Faceted Jewels . . . . . .

I got a quilt back from the quilter!!

This quilt's been gone for awhile, but it was worth the wait!!

Welcome Home Faceted Jewels!!!

This pattern is by Glad Creations. I've seen this quilt on several blogs, it must be a popular pattern.

The finished block size for the pattern was 12", but you know me and big blocks, I made mine slightly smaller at 9".

No quilting suggestions were included with the pattern, and I was thinking about an overall design. On my post where I blogged about finishing the top, I ask for quilting suggestions. Several folks thought an overall pattern would do nothing to enhance the circular effect created when the blocks were connected, and they were right!

Dawn, at the Sewing Basket, could not have done a better job of bringing this quilt to life.

Here's a backside view.

The wonderful quilting on this project extends all the way to its edges.

The work Dawn did in the border is as amazing as the center of the quilt.

So here it is, home and ready to brighten up the gloomiest days of winter.

This is my lifetime quilt number 56. It finished at 60" x 78", has 2,192 pieces, and is comprised of batiks from my stash.

For more details on this quilt select "#56 Faceted Jewels" from my Lifetime Quilt list on the right of my blog, or "Faceted Jewels" from my "Categories List".

Thanks for stopping by!

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Quilt Number 55 - Faceted Jewels

I finished Faceted Jewels by Glad Creations on the 26th, TWO days ahead of my irrelevant but all important in my mind deadline.

I started this quilt back in the fall then stopped to participate in the Red and White Snowball Challenge. I got it back out a couple of weeks ago, with the fabric choices and cutting all done I was able to whip this thing together in no time.

The original pattern was to finish at 80" x 104". I reduced the blocks from 12 inches to 9 inches. This quilt is 60" x 78". Originally I reduced the block size because I wanted a smaller quilt. I figured out that if I made fewer blocks, the overall pattern would be impacted. Now that it's done, I'm so glad I reduced the block size, I think the design looks great a little smaller.

The border took longer to piece than I expected but none of the piecing on this quilt was hard. I got a few comments that this pattern looked complex but it's really not. Just a few flying geese, triangle in a square blocks, four patches, and half square triangles. A total of 2,192 pieces are required for this pattern.

The instructions for this pattern were great! My only complaint, no suggestions for quilting! I"m guessing an overall pattern would work best, but I'll just have to wait and see what my quilter thinks. Any suggestions?

Here's all the leftover pieces and parts.....packed away and stored with all my other leftover pieces and parts!

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Making Progress, I am. Yeessssss.

Andrea of Under a Blue Moon mentioned last week how she was struggling coming up with clever titles for her posts. (Andrea has a beautifully written and wonderfully eclectic blog, you must check it out if you've not done so) I have to admit, I have the same struggle some days. Andrea fixed her problem by translating her English titles into French. I have no idea what they mean, but they sound so ravissant ; )) . So that got me thinking...how could I change up my boring titles....I decided to translate my titles from English to Yoda...yes Yoda, from Star Wars.... I hope you enjoy the change of pace.

All this talk of spring.......

and this is the view from my window.......I think spring may be a day or two away for me.

I'm progressing right along on Faceted Jewels and enjoying every minute of my time in my sewing room, I think it's the bright and cheerful colors.

So from this, I went to this.....

I have all the center blocks pieced. I reduced the block size from 12 inches to 9 inches and I'm so glad I did! I was worried that making the blocks smaller would would ruin the secondary pattern created when connecting the blocks, it did not.

Isn't it just like magic, the way all those squares and straight lines form circles!!!

I also tried something new when assembling the blocks. On other scrappy projects, I would make one block, making sure I had a good mix of colors, and put it on my design wall. Then I would make the next block, making sure I had a good mix of colors AND that no like colors from the first block touched the second block. And so I would go, mixing and matching one block at a time until I got just that perfect block to go with the rest of the perfect blocks.

Remember my flying geese for Toulouse? I spent several hours putting them in order on my design wall, rearranged them all night long in my sleep, and tweaked them a couple more times before I was satisfied and willing to start sewing them together. Lisa/Stashmaster had the exact same geese I had (we did a swap) and pieced her geese by picking one from my pile then one from hers. I could hardly wait to see her border made up of random flying geese. It was gorgeous!! There was no noticeable difference between our borders.

So with that in mind I chain sewed my Faceted Jewels blocks together.....WOW did those blocks go together quickly! I'm not someone who's into quick and easy, mainly because I'm lucky enough to have plenty of sewing time and few if any deadlines. But wasting time is a pet peeve of mine, and all that work I was doing on finding the perfect combination of scrappiness was a waste of time. I think I got a nice assortment of scrappiness without all that extra work.

