Archive for the ‘March-A-Long’ Category

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40.7 End of First half week of March A Long 2017

March 5, 2017

Hey guys, I put together audio for the end of the first half week of March A Long 2017.

We are sewing/quilting/prepping/organizing/shopping …. sewing & quilting tasks for 15 minutes a day for the month of March.

Personally I have been ripping out papers off of this guy.

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I am pretty haphazard with how the papers are being ripped. Some of today I was actually methodical in working on rows instead of just bouncing around everywhere.

Please feel free to report back in comment here, on any day. Next post will hopefully be up Monday afternoon or Tuesday early early morning the 14th due to previous engagements on this upcoming weekend.

I find it easier for me to wait until Sunday, but I know that’s not always convenient for all of you. Comment on this post or any other on March A Long, or link back to me. I will get links approved as fast as I am able, but I don’t always reply. But if I know you’ve posted somewhere, I will do a shout out in Audio Form.

Hope you enjoy!

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Posted in 15 minute challenge, Home Sewing Front, March-A-Long, Quilting Community | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

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40.6 Gearing up for March-A-Long 2017

February 26, 2017

It’s that time again – time to consider March – A – Long for the year 2017.

march-a-long-short

For the past several years I have “hosted” March – A – Long for the month of March.

This is an encouragement to sew/quilt/design/dream/read/shop …. about quilting for 15 minutes a day for the month of March!

Last year I made myself for the month of March focus specifically on Free Motion Quilting. I would like to replicate that this year if I can.

Feel free to join a long, which is why I call it an “-A-Long”, so we can all work together on furthering our quilting goals.

I always offer a chance for others to participate. Either here as a comment, or on the Scientific Quilter page on FaceBook. I can also be found on Twitter or Instagram. I haven’t been super active anywhere but the Twilters! group on FB, but I promise to check in these other places for the month of March during the March A Long.

You can either find me as scientificquilt (twitter), or scientificquilter (instagram). I make a pledge to post weekly during March A Long. Most years I am pretty close to “on the nose” on this.

I may do short audio like last year. That was sorta fun. At the current moment, I can’t remember where my audio ants are stored, but we might see if we can find it sometime before the end of the month. Maybe sooner than that, even.

I know for at least for a while, if I don’t have anything else to do, I can always remove the paper from this quilt.

20170225_090058

I think there are 99 blocks here, with several seams in each. I used regular paper too, which while I was sewing them together, wasn’t a bad idea. It’s cheaper, easier to access than the “made for paper piecing” paper that I have purchased in the past. But, the ripping out stage isn’t really quite as much fun.

Actually, neither was the “sewing all the lines together” part.

20170220_195524

My goals are three fold this month:

  1. Finish up this quilt top to see if I need borders. I wish I had more of the blue background to float some borders, I have just the idea for those. But, alas I do not, so this quilt may go with or without borders.
  2. Get as many small quilts free motion quilted as possible. I still have a small stack of quilts, some of which are basted and ready to go.
  3. Create adequate backing for other quilts I have been working on that have tops but not bottoms.

Anyway, I always enjoy hearing about others’ March-A-Long progress. State goals and successes here or other places you can find me!

Ready, Set, Quilt …. March along you little quilters! Drop & give me 20 …. stitches!

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Posted in 15 minute challenge, Home Sewing Front, March-A-Long, Quilting Community | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments »

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39.9 The end of March-A-Long for another year

April 3, 2016

March A Long Sewing

Frequent/expectant blog readers may have noticed a lack of posting anything last week. This was against my initial intentions, putting off the post too long last weekend made the post unable to happen as I was whisked away from the land of internets for a good day and a half last weekend. Seriously, there are still places in the US that are internet unfriendly.

Anyway, I think the gentle rip from my original plans was enough last weekend to knock the wind out of my (quilting) sails.

Any event, I am here now, a week later, discussing the end of March, the end of March-A-Long, the end of 15 minutes sewing every day.

Thanks go out to all who started and didn’t stop, all who marched loudly the whole month long, all who marched silently, all who wrote hashtags, all who did not, all who posted on social media – this blog, the FB page, twitter, instagram etc.

Thanks go out to all who took just a little more moments to think about quilting on a more daily basis than what they were doing before.

Thanks for encouraging each other, thanks for encouraging me, thanks for going along with this silly experiment in daily self-discipline!

As I state in the audio file, I really liked having a different focus for the month than normal that was broad enough to encompass a lot of different types of tasks. By saying I was doing more free motion quilting, I was doing more basting, more image pinning, more video watching, more drawing lines on pictures, more drawing lines on fabric, more changing of my needle, more thread changes, more foot changes than I had done in the last 11 months!

Way to go everyone!

By the way, I recorded this on April 1st outside, many bird noises and then a train noise that I completely didn’t notice too much when recording.

