Thursday, December 12, 2013

Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt...plugging along!


To check out the Link Up Party at Quiltville click here:
 
 
There are almost 200 quilters who have linked up their amazing progress.  Nice job everyone, you inspire me to sew just a few more!


Completed Tri-Rec Units So Far


I am making lots of progress on the Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt.  I am working on the tri-rec units from Clue #1 still and they are adding up.  I have 130 of the 140 needed of the orange units; and 150 of the 240 neutral units.  I have found that it goes the best for me if I work on them in batches of 10 with my leader/ender in between.
 
 
We have had a busy week and this is a fun project to do in between all the other holiday things.  I still have a pile of half-sewn units to finish up, but at least the first side of blue star point is on.
 
 
 
 
 
My fabrics for clue#2 are sitting and waiting at the cutting area I set up in our upstairs hall.  They look so pretty together and I love chevron units. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tomorrow, clue #3 comes out and I am excited to see the next step and will just keep working on this lovely project until I get it done!!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Quilting Along in Busy December

Lady Jane B-4
Lady Jane block D-6
 


 
Wow!  That late Thanksgiving has really thrown me and we are well into December just a week and a half after Black Friday.  I am trying to balance decorating, shopping, baking, and quilting.  It's all so much fun, just not enough hours to do them all and get them done.

I spent most of my last week quilting time trying to get the Clue #1 of Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt done.  It's still not done and Clue #2 came out Friday the 6th.  I am enjoying the quilt units and I love the colors, but the piles of pieces is endless!


Endless piles of Tri-Recs pieces to sew together!
 
Lady Jane block K-12
Lady Jane block J-4
Lady Jane block F-4

I am taking a break from that mystery quilt to work on my Month #2 blocks and triangles for my two DEAR JANE QUILTS that I am working on.  I am doing one with a reproduction feel that uses fabrics that I feel give a nod to past fabrics, but that I still love; and I am doing one with bright modern fabrics and cool low volume backgrounds.  I love them both.  I am naming them respectively, Lady Jane and Modern Jayne.


Lady Jane block F-3



Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Sewing on Celtic Solstice Quilt

I had the best time tonight sewing along with Bonnie Hunter on her Quiltcam.  I finally had some time to sew for clue #1 because I finished the cutting late last night.  Yaaayyyy!!!!



All the Tri-Recs pieces for clue #1 (King), yes that's 760 blue side triangles, phew.  Thank you Downton Abbey for getting me through the cutting!!!!
 

My favorite blue fabric because it picks up the orange, green, and yellow that we'll be using.
 
 
I also worked on my leader/ender project which is Cheddar Bowties.  You can see a few bowtie blocks in this picture of me sewing on my pink Atlas straight stitch machine while watching Quiltcam.
 
 
I want an adjustable Sew Mate table for Christmas so I can lay out blocks and units more easily next to my machines.  It's not too much to ask!

Monday, December 2, 2013

Another Finished Top and Gingerbread Houses!

I didn't spend the whole weekend on Celtic Solstice Mystery!  Although, that would have been pretty fun!  I had to clear my design wall and I needed to sew one more border onto my Craftsy Block of the Month 2013 quilt top.  This is the version where I used fabrics from my stash; I also pieced one with the fabric kit that I purchased from Craftsy.  That one is still in block form and needs to spend some time on the design wall getting put together!


When I first went to sew on the two side borders, I found that they were much too long and I couldn't figure out where I went wrong.  Well, I had used a scant 1/4" seam when piecing the half square triangles together and it was too scant.  Well, I didn't want to rip out all those seams, and since I do press my seams to one side, I just re-sewed the same seams just as true 1/4"!  It worked, they fit beautifully.  I had so much fun making this quilt top using fabrics I already had.  Craftsy offered the BOM classes free for 2012 and 2013.  The two quilts are very different, but I like it that they are.  This quilt was designed and taught by Laure Nownes.

Also, on Sunday my mom hosted her annual Gingerbread House Workshop for the kids in her life.  I had four of mine participating this year.  They do a pretty good job and it is fun finding places in our house amongst our decorations for the houses. 






New blog, new quilt!

It's been something I've thought about doing for a while.  I am happy to have a place to share my progress as I work on my quilting projects...finishing some, starting some, and loving every minute.  So, I will be sharing posts and photos of the myriad of projects I have worked on this past year, especially the newer items.

But, today it is all about Celtic Solstice Mystery!!!  See what all the excitement is about here http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2013/12/celtic-solstice-mystery-monday-link-up-1.html .  I am linking to Bonnie Hunter's blog to show my progress on her newest mystery quilt.  First off, she shared fabric color choices about a month ago.  She chose orange, green, and neutral for starters (like the Irish flag), then added blue and yellow.  I pulled what I had in my stash and while I had some, I thought it would be fun to add a few more fabrics into the mix.  Here in Northern Virginia we had a shop hop called Quilter's Quest in early November.  I visited the 10 LQS involved in the quest and purchased a fat quarter from each store in the four main colors.  It was a fun way to focus as I visited the new shops and got to see what each one has.
 
Fabrics stacked and ready to cut into!!
 
The way the mystery quilt works is that Bonnie has designed what I am sure is an amazing quilt and she sill be giving us the instructions for the quilt one clue at a time on Fridays.  Then, on Mondays there will be link ups to share our progress.  So, last Friday, the 29th was the day of the first clue and it was a doozy!  It was to cut pieces for triangle in a square units for the quilt.  We need 240 neutral triangles, 140 orange triangles, and 760 blue isosceles triangles!!  I had never cut that many pieces at once before.  All pieces were cut from 3 1/2" strips, so that was the first part.  I ironed and cut strips while watching episodes of Downton Abbey!!!  It was wonderful.  I actually ended up with more than I needed for these pieces but perhaps we'll need them for other parts of the quilt.  I then cut my orange and neutral triangles, it was so exciting to see the little stacks grow and grow and to cut into the wonderful colors.  By late Saturday evening, I had the neutral and orange 380 triangles cut!  By late last night I had 400 of the 760 blue triangles cut.  I will come back and add pictures as soon as I have them uploaded.

 I set up in our upstairs hall to iron and cut.
 Each blue stack is 100 triangles.
Neutral and orange triangles. 
 
So, while I still have cutting and all the sewing for this week's clue, I am making progress.  Thank you to Bonnie Hunter who is an amazing designer and is providing this quilt design and all the fun clues for free on her blog.