Coping Columns

 If you've been quilting any time at all, I bet you know all about coping strips. If you don't know, coping strips are often used when you need to add a pieced section to something that's a different size. For example, if you pieced a border, but it came out larger than your quilt center, whether through a math error or piecing error, you'd have to add coping strips to make it fit correctly. To a non-quilter, coping strips just look like an inner border or accent piece. You need not correct their assumption 😉

A couple posts ago, I showed this center I was playing around with, trying to use up leftover Celtic knot pieces.

My top and bottom sections are wider than my center panel. I need to add something to make them the same width. I also need to add something to the width of the whole thing, because right now it's setting up to be too narrow for the height and it looks wrong. Borders won't work, because then it will retain the same tall, skinny profile, but it would be even taller. I need to add something to the sides before borders. 

I decided to add columns on both sides of the center. I did the math to figure out how tall my columns would be, then I could figure out the coping strips to surround that center panel. I needed 2.5" cut strips on the sides to make the center panel as wide as the top and bottom sections, but I needed 3.5" cut strips above and below the center panel so the whole center section would be the same height as my columns.

You can tell if you are looking for it, that the top and bottom border on the center panel are wider than the sides, but it's not glaringly obvious. I think the side columns bring the quilt to much better proportions, and the outer border brings it all together and makes the whole thing look purposeful. Now it doesn't look like I was just trying to use up leftover bits from other quilts, even though that was exactly what I was doing. 

I was having the same proportion issue on one of my panel quilts. This one is for one my granddaughters, I used one large wolf panel from one line of fabric, and another panel of smaller wolf pictures from a different line of fabrics. The smaller panels had a lot more colors than the center panel, so I not only needed to add width, I needed to add more colors so the panels coordinated better. 

I decided I wanted blocks in my columns that were reminiscent of flowers since I was adding colors from the small panels, but wanting it to coordinate with the center panel which had a lot of flowers. 

I think my multi-colored columns definitely help bring cohesion to the quilt, and aside from the background fabric, the columns are all scraps. Again, I managed to sneak scraps into what is not really a scrap quilt. I made the top and bottom periwinkle borders a bit wider than the sides, because the quilt was exactly the width I wanted, but I wanted it two inches taller. 

Would you ever just add columns to the sides of a quilt center, or add rows just to the top and bottom, or even just to one side if it got the top to the correct dimensions? If these look unbalanced to you, what would you have done instead?

Another Tiled Fabric + Scraps

I've had this knight fabric in stash for years. Fussy cutting is not my favorite thing to do, and with tiled fabrics that's pretty much what is required. The knight fabric had larger spaces between the blocks than the Celtic knot fabric from my previous post, so it was much easier to deal with. Even though I had yardage of the knight fabric, I had drastically different numbers of each knight. 

When I tried putting them up on the design wall in a random pattern, the fact that I had many more of certain knights was very obvious. I decided to try diagonal lines instead, using the knights I had more of in the longer diagonals. It almost works. I had two lines I couldn't make work exactly, so I stuck them in the bottom left corner. That's my tip for today, if something isn't working quite right, put it in the bottom left corner. Since we (as Americans as least) read top to bottom, left to right, I find most people start looking at a quilt in the top left corner, then scan across and down towards the bottom right hand corner. The bottom left hand corner is almost skipped. So if you've got a wonky block or two, try hiding it in the bottom left. 😉

I needed an alternate block to use between the knights. I needed the block to finish at 5", I didn't really feel like digging into yardage, but how would I make a 5" finished block with scraps? I mostly have 2" and 2.5" strips and squares. This will be a donation quilt. That doesn't mean at all that I don't want to make a nice quilt, but I am learning that they don't all have to be complicated. I realized if I surrounded a 2.5" square with 2" strips, I would indeed get a block that finished at 5". I have a box of 2.5" squares, and I dug out enough in appropriate colors to make the alternate blocks, then I went to my 2" strip stash and did the same. I only needed 16" of a 2" strip to surround a square. I needed two pieces at 2" x 2.5" and two pieces at 2" x 5.5" That means even strips I had cut from fat quarters were going to work! 

When DH came into the sewing room to ask me something, he saw this quilt on the design wall and really liked it. I asked him if it looked like a scrap quilt. He said, "No, it's a knight quilt, why would you ask if it was a scrap quilt?" I told him it was 50% scraps, and that a lot of scrap quilt patterns only use 50% scraps. That surprised him, and he said it looked purposeful to him.

