One Monthly Goal - March Wrap Up

Just a few days left in March. It's been a busy month, work is absolutely crazy.  Thankfully the sewing room has been a nice refuge in the evenings.  I've made good progress on March's One Monthly Goal. 

The plan for March was to start piecing the last of the graduation quilts.  There was a laundry list of things that needed to be done to make that happen.

Wash and press all the fabric ✔
Print the center panel on fabric ✔
Rinse, dry and cut the center panel to size✔
Print pattern from EQ, write cutting and pressing instructions ✔
Cut fabrics and start sewing✔

I count a quilt as "started" once the fabrics are cut.  That happened on March 11th.  Since then, the first two borders have been added and I've got a good start on the Friendship Stars that make up the third border. 

 The First Amendment Quilt
self designed

The left star border has already been sewn together and attached to the center panel.  The star blocks for the right side are still being assembled.  I wasn't sure how well that news print fabric would work, but I'm liking the effect.  Thankfully Drama Teen fully approves.   So I'm three for three on my 2017 OMGs.  I really do like this link up, it's been a great motivator each month. 

I've also been working really hard to get my Meadow Mist Mystery Quilt into finished flimsy form to show off in April.  I've been assembling the last set of blocks. 

 Meadow Mist Designs Mystery
By Cheryl Brickey of the Meadow Mist Designs Blog

The quilt has 8 of these blocks.  That's number 6 and 7 up on the design wall still under construction.  So just 3 blocks left to assemble and I can start sewing the blocks together.  Drama Teen and My Guy are going to a concert tonight, so I'll have the house to myself.  I'm contemplating putting this project front and center for one night to see if I can get it together before Friday.  I'd like to be able to submit a finished flimsy for the quilt parade.  

It's been a good month in the sewing room.  Wish I could say the same about work!  

Linking up with:
Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
March Finish Up - One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts
UFO-2017 at Patchwork Times

Printing Quilt Labels and Fabric Panels with the Software You Have

Quilting is probably my favorite pass time, but photography is a close second.  My Guy and Drama Teen share the photography bug, we have a lot of fun after outings comparing photographs.  I occasionally even take some nice shots and it's always seemed a waste to just print them up and stick them in albums.  Early on, it just seemed to be a natural step to start using some of those photos on labels.  

I first used photos in a quilt when I needed a design fix for a quilt for DT.  I didn't have enough in one of the fat quarters to get 4 tigers for the diagonal, so I took pictures of her favorite stuffed versions and used those.  

That was a big hit.

When The First Amendment became the theme of one of DT's commissioned graduation quilts my first thought was to embroider a panel.  I wanted the center panel to be good sized, definitely larger than 8.5 by 11.5. But as the months wore on, time became short.  I can't sew and embroider at the same time, so I thought about printing that center panel on fabric.  Turns out Electric Quilt produces printable fabric sheets in 13" x 19".  They are not cheap, but I only needed one, so a package of six was a reasonable purchase.

  

From that I can easily get a 12.5 X 18.5 panel that's large enough to be the center.  Not all printers can feed something that large.  Since we do so much photography (and science fair projects etc), I bought a printer that could handle the bigger paper sizes. 

There's just regular sized paper in there now, but the 13" fabric sheets will fit into the feeder.   Places that do lots of business printing, like Staples can print on fabric.  I've never used those services, so I'd talk with the staff and be willing to sacrifice a dry run piece (maybe in a much smaller size) to be sure you can get what you want before you commit to a bigger piece.    

There are lots of software programs that will let you play with pictures.  I use Photoshop Elements for photo editing and My Memory Suites for digital photo scrap booking.  Those two are my go to programs for any fabric printing project.  But it's amazing what you can do in Microsoft Word these days.  Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Power Point are also programs that allow for manipulation of photos and then printing in over sized formats. I'm sure there are others, but these are the most common I have routine access to.  