Something else that was new to me were the triangle-in-a-square units (tias units) that were in this block. I had never worked with them before. I made them by using the Tri-Recs rulers created by EZ Quilting.

For some reason the tias units were a smidge smaller than the 3 1/2 inches they were supposed to be. Luckily for me, when I pieced the units, I was able to line the point of the triangle up with the seam in the four patch block then ease it all together. I'm not sure why they came out smaller, something I'll need to work on the next time I make them.

So now it's on to the border, it's a pieced border and something I hadn't started on before I packed everything up, so it's back to cutting and trimming and sewing..but no fabric decisions, that's all done.

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A Little More Progress . . . . .

Here's block 2 for my Faceted Jewels project.

I've made all the half square triangles, half of the flying geese and just a few center pieces.

Here's block 1 and 2. This is going to be a time consuming venture. I think I'll be glad to break up my effort with Schnibbles. I'm hoping to get all the pieces for block 2 finished before I start the November Schnibbles. I think that would be a great stopping point. That would just leave assembling the blocks on my To Do list.

I got the most wonderful surprise in the mail today. My daughter sent me "The Pioneer Women Cooks" book! The recipes look great. The book is very appealing to the eye, beautiful pictures and graphics. It's not your usual cookbook. I like it. Thank You Baby Girl!!

Today is Cooper's 1st birthday! He came to live with us very unexpectedly on December 21st. My folks, getting caught up in the excitement of my brother's family getting a Christmas puppy, decided to get one too. Less than 48 hours later they decided they were not up for a pup, so we took him in. Some things are just meant to be. Our dog had passed away earlier in the fall.

Here's Cooper his first week at our house, all 12 pounds of him. It's easy to see why my folks couldn't resist taking him home. When I bought this bed, I naively thought it would last at least a year.

Boy was I wrong, he's now up to 84 pounds. Happy Birthday Cooper!! You make us smile everyday!

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Back To Faceted Jewels . . . . .

When I'm not working on Schnibbles, I'm working on "Faceted Jewels" by Glad Creations. This is the first time I've juggled multiple projects, I'm usually a "start to finish" kind of girl.

Here's the picture from the pattern and what I'm hoping I have when I'm done.

The pattern is made up of two different styles of blocks. In September I worked on making all the parts for block one. Once I finished my October Schnibbles I jumped right in on making the pieces for block two.

Today I made around 100 half square triangles. I LOVE half square triangles. It's probably my favorite block . I make them bigger then square them up to the perfect size. I once mentioned this to a fellow quilter and she said she never made hers bigger! WHAT!! Isn't it funny how we all have our own way of doing things.

Isn't this a happy picture, perfect blocks with all their trimmings.

Isn't this a happier picture? I also LOVE Coke, I allow myself one real Coke a day. I start wanting it around 10:30 but make myself wait until 2:30, or at least 1. Unless I'm having pizza for dinner, then I save it to go with the pizza. I can't eat pizza without Coke, which means I have to plan in advance when I'm having pizza so I don't use my Coke. ( I know, so many rules at my house!)

Isn't this an even happier picture? Half square triangles, their trimmings, real Coke AND Coconut m&m's!!

Have you seen these where you live? They are a limited edition! If you like m&m's and coconut you must try these!! I'm down to a couple of packages, I save them for my special Tuesday sewing day.

Tuesday is my special sewing day because Cooper goes to doggy daycare, giving me a day free of walking, chasing, and entertaining him.

Cooper must have had a good day too, he came home, ate dinner and went to bed......my bed.

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Friday Follow-up .....

I've had a very productive and enjoyable sewing week. Thanks to all the folks who stopped by to read my blog.

I think having a plan kept me focused and motivated to make the most of the time I had in my sewing room.

I pieced all the parts of block #1 for my Faceted Jewels project.

Which is the perfect stopping place while I start working on this....

Cindy Lou Who is the Schnibbles pattern for October for the folks participating in a Year of Schnibbles . In all honesty, I was disappointed when I saw what pattern had been picked. There are so many Miss Rosie patterns that I LOVE and was hoping one of those would be chosen. At first glance this pattern did not appeal to me. I went ahead and ordered the pattern, thinking, while I may not like the pattern, maybe I could do something with it that would appeal to me. I'm so glad I did. This pattern is wonderful, I never would have chosen this pattern, but now that I've studied it, I think it will make an amazing quilt. It's all in the details, details that were hard for me to discern from the small photo posted on-line.