That comment made me really happy. I really like scrap quilts, but not everyone does. If I can "hide" scraps in a quilt that doesn't look like a scrap quilt, it's a win. I've assembled this quilt top now, and hopefully it will be basted soon. I love donating boys quilts especially. Not that I don't make plenty of girls quilts, I just especially like making quilts for boys and men. 

I had planned a big basting spree, but that got hijacked by other commitments. Now I'll just have to try to get some quilts basted a couple at a time. I'm almost finished quilting the last basted quilt, but I still have several table runners basted that need quilting, so I'm not quite out yet, but basting needs to move up on the priority list. 

 

Tiled Fabrics - Are They Panels?

 Since I'm knee deep in panels right now, and having great fun working with them, I've been digging out some fabrics I've found hard to use, but thinking of them as panels has given me ideas. 

Years ago I saw some fabric online that I loved so much, I ordered it from the UK. The line was Celtic Illuminations, and at the time, I couldn't find it from a US supplier. I didn't buy a lot of it, a pillow panel, a couple yards (meters) of the tiles fabric, and maybe one yard of another in the line. I didn't take a photo of the tiled fabric before I cut it up, but I found a photo online of it in a different colorway, evidently, Fabric Paradise still has some of that colorway in stock.

If you like this colorway, you can get it from fabricparadise.com, and if you send me a message, I have two squares of the larger version in this colorway I'd be happy to send you. I happened across the two large squares at a thrift store, but haven't used them. 

If you pay attention to the measuring tapes, you'll see each square is about 3.5" It's not exact. The strips between the squares are almost 1/2". I didn't like the idea of cutting off all the seam allowances and having only 3.5" squares, but I found it difficult to cut the squares apart at 4", because those skinny strips between the knots are not always 1/2", and I kept getting further and further off. I tried cutting them when I got the fabric, made a few blocks, but overall found it really frustrating and put everything aside. I had made some units with the other fabrics, found a blue I liked to go with my fabrics, so I stuck it all aside, but at least it was together. 

When I was working on my grandson's fantasy quilt, I thought about those fabrics, and decided some Celtic knots would go nicely with the fantasy theme so I dug out the fabrics. I also had some more of the tiled fabric on my fabric shelves. 

When I dug everything out, I had the one pillow panel, with the fabric I cut to put it on point. I had a stack of nine patches I had made, and a pile of HST's. Back when I had worked on this, I was not good about writing myself notes on what I planned to do with things, and there was no pattern or anything with the fabrics. It's been at least 15 years since I worked on this, and I have no idea what I was planning. These days I am good about writing notes to myself, so it I put a project aside, I can get back into it easily enough. 

I had no more of the background fabric I used for the nine patches and HST's, so as far as that went, I had to use what I had. 

I had enough HST's to make pinwheel blocks, and I used the blue to frame them so they'd be the same size as the nine patches. I used most of the HST's, and all but two of the nine patch blocks. I used a fabric from stash to bring out the rusts and browns in the Celtic knots. I would have made the border a bit wider, but this was every bit of the fabric I had.

Now to deal with the other tiled fabric. I felt like the Celtic knots in the nine patches looked crowded cut at 3.5". I really wanted to cut them at 4", the thing is, I could really only get every other tile at 4", and the others needed to be cut at 3.5". Could I figure out how to use them together in one quilt?

The answer to that was yes. I put the 4" cut Celtic knots on point, and framed out the 3.5" ones. Each block finished at 5". I used all of the one cut at 3.5" for this quilt, and have only a few left of the ones on point. 

Now I've got two quilt tops done, and I've busted most of that fabric line. Can I bust the rest?

I still have that pillow panel I put on point. I added some of the leftover HST's to make the two remaining nine patch blocks larger. I didn't have any matching background fabric, but I found some similar enough. I made some of the extra 4" cut Celtic knots and put them on point using the extra few triangles from my grandson's fantasy quilt. I still need to frame out the on point pillow panel, then I need to make the whole thing wider. I'm thinking interlocking rings going up each side of this center. I have to do the math to make sure it's all going to fit together. Would I have planned to make these quilts this way, probably not. Will busting this fabric get it out of my stash and result in three usable quilts, yes it will. 

I will have a couple units leftover, even after this third quilt, but I am perfectly OK tossing the extras into the orphan bin for now, or possibly trying to make a table runner. Just because I loved the fabric, did not mean I found it easy to use. Since I felt up to the challenge, it was time to get it out of the house. 

It also inspired me to use another tiled fabric I had in stash, but that's for next time.

