Carol Hopkins Designs – Chopin – A Passionate Quilter From Texas

January 9, 2019

My 2019-2020 Project List

Greetings from South Texas where we are now enjoying some dry cooler air and I love it. My walk was so enjoyable compared to yesterday when the Humidity was so high! I am slowly catching up on the ‘mundane’ things like updating my Blog and doing this post! Maybe you will see something that sparks an interest for your quilt making projects.

I have been working on reviewing a stack of quilt patterns to work on in the next 2 years (yes I decided that if I chose them now and say 2 years I am ahead of the game) so that I do not feel I have to finish them all (which would be impossible). Here is what I started with and ended with:

Now for the 2019-2020 “List”. I have no time frame for finishing the list just hoping to finish all by the end of 2020. As I studied each pattern I labeled it from an Easy to Complex quilt. This allows me to easily pick out what I want to work on at the time – NO THINKING or INTENSE WORK!

1. Enduring Love by Carol Hopkins book Vintage Legacies. Easy. About a week (I want to remake the borders on this quilt)

2. Make 2 baby quilts – Use Jewel Box Quilt book by Eleanor Burns Easy 2 Weeks.

3. Stonefields – Complete Sections 6 through 10 Rest of the year Easy

4. Feather Star Quilt – Marsha McCloskey – Challenge Quilt: Blue and White Star of Chamble. Fabric is in the drawer by the design board. Plan on a month!

5. Bear Mountain Cabin – Intermediate – Log Cabins, Flying Geese and Bear Paw blocks.

6. Love Warm by Pam Buda – Easy Lots of 2″ squares Scrappy Quilt –

7. Infinity by Eileen Wright in Twist and Turn Bargello Quilts – Red and a Teal One! Maybe Nebula from the same book Intermediate – New Technique

8. Terracina Fabrics – a Panel Play quilt! Will take some up front time for placement and fillers. Use Panel Play by Barbara Becker for ideas on the setting – A fun project Easy

9. Ancient Stars – Sue Garman Requires Lots of Stars and HSTs – Need to decide if I am going to do it all at once, or space it out like a BOM. This quilt requires at least a month or more to make. Intermediate

10. Double Wedding Ring by Sharlene Jorgensen – Templates provided. Intermediate/Advance – At least a month.

11. Lynn Wilder Patterns – Lynns patterns are great and instructions excellent! I will pick one and maybe the wall hanging! Time consuming due to colorway selections.

The House on Edgewood Lane Intermediate/Advance
Country Sunshine Intermediate/Advance
Country Charmer Intermediate/Advance
Heritage Intermediate/Advance
Cute as a Button 31 x 31. Easy

12. Star Dance by Jilly Studio – some applique on the border. Easy

13. Eagle – Cheryl Phillips – Challenge Quilt – Circular quilt – New Technique

14. Liberty Homestead. 36 x 36 Wall Hanging – Easy and Fun pattern. About 2 weeks Purchased hand dyed fabrics from Liberty Homestead in March 2018 at the Dallas Show

15. With This Ring – Linda Ballard – 9” blocks! Easy Pattern – About a week or so. (Also known as Cog Wheels Block)

16. Boston Commons – Heritage Quilts – New Technique 2 weeks, maybe 3 weeks

17. Karen Combs Illusions and 3-D Fun with Pandora’s Box – New Technique – 3 weeks

18. Jelly Roll Book – Both Sides of the Pond. Unique Block Easy Fun to make 2 weeks

Appliqué
A Bountiful Life UFO from 2015
Dresden Plate UFO from 2018

New Appliqué Projects: Sue Garman’s – Maybe in 2020

Mama Said – Advance Applique
Yuletide Joy – Intermediate/Easy

On-Line BOMs

Blue Delft – I will download this pattern for a future project.

Capital “T” BOM – 1 Block a Month! This is my only BOM to work on each month!

If I participate in So Scrappy RSC 2019 Challenge this year, I will be using their colors With This Ring pattern (See Number 15 on the list above)

My Goals for January are:

Capital “T” BOM – 1 Block a Month! I am behind 3 months and plan on getting caught up today!

Baby Quilts for my Cousin’s great grand babies Addison and Brooklyn!

Remake the borders for Enduring Love (a 2015 quilt that I had given up on the Star Borders)

Have a wonderful day and a great week!

Nanette

Linking To: My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday; Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts; Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Quilt Fabrication

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015

Second Time Around is So Much More Fun!

Here we are in the middle of 90 degree weather with 70% humidity – and no rain. Darn. Summer Solstice is already here on 21 June – 6 months has flown by! In 4 1/2 months we get our hour back, and as of next Thursday (25 June) Christmas is 6 months away……….Time just flies by when we are having fun! We missed Mr Bill from the Gulf this time, but I bet the Hurricane Season is right on his heels! I blame the fast passage of time now on the extra Daylight Savings Time.

Saturday I was able to attend the San Antonio Guild monthly meeting and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the Program. Charlotte Angotti (http://www.quiltmakersstudio.com) was the speaker and she provided 1 hour and 15 minutes of pure laughter! I think Charlotte has missed her calling – she should be a stand up Comedian. She is a pure joy to listen to her share her quilting “stories”. She is so funny. She has a book out with Debbie Caffrey called “Surprise Yourself”. The story behind this book is absolutely hilarious. Charlotte is the type of quilter that if a point doesn’t match she puts a button over the area to cover it up, or totally ignore it! On the other hand, Debbie Caffrey is like I am, the eternal perfectionist and cannot ride that galloping horse without seeing a mistake! The book is presented in a Compare and Contrast work of art!

Cudo’s to Rebecca Cook (no relation) who is the 3rd VP for Programs with the Guild. She is a newly Certified Quilt Appraiser and knowing Rebecca, she will be an excellent one.

I have FINALLY finished the remake of my Enduring Love #270 (see 26 May Blog for the original picture) and I changed the fabric in the 2nd border and the technique in making the borders. The original pattern called for a mitered border, a non-mitered border, then another mitered border and that was a disaster for me. This time I cut all of the border strips (# 1-3) the same length (longest length for Border 3) and sprayed each strip with Magic Sizing to prevent any distortion on the last border of the Serpentine fabric. I then sewed 4 sections consisting of Borders #1-3 together. I marked each corner of the Bird Medallion with a 1/4 inch mark, and sewed a stay stitch on Border 3 to prevent distortion. Then I carefully measured and pinned and sewed the side border strip on first and then the top. I used Marti Michell’s Miter Ruler to cut the mitered points and it turned out absolutely perfect! What a great ruler to have.

So here I am at the point where I “think” I was around 26 May with this project.

Enduring Love Redo — Enduring Love #270 – Second Time Around!

I have also finished 2 more blocks for my Stars Across Texas quilt:

Well, tomorrow the Square in a Square borders will go on the Enduring Love #270 (hopefully). We will see if they have a problem also, or if I have corrected all my “errors” that will provide a great quilt to enter in a Quilt Show next year!

I now have Threads of Memory, Sunbonnet Ladies, Stars Across Texas (almost), and Enduring Love #270 to complete and design settings! Think I will be busy between now and time to scoot to Arizona…..

Have a great week – enjoy your time quilting!

May 26, 2015May 30, 2015

A Quilters Story – Enduring Legacy or Enduring Mistakes

Greetings from the State of Texas where our 5 year plus Drought is OVER! We are officially drought free. This is the way it goes here in South Texas and what a relief that we are in El Nino weather pattern. Our grass is growing back and our 95 pine trees are looking so pretty. I feel for the families who have lost loved ones and their homes. Mother Nature can provide blessings, but at the same time heartache.

The last time I posted I believe I was working on a quilt by Carol Hopkins Designs. The pattern is from Civil War Legacies – Quilts for Reproduction Fabrics. I keep calling my quilt Enduring Legacy – well….. DUH that is the fabric line by Judi Rothermel. This pattern is Enduring Love #270. I love the quilt and the fabric line and it was coming together so pretty. I knew that when putting the Medallion together that a few of the star points were “cut off”, but decided that this would be a “utility” quilt and not one to show. The pattern calls for 8 borders. The Medallion has a serpentine 2″ border strip mitered, a 2″ border not mitered, and then another 2″ serpentine border mitered! So in my stressed stupor from the last 15 months, I followed the pattern. Moving right along I finished the first 3 borders and attempted to start the 40 stars for the next border. Here is a picture of my progress about 3 weeks ago. I was fairly pleased with myself for getting this much done even after Clay’s neck surgery in April!

Enduring Legacy with 3 Borders — Absolutely Beautiful – Looking Perfect?

The next border consisted of 40 Squares in a Square Block. I was very careful to measure and make sure that each 4 1/2″ block would be perfect and not have issues like I did with a few of the star points! Quilting right along, Ms Perfectionist put the entire border on ONLY to find out that I was off 3/8 of an inch when I put the top border on! LOVELY!

I kept telling myself and hubby, oh well, this will not be a quilt for Show….. After ripping the entire border off, redoing the side borders and thinking, ahhhh now it should be OK (yes I checked to see if all corners were squared) I still had a problem. I decided to walk away and “think about it”. But I do believe that this one put me over the edge (Type A’s have this problem – LOL).

Sunday morning I made up my mind that I would take the quilt apart to find my mistakes. Boy did I find some, and the worst was in the very first Serpentine border. I continued on searching out the problems and found out that they began when I put the 2nd border on – which was NOT mitered, and of course made it really bad with the 3rd border! One would think that I would have listened to 3 friends who kept reminding me to not start any quilts that would require concentration while I was under stress. As I ripped all borders off and reached the “stars with cut off points” I decided that I needed to continue ripping and start this quilt over. Good thing I did as I quickly found out that my center block (Birds) was 1/4″ off.

When I am in the process of working on a quilt and have “issues” (nice word for mistakes) I back into the problem and try to find out exactly what I did to get to the point where I am now. Well, one major mistake was this. I pre-wash all my fabrics and immediately iron them. Guess what! I forgot that I had set them aside and did not press. I guess I thought that I would “press as I go”, but even forgot that. So my mistakes really started before I started cutting. LESSON LEARNED!