20160320_114608

 

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39.8 March-A-Long end of week 3 – March 20 2016

March 20, 2016

Okay quilters, I hope you enjoyed #internationalquiltingday yesterday (that’s National Quilting day that is inclusive to all nations). Every year, the 3rd week of March on the Saturday there is more attention on this lovely quilting hobby of ours!

This ends our 3rd (out of 5) week of sewing for 15 minutes a day for the month of march. Getting used to sewing and thinking about sewing every day, even a little bit.

This week, we hear from a few people who have tagged their posts with #marchalong or #15minutesofsewing or something similar.

As always, if I forgot to add you, let me know, you could email me or post here or just tag your regular sewing with these hashtags and I’ll try to find them.

I’ve been busy with spray basting, unsewing, resewing, binding attachment, and quilting with heavy thread.

Before the black setting triangles were not added.

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And I hadn’t added the binding on this small quilt.

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And this little thing hadn’t been quilted or trimmed down.

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Close up of the quilting

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And what a cool birthday present!? Great for a very active quilter!

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Posted in 15 minute challenge, Home Sewing Front, March-A-Long | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

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39.7 March-A-Long 2016 end of second week

March 13, 2016

20160309_183917.jpgSo, it’s the end of week 2 and I personally have been successful at sewing / quilting for at least 15 minutes a day each day this week except for one when I was a little sick.

I have been quilting on a small quilt project, preparing the next quilt, taking apart even another quilt, and getting a lot of projects lined up with batting and/or backing.

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You all seem to have been busy as well!

Good job guys sewing for 15 minutes a day in March. If you haven’t done so, you can start NOW. Keep on keeping on!

 

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39.6 March-A-Long 2016 first week

March 6, 2016

2016-03-01-17.54.47.jpg.jpegI am testing out my Instagram skills this month to try to stay “on top of” pictures for the daily tasks of March-A-Long. March-A-Long is a commitment to sew/quilt/plan for 15 minutes daily during the month of March. As you can see above, this is the pieces of the new block of the month from Ula Lenz Stained Glass Ray of Hope quilt.

A lot of my personal time has been spent on Craftsy. Relearning Free Motion Quilting techniques & designs. I echo quilted the insides of this quilt, but not yet the outsides. Background fabric is too different, so I am going to decide what color works today for this small top.

2016-03-05-17.55.22.jpg.jpeg

If you’ve participated in sewing for 15 minutes a day in March, let me know! Glad to know I’m in such great company already!

Have a great week, and keep on getting those stitches in! Keep experimenting!

Posted in 15 minute challenge, March-A-Long, Quilting Community | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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39.5 Quilt Pile Up Post 2

March 1, 2016

I am writing up blog posts about my Quilty Goals in March. The first one is here.

I am working through specific goals for March to motivate me for the March-A-Long a 15 minute per day sewing promise to quilt daily.

On my goals, I have decided to focus (though you can’t hold me to this) on free motion quilting.

I have here some of the smaller quilts without backing that need to be matched up with scrap batting and backing before quilting.

small tops to back and quilt

So the quilts specifically, some of these have more deep stories, a few do not.

The first you may recognize from the post from yesterday. There are 2 quilts that are essentially just panels of some quilty rainbow pastel fabric. I have had all but the one edging (sticking up) done for months. I ran out of the same fabric, so finally decided to put a different white on white and call it good. These quilts are (will be) similar, but not identical twins.

pastel rainbow quilt no backing

The others have some significance (more) to me. This crazy looking quilt was inspired by my guild. We had nametags one day for a meeting where we were going to learn paper piecing (for people who didn’t already know). I had two blocks completed with wild colors and they kept staring at me undone. I decided to take the blocks, photocopy the back, that still had the paper piecing on them, and make a few more wild blocks for a mini quilt.

small bright scrappy nametag.jpg

The next quilt is a winding ways swap quilt. I went to my first or second retreat with the ladies who used to be known as so many swaps, and one lady was bringing her accuquilt with her, in addition to dies for the winding ways quilt block. We were instructed to bring batiks, and then we had cut them all the same with the accuquilt, and one day after supper, we swapped around the tables in a circle the same # of blocks as we donated.

I actually swapped 9 blocks, but I got tired of the quilt while piecing it this summer, so I decided to stop at 4. I don’t know right now if I kept the extra 5 blocks or not.

winding ways scrappy swap quilt.jpg

The next quilt is a leftover block from my Teal Cathedral Windows style quilt. A retreat 2 years ago I was considering doing red and teal prairie points around the edge to learn prairie points, but I got slightly mixed up along the way. I just like this little block how it is, I think I will quilt it and bind again in a red. Or maybe do striped binding.small cathedral teal.jpg

And lastly, I have the practice block from the disappearing shoo fly block.This mini quilt is 4 shoo fly blocks cut up down the middle horizontally and vertically, all with the same color of center block, twisted and then sewn back together. I picked “controlled scrappy” out of the colors I had already made (about 65 blocks).

small lightning block topWhat are your March-A-Long goals? Tell me in the comments here or on the March-A-Long page. This may be the end of the “premade blog posts for the week.” I think some of that depends on how interesting this week actually becomes!