It's a Quilt Top, Panel Style

Quilt panels, do you love them or hate them? Perhaps it's a bit of both. If a panel is off grain, it can be really tricky to work with. I think it's kind of funny when I see beginning quilters encouraged to use panels. In a perfect world, where everything is on grain and naturally square maybe a panel would be perfect for a beginner. Well, maybe some panels would be perfect for a beginner. When you have to trim a huge panel, I do not consider that a beginner skill. I know I find using panels easier now, than the first couple I used 20 years ago, and it's not because the panels changed, it's because I am more skilled.

There are a lot more ideas out there for using panels now, which I think is great! If you need to make a themed quilt for someone, and you don't have a lot of money to spend on fabric, you can buy a panel, and then just use scraps in coordinating colors to make the rest of the quilt. 

I have a family of six all wanting new quilts, and panels are going to help me out. I get to make quilts in their interests, without buying six quilts worth of fabric. I wrote a post about my grandsons quilt a while back, and I finally got that quilt off the design wall and sewn up. I was designing it on the fly, and I had to figure out how to make the center the size I needed. It was one of the few quilts I've designed from the outside in. 

There are parts of three different panels in his quilt. I LOVE how it came out, and I think he's going to love it too! 

Notice I said there were PARTS of three panels in this quilt. I didn't use all of any of them. You know what that means? More quilts will be made with this fantasy theme! One of the panels I had three of, and I only used a bit of one of those in this quilt. Does that worry me? Not at all. 

I really liked the blocks I made for the border, in fact, I liked them so much, I made enough for another quilt. I had to change the corner fabric because I didn't have enough of what I used in my grandson's quilt.

Each of the Wizards and Warriors panels has 30 different pictures on it. I only used 12 in the first quilt, but this second quilt used all 30. I really like the secondary design that came out when sewing the blocks together. It remind me of a mosaic or fancy tile floor. I still had another full panel, plus a partial panel. I didn't have enough of these fabrics to make another full quilt, but I did have the stone fabric in another colorway, so I started another quilt. 

I think the gray colorway works nicely too. I did realize I could use these same units for different blocks.

I could make a folded star type of pattern.

Something Shoofly-ish?

I decided to stick with my original idea, and I just finished the blocks in the gray colorway a few minutes ago. Tomorrow I'll start assembling that quilt. 

I never mind having extra quilts that are more masculine. I'm not saying a girl wouldn't like these quilts, I just mean a boy wouldn't think it's too girlish. And quilts that a TEEN boy would enjoy??? That's a serious win!

Now that I've got two quilt tops done from these panels and another quilt top ready to assemble, I can start thinking about what I'm going to do with the remaining panel pieces. I've got two more castles, two more of the 12" blocks I used as cornerstones on my grandson's quilt, plus 18 more of smaller Wizards and Warriors pics. Will I try to make one quilt with all of those, or spread them into several quilts. I haven't decided, but I have a bunch of dragon panels that would work with any of these too...

 

Finish #20

 So far this year, all of my finishes have been UFO's, and this one is no different. It's another quilt I pieced in a hotel. 

It's nothing fancy, but I did bust a lot of squares with white, black, or gray backgrounds. I used a black/white stripe on the binding, which I think was pretty fun. 

I stuck to the black/white/gray theme for the backing. That animal print is such a huge scale, that I was stuck on how to use it on a quilt. I have the same print in sepia, and just like this one, it's likely to be used on the back of a quilt. I don't remember buying such large scale prints, so possibly someone gave them to me. I could have picked them up a thrift store, I'm less picky about what I buy if I pick it up secondhand. I'm virtually positive I did not buy it new, I just don't think I'd have paid full price for something on that scale. The center fabric was just what I had on hand to make the backing the width I needed. 

I'm really glad I took the time to pull fabrics off the shelves that I wanted out of stash. That animal fabric was unlikely to be used when mixed with my stash for quilt tops, but busting it as a backing? That works! 

National Sew A Jelly Roll Day....Weekend?

 I've got a lot going on these days, I haven't done a mystery quilt in a couple years, haven't finished the last one I started, and even though I sew as much as I can, I still feel out of the loop. I haven't even been keeping up with the online quilt groups I am in. 

That's why it was so important to me that I get to participate in Sew a Jelly Roll Day. I didn't choose a one day pattern, so I knew I couldn't finish the top in a day, and I was using other projects as leader/enders while working on my jelly roll top, but I did indeed sew on it on September 19th. 

This was my starting place, the jelly roll Paisley Place by Wilmington Fabrics, some background strips I cut from a piece in my stash, and a pattern from Scrap Basket Strips and Squares by Kim Brackett. If you have never seen a Kim Brackett book, you are missing out, her patterns are fantastic! 

