At Long Last - Quilty 365 is Finished!

 For what is now years, this project seemed destined to never reach a finish but now, seven years after it began, this oldest UFO finally reached the finish line just before noon today!  It was my priority for the year and there is a huge weight off my shoulders to finally say "it's done!" 

At 110x114 inches this is my largest-ever finish, and most of it is hand quilted!  Here's how it looked spread out on the living room floor after finishing the hand-quilted portion - the entire central section.  The borders have since received some ditch quilting along with a few lines of serpentine stitching. What appears to be a sloppy binding is actually the backing basted to the front to keep the batting away from kitty paws.

And here it is on the bed for a test run prior to heading to the laundromat in a couple days for a much needed bath and hopefully a bit of shrinkage.  The plan was always to make this quilt "bedspread" size for a queen bed.  

Amazing how heavy this thing is!  My daughter likes weighted blankets and I think she will love this.  Maybe someday it will be hers, though it's going to live with us for awhile.  Got to be able to pet this long awaited creation for a bit before giving it away.

So many memories associated with many of the hand appliqued circles, of pets now passed, our time in Oregon, quilty friends who traded precious bits of favorite fabrics while we all made our daily appliqued circles, holidays, the anticipated grandson - now five years old, and so on.

A scrap from my son's wedding quilt - they've been married 21 years this June!

Remembering Griffen

Olie - our faithful Oregon beach buddy

I used Hobbs Polydown batting in an effort to keep the weight manageable, but chose to leave the fabric backing all those appliqued circles to give them a bit more loft - thus adding a LOT of weight.  Hand quilting thread is Aurifil 12 wt. while the machine quilting in the borders is Aurifil 50 wt.

The sashing in all these photos appears red, but it is actually a lovely burnt orange.

The back

So happy to cross this oldie off my list!  

I'm planning to purge my bookshelf soon, and hope to have another post next week of books I plan to sell.  The plight of the Ukrainian refugees has been heavy on my heart these past weeks, and proceeds from any books sold this month will be sent to the Quilted Twins Ukrainian Relief Fund that sends 100% of donations received to Poland where Becky purchases needed supplies that go directly to both Ukraine and to the refugees already arrived in Poland.  You can read about this effort on Becky's blog here. I've linked to the latest post as of this evening, though there are quite a few additional posts as the blog is updated nearly daily.

Til next time, happy stitching!

Quilty 365 - The Final Link-up

This may be the last official link-up for Quilty 365, but it won't be the last time you see these circles, because this baby is just in the beginning stages of quilting.  As of today I've hand quilted an area about 14 x 60 inches, working my way from the center to a corner of this giant.  It's going slower than I'd like, mostly because of all the 'opportunity quilts' that have come my way of late.  But I don't mind a bit, I love, love, LOVE seeing this in the hoop and spread across the carpet when I walk into the sewing room each day! Just having it there right next to my desk is enticement to pick up the needle and take a few stitches whenever I have a few moments.

Very simple big stitch quilting in the sashings and blocks.  I like how quilting down the sashing is making all those blocks puff up just a bit, though difficult to see in the angle of this photo.

I've loved working on this quilt-along from the very first block ...

through weeks of mulling over whether I'd have enough of my chosen sashing and setting triangle fabric...turns out there were just a few scraps to spare after putting it all together.

The back story of why I was so keen on using this sashing fabric for this particular quilt. My blogging friend, the late Kathy Porter (http://nanato4ts.blogspot.com) gifted me with a box of her beautiful fabrics when she was downsizing her stash.  This fabric was included in the box and the tone-on-tone circles seemed a perfect fit for the Quilty 365 project from the very beginning. I am reminded of Kathy's encouraging words and her generosity whenever I see this fabric.

Carrying the circle theme to the borders, though a bit less obviously, I chose these two dark fabrics to bring the top to its final size.

Teeny tiny circles in the border fabrics!