Keep Marching A Long and keep experimenting!

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39.3 Announcing March-A-Long goals 2016

February 28, 2016

March A Long Sewing

This is it! The first week of March approaches! I am thoroughly excited this year for March-A-Long. I have again made an audio file for you on my blog for those of you who like the audio reminder (and the ants).

A quick recap of what I discuss in the audio file:

  • Announce you’re going to play along
  • Pledge to quilt (in whatever that means to you) for 15 minutes a day just during March
  • Adjust time on the weekends if you need to
  • Set a timer if that helps on those busy weekdays
  • You’re not graded on this, so nothing is binding
  • You have lots of options to consider quilting tasks (lots of examples in the file)
  • Maybe add to a different day if you’re too backed up one day
  • Check-in weekly and I’ll announce who is playing along and who is meeting their goals
  • Maybe try to tackle something hard by breaking it down into smaller chunks
  • Maybe do something mindless or organizational
  • Maybe have a goal for the month, be okay for breaking the goal
  • Have fun, and thanks for joining along with me in the month of March

My personal goals for the month (to help me stay focused):

  1. Find appropriate backing and batting for small and large tops
  2. Practice free motion quilting on small tops
  3. Baste other small quilt tops needing basting and quilting
  4. Bind off Card Trick quilt
  5. Decide on quilting of Samurai Sudoku quilt
  6. Paper piece March hexagon from Ula Lenz
  7. Call and set up next long arm appointment
  8. Rearrange quilts on my wall behind my ironing board
  9. Make a video on how to make the disappearing shoo fly block
  10. Organize my blog a little more

I took my quilts out for the great weather to get their photographs. I have many small tops without backs and batting to practice on.

small tops to back and quilt

I also have some larger quilts to decide on batting and backing (this stack is on the back burner due to size and time).

Larger Quilt tops to Back and Quilt

And these are either basted or almost basted, ready to quilt sooner than the others

small basted quilts to quilt

Comment below or the previous post if you’re going to join in, and we’ll see how we do for this March-A-Long! Keep experimenting!

Posted in 15 minute challenge, March-A-Long | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments »

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39.2 Introduction Audio to March Along 2016

February 18, 2016

March A Long 2016 logo

Hey everybody, as a test, I am putting up an audio file I created today about the March Along for 2016.

I have had to relearn a few things, and introducing a little bit of new technology as well.

This won’t show up in any RSS feed besides this blog since I haven’t set anything else up.

Take a listen to remember what we like to do for the month of March.

 

Posted in 15 minute challenge, March-A-Long | Tagged , | 9 Comments »

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37.2 Silent March-A-Long almost finished

March 30, 2015

So, how did you do in the 15 minute a day sewing challenge for the month of March?

Did you let the stress of every day get to you, or did you challenge yourself to do a little bit of sewing each day?

It is hard to “see” the results of my sewing, a lot of my 15 minutes were closer to 5 or 10 minutes hand stitching applique that has been glued for a while.

hot air balloon glued down stitch line

So I have gotten past about half of the hand stitching on this section of the quilt.

This applique will migrate to another project from my original plans I think.

Geesh, I noticing that I have a lot of projects I started back in 2011 (the date for this quilt’s start).

Anyway, I did the weave quilt early in the month.

Circular ends

I have made appointments with two long arm quilters during the month. For the first time ever.

I have been trolling around Quilter’s Cache lately. I made the cutest Galaxy Star from that site.

galaxy star pattern via quilters cache

I hand stitched some batting that wasn’t quite big enough for a smaller project, I basted with spray baste, and am now starting to ditch quilt the borders on my domestic machine.

I also made a few small items for the guild’s boutique for the quilt show.

5pointedpincushiontwo

A few pincushions. This uses 5 squares of each fabric type. I found the tutorial online. I skipped the adding the paper step, but I had to hand stitch the middle closed on the pieces because there are several seams that stop at the quarter inch corner.

And I made 60 degree coasters from another pintrest link. These were easy, but I added batting just below the piece at the bottom of the coaster.

60degreecoasterafterflip

That is the finished project. Without top stitching anyway.

Here’s how they start. Pretty easy.

60degreecoasterstart

I bought my 3 day ticket for the quilt festival in June, and I signed up with a class/lecture by a quilter I was impressed with that is in a nearby guild, with one of the twilters, Carole!

Since changing my computer around, I never reinstalled photoshop (over 10 years old), so I have been using PicMonkey website to edit my photos. Very similar to Picnic that I reviewed a long time ago. Not bad, gives you plenty of free editing options.

Anyway, that’s me checking in with you! How have you been? March-A-Long! Good work getting those projects done!

 

Posted in 15 minute challenge, Home Sewing Front, March-A-Long | Tagged , | 3 Comments »

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