I chose the pattern Off Course, which I've made before, and I will make again. It's a fun, easy pattern to make. 

To make the pattern as shown, you only need 30 strips, and I had 40 in my jelly roll. I had four peach strips and I pulled out all of those, since the contrast with my background wasn't great, and I pulled out some black and white prints that I found to be a bit boring in comparison with the other fabrics. The good thing about pulling out the more boring prints? They will be easily used in another project, no crazy prints to try to fit in with different lines of fabrics. 

Step one was to sew a background strip to each jelly roll strip. 

By the time those were sewn and pressed, I ran out of sewing time for that day. The next morning I subcut the stripsets per pattern instructions, and soon I was making blocks.

My jelly roll strips were longer than the pattern assumed, so I cut some extra units. I have an extra block, and some extra parts, but not enough variety to make more blocks. I do have some extra background strips, so I'm thinking I may go ahead, pull some strips from my scrap user system and make another quilt. I could use the strips I didn't use in this one, but now that I'm thinking another quilt, I am still likely to exclude the boring ones unless I can find some really stunning ones in my scrap stash and need some boring ones to calm things down. 

This is how my jelly roll quilt top came out, and I'm quite happy with it. It looks better in person than in photos, which is often how things go. Did you sew a jelly roll up for National Sew a Jelly Roll day? I really want to do this pattern in one color of scraps, probably blue since I usually have the most blue scraps, and a white background. I think the design might show up better with less variety in the fabrics. The upside of the large value variety in this quilt is that it creates a lot of movement, your eyes are moving around trying to get the big picture. 

Trying to Stay Ahead While I Fall Further Behind

 I've been trying to schedule a few blog posts ahead, because life is just insane right now. We had only been home for five weeks after that two month trip, when we had to make an emergency trip to New England again. We had a bunch of legal things to attend to, as well as some medical issues to sort for my parents. We didn't know how long things would take to straighten out, so we opted to drive again. We drove there in four LONG days, spent three days running around getting stuff done, then took six days to come home. Thirteen days gone, ten of which were travel days, 5,500 miles on the van, and loads of stress! 

I'm still sorting things out from here, but all is as well as can be for my parents right now, and for that I am truly thankful. More trips out there are inevitable, and we will go as needed. My sister and I have tried to talk them into moving here for years now, but they don't want to move, which I totally understand. I also know, that if all my kids move away, we WILL move near one of them. Trying to do elder care from across the country is not easy, and much more complicated than if we only had to cross town to deal with something. My MIL is here in Southern AZ, and we are closest in distance to her, so we are torn between our aging parents. When we are the ones who need help, I'd like it to be as easy on our kids are possible. 

I do realize that we are blessed to have three of our parents still alive in their late 80's. It's amazing really. We also want to be there and be helpful for all of them. My MIL lives about 8 miles from us, my parents live about 2,600 miles away. My MIL was hospitalized days before my parents had a crisis. What do you do when they are all having a crisis? Thankfully my SIL stepped in and took care of things here, while we went across the country. 

Right now everyone is stable and cared for. That's the goal, right? I'll enjoy the lull while it lasts, knowing another crisis is just around the corner. My parents celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary on September 13th. How cool is that? So much to be thankful for, but that doesn't eliminate the stress. 

DH is hosting a scooter rally in October. I'm rapidly running out of time to get things done for that. No matter what is going on with our parents, we still have other obligations to meet. I've put other things aside for the last couple days, and I got the rally bags made.

Now I've got to to get them filled. I have some smaller zipper bags I was going to sew some trim onto, that we'll be filling with emergency type stuff, like zip ties and duct tape. I told DH rather than sewing the trim on, I'm going to take a scooter stencil we already have, and the screen print ink we already have, and decorate the plain zipper bags with that. I can likely get them done in an hour or so, where sewing the trim on the store bought bags would be fiddly and take much longer. Sometimes taking the easy way out makes a lot more sense. I already have a lot of the things that are going in the bags, just a couple more things to buy. Stuffing them won't take long at all, it's not as big a rally as we sometimes do, and I've pretty much got stuffing rally bags down to a science. 

That's all the sewing I've gotten done since we got home, but I am already prepping for National Sew a Jelly Roll Day on September 19th. I chose a jelly roll I wanted to use, and cut the background fabric I'll need for the pattern I want to use. I'll have to sew up some strip sets before I cut anymore, but I need a play day. The jelly roll and background fabric were all in stash, so it's not even an expensive play day! Is anyone else ready to play on Sew a Jelly Roll Day?

