Sunday, November 26, 2017

Quilt 'til You Wilt

Yesterday was our annual Quilt 'til You Wilt day with the London Friendship Quilters Guild.  I packed up my sewing machine, supplies and projects on Friday night and my husband helped me to load the car at 8am on Saturday morning.  I was among the first to arrive and got a table for four near the ironing station. By the time I set up my machine, Cathy arrived, coffee in hand. A little while later, Christine and Karen showed up. We all had a great day, chatting and sewing and admiring all of the sewing going on in the room.


Christine finished up the last few blocks for a quilt she is making for her daughter and by the end of the day, the quilt top was finished, except for the final border! She used her 1951 featherweight.


Karen stayed up late the night before pin basting a pile of table runners that she had pieced and spent the day quilting them and adding binding. I see lots of hand stitching in her near future!


Cathy was working on an I Spy quilt for her grand-daughter and had the entire middle of the quilt done by the time she went home late afternoon.  She will add the borders and get it quilted in the next week or so.

I worked on a comfort quilt block for the Elgin Piecemakers to get me warmed up. February's colours are lime green and yellow with white--I needed to make a star block.  I found this pattern on the internet.  There was some math involved as the pattern was for a 6.5" block and my block is 12.5"


Next, I worked on a project I have been wanting to do for years...A new Christmas tree skirt.  My old one is over 30 years old and looks like it was made in the 80's, which it was.  I saw some pictures on the internet of a tree skirt made with 60 degree 8" triangles that I liked.  Most of the fabrics that I had been collecting for this project were fat quarters so I decided I would use 4" triangles instead.  What I did not realize at the time was I would need 360 triangles to make my skirt.  I spent one evening cutting triangles this past week when Christine was over to sew.




I used my table to lay out all of the triangles for each section before I started to sew.


You can see the piles of triangles for each section at the top of the picture above.  I divided up all of the fabrics evenly so the whole thing will look balanced in the end.

Here is the first section, all sewn together.  The skirt will be a large hexagon and the long side on the right being the outer edge.  The narrow part on the left will be near the tree.  I am making a large hole in the middle to accommodate the tree stand.

Here are sections 1 and 2, sewn together.

By the end of the day, I had three sections done. --Half of the tree skirt.


I will work away on sewing more sections this week as time allows.  I would like to have it done by two weeks from now when we put up our tree.  I will be using the same red and white striped binding as I used on my Christmas quilt.


Just before I went home for the day, I made three string blocks for January's comfort quilt for the Elgin Piecemakers.  This fabric was donated to our guild and two of our members cut it into strips and gave us muslin foundations to use.  The only instructions were to put the yellow strip down the middle diagonally for each block.

Today, it is time to slow down and do some counted cross stitch with the other Slow Sunday Stitchers at Kathy's blog.    I am adding outline stitches to this snowman's hat and scarf today and would like to  finish him off including the birds and sticks as well.


15 comments:

  1. I LOVE the tree skirt! So worth the effort to use the smaller triangles!

    Love your blog. Happy Holidays!

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  2. Isn't that a terrific way to sew?? Nice works by all hugs, Julierose

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  3. It looks like you had a fun day sewing with friends! I love the fabric you are using on your Christmas tree skirt.

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  4. What a fun day you all had and sew much got done! Love the triangle tree skirt - well worth the effort. I was sewing some triangles today for my daughters quilt. I hope to have it to a top before Christmas... so she can help me walking foot quilt it over her winter break.

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  5. I really like that tree skirt. I need to make one for myself sometime. I absolutely love that lime green block. I am enjoying watching your progress on the snowmen.

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  6. It is amazing how much sewing one can accomplish away from home. Great fabrics and color placement for tree skirt. Hope you finished the snowman today.

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  7. What fun, lots of sewing time with friends, and no one appeared to wilt. I'd like a new patchwork tree skirt too. Mine is from my "rustic" stage with bears and pine trees and is outdated.

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  8. Love your little snowman stitchery--so cute! Can't wait to see the whole tree skirt--love it so far!!

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  9. Wonderful work on the tree skirt and I love the snowman stitchery project...super cute! :)

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  10. Wow, lots of progress. The tree skirt will be just lovely, though I don't envy you all those triangles.

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  11. Good Morning,
    It sure looks like a lot was accomplished at the Quilt Until You Wilt day. What a fun name! Your tree skirt is really turning our lovely. I sure love the fabrics you chose. I look forward to seeing it under the tree! And those string blocks look like fun, as well. I love that center yellow to tie all the blocks together with one theme. ~smile~ Roseanne

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  12. I love the tree skirt idea. I, too, need to make a new one. Mine is probably 25 years old and has all of our names cross-stitched on it. Problem is, my first husband died 10 years ago, and I've recently re-married. Husband #2 doesn't mind if I use the old skirt, but it feels odd. Maybe that will be my goal for next Christmas, thanks for the inspiration!

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  13. Looks like a fun day and you all got such a lot done. The tree skirt is a lot of work but it's going to look great!

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  14. Sounds like such a fun day, and wow! Were you ever productive! Love the way the tree skirt is coming along.

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  15. Quilt 'til You Wilt just cracked me up :) What a fun day and you got so much done! :)

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