Vintage Calico Scrap QAYG

 Some months ago when I moved our sewing room out of the third floor church room to my sunroom, I brought some red calico prints with me, figuring I would use them for a donated quilt. Finally got aroundtuit. Yay!

Most of these fabrics were donated from church members who are in their mid 80's, so they have been stored (carefully) for decades. One had a date on the selvedge, 1994. Wow! I used it all up. And the blue was donated by my sister's ex-boyfriend, who got it at an estate sale. Backing came from him too. The batting I used was cut off from quilts that were quilted on the longarm, by our illustrious quilter. Those were more or less free too. All in all, this was nearly a freebie! It took a week from start to finish, and measures 63x80" I did it quilt as you go, with only four parts. The center was 36x39" and I quilted that as one piece. Then I made the drops and attached them after they were quilted. This is so much easier and faster than wrangling the whole thing at once. I used the qayg method described here.

Today Tuesday quilter Patsy came to pick up the quilt above and brought her latest qayg in progress to share with me. I LOVE it. I've always wanted to make one of these scrappy beauties, and man, have I got the scrap strips to do it. Each block is individually quilted and joined later to the other quilted blocks, which means it can be done in free moments whenever one has time. Eventually it is finished, and only needs binding. What fun is that! Her blocks are about 10 or 11" square, so this is 40x50" but what if the blocks were 15" square? 4x5 (20 blocks) would make a 60x75" quilt. O my. See you later, gotta sew!

Batik Beauties

 Our Thursday charity quilting group began in earnest last week, but then three of the six of us had to go on vacation, so today the remaining three of us picked up where we left off last week. You can imagine that organizing a weekly sew-in is a challenge, and yet we usually have what I think of as a quorum, so projects actually do get made and turned over to our fabulous quilter, on a timely basis. Our first of the year joint effort is made from batiks which I got when Joann's had a 75% off sale. Fat quarters for 75 cents each. Whamo!

 We used 6.5" squares, sewn into half square triangles and trimmed down to 5.5" and sewed them into three simple blocks. When they are all sewn, we will have the fun moving them around to a satisfactory arrangement. No matter what we do, it will look fabulous because the fabric does all the work for us. 

 While we have six members, not all of us are sewing at the same time. We have cutters, trimmers, and pressers, as well as someone putting the blocks on the wall or getting them from the cutting table to the sewing machines and back to the pressers, all the while laughing and talking and just having a great time.

 Here's a long view of the sewing room,

and now we have three, yes three Janome 6500P machines, so no one has to deal with a different machine each week. My sister works at Chattanooga Sewing Machine Co. and this week a 6500P was brought in as a trade-in and I was Melody On The Spot and took advantage.

 Here it is on one of our little tables, but soon to be placed in a custom Sew Ezi table, which I ordered and will arrive on Saturday. Woowoo! 

  I love the one I got for machine #2 and it is portable and doesn't jiggle when I sew 100 mph.

 Tony is our welcome committee and thinks it is his place to bark-announce the arrival of each car in the driveway. Then he fake-cries for pets when the door is answered. Everyone is trying to teach him to sit and not jump on their legs, to no avail. Bad doggie. 

New for 2020

This charity quilt-as-you-go is finished, today as a matter of fact, and what it lacks in artistic flair, it more than makes up for in reducing the scrap pile. No new fabric (or batting!) was used in the making of this quilt. Since it was sewing lots of little strips, it filled the free time I had in between making Christmas cookies and complaining that it didn't seem like Christmas at all this year. Shirt sleeves and sandals and lots of rain. However, nothing to shovel either, so it ain't all bad.

When I wasn't sewing or complaining, I spent my holidays watching MURDER on Amazon and Netflix. I recently decided to subscribe to Acorn TV and it is all British murder, all the time. Lots of mystery thrillers with lavish mansions or darling little villages and gardens. 

While watching I knit. 

This is the new raglan sleeve version of my all time fave Diamond Patchwork Jacket. Yarns used were Noro Silk Garden, Poems Worsted, Lion Brand Amazing, and Boreal. I changed the pattern slightly at the neckline (a great improvement, imho) and the sides have slits up to the edges of the first diamond. While it is multicolored it remains tasteful instead of garish. 

My dear friend Vista modeled for me and I accidentally cut off her head. Here she is with it back on. Sorry Vista.

It measures 28" long from the base of the back neck and is 26" from side seam to side seam or 52" around. Nice and roomy. It is available for $150, shipping included. Email me. SOLD

New Raglan Sleeves

Some of you may know that I have a designers page on Ravelry and occasionally I take a look at who has made what from my designs. Well, to my surprise, a knitter Ravelry-nicknamed Londasneller devised a great improvement on my design and here it is. A raglan sleeve! I loved it and wanted to know how she did it so I could do the same. She began at the wrist, and found that increases took her to up to the armpit, where decreases could be made for the sleeve cap. 

This may be all gibberish to non-knitters, but I know some of you are paying attention, so for you very few, here's what I did with her directions.

 I made a mess. 

Three sleeve versions before I got it right. Here are versions 1 and 3, stacked. I decided not to start at the wrist but at the sleeve cap and increase to the armpit.  Then I decreased regularly to the wrist, but not correctly at first or at second try, but by the third try I got it right. 

