UFO Domination begins

I mentioned a few posts ago about the Confused Quilter's UFO Domination challenge.

Visit her blog or Flickr group to join!

I was intending to start once I'd finished piecing the top of my Roll Roll Cotton Boll Mystery quilt.  No such luck.   I'm massively behind in the RRCB and with the flooding in Queensland, charity quilts are needed now.

I promised DH I wouldn't start on any til I finished DS Dino quilt and the quilt that's supposed to cover one of the sofas.  They're both on the UFO Domination list so that's excellent and I have 2 more UFOs which I wasn't planning to finish this year as part of the challenge but I think I will since they were supposed to be charity quilts all along.

So...I've quilted another chunk of the dino quilt. It's taking sooo long!

Here's a progress report

My quilting is very wonky and wobbly because I seem to have lost the ability to smoothly move the quilt around while I freemotion the design on.

I simply don't get it. I'm sure I could do it a few months ago when I last worked on the quilt. I double checked that the feed dogs were down.

My wrist is getting stronger not weaker since my last surgery in September so it can't be that but if I have slightly wet hands it seems to help. Maybe I should try those quilters gloves?

Right now I'm just grabbing handfuls of quilt and pulling it around. It doesn't make the quilting look any good. Any thoughts?

Quilting and Other Bits and Pieces

Well after my success in finishing the chocolate and aqua quilt top on saturday I was on a roll!  Sunday afternoon I basted my table topper using spray baste and DH's help.

Spray baste is OK - I definitely wouldn't use it for anything larger.  It still migrates somewhat while quilting and as a consequence I have a few bulgy areas and I re-basted the borders once I had finished all the ditch stitching.

I love quilting - it's my favourite part of the whole process (well maybe a close second to fabric shopping!).  I think part of the reason is because I'm so close to having a finished quilt to enjoy but mainly it's because I love the feel of the 3 layers in my hands and I really love seeing the extra dimension quilting gives.  It's like icing on a cake I think.  I LOVE icing and a cake is never complete without it.

The ditch stitching (which only occasionally ends up in the ditch thanks to my big fat plaster) and straight line quilting came together quickly - to the point where on Monday I was able to start free-motion quilting the flowers in the wide border.

My ditch stitching looks fabulous in comparison :-/ but it's just a class sample and it's not a gift or anything so I'm not stressing about it and that in itself adds to my enjoyment of the process.  It's not too bad considering I'm in plaster so I am proud of it anyway.

By Tuesday morning my arms ached and I started to think of the lovely toned muscles I'd be getting (bye bye tuckshop arms!!) but poor DS came down with the flu so no quilting yesterday.

He's much better today but still home from school so I doubt I'll get to quilt today either.

My scallop class isn't until 6 Nov so I should get it finished in time.  I'm dreading all the bias binding I'll need to make and sew for this topper.  It's about 46" square which is a bit bigger than I intended.  I wont have enough red for the binding which is a shame but I'll have had a dig through my stash and find something big enough.   No buying for this topper!


Lorraine rang on Monday to postpone Lizzy Mae #3.  Just as well since DS was sick.  It'll be put off for 2 weeks so it'll be on 9 Nov.  What a busy month for quilt classes!

The best bit is my plaster comes off on 4th Nov so I'll be able to sew better.  The only down side to all this is that I haven't been into her shop since before my surgery and I have some shopping to do and gifts to buy which DH isn't able to do for me.  He has been doing a bit of shopping-by-proxy and performed quite well but there are some things I just have to do myself.

No sign of my fabric order from Hawthorne Threads so I'm starting to get a little concerned.  Hurry up already - I want to fondle my fabric!!!

It's here!!!

After only 10 days my lovely Aster Manor yardage has arrived from the US!

Draped over the couch

Close up

As usual, click on the pics for a bigger one with more detail!  I'm fairly sure I will FM quilt around the big asters in the outer border.  Lots of selvage to squirrel away too! :-)

D9P = Dino 9 Patch!

Well it certainly does in this case!

On Friday I cut all the fabric for both sets of blocks and finished piecing the D9Ps.  I also started piecing the alternate blocks (reconfigured Lorna's 12 FQ Class ones).  The difference was not just the measurements.  I also wanted the largest square to be the dino print and since I was using various sized scraps, I had to work out the colours as I went.  I also decided to make 2 variations of this block by placing the large square either towards the top of the block or bottom so I'd have some flexibility when placing them around the central panel.

Saturday saw the completion of all my blocks and I worked out the order.  DH gave his comments, screwed up the entire thing and I couldn't re-do it exactly as I had before.  Not Happy Jan Andrew!

Thanks to my nemesis (which I'll blog about sometime) I'm REALLY sore so as much as I'd love to finish a quilt top Saturday night, I don't think I will.

After loads of umming and ahhing, I'll piece the backing to save $ since I really need to buy the remaining Aster Manor yardage online soon but I will need WOOL batting since I only have cotton at home and want this quilt to be wool to keep my Lil Man all toasty

The inner borders will be a plain chocolate brown (at least I hope I have enough length of the fabric I'm thinking of) and I'll quilt little dinosaurs in variegated thread on them.  Outer borders will be small scraps of block fabric.

I'm pleased with how it's coming along so far but I need to be sure the borders look OK and am a little nervous of the quilting - haven't done any FM stuff since last year!

This morning I discovered more problems with the block layout and had to redo them for my own sanity.   It's definitely not as  good as the very first attempt but looks OK.

My "rules" for block placement are:

1. No dino prints should be touching each other even if they're different
2. No two blocks with the same dinos can be next to each other (even if dino squares not touching)
3. No two coloured scraps can be touching
4. And finally, a fairly even spread of the two types of blocks  

I don't think I could ever be a liberated quilter tho I break enough rules in my own way.  Most rules are there for a reason I feel!

Anyway here are some examples of my blocks

D9P block:

Lorna's Block:

Lorna's Block variation:

Again the photos are terrible.  It's such a drama taking them.  The rechargable batteries for the camera are leaking acid, software to directly upload pics from my phone can't be installed on the desktop PC because it's running Linux so it all has to be done on my dinosaur laptop and transferred on a flash drive. 

Anyway so I'll see how I go today in terms of stitching the blocks together.  I get the verdict from the surgeon on Thursday regarding my Nemesis so I shouldn't sew too hard before then!