There aren't any photos of the entire finished top, because there isn't a surface in our home large enough to lay out anything measuring over 110x110 inches, and it was far too wet and muddy outside before the top was sandwiched for quilting.  Half of the quilt is shown in the next photo, taken while pinning the layers at the church fellowship hall.

I used 313 of my 366 circles in this quilt, the remainder to find their way into another project sometime in the future (looking for for inspiration for that future quilt among all the link-ups today!). But, these were not the only circles made last year! Oh no, Quilty 365 was just the beginning, and turned out to be the inspiration to include more circles in yet another quilt, Oregon Memories, completed for my husband last year.

When this huge quilt will be finished is anybody's guess, but I'm hoping to see it quilted, bound and in its place of honor on the guest bed before the end of the year.  My thanks to Audrey at Quilty Folk for hosting this fun quilt-along!  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's final creations, and you can see them too by following this link to Audrey's blog.

a glimpse of things to come - couldn't resist!

Pins and Needles

After taming pinning the beast on Monday,

Half at a time, two tables wide

and basting the backing over the edges on Tuesday evening, I couldn't resist tossing it onto the guest room bed where it will rest after quilting.  Sneak peek ...

And last evening I finally got it into the Grace 2 hoop and took the first stitches!

The first circle quilted had to be our Olie block, which is in the very center of the quilt top. I'm going to quilt this with big stitch quilting, and am using Aurifil 12 weight thread. I've tried big stitch quilting a couple times, and have had trouble finding the size/type needle that quilts easily yet has an eye large enough to get the 12 weight thread through without shredding.  Earlier yesterday I rummaged through several older sewing boxes, and look what I found.

Oh-my-gosh, these are just about perfect!  Anyone want to venture a guess how old these babies are? My guess is that I bought them well over 30 years ago, but it may be longer, or perhaps they even were picked up in some yard sale long ago. Whatever the case, they are not rusted, and glide through the fabric beautifully, much better than the chenille needles recommended by the nearest quilt shop for big stitching projects! I think the chenille needles will be great for wool or flannel quilting, but they seem to drag through the quilting cotton and really tire my fingers. I'm so happy most of the needles are still in the JCP packet, all shiny, sharp and ready to go.

So now there are two projects in hoops, Quilty 365 is in my sewing room where it won't need to be moved constantly, and the basket quilt is in the hand-held hoop on my recliner in the living room where I can work on it while watching tv.

making progress slowly - fourth basket underway

I'm hoping to put some stitches into each quilt every day so they can eventually crossed off that 17 in 2017 list. Hopefully while it's still 2017! Meanwhile, languishing in a corner of the sewing room

the king-size vintage rose applique, just where it was plopped sometime last year when I began quilting my husband's Astoria/Oregon Memories quilt.  Under the big rose quilt is a tote with yet another vintage quilt top remake awaiting its turn and surrounded by 4 more containers with quilts-in-the making, including the remainder of the Quilty 365 circles. Still don't have any grand ideas for those leftovers yet, but they can cool their heels for a few years months while the beast is finished!

Do you have multiple quilts in hoops at the same time?  Or is this insanity?

Gathering up the Circles

The past couple weeks have been an adventure of the good, the sad, and sometimes downright scary times, with only a bit of sewing accomplished here and there.  The good times - a six day visit from our tiniest munchkin ...

Bathtime in one of grandma's larger fabric totes!

The sad - visiting a dear friend for the last time, at a hospice facility. And the scary - our son and his family had a tree fall on their house - twice in one week - during successive windstorms. Thankfully in both instances no one was injured as they were not in the rooms affected by the tree strikes which resulted in cracked and falling plaster - the two larger bedrooms of their two-story home. A total of four large trees blew over in their yard during the second storm, one of which also ripped the electrical wires off the house. As is usual with these types of storms many homes were without power, and no generators were to be had in his area, so we were lucky enough to find the only generator still available locally that morning and delivered it to them - some 100 miles away. Thankfully their power is now restored - in time for the nor'easter which hit yesterday, and it is still snowing and blowing in our end of the state. Our daughter who lives about 125 miles east of us has about 36 inches of the not-so-welcome white stuff. We fared better, with only 12-18 inches drifted in the driveway and the back deck so far.

