What I Have Left

The last meeting of the Get RR Done Club was Thursday October 8th.  I didn't go I just had too many things to do on my to do list.  But here is an update on my progress.  

I finished three projects and made progress on three.  I didn't finish all six, but that is OK.  

I finished the Stick Witch, Stick Santa and the machine quilting free motion sampler. 

I finished the Pink Princess top, which was suppose to be quilted and binding on.

I made one block on my Design and Sew Quilt, it was supposed to be quilted and binding on. 

I made one Dear Jane corner and constructed my four borders except for the blank spots. 

I bigger dreams than I had time for.

If I do this again I am going to make my projects smaller, or smaller parts. Like finish blocks.  

Life gets too hectic for me sometimes.

Below are the pictures of the Dear Jane blocks I still have to complete.  I had to put her away again for a short time.  I have class samples to start and finish.  

I can't get these to line up the way I want.  But you get the idea,

More items organized

Of course, when you are cleaning you find other things you want to organize. I had opened my box of pantographs and all the rubber bands I had rolled them up with had broken.  So I remembered how I had used empty toilet paper rolls to hold my wrapping paper on the tube.  Would it work for the pantos?

At first I just put them in the tube without cutting it but I could see which panto it was, so I decided to cut it and pull the name out. 

I now have them all in tubes now.  They are a little fatter than the ones in rubber bands but with the bands drying out and breaking they would expand any way. 

My other project was to pick out the fabric for the last four triangles I have to make for my Dear Jane quilt and the one corner.

This one I have already started working on.  

The one below I couldn't decide if I like the beige or the green. 

So I saved both fabrics. 

As I look at the picture now I am leaning towards the green. 

I love these colors together in the one below.  

No dull civil war fabrics for my Dear Jane.

Why I Am not Sewing!

Well I think it has been four weeks if not five since I have sewn.  

I think I found out the reason why!

It is called Creative Explosion!! 

In case you don't believe it, here is the proof!

Yup this is the sewing room all torn up.  Looking for fabric for 56 plain triangles for the border of a Dear Jane Quilt, 

will create an explosion of fabric!

Look at the floor can you tell I was ripping paper out 

of paper pieced blocks. I miss the garbage can half the time.

Cutting table all cluttered.

Even the sewing table is a mess!

See those pretty fall fabrics, I am resisting starting on that project, because I know I won't get it done this fall so why try!

I have started cleaning and putting away but I still have more work to do.  I found all the fabric I will use for the last four triangles and the one corner that I still need to make for my Dear Jane.

That was part of the clean up, so hopefully I won't get this much explosion soon.

Here are the pictures of the last fabrics chosen for the triangles and corner.  All kitted with their cutting guide or templates. I have to put her away again so I can get another project done for a class sample.  One has priorities. 

A Dear Jane Corner Completed

And all I can say is whew!!!

It was a doozy!

I took five different times, sitting at the sewing machine and sewing to get it done.  But it is done!

Done is better than perfect.

I traced part of the pattern, so I could paper piece parts of it. 

I made the top center square a little bigger, so the number 2000 would show completely.  It was the only part of the Millennium fabric that was really going to show. 

The four triangles I have left are all going to be complicated also.  Plus one more corner, it has two applique stars on it.  

Unfortunately I have to put her away for awhile.  My next project due for the Get RR Done group is My Design and Sew Quilt.  I would like to have the top done by the next meeting.  I really should have the quilt done for the next quarter of the teaching calendar at the shop, which starts in December because I plan to teach that class again, called EQ Design and Sew.  I teach the students how to design the blocks in EQ, and then they make the blocks.  Students like seeing the end results.  

Yesterday I remade my paper piecing Halloween patterns.  I made the little wall hanging ages ago.  I think the patterns were from Nancy Granny Paper Piecing Patterns.  Of course they don't make them any more, and all my paper piecing programs don't have the blocks I have in my Halloween sampler.  So I drafted them again in EQ7, so I have the patterns for class on Monday. 

Halloween Sampler

I haven't taught paper piecing in a good ten years, if not longer.  The teacher who was teaching at the shop, needs a break.  Actually she was one of my students ages ago, way back when I first taught paper piecing.  

Today I found my old handouts, and boy did I have to update them!  Some of the information is still relevant, and some wasn't.

Since I didn't really want to type the whole thing over.  I set up my Dragon Naturally Speaking program on my computer.  It worked like a charm. 

I was going to use it for this post but it won't work in Blogger.  So I went to word and now it is telling me, my operating system is set up to run this program.

  

Seriously!!  I just finished a 3 page hand out and hour ago.  

Mr. B. upgraded me to Windows 10 and now I can't find the screen capture icon that I used a lot with Windows 8. So I can't take a screen shot of that message to show you. 

I just found my Snipping tool.  So here is that error message I received. I still can't get Dragon to work.  Grrrr

Plus I just realized I didn't load Snag-it with all my other software.  And I don't have time to go get the external DVD machine.  

He loaded 10 on three other computers, no problems.  Mine it failed five time if not more.  So he ended up setting my computer back to factory settings and I lost all my software.  Luckily he backed up all my files, so those weren't lost. 

Sometimes as much as I love computers I hate them also.

Well I better go, it is time to get the girls from school. 

Happy Stitching!!

Dear Jane Borders

Well I have been busy sewing between being busy with other stuff, like kids, homework, playing chauffeur, and spending time with Mr. B. who took some time off from works.  So we went on a date to breakfast and a movie. We had two birthday celebrations for Little Bit who turn 10.  I took in a movie with the girls. Plus I taught a four hour class, my Stick Witch class.  Gosh I am making myself tired just listing all this out. 

