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Archive for the tag “purple”

15 Jun 2013

Persian Plum gone Wrong

The sabbatical is over and I’m making some changes to my site in the near future. It is said that the only constant is change and with that I’ve decided to change from my slothful nature and get back to posting what I’ve been up to.

All of the monthly blocks of the Persian Plum block of the month square are completed. When I opened the setting kit it was with a lot of trepidation. As I flipped through the fabric I was extremely disappointed that some of the fabric hadn’t been cut properly. I promised that I wouldn’t go off on a rant about it and proceeded to just make it work. It was so disheartening that I have taken a lot of time to put this together only to find more work for myself to correct the manufacture’s mistakes.

Because of this and my general nature of needing to have multiple projects going at the same time, I completed what I’m calling my “Chopsticks Quilt” and am still plugging along with the “Oh Canada” quilt that I started the year before. I found while going through fabric with my wife a mini-quilt that she started but hadn’t bound and asked that I be able to hand quilt it for her. Yes, another project!! It brightened my mood and I’m almost a third done with that one now.

Back to the Persian Plum however, she’s been helping me piece the other squares together in return for hand quilting her mini. We’ve just about completed all of the other squares from the setting kit and should be finished piecing those this evening. I’ll post up Blocks 11 and 12 over the next couple of days to give an idea of what the collection looks like.

Until next time,

Posted in Block of the Month, Blogs, Daily, Reviews and tagged block of the month, blogging, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review, Sew, sewing, shopping

22 Jan 2013

3 Comments

Are you like a crazy person?

I love the world of quilting. I love to design, sew, and finish these wonderful projects. I am especially fond of having a finished product to admire at the end of all my hard work. The flurry of the holidays is long since passed for me and my time is starting to open back up ever so slightly. If I am to be perfectly honest, I’ve noticed that something has been missing in my life, a certain lack that when I tried to pinpoint exactly what it was, I realized that I hadn’t created anything new at all for over two months.

Does anyone else feel the same when life has “caught them up”? Given the fact that the holidays are a busy time for both work and life in general, I sacrificed one of my passions to make room for others. It’s the dance we do when a choice has to be made.

The Persian Plum that I started last year will be complete by next weekend and then it’s off to the quilters. Between then and now, I have two flannel blankets that simply need to be bound and they will be complete as well. I should have pictures up of those by tomorrow.

To everyone reading… Thank you for all your wonderful comments, they mean a great deal to me and are very much appreciated.

Sew Happy!!

Posted in Block of the Month, Blogs, Daily and tagged beginner, Binding, block of the month, blogging, Christmas, Christmas quilt, crafts, Fabric, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Sew, sewing, Sewing machine

24 Sep 2012

Finished at the last gasp

Kay was getting a little upset as I started putting on the first of my planned borders for the Christmas quilt. We had two hours before we needed to leave to get to Linda’s house clear across town and I was just starting to put the first of three borders on. I really meant to do them the day before, but lacked the motivation.

Meanwhile, Kay had a lot to finish and DID do a lot of it the day before with only a little bit remaining on the day we needed to turn it over to the quilter Linda.

As I was sewing on the first border, I looked at the back and realized that a patch was all wonky! That’s what I get for trying to go too fast… another ten minutes wasted. I finally got on-track and managed to get all three borders sewn on in less than two hours. The last border was the toughest and required the most amount of attention with all the seams it had.

We were talking to Linda after we had arrived and were discussing thread colors and quilt patterns and I looked down at the six piles of fabric, their backing, and the batting realizing that this represented six quilts (translated… a LOT of difficult work) and it honestly put me in awe of what we had accomplished. Two of the quilts Kay had ear-marked for a firehouse, one of the large purple ones to our oldest daughter Amanda for her birthday, and the last three to keep.

As I mentioned before our daughter Samantha had a valid point that we can only use so many at a time. I really do like having them around the house though… on the backs of our couches, on the bed, and in the closet. I keep saying 10 more quilts should be sufficient, but don’t feel the slightest bit of bad when I make one for a relative and two for me. It’s not like we’re charging anyone.

