The Fabulousness That Is February: One (or More) Monthly Goals

Hello, my lovelies!  Happy Thursday, and happy FEBRUARY!  Now that I have replenished my supply of Kona Solid in Ocean, I came close to finishing two more sampler blocks for my Retro '80s Building Blocks quilt last night.  The 10" block below wasn't quite done yet when I took this photo:

Progress on Another 10 Inch Sampler Block

All of my block sections had been foundation paper pieced and trimmed, but they still needed to be pieced together and, in order to nest the seams the way I wanted them for crisp, perfectly matched seam intersections, I designed my foundation paper piecing pattern so that the sections go together with partial seam construction.  I weighted the finished sections down with my acrylic square ruler just to keep it crisp and flat overnight.

Here it is, finished:

10 Inch Block Finished

As my dad used to say, "I think that's close enough for government work!"  (I have no idea WHY he used to say that, but he did).

The 5" block below is also newly completed and for the same sampler.  That brings me to 20 finished blocks and 28 remaining to be cut and pieced (32 if you count the border corner blocks).  Moving right along at the speed of Congress...  ;-)

Newly Completed 5 Inch Block

Here's what all of the blocks look like up on my design wall so far:

20 Blocks Completed, 28 (or 32) More to Go!

I'm loving this project right now!  I actually want to get my rainbow border strips for this quilt cut and pieced together before continuing with blocks, though, to make sure I have enough continuous yardage to get my lengths without piecing them.  I also know myself well enough to know that, once all the blocks are finished and pieced together, I will be VERY IMPATIENT to just be done with it already and it will feel great to have those borders already made and ready to attach!

One of the most fun things I worked on last week, that I was DYING to share but couldn't, is this gorgeous Picket Star Rainbow Scrap Quilt for my client and quilty friend, Preeti.  I didn't want her to see the quilt on my blog before she got to see it in person!  

Sneak Peek of Quilting on a Client's Rainbow Scrap Quilt

Preeti has the best eye for selecting and combining fabric prints.  Every time I advanced her quilt on the frame, a new row of blocks in glorious fabric combinations was revealed for me to admire.  I'll share more images of my quilting on this project once Preeti has a chance to do her own post.  But I did want to show you that I used the Serendipity floral E2E design on her quilt, the one that was the wrong scale and the wrong size for the brown quilt I wrote about in this post.  On Preeti's post, this design looks amazing because her Picket Star blocks are 17" and I scaled the quilting design down by about 25%, giving me a curly flower motif that was approximately 1/3 the size of her blocks.  The style of this "fantasy flower" works well with her mix of modern and vintage prints, and the curly swirls of the quilting design are repeating the curly swirls found in one of her background prints.  Finally, there is lots of negative space in this quilt, large areas of white/silver background fabric where the large scale quilting design can really show up.  This was such a pleasure to quilt.  Thank you, Preeti!  

In other news, we are now officially two weeks away from QuiltCon Together 2021!  There's still time to register here for the virtual show.  You can choose to register just for the Quilt Show Pass, giving you access to all of the yummy quilt photo eye candy and vendor specials, and/or for lectures and workshops that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home.  I've signed up for a bunch of lectures on quilt history as well as a workshop called Deep Dive Into Better Quilt Photography.  As of today, there are still spaces available in Sarah Fielke's Everyday Applique workshop.  I'm tempted to add that to my registration because I LOVE her work, but I'm afraid that family interruptions would prevent me from getting much out of a virtual hands-on sewing workshop.  One of the things I like about going to a quilt show and taking classes in person is that it's so much easier for me to concentrate on the class when I've left all of those distractions at home! 

Mission Impossible, My Entry in QuiltCon Together 2021

My Mission Impossible quilt was juried into the show (yay!), so one of the things I need to do this week is record an audio clip about the quilt that quilt show attendees will be able to hear when they're looking at my quilt.  If you have any ideas about what I should talk about in that recording, let me know in the comments!  My time limit is two minutes, I believe.

February Quilting Goals

So, what are my goals for February?  Well, I do have a couple of client's quilts and another charity top waiting in the wings, but I think it's time I got another one of my own quilts on the frame and off my UFO list, don't you?  There are two possibilities.  The first is my Bear Paw quilt from forever ago ("forever" being May of 2014), shown below.

Not Sure How I Want to Quilt This One

This quilt isn't finished yet because I keep going back and forth about whether I should custom quilt it or just finish it off with the perfect edge-to-edge design.  It's too big to be a baby quilt at 65" x 65", so more of a square throw (if that's a thing).  I have no purpose in mind for it, either.  I remember that, when I was working on the top, my youngest son asked me "Who is this one for?"  And when I replied that it was just for ME, because I deserve a quilt, too, he looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my forehead!

The other personal quilt top that I could rescue from Quilt Purgatory and quilt this month is one that some of you have probably given up hope that I would ever finish (Colleen, even you have stopped asking me about it!). 😉. My Monstrously Huge 120" x 120" pineapple log cabin quilt weighs a ton and it's a California King quilt that is headed for my own bed, if I ever finish it.  So it's definitely getting E2E quilting rather than custom, to maintain the warmth of the wool batting loft and to add as little weight and stiffness as possible to this beast.

My Pineapple Log Cabin Will Be E2E, Either Feathers or Baptist Fan

The borders that were unattached in the photo above have since been added, so this top is also completely ready to go.  I just need to decide between Baptist Fan or feather quilting, and decide whether I want to fuss around with a separate border treatment or if that would be a wasted effort against the busy Kaffe Fassett border print fabric.  This will also be the largest quilt I've ever attempted on my 12' frame, by the way, and that makes me a little nervous, too.  Even though my 120" is 10' and my 12' frame is 144" long, you cannot actually quilt the entire length of your frame.  The canvas leaders on my frame measure about 132" long, so 132" is the maximum length of backing fabric that I can pin to my leaders.  

Here's Why Batting and Backing Must Be Bigger for Longarm Quilting

In the photo above, you can see that the need for batting and backing fabric to be larger than the quilt top also eats into the usable quilting workspace of your frame. Those red clamps gripping the backing fabric are crucial because they ensure that the backing fabric is smoothed flat from side to side underneath the quilt sandwich, preventing tucks and pleats from getting quilted in on the back of the quilt.  The extra backing fabric makes room for these clamps, and also keeps the quilt top far enough in from those clamps so that my longarm machine head doesn't hit the clamps when it's quilting right at the edge of the quilt top.  The extra batting is important, too.  Every time I start a new quilt, change thread types, or put in a new bobbin, I put a scrap of fabric over the excess batting at the side of my quilt top and use that area to check my tension before resuming stitching.  With my 120" quilt, I'm going to only have 6" of excess backing at the side of the quilt and those clamps will be right up at the outer edges of my frame.  

I gotta tell you, one more thing is holding me back from finishing this quilt.  After the ridiculous amount of time I spent making these blocks and matching up every single one of those seams at the block joins, will I REALLY be able to put this on a bed for daily use?  Of course, my 20-year-old son is currently away at college and sleeping under my QuiltCon show quilt, and he hasn't ruined it yet.  So maybe my husband can be trusted to sleep under the pineapple quilt without wrecking it, too...

I'm linking up today's post with the following linky parties:

SATURDAY

UFO Busting at Tish in Wonderland

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

BOMs Away at What a Hoot Quilts

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

Free Motion Mavericks with Muv and Andree

FRIDAY

Whoop Whoop Fridays at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday 

MONTHLY:

One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts. Link up your goal at the start of each month and link up your finish during the last 6 days of the month