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.