Category Archives: fire escape

Bryce – Finished Flimsy

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In September 2011, my husband and I took a holiday that involved visiting many of the National Parks in Utah.  Our favorite park was Bryce Canyon. 


This is my Bryce Canyon inspired quilt.  The pattern is Fire Escape by Terry Atkinson of Atkinson Designs. This quilt top is lap size–approximately 60″ x 72″
I picked out the batiks a week ago at my LQS and last Friday I spent the morning washing and drying the fabrics.  I started to cut the strips later in the day–only intending to do the cutting–kit the quilt so that when I was ready later to sew, everything would be ready.  Once I started working with the fabrics, I couldn’t stop.  I finally called it a night just after midnight Friday night with about 2/3 of the sewing done.  I was able to do a bit of stitching Saturday between errands and a family potluck dinner with the last seam stitched Sunday night.  This was a true weekend quilt project. 
I am now in search for the perfect backing fabric.  My husband got pretty good at spotting lizards and geckos in the parks we visited on this vacation so I would like to find a backing fabric that features these sorts of creatures.
These are some of the pictures I took during our visit to Bryce:

Few places are as spectacular as the natural beauty of Bryce!

Ice and Quilt Progress

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This morning, we woke up to a layer of freezing rain covering everything.

Although the ice coating on everything is pretty, it is definitely not safe to be driving or walking in this weather.

 

It was safe to stay inside and quilt though.  🙂

By 11:00 pm, I had finished making all the blocks for the Got Stripes quilt – with the exception of one.  I was short a green background strip.  I need to cut some green background  pieces to finish the last block and to replace some pieces in a block that is already pieced into the quilt top.  I made the mistake of reversing one piece of background fabric–front for back so I will need to do some reverse sewing.   

I also finished the binding on my Fire Escape quilt.  After finishing the binding, I spread the quilt out over the table to take a picture. 

A picture without the flash shows the colours of the quilt to be a little closer to reality and shows the swirl quilting design a little better.

Yet More Snow and Quilting Updates

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You just know you are in for one of those days when it starts with this:

The snow continued to fall here last night.  The snow mixed with high winds (60 to 80 km/hr) resulted in white out conditions and a bit of a wild drive to work today. 

Barbecue season and meals in the backyard seem so far away.

This truck is not going anywhere soon.

On the quilting front, progress is being made on piecing the blocks for Got Stripes and on attaching the binding to Fire Escape.

I am currently working on row 7 of 11 on Got Stripes.  Rows 1 to 5 are completely joined together.  Row 6 blocks are joined to one another but row 6 is not yet joined to rows 1 to 5.  I have just started working on row 7 – only one star block assembled so far on that row.

The binding has been attached to Fire Escape.  When I can steal a few moments, I work on hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt.

Happy New Year!

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Have you heard the New Year’s Day superstition that what you do on New Year’s Day will be what you do all year long? 
We spent New Year’s Eve with our daughter and her fiance.  I don’t like family out on the roads New Year’s Eve with all the parties and drinking and driving that goes on, so we had them spend the night.  Because my daughter missed our traditional “Wife Saver Breakfast” on Christmas morning, because she had to work, that is what we had for breakfast on New Year’s Day morning.  After breakfast, my daughter had to head off to work, but it was nice having her here for New Year’s Eve and then breakfast the next morning. 
After breakfast, it was time to focus on how to spend the rest of the day.  Linda and I discussed this issue on New Year’s Eve and decided that we definitely would not be doing laundry or housework!  We knew we wanted to focus on quilting, but which aspect of quilting did we want to focus on?  In the end, we decided to touch on as many different quilting aspects as we could manage to fit into the day.  


I started my day by doing a few passes on the current quilt that is loaded on the long arm.  This quilt is, “Fire Escape”, finished to the flimsy state on September 11, 2011.  I just love this colour combination–red and aqua!  http://www.silverthimblequilting.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-post.html
 




The next project I worked on was something that could be considered a reward–something quick to finish that would bring instant satisfaction of accomplishment.  I purchased a table runner kit on a blog hop in June 2006 that has been sitting safely in its plastic sleeve since that time.  I decided today would be the day to work on that project.  This was an old project, not really a UFO since it hadn’t been out of the plastic, that needed to be finished.   This one is now finished to the flimsy stage.  This runner finishes at approximately 50″ x 20″.  I love how this one turned out!

This runner is the same pattern as the runner that I finished up for my Mom for Christmas this past year.  http://silverthimblequiltingarchive.blogspot.com/2006/06/quilt-shop-hop-2006.html
In September 2009, I purchased the fabrics to make Terry Atkinson’s, “Got Stripes?” quilt.  This quilt is comprised of two blocks–a block made from striped fabrics and a star block.  I made the striped blocks right away and then set the fabric and pattern on the shelf.

When I took this one off the shelf to work on it, it took a bit to remember what fabrics I had decided to use where on the stars.  Only some of the fabrics for the star blocks had actually been cut.  Further confusing the situation was a navy blue batik fabric that I had also purchased at the time I bought these fabrics.  At the time, I thought I might make the star points navy blue.  I remember not being able to decide between the brown and the navy blue.  I ended up buying both fabrics and decided today to go with the brown.

I am loving how this one is turning out.  I finished 5 of the 50 required stars for this queen sized quilt tonight before having to call it quits.  http://www.silverthimblequilting.blogspot.com/2009/11/current-projects.html
I think this was a very successful New Year’s Day! 
– I stared the day with a wonderful meal together with my family.
– I managed to keep activities for the day related to quilting. 
– I worked on using my existing stash.
– I resisted buying new fabric–even though there was a 50% off sale today at a local fabric store.
– I never did any housework or laundry.
2012 is shaping up to be a great year!

Fire Escape

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Sometimes you need a project that provides instant gratification on a finish to jump start the creative process.  I also wanted to make use of my existing stash. 

I have been saving a group of Debbie Mumm fabrics for years–at least 10 years–waiting for just the right pattern to come along.   

Terry Atkinson’s pattern,  Fire Escape was just the ticket to showcase my stack of Debbie Mumm aqua and red fabrics.  This pattern uses only 5 – 1 yard cuts of fabric plus one contrasting fabric for the lap size (60″ x 72″) quilt.

This one is now a finished flimsy and moves to the “to be quilted pile”.  Let’s hope it doesn’t spend another 10 years on that pile!