So now all four borders are constructed, minus the four triangles that are missing.  See the white spots below. 

I found out that I last worked on these triangles in 2005, so it has only been 10 years since I last worked on the quilt, instead 12 years. 

It was really fun to go though all the fabrics I had put aside for the plain triangles. Some of the fabrics are Millennium fabrics, I included them, since that was my original plan.  Since these fabrics have been tucked away for ten years, I also cut a small square from each of the fabrics to make Yo-Yos for my Yo-Yo quilt.  See the side bar, Yo-Yo to see old post on the progress of the quilt. 

Close up of the top half of the triangles.

Close up of the bottom half of the triangles. 

Now to go make four triangles and two corners.  I am hoping now that the borders are almost completed I will have more momentum or at least not loose any.

I know why I put it away, I got intimidated by those last four triangles I had to make as well as putting on those borders. 

It feels good to be getting to this point. I want to finish this!

Progress on Projects

Do you ever get those feelings, of I can't move on to this or the next project until I finish or get so far on such and such.  Well that is were I have been with the Pink Princess.  I am not always sure if that means I am stalling on starting the next project or if that means the current project just needs to be done.  

Today I finally finished added the last borders and once I did that I was able to pull out what is left to do on my Dear Jane. 

So here is my Pink Princess.  I like how it looks. 

I cut the borders wrong, I cut two strips 4" and two 3.5 inches.   My plan was for 3.5" all the way around.  I just couldn't cut the 4" ones down so I left them at 4".  I put them on the top and bottom since a longer quilt never hurt and I knew I was going to have add on to the side borders and I had one piece left over that would give me two 3.5" pieces.  

When I added on the extra pieces for the side borders, one of the pieces had the words below, Her Royal Majesty, and one of my side borders did also.  So one border has that on it three times.  

It looks like I have a thread to clip.

The other side has Adorable on it in three places. It was so cute I was thinking about changing the name of the quilt to Adorable.  

I am going to quilt this on my frame.

So after this I pulled out all my DJ stuff, except for the backing, and binding.

I went through all my triangles to see which ones are missing, I need to make four and I need to make 2 corners. 

I am not sure why I stopped so close to the end.  I think I got a little intimidated by constructing the borders and 

having it all fit together. 

Here is center of the quilt has it has been since, 2002 or 2003.

Is is part of the top row. 

The other part of the top row.

The bottom row of triangles, all of the pieced triangles are done. 

Left side and right side triangles, each border is missing two triangles. One triangle on the right side border is missing a little triangle, but I think I left it off since the print I had used was cool by itself, as it has a large flower right in the center. I might leave it that way.  After all it is my quilt. 

I have to pick out fabric for all those plain triangles.  Grrrr 

Get RR Done Club

My local quilt shop has a Get RR Done Club that 

meets once a month for 6 months.  It is hosted by the 

fun and lovely Debbie.  Here is the link to her blog where she posts everyone's progress. So I decided to sign up for the 

club and see if I could get some projects done. 

We had to write down six projects we want to get done.  

I listed mine in the order I wanted to finish them.  

Which is not the order they will be finished in.  

Each month Debbie pulls a number from one to six and that is the project you have to finish in the next month.

My projects are as listed:

1. Design and Sew  Quilt
2. Stick Witch 
3. Stick Santa
4. Borders on my Dear Jane quilt
5. Pink Princess
6. Free Motion Sampler Skillbuilder

Guess what number got pulled first.  Number Six.  

That is right, the one I wanted to do last.  

Oh well in the spirit of fun I will do it first.  

Before I can really get started I need to clean my sewing room.  I am having some creative explosion in there. 

While at the meeting I did sew on my Design and Sew quilt, I finished one block.   

Here it is in the EQ7 version and in the real fabric

EQ 7 Version

The real block


Here is my Dear Jane, started in 2001
I have the backing and batting, and even have one border almost constructed and maybe 3 more triangles to do and 2 corners.  I just got overwhelmed with the borders and if they are going to fit.  So I put it down for a bit, which turned out to be a lot of years.  I have put too much work into it not to finish it.

Here is part of the top border of the quilt.  

You can see the last year I worked on this was 2007.  

I am so close!

This is from an online class from Crafty and it is the first in 

a series on how to make a quilt without a pattern.  

I don't even remember when I started this, but it was sometime in 2014.  Something about the random size of the center strips that is really hard for my structured nature.  I wanted to do it so I can learn to be more free in my style.  So far it hasn't worked,  I couldn't even work on it.  Little Bit will love the pink and the theme fabric matches fabric in her pillow case I made for her.  It has princess words all over it.  She is a little princess.  

So I call this Pink Princess. 

It is simple enough to make, I can do this!

The next two are projects I want to make.  The Stick Santa pattern I have had for a couple of years and the Stick Witch I picked up this year.  Halloween quilts are my second favorite quilts after Christmas.  I also want to work these up as classes this fall.  I can't wait to work on these.

Last but not least is my Free Motion sampler Skillbuilder.  I like to retake quilting free motion classes every now and then as I learn something new from different teachers. This last one had us buy a panel to help us do different designs.  I have done three of the details but I want to Get RR Done, so it was added 

to the list.  This is #6 and has to be done first by the June meeting.  

So wish me luck getting these done and I will keep you 

posted on my progress.