Lots of Fall Projects--and a little fun

This Buttermilk Basin Pattern, "Give Thanks", is finally ready to be basted and quilted. I shrunk the pattern, so what would have been 42" x 50" is now almost 25", by just over 26". I made mine a little more of a square.

I had SO much trouble trying to choose borders for this. The wovens and plaids I had just didn't work. Still not sure I made the right choice, but after auditioning every combination of Fall colors under the sun, in a variety of fabrics, this is what stuck. I only had a small piece of the outer border and ended up having to piece the top and bottom. It is most obvious on the bottom.

I still do pumpkins in November. I have these two smaller projects basted and ready to quilt. The stems on the two little pumpkins in the basket were too pale, if you recall, but they were also too well fused to be removed. So I took a brown Pigma pen and lightly shaded them to give a little more contrast with the background. We do what we have to do!


My version of Lori's Quilters Madder is also ready for basting and quilting. I did put the HSTs all around. Down the sides the measurements worked out well with the border, but across the top and bottom, not so much. After wrestling and wrangling to make them fit, I did the truly "humble quilt" thing and chopped off the borders.
I really like this little quilt. Madders warm my heart! When I was choosing fabrics for the border I found a gorgeous madder paisley that a friend had given me. It isn't as obvious all chopped up, but it is so pretty (the quilt Lori used as inspiration had a chopped up madder paisley in the border HSTs). There was no selvage, so I didn't know what it was. I sent off a photo to Cyndi and I was able to get a couple more yards from her shop. Thank you, Cyndi!


Again, I made the blocks half the size of the original. After quilting this will probably end up being about 14" x 17".
I read on Marian's blog that this is the 7th SAL she has done with Lori. That made me think of how many I have made. Since I started following Lori in 2011 I have only skipped one of them, and a couple of times I made two. Thinking this might be my eighth SAL with her.  I have created some of my favorite quilts from these opportunities.

The only real "finish" I have here is my little turkey pillow from my fusible test. This was also from a Buttermilk Basin pattern--a pincushion, I believe.







Finally, I am doing another "really out of character for me" project (like the Floating Foxes from last year), but I LOVE it.  Joanne, over at Canuckquilter, has designed such a fun baby quilt pattern called Tic Tac Who? There are three versions--Tic Tac Quack, with a duck; Tic Tac Woof, with a dog; and Tic Tac Hoot, with an owl. They are all so sweet, but I was especially drawn to the owl. When she asked for pattern testers, I couldn't help myself, even though I usually don't do such things. And look at the size of those blocks--8"! I've made quilts smaller than that! *LOL* It was really fun to make progress in bigger leaps and bounds for a change!

I started the cutting on Monday night, began the sewing Tuesday night, and have squeezed in a few hours each day. Last night I got it down to just needing the borders attached. The lighting on the photo isn't the best, but the background is a tan with cream dots. I may add a green outer border to make it a tad bigger. Joanne hopes to have the pattern ready for sales soon--possibly next month. I have to say that her directions are very clear and concise. Everything went together very smoothly!
Thanks, Joanne, for letting me play with your pattern. I may have to make the Woof version down the road.

I have held drawings for the books offered in my last post. Winners are as follows:
Rachel's Reel--Summer
For All Seasons--Raewyn
Prairie Flowers Encore--Doniene
Emma's Courtyard--Gale
If you are named above, please contact me with your address so I can get them sent your way. If I don't hear from you by Tuesday, Nov. 8th (U.S. Election Day) I will draw another name.
Until next time, Janet O.
 

Maybe next time

I have been working on the fusible comparisons and hoped this post would include the results. But my testing just raised more questions, so I am trying out a couple more things before posting any results. So hopefully my next post will have the results for you.

In the meantime, there has been another little finish--this is small quilt finish number #43 for the year.

 This little brick quilt was made from leftovers from the swap I did with Randy.

I quilted it with the 1" clamshell stencil I bought at HMQS last May. It has sure come in handy for little quilt finishes. And I love the backing fabric on this. It was the leftover from the backing I put on Randy's quilt. I had to border it to fit this quilt, but I really like the way the bird centered in it.

I got the borders around the little Kim Diehl wool piece. I hand quilted the first little quilt I made from this pattern and now I am debating if I should do that again, or just machine quilt it and be done!

The first block of the Buttermilk Basin "Give Thanks" wall hanging is finished. Actually I finished stitching down the words, too, but I am too lazy to go get a photo.

This is one of three new small wool projects, as of tonight.
I haven't fused the other two down yet. I will be comparing the performance of the fusible products as I stitch up these projects. I decided one little wool bird was not enough stitching to get a feel for the performance of each product.

Gorgeous sunset last night--just wanted to share it.

Until next time, 
Janet O.

Sewing machine is gathering dust

...while I play in wool. This is what I have pulled together in the past couple of days.

Nothing is fused yet. I just got all of the pieces cut out and laid on their respective backgrounds to see if they were happy there. I see that the crookneck squash doesn't have much contrast with its background, but I don't know if I will change it. I really like that piece of wool.


This is from a Buttermilk Basin pattern that I ordered a while back when Stacy had a sale. I've wanted a Thanksgiving wall hanging and when I saw this, I thought it was perfect. But I had not looked carefully at the size before I ordered.
With the sloping outer walls of our dome, the places where I can hang things are limited. Quilts need to be kept to under 3' square.
This pattern is for a 42.5" x 50.5" wall hanging.
I was sad, and stuffed the pattern deep in a drawer.
But as I have been up to my elbows in Kool-Aid lately, dying wool, I have come up with some rich colors that had me wanting to do something Fall-ish.

I have gone through so much Kool-Aid this week, I have had to replenish my supply twice. I wonder if the clerks at the store think I am addicted (I don't even drink the stuff). I have raised suspicions before when buying large quantities of lye for soap making (since it is also used in meth labs). But as far as I know there aren't nefarious activities associated with Kool-Aid (but even as I typed that, Jim Jones came to mind). (That was quite a parenthetical paragraph. Uh-oh, I am posting late at night again. Can you tell?)

I decided to dig out the pattern and reduce the designs. With the help of my scanner and printer, I believe it will work out to under 30" square once the borders are attached.

Excuse the glaring light over my kitchen island. Maybe this gives you some perspective, considering the pattern beside it is standard 8 1/2" x 11".  I think it will be very cute. : )
Half of the wools I used for this piece are from thrift store clothing, and then many of them were tea-dyed, or took a bath in Kool-Aid.

Another change I made, besides the size, is in Mr. Gobbler's coloring. If you compare the pattern with my Tom Turkey, you can see mine is not so pale.
Though the soft and creamy turkey on the pattern is pretty, we have wild turkeys in our area, and their complexions aren't that nice. Of course, I haven't seen one wearing a hat either, but I still included that.

For at least a couple of years now I have been wanting to run a side-by-side comparison of the fusible products different instructors use for wool applique. Lisa Bongean recommends Lite Steam-a-Seam 2, Stacy West is in favor of Soft Fuse, and Kim Diehl uses Heat'nBond Lite. Then there is one called TransWeb, that I hadn't heard of until my friend Kris introduced me to it.

So I divided a muslin square into quarters and used a different fusible in each one to attach an identical wool bird. I kept notes on the different properties of each one up to this point. Next step is to stitch around the edges and see what differences I can detect there. I already know from experience some of what I will find, but I am curious to get a feel for each of the four products. I'll let you know what I learn.

Until next time,
Janet O.