I'm going to add a couple of blocks to the length and width so mine will look more like the pattern on the left. I'm also going to change colors. I'm not going with a family of fabric but instead I'm going with scraps, leftover from another project, which was scrappy. So this project will be really scrappy.

I have company coming this weekend so I won't get to start cutting and sewing until my sewing day, next Tuesday. I'm eager to get started.

On another note....see those little pink cylinders on my cutting mat? They're weights!!

I saw them in the notions section of a quilt shop, they caught my eye because they were pink. I had never read or heard other quilters mention using them but I thought if nothing else, they'll look cute setting on my shelves. Do you have them? They are wonderful, I use them all the time. They keep material from sliding off my table when I'm cutting and they keep long or wide quilt pieces on my table while I'm sewing. So they look cute and serve a useful purpose.

Tomorrow I'm going to a local quilt show with a couple of friends. I hope to have some good pictures to show next week....or am I allowed to post pictures from a show? This blogging thing is new to me, are there rules about this kind of thing? I guess I better ask the people running the show. I may have pictures but not be able to show them! Stay tuned!!!

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It's all in the details .......

This is my current project. The project that I'm going to work on when I'm not working on a Schnibbles or my BOM. For those of you who have been following my blog, I'm sure you're surprised. I'm a "one project at a time" kind of girl, or was, until The Year of Schnibbles entered my life. So I had a choice, just work on the Schnibbles and be happy a year from now when I had completed 12 projects, or lighten up a little and try to juggle more than one project at a time. The thought of not taking advantage of my Tuesday sewing day this week really motivated me to try and live like most other quilters, and have multiple projects going at once.

This pattern is "Faceted Jewels" by Glad Creations. I saw the finished quilt at the Sew Batik booth in Paducah, Kentucky of April this year. It was a stunner. They had a kit, (and still do) and I thought long and hard about buying it, but in the end the size of this quilt stopped me. This quilt finishes at 80 X 104, and I just don't need another quilt that size, too small for my king size bed, and too large to throw over the back of couch or a bannister. Sometimes it's easy to change a quilt size by adding or subtracting blocks, but in this case, I thought using fewer blocks would take away from the design.

When I got home I got my hands on the pattern. This quilt is made up of two different blocks that finish at 12 inches each. After studying the pattern I decided I could easily make the blocks smaller. So that's what I'm going to do, my blocks will finish at 9 inches, shrinking this quilt down to around 63 X 72.

My usual sewing style is to have one project going, with fabric, pieces, and blocks in various stages. I usually make one block at a time, then one row at a time and so on. I know it's not the most efficient way to sew, but I'm so anxious to see a finished block that I just have to make one , then another one, then I want to see a finished row, well you get the idea. I'm cutting, piecing, and pressing whatever, whenever it suits me.

That's going to change with this quilt. I'm going to break it down into several mini projects.

First I'll cut the fabric, all the fabric.

Then I'll make all the half square triangles, then all the 4 patch blocks, then all the triangle in a squares, then all the flying geese. Once all the parts are done I'll start in on the blocks. Once all the blocks are done I'll sew them together. That's my plan. And I think it will work, because anytime I need to stop to work on my Schnibbles, I'll just finish one of my mini projects and be good to go.

Step one is done. I spent ALL DAY Tuesday cutting. Here are the strips for the 4 patch blocks. I did not mind the day of cutting, it's amazing how much more I get out of a TV show when I can actually hear it, as opposed to kind of hearing it over my sewing machine.

Here are the rest of the pieces. The empty shelf below is for my future Schnibbles pieces and parts.

These are the pieces for the half square triangles. The pattern called for 18 different jewel tone batiks, I'm going with over 40 because I think "a whole lot more is more".

The pattern says you can mix up the background with multiple fabrics or go with one, I'm going with one.

Here are the pieces for the tri-recs. The flying geese are in the back. I'm going to try out my new Fit to be Geese Ruler on these. I'm also an "over cutter". I like choices. I figure I've got enough to make 1 1/2 quilts here.Here's my cutting list, look real close, everything is marked off!

So that's the plan, what do you think? Any tips? I know several quilters who have multiple projects in various stages and they seem to be able to carry on perfectly normal lives. They don't talk to themselves, pull out their hair, all the things I picture myself doing....but hey, as I've said before, "I'll try anything once".

* Picture of finished quilt is by Sew Batik

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