than the individual pieces of the patchwork.

Don't know who said it? 

But glad it stuck!!

Now that I'm halfway along with the center of the quilt, it is moving along smoothly as I'm repeating motifs.  But I'm already expecting to struggle with how to quilt the border.

Hopefully by the time I arrive at that point, my subconscious will have solved that and planted an idea in my head!!

Back to the hoop!!

Mary