Resume Working on the Philanthropy Quilt Top

After putting it on hold, I picked up the charity project again.  You can read about it here.   This one is for my Valley MQG's philanthropy which I had in my possession for a few months now.  

I knew it would be daunting to piece all the blocks together because the blocks were made from many volunteers and there are so many seams to match.   Whenever I have to tackle a project like this, I would turn on my favorite songs, take a deep breath, pick up two pieces and start sewing.  After a few hours, I got the top done.   

 

Now I can pass it on to another volunteer for quilting.  I love the group effort to get things done.

I started pulling out some denim jeans and fabric that I’ve been collecting.  My SIL has been giving her old jeans to me as well. Some denim fabric I have are very dark, intense blue colors. I crossed my fingers and threw them in a washing machine with bleach and let the whole thing soak for additional 10 minutes during the wash cycle.  These are some of the pieces that I got out of the dryer.

 

     

It will be interesting to see what would come out of all these pieces.  I'm ready to go down the rabbit hole.

Thanks for visiting and have a great day!

 

 

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

 
  

The Pantone Quilt Challenge 2023 and May OMG is done

This is my first time participating in the Pantone Quilt Challenge.  Many thanks to the hosts Sarah Ruiz and Elizabeth Ray.  I am working with Paintbrush Studios fabric in the color Cherry Blossom and Raspberry.  Here is my original fabric pulled for this project.

I ended up not using any yellow or white/grey background. I did add Moda grunge green, and different black and white fabric.  The constructions of the quilt top was painless and went pretty fast.  Basting was done next, and I determined to do the best I could so that I wouldn’t have any problem during the quilting.  I have to admit, in the past, I didn't pay much attention to this step, hence I often had problems with puckering.  This time I spaced the pins a little closer than usual and it seemed to pay off.  The quilting went well and was finished with plenty of time to work on the binding, so I thought.  

After squaring up the quilt, I saw that the edges of the quilt were rippled like a wave, especially the area where I used my Juki machine.  How could it be?  Did I stretch the quilt too much while sewing?  What to do then?  I decided to block the quilt by laying it on my design wall on top of a big table and spraying water along the rippled edges.  Then I put pins about an inch apart along the edges to flatten them out and left the quilt to lay flat over night.  The next morning, I was pleased to see the ripples were gone and all the edges were flattened out.  Then I proceeded with the binding.  What a great feeling when I put the last stitch on the binding!!  Here are the finished quilt pictures of the front and back.

 

 

For this wall hanging, I used 100% cotton muslin and Kona Silver on the back.  While I was taking the pictures, I realized I love the back as much as the front.  Don't the pictures above look like I made 2 minimalist quilts?  I love how the shadows from the front came through the back so much that I will explore this design concept more in the future.  

Quilt Stats:

Size:        42.5" x 52"

Fabric:    Various 100% Cotton and 

                PBS - Cherry Blossom and Raspberry

Bating:    Hobbs 80/20

Quilting threads:    Wonderfil Specialty Threads 

Quilted on:    Juki TL98E and Bernina 1080

I love doing challenges.  It gives me an opportunity to do things that are out of the ordinary for me.  Before this project, Magenta was not a go-to color for me.  I found that many colors look amazing with it too.  I still need to improve my basting and quilting process.  About 60% through the quilting, I had to change a machine from Juki to Bernina.  I like using the walking foot on both machines.  Even though the Bernina is a lot older machine, it's still sewing great and produces amazingly smooth stitching lines.   Go to here to check out other great OMG finishes.

On to the next project; I think I like to work with Denim fabric next.  What's under your sewing needle?  I hope you're having fun working on something. 

Thanks for visiting and have a great week.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Monday's Sew & Tell

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

June's Favorite Finish Monthly Linkup at Meadow Mist Design

A New Quiltmagic Room and May OMG

From the beginning of the year, I've tried to be more organized so that I can have a new sewing space.    I signed up to Declutter Challenge for 2023 with Karen Brown from Just get it done quilts.  It was very motivating for me to watch her Youtube channel, but then day to day following along was too overwhelming for me.  I got discouraged so I took a break from it but the ideas Karen shared are very helpful and I started the de-cluttering; at my own pace.

The first thing I did was clearing out the closet in our spare bedroom and moved my modest fabric stash in there.  For the past few years, that room has become a dumping ground for all sort of things that we don't know what to do with them.   There were computer parts, car parts, lots of old children's toys, and books.  With the help from my DH, we cleared them all out.  After many trips to the Goodwill, he took the old carpet off.  The most beautiful feature of the room is the hardwood floor.  We cleaned up some more so that I was able to move the first sewing table in.  

 

 

DH was helping me cleanup the soon to be my new sewing space

 

 More cleaning. My fabric stash in the closet with Franklin watching over and making sure that we're doing it right.  Franklin is a yellow ducky; he's my son's first stuffed animal.

 

 

The first sewing table moved in.  DH snatched this picture without me knowing.

More stuff got moved in and I started to decorate the room.

 

 

The first window cover went up next.  There is so much light streaming into the room.   Can you believe that I made this window cover in July 2020?  You can read about it in this post.

   

 

My mini called 'Funky Trees'

I called this room 'Quiltmagic' room.  The name Quiltmagic is my instagram account.  There is so much light in the room that makes me so happy every time I'm in there.  I'm glad that I put the fabric in the closet, away from the sun light.  The window cover fits perfectly!!  It gives me privacy but let the light in at the same time.  Now I'm set to make another one for the other window.  Right now I just use a top that I made sometime ago, as in the picture here.

 

 

Now both sewing tables are in the room.  I put a folding table by the window for cutting and ironing.  I'm testing it to see how this will work.  In a near future, I may move a sewing table by the window to see if it will work better.   I'm in my Quiltmagic room working on new ideas a lot.  I'll say that the room is 60% done.  Off course, there are a few things that still needed to be done, like a new coat of paint for the room, a new design wall, more shelves need to be put in...etc., but they can wait.  It will take a few more months for me to settle into the room.  I want to see if the placement of tables and things is ideal for the work flow in the room.   Right now I'm just so happy that I have a place of my own to do what I love.  No more sewing in the dining room.  

 

'Modern Time' - Pantone Quilt Challenge 2023

I'm excited to join this year's Pantone Quilt Challenge hosted by Sarah and Elizabeth.   You can read more about the challenge in this kick-off post.

Pantone color of  2023 is Viva Magenta.  Sarah did the work to match up solid colors from different fabric manufacturers and I am working with Paintbrush Studios fabric in the color Cherry Blossom and Raspberry.

 

A few weeks ago I made the first block

 Then I finished the top last week. 

 

'Modern Time'  44.5" x 54.5"

I set a goal to finish this quilt by the deadline on May 15. Check out the OMG link here. 

What are you working on this week?  Whatever it maybe, I hope you're having fun making it.

Thanks for visiting.

Margo 

 

 

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Friday Foto Fun at Powered by Quilting  

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese