WIPW - Trinity Green Finished

Work In Progress Wednesday can finally report on a FINISH:

The

Trinity Green

quilt of small green triangles is completed.

This project started in the middle of April last year, so has taken one year and five months.

The point with this quilt was to use up all my green stash, but I also got a lot of extra pieces from friends near and far. THANK YOU!

In total 9.234 small triangles were cut and pieced on paper strips. These were joined together into long 'snakes',

then sandwiched with long strips of green 'pasta'.

Once the whole quilt flimsy was assembled, the paper backing had to be ripped off.

The quilt was then sandwiched and basted, and quilted in the ditch

With the aid of a walking foot and one of the fancy stitches of the sewing machine, the 'pasta' sashing was quilted with 'snails' or 'waves'. In spite of that 'aid' the snails slid hither and dither, and the waves ruled the sea. What I want to say is that the quilting was hard work!

Finally I put on a binding and quilted it with the same stitch.

I took the easy way out and did not mitre the corners, but I did put on a hanging sleeve.

Here Trinity Green is hanging by the daybed.

On the bed it has a nice overhang.

The variety of green hues changes with the light of the day. Overcast skies in the afternoon in the pictures above and

with hazy evening sun in the picture below.

A clever graphic designer once commented on Trinity Green: 'the finished thing is bound to be stunning-like emeralds scattered on a bed! '

That was just what I saw in the morning sunlight on this wonderful Wednesday, when I can finally say, 

Trinity Green is Finished.

To all my friends and followers, Thank You. I am so grateful for your support and encouragement during these 17months.

WIPW - 64 days

At last I have some proper progress to show on Work In Progress Wednesday.

The quilting on
Trinity Green
is complete!
It took me 64 days to finish the in-the-ditch straight-line walking and the swirly snails.

At times the machine quilting was very frustrating. The walking foot climbed out of the ditch and onto the curb, the snails slid hither and thither, tangled up in each other and left a trail of loose thread ends to fasten. Well, I have to be grateful it wasn't a slimy trail, I guess!

Fastening those loose threads, cutting the edges of the quilt and preparing the binding are three jobs I also have completed.

So let's hope next week I can show the final WIPW report of this L E N G T H Y project, when the quilt is finally finished.

WIPW - Nearing the Finishing Line

Work In Progress Wednesday.

My snails on
Trinity Green
are slowly nearing the finishing line.

I have endured the heat and quilted 10 lines. The count now stands at 32/37. Five more to go! I can almost see the sign 'Finish' somewhere in the distance.

WIPW - Over Cooked? Over Heated?

Work In Progress Wednesday.

I've been 'cooking,' i.e. quilting, more pasta on

Trinity Green

but either the torchietti is getting over cooked, or the sewing machine is as over heated as I am.

The snails don't want to form the way I want them to, especially when they have to slide over a bumpy seam.

Even the camera is struggling to stay in focus in the heat!

Although the snails are uneven and ugly, I will keep them as they are, to remember the heat of the summer of 2017.

Anyway, I have quilted five more strips of the sashing. 22/37 means there are 15 more to go! Cooler weather  soon, please!

WIPW 17/37

The progress on

Trinity Green 

I have made is quilting five strips.
I now have 17 out of 37, so there are 20 more to go. Sigh!

No need to comment.

WIPW - 12/37

It is HOT in Tokyo and progress can only be made at night.

Trinity Green
I have now managed to snail stitch (no pun intended) 12 out of 37 strips of the green sashing on this quilt.

WIPW - Is Shopping Progress?

Work In Progress Wednesday took me on a shopping trip.

Trinity Green
was in need of more thread so before I could make any quilting progress I had to buy some reels of

green Dual Duty.

For
World Embroidery Day
I completed the stump work carrot and two pods of peas.

Then I stitched the embroidery to a card and inserted in a frame, gift wrapped it, wrapped it in brown paper, took it to the postoffice and sent it flying across the Globe.

WIPW - Torchietti?

Work In Progress Wednesday -

well it has been slow. It is simply too hot and far too humid in Tokyo to quilt.

I think the wadding has gained weight because of the damp and the quilt itself is more awkward than before to handle.

Nevertheless, progress on

Trinity Green

stands like this:

Everyone of the 38 'snakes' have been quilted in the ditch.

Three of the 'spinach tagliatelle' now have a snail pattern. Am I cooking Torchietti?

Instead of free motion quilting, which turned out to be too hard on this large and heavy quilt, I settled for the walking foot and one of the 'fancy' stitches in the sewing machine's program.

As you can see, the 'cooking' does not always go well, some of the swirls are too tight or too stretched out. The walking foot has trouble going backwards.

I will try to find a better and flatter place to let the quilt rest on. Hopefully that will easy the weight. Bundling everything up in my lap and packing it up behind the machine is making it hard to control...

This will just have to be slooow progress!

WIPW - Snake Guts

Work In Progress Wednesday. Time for a report:

It has been too hot to work during the daytime so I have let the midnight light burn while quilting

Trinity Green 
All the in-the-ditch quilting is done and I have something that looks like Snake Guts (intestine).

I am still pondering what to do with the 'tagliatelle' quilting. Free motion or Fancy Machine stitching?

