Celestial Round Robin Complete

Here's a finish for the quarter two list, the Celestial Round Robin. I finished the quilting and made the binding.

This was started back in 2005 as a CQFA round robin project. I sewed the blocks together in 2008 at a CQFA retreat. Last year at the CQFA retreat at Asilomar, I sewed the borders on and pieced the back together. And finally, fifteen years later, here it is.

My star piecing skills have definitely improved over the years, a lot of those points are not so very pointy.

I love the block Dolores Miller did for this, she printed out galaxies and nebulas for the centers and then pieced these awesome stars.

We'll see how the stars hold up when it gets washed for the first time. They are stitched on, not glued, so I'm hopeful. But if they come off, I'll replace them somehow.

And it has been claimed already by DH. It's a lighter weight than the other couch quilts which put him instantly to sleep because they're heavy and cozy. 

2020 Finish a Long Quarter One List

 The Finish a Long is now completely Instagram based, but I'm posting my list for quarter one here also, mostly for myself. I kept all the unfinished projects from last year, because they're out in my workspace and I want/need to get them done.

1. City Sampler - All 100 blocks are done, I have the background fabric ready to go. What's been stopping me is that they all need to be squared up. I just have to get in the mood to cut and maybe re-do some of them. 

2. Living Room cushions- the fabric is collected, the zippers and threads and pillow forms are all there.

 3. Color Box - This ones fairly big and needs to be squared up, the binding is made and needs to be sewn on. Then a hanging sleeve and label.

4. May You Ever Return -  The top is half sewn, half pinned, then quilting, binding or facing, sleeve and label.

 5. Stripes -  I have a plan, the "blocks" are mostly done and I have a plan for the setting. It's small enough for me to quilt and then binding, sleeve and label.

6. Celestial Round Robin - the top and the back are ready, the batting is pieced, it needs to be basted. I'm planning to quilt this one myself since it's small enough for me to manage. Then a binding and a label.

 7. Kaffe Blue Squares - The top and backing are done, the binding is almost ready. I just have to get it to a long-armer and then get the binding sewn down and a label added.

8. Griffith Park Skirt - needs to be hemmed and the waistband needs to be done. Just in time for spring a swirly purple skirt.

Finish-a-Long 2019

Thanks to Finish-a-long, I finished eleven projects in 2019, eleven, wow!
I might not have gotten a lot of these done if I hadn't:

• thought about them enough to put them on a list 
• made that list public
• printed out the list for myself (gotta have something to check off of course!) 
• committed to working on the projects on the list.

So it worked pretty well for me, and if they're doing it again in 2020, I'll definitely participate.

Quarter 1
Listening to the Details (sold!)

Quarter 2
False Flag Sorbet

Triangle Study

Quarter 3
Weekend Whatever #19

Technology's Spine

Our Sister's Huts

Shenzhen Skies

Slurpee Stitched

Color Collusion

Quarter 4
Body Double

Between Two Cypress

Gray vs. Grey

On the hunt for some of the fuchsia polka dot fabric for the back of my Kaffe Blue Squares quilt, I found some other things instead at two LQS. At least several were from the sale table. The green upholstery thread and zippers are for the green couch cushions I'm working on, one of the items on my Finish-a-Long list. I was unable to find any. So now, I get to decide whether to do a little rippit-stitching and replace the fuchsia polka dot fabric with the fabric in the upper left corner, or order some of the dots fabric online or just use something else for the binding.

The fabric on the upper right hand is a strange blue almost grey, it really depends on the lighting to see the color. So that will be fun to try to use.

Maybe with all these greys or almost greys I've been buying I should put them all in one quilt to fight each other. No I'm grey! No I'm grey! No I'm Gray! etc. I will call it "The Battle of The Greys" or maybe "Gray vs. Grey". This will be in honor of a friend from high school, a trombone player and his first name was Gray but Not Grey as he always had to correct people. I always felt badly for him having to constantly fight just to have his name spelled the right way.

Saturday Night Stitching

Had a Saturday Night Stitching session last night and got the free motion quilting done on one of the smaller projects on my finish a long list. Even though I'm still a little rusty, I'm pleased with how the stitch length is coming out, and how my improvised designs are working out.

Next up on this piece is doing a binding of some sort, maybe a facing, and also putting on some embellishment, perhaps beads. It's been a while since I've done beading on a wall quilt.

Blue Squares Start

 I started in on my Finish-a-Long list by working on sewing together the Kaffe Fassett quilt
 I'm calling it Blue Squares (it's Red Squares in his book, Heritage Quilts) This is how it started, I only had one row sewn together but most of the other pieces cut out and sorted and labelled. (Wow, unusually organized for me!)