To begin any photo on fabric project you need to decide what the final size is going to be.  For labels I've been using 4" x 5". The First Amendment Panel was 12.5" x 18.5".  When you open the file, you'll need to go to the page layout menu is and select the page size you want to finish with.  That's important so you have the proportions right when it comes time for printing. 

This is the option from My Memory Suite, but it's similar to most of the other programs.  There is usually a drop down box with the different page sizes that you can select from.  Some programs, like Photoshop Elements and My Memory Suite, that will let you set custom page sizes.  

From there I usually select a background, for quilt labels, it's usually just a solid background.  For the First Amendment panel, I used a background from one of the kits I'd purchased for digital scrap booking.  Then I faded the background so the words would show up more clearly.  In Word, you can use the Design Menu and color the page.  I've not played much with this feature, so I'm not sure what all you can do.  But it's a great start.  

Photoshop Elements will also let you do things like this, but I'm a lot less proficient with that part of that software than I am with the photo editing part.  In Word you can then add a photo and text using the Insert Menu for the photo and the Format Text Effects shown above.  Word has lots of fonts and you can resize those as needed. 

A trick to working with photos in Word is to click on that little white (yellow in my graphic) box. That's the Layout Options Icon.  It takes you to a menu that will allow you to adjust how your photo interacts with any text and frees you to move it around by dragging and dropping.  You can also add borders to the page and color those. 

Once you have what you want, test print on paper.  It will save you a lot of grief and lost fabric sheets.  Before printing make sure that printer properties are set to the proper paper size and the type of print you want. This can usually be done from the print preview page in most programs. 

I usually use a draft print mode when printing on paper to check image alignment and how well the image fills the page.  Once that passes muster I use "best photo" printer mode and matte paper settings on my printer when printing on fabric sheets. You may have to play a bit with your printer settings to get best results. 

 Once you've got the final print, it usually needs to be soaked and rinsed to get rid of any extra ink.  I've used HP and Epson printers for labels and other photos on fabric, I've not had any problems with excess ink or bleeding on any of the labels.  Once it's dry, press and use. 

One final comment about using photographs in labels or fabric panels.  For a small quilt label the quality of the photo isn't so critical.  You can probably get by with a with 0.8 megapixel photo (so something taken by a cell phone would probably work).  For a large fabric panel like the First Amendment, you need a much better quality photo or you'll end up with a bunch of dots printed on the fabric.  There you'll need at least 6 megapixel, but 12 would be better (from a higher end point and shoot or good DSLR).  Fading will help a little bit, but if you want a clear image, you'll need a very high quality photo.     

I hope this post shows that you can do a lot of with photos and quilting without the fancy programs.  The specialty programs make a lot of manipulation and adding effects easier, but that doesn't mean you can't make some stunning stuff using what you have. It may mean learning about the extra features you don't use when typing a document.  Most of what I know about using photos in Word was gained from a quick training session with Drama Teen that I begged for when putting a calendar design for one of My Guy's organization into the commercial printer's template.  She's taken a number of computer classes in high school.  So by all means engage the teenagers or computer nerds in your life.  Of course Microsoft has lots of excellent tutorials out there for all of their products and there are lots of "how to" videos from other sources on You Tube. 

If there is enough interest, I'll do more tutorials with using clip art, scrap booking kits, and other photo to fabric topics.

Linking up with Late Night Quilter Tips and Tutorial Tuesday.   

Weekend Stitching: Finished and Not

It wasn't a relaxing weekend, laundry and taxes took care of that.  But it was a productive weekend.  Laundry is as caught up as it ever gets and the taxes are almost done.  Even better, I was able to recover from both activities by spending the afternoons in the sewing room.  After a marathon session of hand stitching, the binding and labeling of Bejeweled got done.  It was early evening and there wasn't great light, but I did get a few preliminary pictures. 

Bejeweled
From the book "All About Strips" by Susan Guzman

It's not a really great photo, the colors are so much more vivid than this shows.  The binding is the deep purple used in some of the "jewels".