Finishes #18 and 19

 Having a stack of basted quilts sure does make it easier to get quilts finished! My stack is going down quickly, so I'm going to have to find some time to baste a few more. I know I won't run out of quilt tops anytime soon, the quilt closet is full of them!

I wanted to try out the walking foot with my new Bernina, so I opted for straight line quilting on this one. For FMQ the 735 does better with poly thread, but I have a lot of cotton thread too, so I used cotton thread for this and it did just fine. I was sure it would do OK when I was using the walking foot. 

One thing I did not like was because I was turning the quilt frequently, I hit the screen several times and changed the setting accidentally. I think next time I use the walking foot on that machine, I'll tape a piece of template plastic over the screen, so if I do hit the screen with the quilt, no settings will change. It's always interesting adjusting to a new sewing machine. 

My stash does not have much in the way of teal or aqua, so I've found this dark teal works well as background for my scrap quilts. Since few of my scraps are this color, it doesn't blend in with most of my scraps. I think the teal makes for a more modern looking scrap quilt too. This quilt just used my 2" cut squares for the four patches, and teal 3.5" cut squares to alternate with them. If you want to make a very scrappy quilt with decent contrast, try a color you don't use much for the background, it might be just the thing. 

This quilt is from a pattern in American Patchwork and Quilting August 2024. It was a flying geese challenge and this was Emily's quilt. I started with a pastel batik jelly roll, and opted for a navy background so the pastels would pop. I liked this pattern so much I cut a second one out at the same time, but that one has a white background, with darker colors for the flying geese. I made the Flying Geese for the second quilt, but it got stalled out there. It's in a project box waiting it's turn. 

You can see I used a really pale backing for this quilt, which made choosing a thread color for quilting a little challenging. I decided to use a variegated thread on top (Fantastico Birthday Cake by Superior Threads in case you were curious) Between the blues and pinks in the thread, the quilting shows but isn't shocking anywhere. In the bobbin I actually used a very light colored thread, not pink but more a pinkish-lavender. I auditioned a light pink first, but the pinkish lavender actually blended in better with the back, and worked with the top thread as well. I thought white would be too stark of a difference in the bobbin, and if I had any tension issues at all would really be shocking on the top with that navy background. I was really happy at how little the bobbin thread shows on the back. It can be hard to choose threads when the top and backing of a quilt are drastically different colors. 

My goal for the year was to finish 24 quilts, only five more to go! 

Ignoring the Deadlines

There's a lot going on for us. Between caring for elderly parents on opposite sides of the country from each other, and the ridiculous amount of repairs we've had to deal with since we've been home (Can I just get a break from all the breaking, please???) we're a bit stressed. Sometimes I am super productive when I'm stressed, BUT, when I'm stressed, I rarely work on what I should be working on. Of course, when things get to the point with the elderly where you are having the really hard decisions like hospice or long term care options, it's really heavy. 

DH is hosting a scooter rally in October. I should be working on stuff for that. OK, I did get some bags cut out, but haven't sewn a stitch. I had ideas for Christmas gifts, some involved, some really easy. Have I sewn on those? Sort of, I started working on one quilt. Mostly it's a big fat NO. 

So what have I been working on? Well, I am mostly doing my one hour of quilting per day, so I am seeing some finishes, but none of these are deadline projects. I mostly just wanted to piece easy stuff. 

Before I left on that big trip, I had cut out all these blocks from my Civil War fabrics. Are these deadline projects? That would be a no. I have other blocks cut that are nice and neat in project boxes, so I left those alone, but when I came home and saw this big bag, I just thought how nice it would be to have these blocks sewn up. There are enough blocks cut in that bag for at least 3 quilts. I know I cut enough for the Trail Mix quilt I want to make, plus I cut enough uneven nine patch blocks to make another quilt, and I know I cut extra of each of the blocks for Trail Mix so I could pick and choose which blocks I wanted to use, so I'll likely have a second Trail Mix inspired quilt from the leftovers. I do have some leftover bits and strips of Civil War fabric, so depending on what blocks are left after making the two main quilts I have planned, I can either use the extra bits to make more 6" blocks, or evaluate how many strips I have left, and possibly start something else entirely. Any way I do it, I'll be busting my Civil War fabric which is the goal. 

Here are my piles of 6" blocks so far. I have a couple dozen not shown that need to be pressed, and only about a dozen left to sew. That Missouri Star bag is empty now that I'm down to the last dozen blocks, I've just got them next to my sewing machine. 

