Busy Month!

Happy Memorial Day.  I am grateful to everyone who has served this great country.  This is my flag on the front of my house today.  

May is one of my busiest months of the year.  I have squeezed in some quilting, but not as much as I would have liked.  We had a very wet spring, and that caused a huge delay in spring planting on the farm, so May has been go, go, go.  I also had all my end of the year testing for my school, I was in charge of administration of that and I'm glad it's over.

We just have 7 days of school left and although I have a huge list of house projects to get done this summer, generally I do those in the mornings and spend my afternoons quilting!  I have had massive amounts of yardwork to do (and still do, trying to hire help, but having difficulty with that).  I also made a weekend trip to visit my daughters, grandkids and sisters.  It was a lot of fun watching my grandson play t-ball and my granddaughter in a dance recital at age 3!

Now to some things I have accomplished, or tried to anyway!

charity lap quilt I quilted for my guild, it was given to us as a top

backing I had on had

finished tool panel lap quilt for charity

block closeup

backing that was provided, but I had to piece it with some extra to make it big enough

lightweight denim backing I had on hand

printed fabric I added a back to and quilted for charity

all 110 Canyon Dance blocks sewn and pressed, but not squared up

project I am machine quilting to give as a gift

I am linking up to the new home of Design Wall Monday.  Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Getting my Quilting Mojo Back!

I am getting my quilting mojo back and it feels great!  This weekend I was able to get several lap size quilt tops ready for quilting and got three of them quilted as of this evening. I will post photos once they are done.  They will be donated to our local care center or other organizations my guild donates too.  

I realized I had not posted my finished top of leader/ender tumblers.  It is busy, and it took a couple years, but it is a great size for a veteran or injured soldier, depending on which organization I donate it to when it's quilted.  It didn't turn out like I had planned!

 Here is my completed top from the pattern Rhubarb Pie by Madison Cottage Designs.  It is about twin size/large throw.  I added leftover strips for borders pieced together and on person I made the top/bottom and sides different.  I named mine Blue Hawaiian after an adult beverage I had in Hawaii last year.

lumpy yard

on the front deck

back deck with my crazy dog herding a piece of drain tile.  Farm buildings in the background.

Lots of cutting, some piecing

Another month flew by!  How can that be?  I was very busy in April and along with some home dec sewing, hemming a wedding dress with 5 layers, and a lot of cutting of projects.  I had groupings of fabric and I cut 8 projects!  I still have a big mess, but I have made progress. For home dec, I couldn't find the valance I wanted for the dining room, but I found fabric and then decided to do new valances for the family room.  Along with that I made some chair cushion covers for a chair that belonged to my MIL.  My daughter wanted the chair and I had already purchased fabric so I made the covers, complete with zipper plackets. Now I have not been able to find a chair I like to replace it!  I will keep looking.

I went to a quilt retreat this past weekend and made a little progress with some piecing.  For quite some time I have had the pattern Rhubard Pie by Madison Cottage Design.  The pattern showed the quilt and variations made in green and pink.  I LOVE turquoise and black and whites and started cutting.  I ended up with more quilt blocks than I planned (and have strips leftover) and as is this quilt would have finished at 72 X 80 without borders.  I didn't need a quilt that size so I took some of the blocks off.  Here are all the blocks together.

Rhubarb Pie diagonal layout

 This size is better, it would finish at 56 X 72 without borders.

 I chose a couple different layouts for the remaining blocks.  I like the second option best.

My quilt guild is small, but does a lot of charity quilt work. Someone was moving and giving away fabric.  I was given a couple sets of panels of tool fabrics.  I cut them apart and adding a sashing and now have a nice lap/throw quilt for a care center resident whenever it gets quilted!  I have backing for it as well.

I trimmed the panels as well as I could to get a smidgen of black around the panel blocks.  I think it adds a lot to the quilt top.

Several years ago I made a couple Canyon Dance quilts.  I have an exorbitant amount of batiks and these quilt blocks are so easy to piece and are cut with acrylic templates.  I cut up 55 batik FQ's and will have a total of 110 blocks when I am done for a king size quilt.  I have 30 pieced.  I will donate this to charity.... maybe...  I already have one.  The link to it is HERE.   I also made two in earth tones and gifted them and got one back when the friend passed away.  I then used it as a prize in my blog giveaway last year.  Link is HERE. 

That is my excitement for now!