 The first sleeve was way too wide and would have looked awful. The real problem was that it used up too much yarn and I began to run out when I was doing the second sleeve. So I unraveled sleeve #2 up to the armpit and decreased sharply as I traveled down the arm. Much narrower sleeve and I had just enough yarn to finish it perfectly. Now of course, I will unravel sleeve number one and repeat the decreases as I have marked on sleeve number 3. 

 I have markers at each ridge to note a decrease. For the record, I began at the neck by casting on 3 stitches and increased every right side row until I reached 75 stitches, which corresponds to the number of rows of the side of the diamond it would be attached to. My base diamond begins with casting on 75 stitches. After reaching my 75 stitches on the sleeve cap, I began to decrease each right side row (each edge) until I reached 67 stitches, which is where I could stop that acute decreasing and begin a less frequent decreasing. Next I decreased every other ridge until I reached 63 stitches. From that point on, I decreased only every fourth ridge onward to the wrist, ending with 39 stitches, and a length of about 18 inches from the armpit.

 As you can see it will line up nicely with the front and back. So much nicer than my original design, thanks to Londa!

 Here's the correct sleeve folded and placed where it will be sewn into the body of the jacket.

So I am one happy knitter and will encourage future jackets to be made with raglan sleeves, as it really improves the design immensely.

More QAYG Stuff

While the rest of the world is getting their Christmas shopping done, I have been so busy in the sewing room. It only takes minutes to make another stripey scrappy quilt as you go block, so when I can grab some free time, I make one or two. But yesterday my Hexagon templates from Missouri Star Quilting company arrived and I am going nuts with these little quilt as you go hexagons. Here's link to the video tutorial. 

I have a bunch of batting scraps and this template is used to cut out the hexie shapes in batting and fabric. 5 inches or so for the interior and 6 1/2 for the backing which wraps around to the front. Machine stitch it down and join with machine decorative stitches, or zigzag. Soooooo cute!

 This really works for a fun scrappy look, but I can so see it in planned colors and fabrics. La dee dah, Happy Mel!

More QAYG

 My darling sister Brooke is switching jobs and in January will begin working at a wonderful sewing machine/fabric shop. She will sell and teach and currently is preparing the first of her classes, which is a beginner's block of the month. I am helping her sew, quilt and assemble the sample.

There are 11 blocks to make in this year long class, but the 12th lesson, to make it a block of the month, is the assembly technique, quilt as you go. 

Here's a close-up of the assembled blocks. Since we are using white throughout, it is difficult to see that the narrow strip between each of the blocks is the 1" joiner, with the folded 2" on the backside. That's the trick of this QAYG method. To make it even more cohesive, we added a white cross to all the plain blocks.
As for me, I have a pile of uneven strips which have been nagging at me to use. So why not make them into blocks and quilt them as I go? These started out on a 12 1/2" backing and batting and I drew a rectangle on the batt 4 1/2" down the middle. I grabbed a bunch of my strips and cut them to 4 1/2"and sew and flipped them down the block. Then added strips along each side to fill out the whole. Trimmed to 12" I added a one inch strip between the two finished blocks and connected them on the back with a folded 2" strip, stitching in the ditch from the front. The skinny looking connecting strip on the front is that diagonal stripe. Neat huh?

Difficult to see, as it is white on white...Here are the steps:
1. Using a quarter inch seam, sew a 1 inch strip to the front of the block and at the same time sew a folded 2 inch strip to the back.
2. sew the second block to the one inch strip which joins the two blocks.
3. press the back strip over the butted seam and pin from the FRONT,
4. quilt in the ditch removing pins as you go
That's it.
I was all excited about the 'new qayg' method in my previous post, but this way is better for beginners, imho.

QAYG Finished quilt

 I don't have a name for this quilt and always referred to it as that black and white top. NOT a great title.  I put it up on the wall horizontally to get it all in the shot and it measures 61x76". It was made by the Tuesday group, Patsy Brown, and Diane Frandsen and me. 

The important thing is that it is quilt as you go. I did it in long skinny panels, which is also how we made it. Here's a closeup of what the connections look like.

I tried to match the connecting strips with the adjoining sections. Some matched better than others, but it still looks good, in my humble opinion. OK, not so humble...See the previous post for the connecting technique.

The other things going on are all baking related. I was at Home Goods looking for a stiff spatula and saw this fancy cake tin which I originally saw and coveted on the Great British Baking Contest. I had to have it. Only $16.99 and when I checked on the Nordic Ware site, they had it listed at $40. Woowoo!
This Apple Cider Doughnut cake recipe came from Pinterest, of course. I used a spice cake mix and added pumpkin pie spice to give it a bigger boost. Yum.
Lots of cookie baking is going on and yesterday I made banana bread to which I over added bananas, nuts and raisins to and it almost overflowed the pan. Silly me.
Knitting also abounds, and I have finished about 14 hats for charity (no pictures) and am now working on a diamond patch jacket with a new sleeve adaptation.
No Christmas shopping to speak of. In fact I convinced Dave to allow me to donate our huge 12' artificial tree (and all the ornaments) to Goodwill and it took both of us to get in my little car and unload it on the sidewalk in front of our local GW.  This will be my first year ever without a tree and I gotta say I don't mind at all. I may pop for a pointsettia or five...and maybe an amaryllis. When they croak, they will be added to the garden. Happy Mel!
For you folks up North, we had lots of rain last night and the temps are still in the 60" this week. I cannot complain.
Love you all,