Just before all these goings-on, I spent a morning at the church fellowship hall, arranging my Quilty 365 blocks into rows. This top is being built diagonally, so I started with the first row, which on the finished quilt will end up as bottom left to top right - 25 circle blocks. With the diagonal setting, it took four tables across to get all the squares in place

plus a chair for the last two rows!

After labeling each row I gathered everything up and returned home, and in spare moments began stitching the blocks together, adding setting triangles at the ends of each row. I recall saying in an earlier post that the odds were pretty good that a duplicate fabric would show up in an adjacent block, to be noticed only after sewing together ... and yes!

The only one I've caught, so far, and at this point I figure if these fabrics want to stay together this badly, who am I to argue?

I started with the shortest rows which will end up on the upper left side of the quilt, stitching rows together in groups of three.

At that point I decided it would be easier to add these shortest segments onto the main quilt body last, so I moved on to sewing together the longest diagonal rows, and here are the longest segments stretched out on the living room floor.

Point to point diagonally this monster measures a whopping 132 inches! Yowzers, these are long seams! When all the sections are sewn together the top should measure somewhere around 92 inches square. Before borders. In the meantime, strips and segments litter most every surface in my sewing area.

At this point all the segments are made for the left side of the quilt and I think there are nine or so rows of circles yet to be stitched together. Hopefully in the next week or so, barring any more major interruptions to the scattered and scarce sewing time around here.

I realize all this may make little or no sense to anyone else, but I'm so excited to finally see this quilt beginning to take shape, just as I envisioned it several months ago! And I'm so thankful that there was enough of that burnt orange sashing fabric to make the quilt the size I had hoped for. Luck of the Irish? This week, that may just be the case!

A Little of This, A Little of That, Some Big and Little Baskets

My week so far has been about as crazy and disjointed as that blog post title!   The week began innocently enough with plans to finish sashing the upper halves of each little Quilty 365 block, and here they are ...

well, 313 of them anyway, as that is what I've calculated are needed to bring the quilt to the ginormous size I want it, setting the blocks on-point with at least one narrow and one wide border added beyond the setting triangles.   After considering whether to sort the blocks into piles of light, medium and dark background squares, I finally decided that a random setting might work best. But, there is no surface large enough in this house to lay out the entire top.  So, with 313 squares, what are the chances that a completely random setting will result in two or more identical background blocks showing up right next to each other?  Hmm, knowing me the odds are pretty good actually!  So, hopefully on Friday there will be time to head down to the church and push several large tables together so I can lay this out and then tag each row.   Sooo looking forward to seeing this beast finally stitched together into a finished top!

Yesterday the first hand quilted stitches were added to the big basket top pieced last year, or was it two years ago now? It has waited a long time to begin looking like a finish might happen this year. Time will tell ...

And the little baskets are progressing ever so slowly, only seven done at this point.  Though I'm loving the Old Plum Calicoes for this quilt I'm thinking a few more lighter purple shades will need to mix in to keep the quilt from turning out darker than I'd like.  Though in truth I've only cut into two of the actual plum fabrics so far, and the two lighter baskets came from scrap bin pieces. Definitely going to be a lifetime project this one ...

Oh yes, another 'squirrel' opportunity arrived on my doorstep this week, but I'll save that for the next post.

Quilty 365 - December Link-up

Ever since finishing up the last eight circles early in November, I've been dithering with the math and whether there is enough of my chosen background fabric to achieve this setting for a queen size quilt large enough to serve as a bedspread.

I really want to use the burnt orange fabric for the setting triangles as well as sashing the blocks, but at this point I still don't know if there's enough of the setting fabric!!  Just how hard can the math be? Well, as of now, apparently just a little too much for this aging brain since every time I sit down and try to figure it out I come up with a different number!   Most of those numbers indicate we'll run out of the chosen fabric before we run out of quilt, if it's to reach the hoped-for size, using a narrow coping border then a wide outer border of a complimentary fabric.