Am I the only one who ignores deadline stuff when stressed? Please tell me I'm not. I think it's a matter of wanting my sewing to help me de-stress, when deadlines can stress me out when I'm already stressed. When my stress levels are normal, I actually do really well with deadlines. In this case, the Trail Mix quilt has been on my want to make list for years now, and taking the time to sew up something I've wanted to make for years makes me happy. Will I be more stressed later because I'm doing this first? Maybe, but that's a problem for another day. For now, I'll just work on what I can handle working on, and if everyone on my Christmas list gets money this year, that's OK too. At least with cash I'm never guessing at the size 😉

Finish #17

 I'm inching ever closer to my goal of finishing 24 quilts this year!

I've made this block a lot of times, but usually I do a scrappy dark/light thing for an allover pattern on the quilt. This version I'm more thinking of as a Diamond Tile pattern. This quilted up nicely on my new Bernina.

Earlier this year I took some fabrics out of my stash that I no longer wanted in it. Since I have SOOOOOOO many quilt tops in the quilt closet, rather than just donate the fabric, I decided to use them for quilt backings. This is pretty typical of how I've been making quilt backings lately. I didn't have enough of the Peanuts fabric to do the whole back, and my quilt top was wider than WOF. I looked in my fabric drawers, that has fabric up to one yard, and found something that worked with the Peanuts fabric. I didn't need to it to match, sometimes I think contrasting is actually better. I cut the Peanuts fabric vertically, off center on purpose, so I could add in the other fabric. Now I've only got small scraps of both fabrics left, and it's cut to Scrap User sizes, and will get used in a scrap quilt or two. Busting two fabrics out my my yardage is a win, finishing another UFO is a win, and I'll take it!

Playing with Panels

Last year for Christmas, I made DD#1 a quilt with a minky backing. It was a surprise, she didn't know it was coming. I had never made anyone in her family a quilt with minky, and now that they know the wonders of minky, they all want one. 

 There are SIX people in her family, SIX! Can I make six quilts for Christmas that aren't even started yet? The one I made her last year was actually a Christmas quilt, so I do plan on making her a year round quilt, and that's already started, she wants a Civil War Sampler quilt, I've got the sashing and cornerstones done, and about half the blocks done. For the other five quilts, I'm starting with panels.

These are to be quilts to be used on the couch, while curled up with a book, or maybe watching a movie. I'm thinking 48" x 72" or so. I don't want to have to piece the minky, but I could go a little wider, and for the men of the family, I could go a little taller. I've bought extra wide minky before, but for a couch quilt I see no reason to, I bought standard width minky. Most minky says it's 60" wide, but you don't get 60" of usable fabric, and some of it isn't that wide even with selvages intact. I can go wider than 48" though, maybe 54" or so wide. 

To give myself a head start, I'm going to be using some panels for at least part of the quilts. One of my grandsons, I was really stuck on, but when we visited, I got a chance to talk to him, and he's really into fantasy books. I can work with that. I read a lot of fantasy books myself. 

The fabric on the left of my design wall is actually two panels from the Wizards and Warriors collection by Quilting Treasures. I have a third one of those panels as well. On the top right is a panel from the Legendary Journeys collection by In the Beginning. In the Beginning has a LOT of fantasy panels, and I've got several of their dragon panels. The bottom right is the castle panel from the Wizards and Warriors collection.

I also got this digitally printed library panel, that looks like it could be in one of those castles. I have a little bit of a couple of the companion fabrics to the Wizards and Warriors collection, and I just ordered the border fabric that goes with that collection, but it hasn't arrived yet. Obviously, this is way more fabric than I need for one quilt, and once I start making some blocks, it will really be too much. That's just fine with me, I had always planned to make multiple quilts with the Wizards and Warriors panels. I donate a lot of quilts, and I know they get more girl quilts than boy quilts, and charities tend to be lowest on teen boy quilts. Fantasy books can easily be gender neutral, but these panels definitely read teen or adult to me. I'll be making my grandson's quilt first, but I am sure I'll have at least two, if not three, fantasy quilts for donation when I'm finished. 

I don't have the whole quilt planned out yet, but I know how I'll be starting. My grandson's quilt will be a medallion style quilt, with a tall rectangular center. I don't have the center figured out yet, but I do have a pieced 12" border planned, and I might use the border fabric around that. I haven't decided which pieces will make the cut yet, but I see some fun quilts on the way. Since I have more quilts to make that aren't started, I may just set the extra pieces aside once I get his quilt top made, so I can start the other panel quilts. I haven't decided how this is all going to work, and every panel I'm using in these many quilts is a different size, so each one will be an adventure for me. 

