Quilting Fun

I went to quilt retreat a couple weeks ago and had a great time with 28 other women.  We don't have cell service there so I left my phone off and didn't take another camera and didn't get to capture some of the gorgeous tops made.  It is always very inspiring.  This time I worked on a pattern called Snippets by Colorway.  I had purchased the "Jingle" line of fabric in July and in September found a pattern that worked and added some odds and ends of other lines that coordinated.  This is a new queen size quilt top for Christmas and although I got tired of making triangles I love it!  It's so bright and fun with the aqua added to traditional colors.  It really does lay flat, but I had it folded and didn't take time to press it.

Snippets

I have been participating in a BOM from Turning Twenty called Seeing Stars for a few months.  I am caught up on the blocks.  Every other week you make one identical 12" and one 6" block.  I had signed up for the free BOM and have managed to print off the patterns on time!

Seeing Stars

I was caught up on my 1930 Farmer's Wife quilt blocks until they announced two new ones today!  I'm loving how bright and fun these six inch blocks are.  

1930 Farmer's Wife

 I bit the bullet, I wasn't going to... but Quiltville's new mystery colors are awesome!  They are far from my normal, but I love them and decided to go for it.  I need a bit more background, but I am loving the colors.  I even got the color cards, just because I was actually in a Lowe's shortly after the colors were released.  The closest Lowe's is 3 hours away and I forgot to put the cards in the pic.

I did some machine quilting I will show after the recipient receives it! 

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It's Monday

I have good intentions to post more during the week, but I don't get to it!

I finally put borders on a couple quilt tops I have had hanging around.  I mentioned this quilt and showed it without a border in this post.

Northern Cardinals

I showed this quilt in progress in August.  It was intended as a charity quilt, but I'm no longer involved in the organization I was going to donate it to.  It is queen sized and I will eventually quilt it, then decide what to do with it.  I was going for a more masculine type quilt.

I got caught up on my Quiltmaker Itty Bitty blocks through October.  I realized that I messed up on the sashing when I went back and looked at my notes. The quilt is getting so long and I have two more months to add on.  I meant to cut the sashing strips at 1.5", instead they finish at 1.5".  YIKES!  I will have to do some fancy work on the sides to widen the quilt.  November's block was announced today on the Quilty Pleasures blog.

Quiltmaker Itty Bitty Blocks

 I had leftover strips from making a quilt featured on this post.  I put them together into a throw size quilt top.  I have no idea what I will do with this one either as my couches are definitely not in this color way!  Gray, aqua and coral are popular right now, but I'm not redecorating.  I just love the gray print I put with the stirps.

 Check out other blogs at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

Time sure flies!  I forgot to post my Scrap Squad quilt.  Click the link and you will see my blog post about the process of making it. There is a lot of piecing in this quilt but I love the purple!  I named it Violets.

I have been working on many small projects, trying to tidy up some leftover blocks and pieces for doll quilts for charity.  I got borders on my Christmas quilt, cut out more Itty Bitty blocks and started plotting for a quilt retreat in November.  I went to a quilt show Oct. 17th in Spokane, WA.  It was awesome and very inspiring.  I hope to do a blog post on that soon.    

These are two doll quilt tops I made from pieces of Scrap Squad projects.  The green and white one is from a trial of adding green squares into the above quilt.  The one on the right is from leftover Fairy Frost fabrics from my Gemstones quilt I showed in this post.  Now if I could learn to take straight photos...  

doll quilt tops for charity

We went on a road trip to Utah last week.  1300 miles and 2 nights at our daughter's in Boise and 2 nights at our daughter's in Utah (and visiting our amazing grandkids in Utah) was a quick but fun trip.  I had started this project quite some time ago and at the Spokane quilt show I found the Pacific Rim Quilts booth.  It reminded me of this quilt and I went to a friend's to sew one afternoon and took this project.  It is now completely appliqued since my husband did most of the driving on our trip.  I can't wait to quilt it... someday...

Dragonflies

In July I was in McCall, ID and purchased some lovely fabric from the Jingle line at Huckleberry Patches quilt shop.  I love the aqua and red!  I was there in September and bought background and border along with a pattern I found pictured below.  I added a couple pieces from the Daysail line in the stash too.

Snippets pattern I found that fit the fabrics perfectly!  I love the classic look of this, although I may get tired of triangles!  It will be a perfect retreat project in November.

 

Check out Patchwork Times for more great projects!