Several blogging friends suggested using the burnt orange to sash the circle blocks and using a different fabric for the setting triangles. So, earlier this week after attaching the sashing to about 45 of the blocks I auditioned several possibilities for alternate setting triangles.

Two dark possibilities - definitely too dark

A closer view of the left-most fabric in the previous photo, a possibility for an outer wide border - maybe

  

Nope!

Better, but ...

Not!

Hmm, maybe for a narrow coping border

Truth be told, I'm not fond of any of these choices for setting triangles, but I'm glad that I went through the exercise of auditioning some different fabrics. A straight edge for the burnt orange just looks better to my mind's eye. So now, with the still-fuzzy math and brain overtaxed, we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants so to speak.  I'll reserve enough fabric to make setting triangles in that burnt orange fabric and build whatever size quilt I can make with what is available.  As of this morning a little over 100 blocks have been sashed, though the rows have yet to be laid out for final assembly.  I'll need to take over the living room floor to do that, someday when hubby and the dog have retired for a nap or the night.

It's fun pulling out all 366 blocks and seeing all the different fabrics that have gone into this project over the past year.  Linking with Audrey at Quilty Folk, then I'll take a break from this project for a day or two and work on a couple small Christmas items.  Time to finish them so we can use them this month!

And the last circle is made

My days of stitching little circles have ended, for now at least!  366 days later, here are the final eight.

It doesn't look very impressive for a year's worth of circles when they're piled up like this.

I've been leaning toward an on-point layout for assembling the quilt, and several months ago one of the participants showed her layout with a very narrow dark sashing framing each square.  Ever since we began this quilt-along I've pondered how I could incorporate this lovely burnt orange fabric into the project.  I hope you can see all the little overlapping circles in the photo below.

So, this is what has been simmering on the design wall for the past few days.

I still need to do a lot of the dreaded quilty math before strips are cut and the sashings are stitched. My preliminary calculations indicate that this layout will make a queen bedspread size quilt with circles left over.  They also indicate that I'll be a bit short on the burnt orange fabric!  So, this is all very tentative at the moment.  The one thing I do know is that I'll make a quilt of some size using this fabric - it just makes me smile every time I walk into the sewing room!

The fabric in question is by Moda, and is named Tranquility, by Sandy Gervais, Pattern #17398, and is from about 2008 or 2009.  I've had the fabric in my stash for a couple years, sent by another blogger who was downsizing her stash.   I've done an online search but haven't found any more out there, so if any of you happen to have a yard or even two languishing in your stash that you would like to part with and sell, please let me know!

This morning will be spent with my quilt ministry buddies, working on quilts 13-16 for the year!  Not bad for our little group of 5 regular members!  Then it's off to our little town hall to complete my civic duty and privilege and vote, the old-fashioned way, with paper and pencil though they do have a new-fangled machine that counts those carefully completed paper ballots.   The day dawned cold and clear, and promises to be a beautiful sunny November day, which I choose to take as a sign of hope after the many months of dark rumbling political storms we have all endured.

October's Circles - Quilty 365

Nearing the finish line with only eight circles left to make in November - hooray!!  Election Day will mark the end of my Quilty 365 (or 366) circle-making marathon, then it's on to setting them together.

October's circles

I've pretty much decided that my circles will be set on point but still deciding whether to frame each square with a narrow sashing.

Last month I was hoping to find a fabric depicting an Australian Shepherd dog resembling our family dog, and ended up ordering a sample piece of a fabric from Spoonflower.  I'm quite pleased with this circle and think it depicts our Olie rather well.

Critters of all kinds abound in my October circles.

I think this is going to make a splendid I-Spy quilt for the guest room bed.  Though it became tedious at times, I'm happy that I persevered through an entire year and that so many others have as well! Linking up with Audrey who started it all ...