Sometimes I dread working with panels, because they are so often printed off grain, but at this point, I've done it often enough that I have some coping strategies to deal with that. Overall, I'm really looking forward to this challenge. 

Finishes #15 and 16

So far so good on my goal of averaging two finishes per month. If I can manage to stay home (as in not travel) the rest of this year, I'm hoping to far surpass that goal, but we'll see. Family is more important than any quilting goals I have, and there are things going on that may require more travel this year. 

For now, I'm at home and working away at UFO's. I finished two more quilts, and I realized that so far this year, all of my finishes have been UFO's, which is pretty great. I do have some quilt requests for Christmas, which will all be be new starts, but I'll see how I do on that front. I am starting to plan those out, and even do a little bit of cutting, but time will tell if I actually get those requested quilts finished in time. 

I have some other non-quilt related sewing I need to do this year too, some for DH's scooter rally, some for non-quilty Christmas presents. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about Christmas this year, and it's only August! Sometimes I end up having to ditch my Christmas sewing plans when life gets super busy, and I know that may happen this year. For now I'll just see what I can do without making myself crazy.

As for my finishes?

I made this from a layer cake. I have no idea where I got the layer cake, it's not really my style, but I managed to use the whole layer cake with no background fabric necessary. I think it looks like a picnic quilt. 

This quilt started out from some jelly roll strips I was given. It was only part of a jelly roll, so I added some strips from my scrap user system, as well as some background fabric. I really liked this quilt pattern, and I plan to use it again. You need one 1.5" cut WOF  background strip for each jelly roll strip. If you had a print jelly roll and a solid honeybun, you could do it, but you'd have to find a different border fabric whereas I used the background fabric for my border too. 

I'm already quilting another quilt, and the stack of basted quilts I had to work on when I got home is going down quickly. The quilts I have basted are mostly throws or kids quilts, so they quilt up fast. It won't be too long before I'll need to baste some more quilts!

Time for an Upgrade...Bernina Style

 I am a spoiled quilter, and I recognize that fact. I am very thankful we are in a position to afford some fun stuff for both of our hobbies. That said, DH and I are both thoughtful shoppers. We'll wait for sales, buy used, sell stuff to aren't using to fund what we want, etc...

I think I'm not alone in the search for the perfect sewing machine. I started sewing on a vintage Singer, straight stitch only, that I was borrowing from a family member. I made all my maternity clothes with it, as well as lots of baby clothes and home decor items. I gave the vintage machine back when my parents bought me a sewing machine for Christmas one year. It was a Montgomery Ward badged machine and I had it over 20 years. I made countless items of clothing on it, made my first foray into quilting on it, and so many curtains, pillows and such. When my stitch selector broke, and we had no sew and vac guys around to repair it, I went to a Brother from a big box store. I liked it well enough that when I wore it out, I bought another, but I was frustrated by the plastic gears and how quickly they wore out. I had started seriously quilting by now, and the small throat space was also a problem.

I did a bunch of research, and I bought a Bernina 1080 used. That was a quality machine! I used the heck out of that machine, and that was the machine I started quilting my own quilts on. Up until this point I was tying them. 

In the search for a larger throat space, I bought a Juki TL98. I tried it on a frame first, but I had nothing but tension issues. Sold the frame, and the Juki sewed just fine. I crosshatched a lot of quilts with the walking foot at this time with that machine. The thing is, I hated the Juki walking foot, and I found changing the bobbin to be quite awkward. I still had the Bernina 1080, and I just liked it better. 

I started researching a Bernina with a larger throat space, and I decided I wanted a Bernina 440. I didn't want to pay for a Bernina 440, so I kept putting off the purchase. Then I found out they were discontinuing the Bernina 440, so I went and bought the floor model at my local Bernina shop. I got it for half price, and I sold both the Juki and my Bernina 1080 to help offset the cost. 

As kids moved out and I had more space, I discovered I really preferred to have more than one machine set up at all times. One to piece on, one for the actual quilting, and if I can have three, one for everything else, like garment sewing. I started collecting vintage machines, larger throat, best for accuracy in 1/4" seams if it's a straight stitch only machine.

I make a lot of big quilts, and although I have quilted king sized quilts on the Bernina 440, it's still a bit of a wrestling match. In the search for a larger throat space, I bought a Tin Lizzie sit down long arm. The throat space was fantastic, the machine, meh. I traded it in for the Janome M7. It was my first and only Janome. I LOVED the dual feed, and the amount of accessories that came with that machine was crazy! The fact it came with two walking feet, a regular one and a 1/4" one, was amazing. I had the Janome for 6 years, and for five of those years, it did great. This last year it's been in the shop more than not. This last time, I told them do everything to it, because I'm going to sell it. I don't want to sell a bad machine, so I had them fix everything that was even questionable. 