Anyway, I actually wrote all of this to say that by the time I’d finished the Christmas quilt we had to leave immediately. Yes, I did finish all three borders. With Kay’s help I had the backing sewn as well. As we rushed them out to the car I realized that I hadn’t taken the photo of it yet. Delaying our trip slightly more, I placed the last bundle in the back of the car and snapped a quick shot of all six bundles on their way to the quilters.

Posted in Daily and tagged Batting, beginner, Binding, blogging, Christmas, Christmas quilt, crafts, daughter, Fabric, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Sew, sewing, Sewing machine, winter | Leave a comment

04 Sep 2012

The Schoolhouse Quilt is back!!

I was lucky enough to get a call from my quilter on friday, she said my Schoolhouse quilt was complete! Yeah, me!! I picked it up at lunch and brought it home with me, full of promise for getting it bound and hanging on the wall. Alas, It was not to be as I was still on-call for work and had a VERY busy weekend. I did however manage to finish binding three of the sides and with only one side left and me not being on-call anymore I’m certain I can get it completed tonight.

I really enjoyed making this one and can hardly wait to get it hung. Here’s another picture of it close-up.

Posted in Daily and tagged Amish, beginner, blogging, crafts, Fabric, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Sew, sewing | Leave a comment

17 Aug 2012

6 Comments

Joann Fabric’s Persian Plum Block 10

Persian Plum Block 10 had so many little pieces of fabric. It had me thinking how I was going to be able to make a block big enough.

Sewing them together I had to make eight flying geese. They were so small and cute, but the fabric is so thick it took a little to get the seams ironed down.

Then sewing everything together the block looked so nice, don’t you agree?

Posted in Block of the Month, Daily, Quilt-a-long, Reviews and tagged beginner, block of the month, blogging, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review

13 Aug 2012

9 Comments

A lot of Spam and a finished quilt

What a busy weekend! I completed a lot of work for my company… and for my own company. I knew that would sound a little weird! What I mean is that I had to “work from home” most of the weekend, but that I also completed a lot of work for BistroQuilts as well. As the busiest weekend that I’ve yet had, I really didn’t have a chance to post up anything that I accomplished.

The purple quilt that is now completed for my daughter Amanda is simple but very beautiful. I’ve taken pictures, but they are slightly wonky and don’t show how nice it really is. I have to send it off to the long arm now, but will have it back and bound by the time her birthday rolls around. Here are the pics, even though I’m not too happy with the how the pictures turned out.

I also finished two of the persian plum blocks that I’ll be posting up tomorrow and then later this week with the accompanying reviews. I cut out the fabric for the additional 10 blocks needed to finish the blue pinwheel quilt as well. Those blue pinwheel blocks I’ll be starting to sew together tonight and should be able to finish that quilt this weekend and start on the Christmas quilt that I’m dying to make.

In other news, Kay is finishing her version of the purple explosion quilt. I really can’t remember if I’ve mentioned, that is the name we’re using for the purple quilts… Purple Explosion! When I talked to my daughter and told her what we were doing, I explained that we used almost 20 different variations of the color purple and we both loved it so much, we knew that we needed to make one to be able to keep at home.

When I finally got to my computer to post this up, I was astounded at how much spam had been sent to my site and caught in the spam filter… I guess some people had a little more time on their hands than I did.

Posted in Daily and tagged beginner, blogging, daughter, Fabric, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Sew, sewing

01 Aug 2012

9 Comments

Two quilters, One weekend, and Four Quilts

That’s what we’re attempting this weekend!! Two quilters, one weekend, and four quilts… It will be fantastic if our schedules allow us to pull it off. Trying to get some of these other projects out the door lately has been like trying to run through mud… I don’t know what the deal is, but I’ve been struggling to stay on task and get everything done that needs to be done.

I heard a line from a movie that went something like “all forward motion counts”. That is what I am sticking with for now. I may not be happy with what I’m doing, or the time I’m taking to do it but believe it is important that I’m accomplishing what needs to be done to get to what I really want to be working on. This is not to say that I do not enjoy these other tasks.

Two of the quilts we’ll be making are pinwheel quilts that we found in the soon to be replaced issue of the magazine “Fast Quilts”. The other two quilts are VERY basic and I’ll provide the information for those quilts after the weekend. Basically, the second two are big squares and smaller squares and we’re calling the quilts “Purple Explosions”. It should be fun and very quick to make.