NHK Partnership Quilt

I have completed the block for  NHK's Partnership Quilt project. As you may remember, the theme was Tree of Life.
It was hard to do on this small scale, 15cmx15cm, and I settled for round leaves and made one round Swedish flag.

Last day for a contribution is 31st July. Read more here.

Work In Progress Wednesday - Woolly Summer Blooms

Work In Progress Wednesday:

Trinity Green
I have only added a few new rows of straight line quilting - it's been too hot and humid to work on the bulky quilt.

Greeting Card

I made another greeting card with a basket of summer blooms. Most of them are made with wool and that, too, was a bit to 'woolly' to work in the heat and humidity of Tokyo.

 Most of my Appleton yarn is in muted tones, good for the basket and the greens, but the flowers needed a bit more colour and I added some perl and stranded floss.

Work In Progress Wednesday - Straight Line Walking

Work In Progress Wednesday for July 5th shows how I have let Elna go Straight Line Walking on

Trinity Green

Yes, the walking foot is a great tool for stitch-in-the-ditch quilting. The bulk of the quilt, though, sometimes makes the foot take a step or two up onto the embankment of the ditch. It IS hard to control the mass of fabric there is in a bedside quilt when you quilt on a domestic sewing machine in a crowded workspace.



The Tagliatelle (strips of turquoise fabric) will eventually be trodden all over by the free form quilting foot.

 This is the quilting seen from the back. On the right the quilting is tighter as I have quilted both sides of the Tagliatelle, I have to do the remaining lines on the left later in the week.

Work In Progress Wednesday - Elna is Snacking on a Snake Sandwich

It is snacking time at Work In Progress Wednesday.

A week ago, late Wednesday night, after blogging about the preparation I had made to sandwich and baste Trinity Green, I actually lined up and layered the backing, the wadding and the flimsy. It took me only three hours to crawl on the floor and baste the entire quilt! Believe it or not, I did not have any pain in my knees or a sore back the next day either!

Since then I have been feeding my Elna sewing machine with the sandwiched quilt:

Elna has munched her way through the 'snakes', the columns of triangles, and not brought anything back up - yet!

Working with the walking foot is much easier than I expected, and I now only need the time to work and this stitch-in-the-ditch job will be completed.

After that I will do some free motion quilting on the 'tagliatelle' strips. That part of the cooking might be a wee bit more difficult...

WIPW - Ready to Make a Sandwich

Work in Progress Wednesday:

Greeting Card

I made another birthday card of a floral basket. Wool embroidery with a smattering of Perle.

 

Trinity Green

I went shopping to get wadding and quilting thread.
I pressed the quilt top.
I pressed the back.
I am ready to make a quilt sandwich and start basting the three layers together.

WIPW or rather WIPT

A day late I will have to call this Work In Progress Thursday.

I have ripped off almost all the paper from the back of

Trinity Green

Compare it with last week's picture:

I will have to go shopping for some wadding. Also I will have to check for any torn seams or other weak points. Then comes the sandwiching, basting, practicing machine quilting on some spare odd blocks, and finally the machine quilting. It will all take some time so let's see what progress can be made until next week Wednesday.

WIPW - A Bit More to Rip

There is a bit more paper to rip off the

Trinity Green 

quilt. You can now see the variety of green, and it is the wrong side of the fabric.

Compared with last week's photo:

No need to comment.

WIPW - Still Ripping

I am still ripping off paper from the back of the

Trinity Green

quilt.

Last week's status:

This week's progress:

Rip, rip, rip, oops did I just rip a seam as well?! Slowly does it, as Carolyn says!

No need to comment!

WIPW - Rip, rip, rip

Work In Progress Wednesday is all about

Trinity Green

where I have continued to rip, rip and rip off the paper on the back.

Last week's picture:

This week's photo:

No need to comment!

WIPW - Slowly But Steadily

Slowly but steadily, the paper backing of

Trinity Green 

is being removed.

Last week's Work In Progress Wednesday photo

This week's photo

No need to comment!

WIPW - Paper Trail

What have I got to report for Work In progress Wednesday?

Well, progress has been made on

Trinity Green
where I have carefully been removing paper from the back of the quilt. There is a paper trail wherever I go!

WIPW - The Paper Quilt

Work In Progress Wednesday asks if you would fancy a nap under a paper quilt?

Trinity Green

Here is the paper backed TG quilt, all stitched together.



and its front. It looks more turquoise than green in this light.

I will give the quilt a press,
and then start removing all the paper. Sigh!
Stephen Fry, come and read me Harry Potter's adventures while I take on this boring task.

With the tools of the trade (a pincette) it has gone smoothly, albeit slowly!



Here is an update on
Friday Homework: Satin Stitch Outline

 I tried various types of thread and they all behaved badly! Actually I think the Coton a Broder that I used first (the dark blue lines, and yellow hearts) are the best.

The other threads gave a lumpy look, too. I think the bumps are caused by the split in the running stitches.

This is a stitch I do not like. Lesson learned!

To make it into a greeting card I added other stitches, but the overall effect is still messy. This card will only greet the bottom of a box at the back of the cupboard.