What was I going to replace the Janome with? I decided I really wanted a larger Bernina. After all, I loved my 440 so much, I bought a second one used so I'd have a backup. I was looking at Berninas, and decided I wanted a 735, but you know what? They are discontinuing that model, so I went to the store, bought the floor model, and saved about 40%. I sold the Janome with the cabinet it was in, because that cabinet was too tall for me, and ergonomically just didn't work. I had that cabinet for about 8 years, and every time I used it, my shoulders hurt. 

I looked at cabinets, decided on the Christa cabinet by Arrow, which is the same height as the other cabinet I have that I do like. I found the Christa cabinet on sale for about 40% off. I didn't realize it was backordered when I ordered it, so it actually came while I was out of town. Thankfully, I managed to have it delivered to my daughters house, and she and my SIL assembled it for me while I was out of town. So now I am back home, and can quilt on my new Bernina 735 in my Christa Cabinet!

With all the extensions up, I've got a ton of flat surface to support the quilt. If I drop all the extensions, including the back extension it's footprint is drastically reduced. I've already been quilting on it, and I've already noticed I get better results with poly thread when FMQ, though if I use the walking foot or bind, it likes cotton thread just fine. The cabinet height is working much better for me. 

Could I have purchased a Bernina with a larger throat? Yes. Did I think I needed one? No. I have a few queen/king quilts already started, and those I do plan on quilting myself. The throat space on this is smaller than the Janome, but still more than adequate to quilt a large quilt. The main reason is, I've already decided than any queen/king quilts I start from this point onward, I will pay to have longarmed. If I can't pay to have it longarmed, I won't be making it. My RSI really acts up when I'm quilting the huge quilts, and I've decided the pain isn't worth it anymore. My RSI doesn't really bother me on twin sized and smaller quilts. 

Besides the price break on the 735 since it's being discontinued, the other thing I really liked about it was all the presser feet I have for my 440's will work on it. I didn't have to start buying new presser feet, and Bernina presser feet are expensive. If I had gone with a 900 series machine, I would have had to buy all new presser feet, which added to the increased base cost really wasn't in my budget. 

I never thought I'd be brand specific quilter, but after sewing on several other branded machines at this point, I really do prefer Berninas. I still love my vintage machines, though I have thinned the herd of those due to space. Vintage machines, the heavy, all metal, weigh as much as a boat anchor, are almost all better than the cheap plastic stuff you can get from a big box store, but for higher end modern machines, I've discovered I am indeed a Bernina girl.

Traveling

 I scheduled blog posts to post while I was gone, so you were unlikely to notice that I had been out of town. I'm back now, but what a trip it was! 

We went almost 9,000 miles, through 25 states. We went to two scooter rallies, multiple scooter shops, all for DH's business (He publishes The Scooter 'Zine) We saw our three out of state kids and their families, we spent a couple weeks with my parents, trying to improve their situation a bit. We went to five national parks, and two Civil War battlefields. We went on two covered bridge driving tours, one in Vermont and one in Indiana. We avoided interstate highways as much as possible, I think less than 500 miles were done on the interstate. 

Since we were on the backroads, we got to see lots of wildlife. So many wild turkeys, deer, elk, pronghorn, even a bear right on the side of the road just watching the cars go by. We saw lots of free range chickens, even a flock that was wearing clothes! I looked it up and I saw that sometimes they put clothes on chickens to protect them from roosters who claw them while mating. I saw several options for that online but these looked homemade, they even had flowers appliqued on them! Of course we saw the usual assortment of farm animals, horses, cows, goats, pigs, donkeys, a few emus, and even some alpacas. 

So much happened over the eight weeks we were gone, I won't bore you with a ton of photos, but I will give you a couple highlights. 

One of the many elk we saw in Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

Views from the Blue Ridge Parkway

Deer in Shenandoah National Park

Acadia National Park in Maine

A covered bridge in Vermont that was built in 1833, it has a pedestrian section and a section to drive on. You can still drive on that almost 200 year old bridge, and we did.

Waterfall in Vermont

Waterfall in New York

Covered Bridge in Indiana

We were in Indiana for my birthday, But DH got me a couple roses for the hotel room, red because he loves me, yellow because we are friends. His soda bottle made an adequate vase!

Now that we are home again, it's time to get back into a normal routine. I really did a lot of quilting prep before I left, so now that everything from the trip is put away, I can get right back into sewing. Goodness knows, I've got lots of sewing to do!