Design Wall Monday

Last week I finished quilting and binding my next quilt for the Quiltmaker Scrap Squad.  My post should go live on Friday and then I will be able to share what I made out of the purple strips from the last post!

My daughter and her husband visited over the weekend so we spent time trying to introduce their dog to our two dogs (not very successfully) but fortunately our dogs are mostly outside and hers is mostly inside!  I didn't get any quilting done but we had a lot of fun playing games.

Today I got caught up on the 1930's Farmers Wife Quilt blocks.  Well, actually I made all six of them that have been assigned via Gnome Angel's website.  This is not my normal style of fabric, but I think they are fun.

On my design wall I put up some leader/ender blocks I have been working on for a few weeks.  I am using batik scraps to make a charity quilt.  It will be bigger, but it's fun to see what the quilt will look like.  I will have to decide on sashing.

I am also machine quilting a project I can't show yet!

Check out what other's are working on at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday and Retreat

It's been a super busy last few weeks.  We had our county fair, a family get together, work and a quilt retreat!  I finished another t-shirt quilt this month and delivered it for a Christmas gift.  I will take a chance on my boss not reading my blog.  She brought me a huge bag of her son's t-shirts and sweatshirts to make her a quilt from, but her parents were the ones paying me.  I love designing t-shirt quilt layouts.  This one was loosely based on a quilt I saw in Quiltmaker magazine this year.  I added a bit of pink here and there complement the one pink t-shirt!  For some odd reason the edges ruffled a bit, I think it's the polyester batting and not basting the edges together before binding.

I went on a quilt retreat in beautiful McCall, Idaho last weekend.  The hostesses, Corrie and Des are a sister duo that go all out for a wonderful time for Craft Taffy retreats..  The best part was my friend Valerie flying to Idaho from Colorado.  She and I shared a room and had a lot of fun.  This is the first quilt I worked on.  The colors are very different from my usual style.  Aqua, gray and coral.  The pattern is called Cotton Candy and it's about twin size.

There was a nice railing to hang quilts over.  These are some of the quilts others worked on.

Views of the kitchen where Des and Corrie made wonderful food and of the sewing area.  A little of it is out of view.

Kathy taught a Lone Star quilt class that several people worked on.  I did not take the class, but the results were stunning.  I have made Lone Star quilts before, but never out of a jelly roll!  Kathy did an awesome job teaching!  Check out her blog for lots of fun retreat photos at: kathystitchbystitch

 Flowers down the street.

 A young deer following it's mother.  I'm used to lighter colored white tail deer in my yard.

Beautiful Payette Lake at sunset.  Paddleboarders went by and the lake was cold, but one of our group couldn't resist jumping in the lake.  Some of us were tempted, but it was a ways to walk back to the lodge in wet clothes!

This is a preview of my next Quiltmaker Scrap Squad quilt.  Purples!  I slightly overcut on the purple strips, but they will be used in a border.  I can't show any of the blocks yet!

Check out other Monday posts at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

I have nothing on my design wall!  I have the quilt top that was up there the last two weeks sewn together and I'm in the process of adding borders.  I had hoped to have it done but this weekend, but the weekend did not turn out how I had hoped. I work part time at a school and we started school last week.  There were a couple girls who missed school already and Friday night I started getting sick.  I had a flu like bug, fever, chills, headache, backacke, head cold, sore throat, and now a cough.  It hasn't been a fun weekend, but hopefully this will be it for the year!  I had even asked the pharmacist Tuesday about getting a flu shot, but since I'm allergic to eggs he couldn't do it.  I have never been someone to get the shot and now I don't know if I should pursue it or not!

I did get a lot of cutting done this weekend for some upcoming projects.  I have my newest Scrap Squad quilt cut out, but can't show that and I cut up some batiks from some charity quilts.  A few months ago I picked up Fons & Porter's Quilting Quickly because I loved the cover quilt for a scrappy quilt.

inspiration quilt photo from Quilting Quickly May/June 2015

 I decided to do one in purples.  I have a "few" purple batiks.

 Then I cut strips for a fall themed quilt.  Generally I don't do the same pattern more than once, but this seemed like it would be simple and fun.  These are definitely not my colors!

 My order from the The Fat Quarter shop came!  I am joining in on the 1930's Farmers Wife Sew Along starting Sept. 28th and they put together this bundle.  I will use Kona white as my background. Now does it matter that I haven't finished my Farmer's Wife blocks or My Farm Girl Vintage blocks? Of course not, I'm a sucker for sew alongs, but rarely keep up.   I am taking my Farm Girl Vintage blocks on retreat with me in a couple weeks.

