Lots been going on!

Lots of stuff has happened since I blogged last. The Churn Dash blocks are done (99 of them), but they are waiting for a space to lay them out, soon I hope. These are the 4 1/2" ones.

I found a box of stuff in the shed when cleaning it, including some autumn placemats and napkins that were cut but not sewn. I pulled out batting and stitched up the placemats, although they still need the opening closed, and need to be quilted. I actually had some King Tut the right color, and they will get finished soon. What I didn’t have was the Wooly nylon to do the napkin rolled edge serging. Got that last night, so now can pull out the serger and get those done.

Pacific International Quilt Festival came and went. I went Thursday and Friday with my sister. I had a shopping list and mostly kept to it. I did get another Martelli cutting mat, this one for classes or to sit next to my sewing machine when not in class. I also got several more colors of King Tut thread, so now I can quilt my Christmas Mexican Star table runner and my Split Star Mariner’s Compass wall hanging. One of the vendors had all of the Marti Michell templates, so I got the S set (for 6” five patch blocks!), the small drunkards path and both Kaleidoscope rulers. There were lots of pretty quilts this year, and of course I didn’t have my camera on Thursday when I went through most of them. There were two Dear Jane quilts, I like mine better, but that is OK, after all I did pick out the fabrics for mine . I did get a bit of new fabric, from the Bittersweet line that the new Patchwork Party 2011 is using.

And I started another quilt, this one the Mill Girls quilt from Jennifer Chiaverini’s More Elm Creek quilts, a quilt along with a Yahoo group. I got most of it cut out, and lots of half square triangles made to now turn into quarter square triangles. I will get back to it soon, maybe tonight. I love the fabric, pulled lots of fat quarters from my stash of Asian inspired fabrics, and also found the background fabric in stash. Love shopping from my room, and it also helps to remind me of all the things I have, and don’t need to add to!

Then I worked on my Christmas Greetings from Elm Creek Manor center. After much debate with myself I decided to use fusible (for the trees and outer pieces) and invisible machine appliqué on a starched turned edge (over freezer paper) for the buildings and snow (and one tree). My hand just won’t be happy doing all of the hand work right now, and I want to get this quilt finished! (I also got some King Tut to quilt it while at PIQF). The plus side of using machine appliqué is I can assemble off the fabric to align the edges and either press the bits together, if fusible, or glue stick the edges if doing a turned edge. This let me get the alignment right, since I could just start from the right edge with the snow bank (as you look at it) and then keep going. All the pieces went together perfectly! After the center parts were attached (and stitched!) I pressed diagonal lines to help align the corner pieces, and chalked the seam line so I could keep the appliqué inside the line. Next will be doing machine embellishment, after I practice on some of the cut-away bits! When I am rested.

I am now three blocks behind in Barbara Brackman’s Civil War BOW, and one more done. I should assemble another row or two after I get caught back up.

Oh, and I got back the Author’s Album blocks that I swapped! Now to make a bunch more and get quilting friends to sign them, in the new year. This is not a priority project!