April Goal -- Finished!

I wasn't holding my breath on this one.  The April A Lovely Year of Finishes goal I set for myself turned out to be SO much more work than I had anticipated.  It seems like all I did was quilt for the last 3 weeks!  My machine made me proud of her while I burned the midnight oil, so to speak.

I remembered to clean and oil my machine and change to a new needle after every three bobbins of sewing.  I think that made the quilting much easier and the results more pleasing.  There were a lot of thread color changes which made for an incredible number of threads to bury, but I think it was worth it.  I'm happy with the results.   Can you tell?  My Quilted Village is done.  I'm calling it "Synesthesia."

Here are a few close-ups of the quilting.  

I'm going to take more photos tomorrow when, hopefully, it isn't quite so sunny.  (I shouldn't be complaining about that since we've had so much rain this month!)

I am linking up with Fiber of All Sorts for their Finishes Party.   

I am also linking up this week with A Quilting Reader's Garden for WIP's be Gone Week 18.

A Quilted Village Update

Every village needs a village green, right?  My Quilted Village does.  The pattern called for quite a few different shades of green from dark to light and everything in between.   Looking at fabrics in grayscale helps to decide which one is really darker or lighter.  I did a lot of rearranging of fabrics to get what I liked.

All of these went into 64 quarter-square-triangles.  The first step was putting two fabrics together, drawing a line down the center and sewing 1/4" on either side of the line.

(By the way, can you see the little "Gramma" that my grandson wrote on my sewing cabinet when he was about four years old and learning to write?  No way can I ever erase that!  And, no, he did not get in trouble.)


Those blocks are then cut down the middle resulting in two half-square-triangles.

Those half-square-triangle blocks are then pinned, seams lined up,  to another block.

A line is drawn down the middle of that block, it's stitched 1/4" on either side of the line then cut .....

..... resulting in quarter-square-triangles.



















My quarter-square-triangles always end up too big and have to be trimmed, but I don't mind.  Look at that beautiful pile of green strings in the background.  I don't actually use them for anything, they're just pretty.

The pattern called for the darkest blocks in the middle and the lightest blocks on the outer edge, so as I sewed I laid them out on the design wall.

That looked way too controlled for me so I played a little and ended up rearranging them until I liked it.  

Much better, right?

So the village has a green and now it needs a sidewalk.  Of course you know I am not going to make it brown like the pattern says. 

I'm linking up with A Quilting Readers Garden for WIP's Be Gone Week 13.

Quilted Village -- A Work in Progress

I'm finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel on my "Quilted Village" project.  I finished the final house block today!  This one was a little challenging because of the embroidery on the clock and the flag, but I think it turned out well.

When I started this quilt top in 2012 I was so excited about making mine different from the pattern that I jumped right into the house blocks and didn't make the quilt center which was the first step in the instructions.  If I had done it in the correct order I would be very close to being finished now.  

This is the way the pattern looks .....

..... but, obviously since my houses are bright and colorful, my greens in the town square need to be colorful, too.  That's the next step -- digging through my greens.  That'll be fun.  I have more greens than any other color in my stash.

I'm linking up with  ......... WIP's Be Gone Week 11, then I need to see what everyone else is working on.  

Two More Houses - WIP's Be Gone Week 9

Angie, at A Quilting Reader's Garden has been encouraging us to write more often about our Works in Progress, so I thought I would share with you the two most recent house blocks I have completed for my "Quilted Village."  

When I shared block #9 and #10  they didn't have all the embroidery added, but they do now.

This week I finished block #12, so I am making steady progress.

I saved the most complicated block #11 for last.  It's the courthouse so it has lots of windows, a clock, two trees and an American flag.  Maybe I should set that as my March goal, but I'm hoping it won't really take an entire month.  

I am linking up with WIP's Be Gone Week #9.  I'm going over there now to see what everyone else has been up to.

Quilted Village Update - WIP's Be Gone!

In 2012 I started working on a Block of the Month called Quilted Village.  You may remember me writing about it in this post.  I normally don't like to make my quilt just like everyone else's, but prefer to make my own version.  This is what the pattern writer had in mind .....

As this is my "Year of the UFO" I pulled this project out last week and started making more houses.  I made 8 of the 12 house blocks and lost interest which is why this ended up on the UFO list.  Anyway, I finished block # 9 last week .....

..... so this is what my village looks these days.

Here are a few closeups of some of the embroidery.

I started block #10 this week.

I'm thinking this one may actually get checked off the list this year, but for now it is still a WIP (Work in Progress.)

I am linking up with A Quilting Reader's Garden for their WIP's Be Gone Week 7.

More House Blocks

This week I finished two more blocks for my Quilted Village Quilt.
  

I am really enjoying choosing the bright colors and adding the embroidery.  I have 8 of the 12 blocks completed so I am hopeful that this will not end up on my UFO list at the end of the year!  

Purple --- Finally!

When I posted in November about my Quilted Village Block of the Month I took a little flack from two friends of mine (Dar and Gloria to be specific) because I had not made any purple houses yet.   I definitely planned on making one eventually so I thought that maybe I'd better do it sooner rather than later.   I mean I really can't handle that kind of pressure!  I pulled out my purples the other day and discovered that this is my entire stash of purples - 

The solid piece on the left is about a yard, and all the rest are just scraps. 


I did manage to get one house made from purples.....

.....but I can see that I need to do some serious purple stash building before long.  

Design Wall Monday

I don't normally post on Design Wall Mondays, but today I actually have something on my design wall!  Some of the members of my Guild are working on this Quilted Village pattern as a Block of the Month. 

Of course mine doesn't look like this at all.  I like to do my own thing when I quilt, so mine is going to be a colorful village on a background of black and white prints. 

Five of the blocks are finished so far along with the embroidered trees and plants.  I'm planning to use bright greens (naturally!) in the "town square" center, too.  I'm having fun with this one!