Then if was off to the computer hoping to find some more fabric just in case and Whittles saved me. The background fabric was more difficult to find. Although I have plenty, I love the fabric and found it at The Hen House (www.thehenhousemi.com). So that was pure dumb luck. This quilt will now become a Show quilt for next year. I will correct all mistakes and make sure that it is of Show quality, even if it never receives a Ribbon, it is a quilt that will be worth all the work. MORAL OF THE STORY – Do not expect anything to go right when under stress! Won’t Happen!

So here I am on 30 May 2015 “starting over” with Enduring Love #270. I have the Center Medallion corrected, 4 of the 12 Center Stars have been re-made, and the Square in a Square Border has been checked and appears to be “OK” (fingers crossed) as I do not want to have to re-make them. All fabric has been received, washed and YES, I just finished ironing the first set of fabrics and will iron the additional ones tomorrow. Quilting is sooooo much fun!

Border Fabrics — Border Fabric – Judi Rothermel Sturbridge Collection II – Enduring Legacy

Enduring Legacy Fabics — Judy Rothermel Sturbridge Collection II – Enduring Legacy Fabrics

Center Medallion 30 May 15 — Center Medallion – 30 May 2015

I tried to salvage all of the 12 Stars that circle the birds, but quickly found that I was sloppy (probably not concentrating) and did not square the star points or the center of the star as I made them. Therefore in the end – a total remake of all 12 stars! They are all cut out and ready to be sewn together. Let’s hope I am more careful when putting them together and not forgetting to square each section!

Have a great week-end and updates coming down the pike on my Texas Quilt!

April 18, 2015December 30, 2018

WOW – April Already!!!

Here in La Vernia, Texas we have been blessed with 8 inches of rain in the last 2 or 3 weeks. I really do believe now the drought is in the beginning stages of going away! – Hopefully. This has been a 10 year drought and the last one was in 1950. Back then we only had swamp coolers – We were young and dumb and did not need the air conditioner’s like we have now.

I have missed my Blogging and Quilting, BUT, good news. Hubby came out of that surgery great. I had to get him away from the Hospital so they would not make him sicker (LOL). We were home by 7:15AM on Easter Sunday.

It is hard to believe that this Friday it will be 3 weeks since his surgery. Thursday we will go see the Surgeon and hopefully they will put him in a soft cervical cast. He has really done well. I would love to have some of his stem cells and grab that wonderful immune system he has. The scar is almost – almost gone. He now has a beautiful white beard and I am encouraging him to trim it when he can and keep it. Makes him look younger – and I feel older. LOL. I am thankful that I am able to meet all of his needs. Being a caretaker is a difficult job, no complaints here as he took care of me through 3 Lumbar back surgeries. What a trooper he was for me. Darryl is not doing well, but appears that he will make his 51st Birthday on Wednesday the 22 of April. It was on his 50th Birthday when he was told about the Cancer. He has beat the odds – they had given him 5% chance to survive a year. Although he is not doing very well now, and close to the end of his long difficult struggle with the Lung Cancer and COPD, he has made the year and beat the perdentages.

I have been working on my Texas embroidery quilt blocks and last Friday I decided I could safely start on a project. I have 2 quilts ready to work on the settings, but it would be difficult for me at this time to really be able to concentrate on selection of the fabrics and the design setting. So those are in the “que”.

I wanted to make this a “stress free” quilt project – (I have had the course with Stress in the last year) and did not feel that I would do a quilt justice pulling trying to pull fabrics and come away with something I would like in 6 months (Mood Changes?). I found a pattern I had purchased last year called Civil War Legacies (Quilts for Reproduction Fabrics) – Enduring Love #270 by Carol Hopkins Designs…… Now this is an interesting title……….How is it I did not realize that these patterns are made especially for certain reproduction fabric lines when I purchased it – Probably because I liked the pattern and did not pay attention, as I often do. So as I began to review the directions, the fabrics that the quilt had been made from were Judi Rothermel’s Enduring Legacy. Of course, as always, I did not have on piece of that fabric line in my newly acquired mountains of reproduction fat quarters or yardage!

Civil War Legacies - Enduring Legacy — Enduring Legacy – Carol Hopkins Designs

I quickly googled the fabric line and found that Whittle’s in Kentucky had the majority of the fabrics I needed I was unable to find the border print so I chose another print and I found the 3 blue’s from Thistle Bee Quilt Shoppe in North Carolina. So all I needed was the fabric and I would be ready to start. I was so happy and surprised on Monday to find my stash from Whittle’s! Now I am inspired to get back to my passion of quilting and working on a quilt – not just “playing” around.

I have started on the center medallion which will be a 12″ finished center. I have the stems in place and one bird (no wings yet) and the rest pinned in place. I am going to finish it today and tomorrow will start cutting out fabrics for the “borders”. I used fabrics from “Party of Twelve” for the Blue Bird and the Brown Bird Bodies. I wanted to add some lights so decided to use some shirting fabric! This will be fun.