I am also working on another t-shirt quilt, this time for my boss.  This one will be different from the one I showed last week with a scrappy setting.  I have the t-shirts prepared with interfacing.

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday and Scrap Squad posting

My design wall is exactly the same.  I haven't touched the blue and green charity quilt from last week. However, I had school district meetings and made a t-shirt quilt from start to finish.  This is being made as a favor for someone and there are lots of Fire related t-shirts as the person was on fire crews. The quilt turned out to be a wide throw.  The sashing is lightweight denim and I didn't take a picture of the pine cone flannel on the back.  I used a lightweight polyester batting and it's still pretty heavy. I did very simple straight line stitching in the sashing and then custom quilted in each t-shirt print with matching threads so not cover up the print.

My big news is last week my quilt was featured on the Quiltmaker Quilty Pleasures blog!  It was a fun quilt to make and one I hadn't been able to show that I worked on.  Check out the blog for my post, but here is the quilt.

Deb's Oriental Garden

Check out Patchwork Times for other great quilt ideas!

Design Wall Monday

I don't know where to start since my last post!  It's been a very busy August.  My daughter, son-in-law and my two grandkids were here in early August.  Such fun with the kids and my husband was harvesting and my grandson was thrilled to be with Grandpa every day!  He is 4 and in love with farming, although he lives in a city 12 hours away.  Nicole is 15 months and finally discovered walking and was such fun to watch!

 This will be out of order.  I'm doing some machine quilting that I can't show yet, oh and a whole quilt that I can't show yet too!  It will be on the Quiltmaker blog Friday though.

A friend asked me to quilt a quilt early in the summer for a seriously ill friend of hers, and I did that one and the same friend wanted a quilt for her son.  She bought fabrics and interfaced the stars and pressed the edges under.  I machine appliqued the stars and machine quilted the quilt.  I wish I had closeups of the quilting!  I free motion quilting stars using a blue variegated thread by Superior called Fantastico.  It's made for long arms, meaning breakage is reduced during regular quilting.  I love it for certain purposes.  It has a sheen to it.  The quilt is queen sized.

patriotic quilt made for April

I am still not caught up on my #IttyBitty blocks from Quiltmaker's blog but I have through June done and I have all the rows sewn together with sashing.  That was my goal for now and then I will work on July and August's rows!  The blocks either finish at 3" or 4" and the row is 48" wide finished.  I LOVE using the scrappy black and white prints and brights out of my scraps.  I will be adding side borders when the rest of the rows are added.

Itty Bitty blocks

 As in many parts of the country, our area has been suffering through some major wildfires.  Fortunately in our immediate area not many homes were lost due to quick action of homeowners and the fire departments but lots of people were evacuated.  A little further upriver several lightning caused fires started and threatened 100's of homes (maybe thousands, and they believe 78 homes were destroyed.  I had to drive through the area after it had burned down to the river on both sides, but was still burning on top.  It was so eerie, this is the sun trying to shine through the smoke.  The river is so very low on water.  I mention this because it leads to quilts.

Clearwater River

My quilt guild, The Clearwater Quilters, has for years and years, made quilts to give to victims of fire.  In 1996 we actually gave them to flood victims instead, but since then there have not been much need for these quilts thankfully.  We have given many lap size quilts to various children's camps throughout the year and to care facilities.  I have been storing quilts at my house and we decided to give these quilts to the neighboring quilt guild (some people have been members of both groups).  I had 33 quilts here to give.  One picture is all of them in my dining room after I had refolded them and put them in clear plastic bags (they are stored in pillow cases).  I labeled each bag with the size and made sure the design showed.  I then loaded them in my car, this is from the driver side passenger door.  I hope the quilts bring some comfort.

A local quilt shop, The Wild Hare, had a sewing day Saturday to make quilts to build up inventory for the guilds.  People brought fabric, projects, etc. and sewed.  It was awesome.  I cut out this quilt and got all the blocks made that day.  I saw the pattern in a Fons and Porter Quick Quilts magazine.  I changed the size a bit, 3" strips instead of 2.5".  I think it will make a good gender neutral quilt.  We usually end up with a lot of floral quilts.  With borders it will be queen size and its barely squeezed onto my design wall!  Now I have to get all the blocks sewn together.