When I first cut this out at a CQFA retreat in 2017, I didn't have the central image fabric on hand. As I'm not following the fabric formulation exactly from the book, I did consider using something else entirely, but then I found it in the right color way. I like it a lot, the formality of the still life in the unusual colors is just great, very Kaffe, right?

The border fabric I'm using is an Amy Butler print, and after putting that on the central square, I had to try out fabrics for the larger second interior border. I had the basket swirls fabric in two color ways and one other to try. Time to "Make Visual Decisions Visually".

 

Here's the lighter color way of the basket swirls. I thought it was too light compared to the majority of everything else. I didn't want that much contrast at the center of everything.

 Then I tried this fuchsia/blue large polkadot, it's the right colors...mostly, but it doesn't go with the stripes and solids well enough. It fights too much.

With it filled in more with the smaller squares, I really don't like that fabric as the large border, it jumps out as too different to the rest. I'm going with the first one, the darker basket swirls.
Now back to sewing all these squares together.

Finish-A-Long 4th Quarter List

Time for my list of proposed finishes for the fourth and final quarter of the 2019 Finish-A-Long,

I'm adding some things from previous quarter's lists, adding some new things and taking one off last quarter's list. Ten is the total number again, because that worked well for me last quarter. Not too big of a list, but enough things to choose from at various stages. Sometimes I feel more like quilting instead of sewing bindings and I go to the list and pick something that works.

1. Body Double - I got the quilting done on this big piece last quarter. At least I think so, it may need more quilting. And then it needs a binding, sleeve and label.

2. Stripes -Finish piecing the top, quilt, bind, sleeve, label.

3. May You Ever Return - Finish assembly of quilt top, quilt, binding, sleeve and label.

4. Celestial Round Robin -Baste, quilt, and then add a binding and label.

5. Between The Cypress - Design on remaining appliqué, finish quilting, embellish, binding, hanging sleeve and label.

6. Kaffe Fassett Blue Squares - Piece top, make backing, have quilted, bind, and label.

7. City Sampler - Piece top, make backing, have quilted, bind, and label.

8. Color Box - Square up, binding, hanging sleeve, and label.

9. Griffith Park Skirt - Hem and waistband.

10. Four Living Room Couch Cushions - Piece cushions from Fabmo, and other upholstery fabrics, assemble, install closures.

If you're interested in getting stuff done, making lists, checking things off and seeing what other quilters and makers are working on, come join in the finishing magic.

Start Middle End

 I've been working on a piece called Shenzhen Skies, the edges were very irregular once I'd gotten all the quilting done. There were pieces sticking off the edge, and batting showing in some places, very chaotic around the edges, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep that chaos in the piece or not.

So I started turning the edges over without first squaring the piece up, just to see if the irregularity would be enough chaos. Here's how it looked after the top and right-hand edge were turned.

 And with all four edges turned. Ahh, so much better. I think I like it even more now, and am still considering the should I square it up or not issue.

Working the Edges

One of the projects on my FAL this quarter is this piece, Shenzhen Skies. As you can see it has a very very irregular edge. I have a note pinned to the back that reads: "Square Up??"
Instead of doing that, I thought I'd see how it looks by just rolling the edges back a bit on themselves and then stitching them down. Here I've done the top and the right edge, and I think I like how it is looking so far. I think I'll do the other two sides and then decide whether "squaring-up" would be better.

Q3 Finish-A-Long

Here's my list of ten (count them, ten!) proposed finishes for the third quarter of 2019 for the Finish-A-Long.

1. When the Weekend Whatever comes back from the quilter it will need the binding sewn down and a label.

 2.Slurpee Squared needs hand-stitching on the added edges, facings, a sleeve and label.

 3. Another 2005 blast-from-the-past, is the Celestial Round Robin. It needs to be basted, quilted, binding and label.

 4. May You Ever Return - This one is the least put together on this list, but I want to have it done in time for the Rosalie Dace class in September.

5. Body Double needs the edges finished in some way that hasn't been determined, and then a sleeve and label.

6. Technology's Spine - needs some hand stitching, binding, sleeve and label.

7. The quilt I'm making for the Sister Artists (that is due in August) that will feature this embroidered piece.

 8. Color Collusion - finish quilting, bind, sleeve, label.

9. Shenzhen Skies -  finish quilting, bind, sleeve, label.

10. A shirt of some kind made out of this fabric.