The light blue backing also makes an appearance in the front of the quilt.  It will probably be next weekend before I have a chance to get really good photos.  Bejeweled is number two of four graduation quilts commissioned by Drama Teen that need to be done by May.  So I'm half way there!  

Finishing Bejeweled was one of my goals (that post is here) for the first quarter of the 2017 Finish Along.  Poinsettias also got finished. 

Poinsettias
By Judy Blok for the December 2013 issue
of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine

But Geometry didn't make it to the finished mark.  

 Geometry, self designed

But there was a lot of progress it went from finished flimsy to quilted. It will definitely show up on my list for the second quarter of the 2017 Finish Along.  The label's not made yet, nor is the binding.  There are still 5 evenings of sewing left in the quarter, so it might get done, but most likely not.  

Linking up with:
2017 Finish Along at Cut and Alter
Main Crush Monday over at Cooking up Quilts
Monday Making over at Love Laugh Quilt
Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times

Stitching and Shopping

Spring in Oklahoma is always a guessing game. It was so nice this last week, other then being really windy.  It was cold, rainy and just plain miserable yesterday.  After my initial wrestling match with the tax stuff during the morning, I retreated to the sewing room for most of the afternoon.  My goal this weekend is to get the binding sewn on Bejeweled.  

It was very soothing to just sit and stitch for a bit.  I've turned two corners, so just two sides left to do today.  I'm hoping to have a finish by the end of the weekend.  That would be nice.  Then  I can start on getting Geometry bound.  

On our way home from lunch I persuaded My Guy to let me stop at the new quilt shop in town.  Not that I really need anything, but if you don't support the local vendors, they don't stick around.  They were having a class, so the shop was pretty busy.  That was good to see.  I did walk out with some fabrics for an ongoing project.  I need some additional variety in my red and orange stash. 

I also added some blues.  As much as I like blue, there's not much variation in that part of the stash either.  I'm not doing real well with stash management this year.  I've already added more than I intended, but I've been using the new stuff along with the old.  Maybe I should look at this year as "rebuild" year.  I've done pretty well at keeping purchases to a minimum the last 3 years.  Here's the damage from this week:

Used this week:  1.14 yards
Used year to date:  20.65 yards
Added year to date:  76.3 yards
Net added:  55.65 yards

At least there has been a steady stream of fabric in the outgoing column.  It does help that I've stitched on something every day this year.  That's 84 days for the year so far. That's definitely a record.  I'm really close to my record fabric out number for the first quarter.  Back in 2013, I used 22.74 yards.  So if I can eek out 2 more yards out before the end of the month, I'll be on track for record fabric usage for the year.  That may be a bit of a stretch with just 5 days left in the quarter, but you never know.

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday and with Patchwork Times for the Stash Report.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Really Red

It was a long week, especially since I was off so much of the week before.  I'm definitely ready for the weekend, though this weekend will be busy.  I've put off doing the taxes, but they need to get done, so that's on the agenda for part of the weekend.  Doing lots of laundry is also on tap.  They finally got the part in for the washer and it got fixed Thursday evening.  After almost 2 weeks with no washer, the dirty clothes piles are reaching epic proportions.  

I did get in some decent sewing time this week.  Though it was spent un-sewing more than anything else.  Even so, the first set of red blocks for the Starburst quilt did get stitched up.  

Very bright and bold, especially against that black background.  One red set down and three more sets of four left to make.  I'm not sure I'll get them all done this month, my focus in the sewing room is making progress on the graduation quilts.  The binding is sewn to the front of Bejeweled so it's ready for hand stitching to the back.  Geometry came back from the quilter this week. So it needs a label and binding as well.  Both of those projects are on my list of finishes for the first quarter of the 2017 Finish Along.  Bejeweled will get done, but I'm not sure there will be time to finish Geometry.  

Linking up with Soscrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday and with Quilting is More Fun Than Housework for Oh Scrap on Sunday.