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

This past weekend I was at a quilt retreat in Lacey, WA.  It's a long drive for me, about 8 hours with stops each way, but I wanted to meet many quilters I have "known" online for around 15 years.  I knew three of them personally, having retreated with them in other areas of Washington.  I had a fantastic time, but all the photos are on my phone and I will get them off later. We were close to a lake that I walked to several times.  My main project is one I can't show for a couple of weeks!  I will have to keep you in suspense.  These pics are the other projects I worked on.

I purchased a layer cake and a charm pack at a retreat last year and found this pattern.  I had this dark green and I thought it would work well for a background.  It's okay, but there is not enough contrast in some areas.  I still like how intense it is though and different from my usual style. I need to add the green border on top and bottom and the piano key border

Christmas Candy

I showed this quilt kit last week, but this is my actual top without borders yet.  I dislike cutting and adding borders at a retreat.  I have a system at home, and usually miscut elsewhere.

Northern Cardinals - with Holly Taylor fabrics

In January I started participating in the Quiltmaker IttyBittyBlocks and got the top row done.  This is a partial photo, there are 16 3" bowties, 12 4" baskets and now I have 16 3" houses.  I have April, May and June cut out but not sewn and July and August have been posted.  I haven't decided on sashing between the rows yet.  The blocks are not yet sewn into rows so I can play with color placement.

partial view of 3 months of #IttyBittyBlocks

Two friends and I went out to 3 quilt shops and had a lot of fun.  I collected their row by row patterns and saw way too much inspiration!  I also met a quilter from another online group, it was great fun!

Linking up with Patchwork Times

Design Wall Monday

This post title is deceptive as I don't have a single thing on my design wall!  I don't know if that is good or bad.  I have a vast amount of projects cut and ready to go to my retreat Wednesday.  I don't usually go for 4 nights, usually just 3, so that is an extra day of sewing.  Next week I plan to show more projects!

First this week is my finished Row by Row Experience quilt.  I custom quilted it, letting each row speak to me.  I am not great at taking photos so I don't have quilting closeups.  I had two local quilt shops to pick from, awesome for a town of 3,000 people!  I chose to go in to Material Girls.  They were so delighted to have me there!

Idaho Travels with a little help from Washington and Oregon

For prizes they had a pack of 25 FQ's but said I could trade it in for what I wanted.  I looked around and one owner said how about this, do you like this?  It was this gorgeous quilt kit for Northern Cardinals using Winter Song fabrics by Holly Taylor.  I had seen the kit, but didn't purchase it and was thrilled to trade in for it, even though the value was way more, they didn't care.  Since I used their row they said I also got a gift certificate or any book I wanted.  I picked Here Comes Winter, it has a lot of cute, fun, little projects.

Northern Cardinal Kit by Holly Taylor - mine is cut and ready to sew at retreat!

book I received as a prize

The rows I used were from:  Material Girls - Orofino, ID, Stitches and Petals - Moscow, ID, Homegrown Quilts - Grangeville, ID, Cattle Country Quilts - Joseph, OR, Grammy G's - Palouse, WA, Quilt Treasures - Grangeville, ID, Rather Be's - Pomeroy, WA, Huckleberry Patches - McCall, ID, Wild Hare (split in two pieces) - Orofino, ID, Becky's Fabrics - Lewiston, ID and Palouse River Quilts - Colfax, WA.  It was fun going to all the different shops and I purchased all the kits to support the stores, even though I change a few fabrics here and there.  I pieced the back out of leftover chunks of fabric along with some yardage of flannel I had.

My friend Tamra sent me a pinterest link to an iron caddy.  I own one made by the organizer of a retreat I went to in Leavenworth, WA a few years ago.  I found instructions online here and made this caddy.  It unfolds to be an ironing mat.  I will be mailing it off as a surprise!

When I was at Cattle Country Quilts in Oregon in June I found this bag pattern, the Barbados Bag by Pink Sand Beach Designs.  I loved that is was tall enough for my Kindle and had outside pockets, one zippered on the front and one not and on the back there are two pockets as well as two pockets inside.  I made the bag this weekend and love it.  I still need to "move in" to it.  I ordered a new travel wallet that should arrive tomorrow.  I am hoping to keep my purse more organized!  I had to go rummage in my late MIL's sewing room looking for zippers.  The one on top is turquoise!

linking to Patchwork Times