Quilting Catch Up - 5 months really?

I seriously cannot believe I have not made a blog post in 5 months.  I wasn't reading blogs either, but I am trying to catch up.  I got in a funk and it was hard to focus.  Instagram is more instant and easier to share so most pics are posted there.  Winter is not my favorite time of the year and with holidays and being busy, I just forgot my blog.  We did get to go to Kentucky the week of Thanksgiving to see our daughter, husband and twin grandkids.  Our other daughter and 3 kids came up right after Christmas in between blizzards! 

I really have been quilting, but it doesn't seem like it!  Going back through my pictures I realized there is more than I thought!  Be prepared for photos!

Brown Bag mystery from last year called Double the Fun.  I still haven't added a border!

I don't remember the name of this pattern, but it was fun.  I made this for a friend.

One Block Wonder.  I do not have a picture with borders on!  I do not have this quilt either!

This was a fun quilt, but lots of pieces.  It is called Scarlet Stitches and the block centers are panels.

Table topper I made and designed for a gift exchange at Christmas.

One Block Wonder I gifted to my boss at work.  She owns a lot of my quilts!  The center is a fun panel.

I finished this UFO!  It is the result of two block exchanges.  I wasn't thrilled with all the blocks I got back when I requested purple and blue, but I added lots of Kaffe black and whites and it turned out to be interesting! We had just a bit of snow when I took the picture.

One of my favorite finishes in a long time!  I saw this quilt pattern on Instagram and loved the low volume look of it.  It was a lot of fun and I am ready for next Christmas since it is Christmas prints!  It is the Chamomile Quilt by Woodberry Way.

My husband's cousin is cleaning things out at their great grandparents home.  She brought over these crocheted pieces along with a crochet hook and thread.  She also brought some old quilt blocks.  I don't enjoy crocheting and then had the urge to make a modern style piece.  I made a checkerboard of bright Snippets fabric, quilted it, and attached the doilies adding a button center.  I then stretched the piece over a 24 X 24 canvas. 

A non quilting friend likes to buy fabric (she said it's addictive!).  This is the third Quilt of Valor style quilt I have made for her.  I had the panel in my stash.  She cut out a bunch of 5 pointed stars, but they did not have a fusible.  505 spray baste to the rescue and I zigzagged around them.  

I have a pink loving friend and she has been going through a lot of medical issues.  She is having surgery in a couple of weeks so I made this quilt from Lori Holt fabrics.  She received it last week and loves it.  I did not have a pattern, just made 6" churn dash blocks and put them in a 12" block and added a piano key border from leftovers.

I saw this beach bundle and thought of a friend that lives in Portland and loves going to the beach.  Her birthday is actually today and the quilted arrived at her house last week.  It is just a lap/throw size.  The bundle came with the panel and I decided on flying geese to use the other beach prints.  I had the two blue framing borders in my stash. 

Okay, that is it for now!  Stay tuned, I am currently working on six baby quilts for Quilts for Kids.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday

Autumn is Here

 I cannot believe it is fall already.  This has been such a strange summer.  We are still getting produce from the garden and I end up canning.  Not my most favorite thing to do with my weekends.  School is in session and so far our school is open and let's hope it stays that way.  We have even gone on two field trips.  Being a small school in the country with 19 students helps!

We had our county fair a week ago.  It was much smaller than usual, but we filled out the quilt section nicely.  We got lots of compliments on it.  I managed to enter 7 quilts I had made in the last two years.  I did get blue ribbons, but I enter mostly to inspire people. 

Cute gnome quilt.  The hearts are appliqued on.  Shop sample.

Kaffe leader ender project.  It always sticks to my design wall and looks wrinkled.

One Block Wonder with Kaffe feather fabrfic and cubes.

Wow, Almost the End of April!

I really do have good intentions to post on my blog.  I just need to be better at it on my phone and then I could manage it easier.  Getting the pictures to my computer takes effort.  Well, not really, it's just plugging in a cable...  

In my last post (two months ago!) I mentioned our house flooded.  Almost all the repair work has been completed (the bathroom still needs baseboard and the floor guy said it wasn't his job) and I spent my entire spring break working on the house putting things back together and cleaning EVERYTHING, absolutely everything in this big house from the construction dust.  "Someone" still needs to install my new laundry sink, but he has been busy farming.  The laundry sink was old and since it had to come out we chose to replace it with a nice stainless steel one.

I have gotten some quilting done.  These pictures are going to be in a random order.  

Wildest quilt top I have ever made - Kaffe fabric blocks from two swaps, assembled into one top.  The string blocks were sliced in half and I made the middle fit by adding black and white.

I used red and green Christmas low volume prints for this Chamomile Quilt.

Disappearing 4 patch

Another view at dusk with a bit of sunshine.

Brown Bag mystery 2020 Kaffe version.

Brown Bag Mystery 2020 - Batik version piano key border

Partially finished block of the month sample quilt

Easy Stripe Tablerunners

Quilts I made for a 16 year old girl (she went to the one room elementary I work at) and her mom.  The girl is undergoing treatment for her third bout of cancer.  I put two different fleeces on the backs so they could tell them apart.  All the blocks were made over the last couple of years as leader/enders.

Gnome is Where Your Garden Grows - shop sample top

This is a VERY old UFO, more than 15 years old.  I had the blocks done all this time.  Today I put them into a top and I have a backing ready to baste and quilt it.  I needed a gift for a college graduation and the young woman loves blue.  I am using a fun a nd funky backing with pink, her other favorite color!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Parts and Piecing

I have worked on several miscellaneous projects recently.  I have a Block of the Month I have been trying to catch up on and I started a new project but I am not sharing those photos yet! 

However I did get a couple of tops made.  The Leprechaun one was a kit for a shop sample.  It was super fast and easy.  The clovers are pieced.

For many, many months I have been making 6" finished nine patches with an alternating block as a leader/ender.  I used Kaffe Fassett fabrics leftovers from other projects with a Kaffe blue dot background.  I have more blocks, but decided this would make a great size for a donation quilt to Camp Erin, a camp for grieving children I have volunteered at.   Now to get it assembled!

 This is a closeup.  The background is light blue, not gray.

 This came to me already cut with the Quick Curve ruler by Sew Wonderful.  It is the Urban Abacus pattern and I had made one previously.  It was super easy to piece, I love not matching the curves!  The background is a white with turquoise pin dots.  I will send it back to it's owner for quilting.

That is what I have for this week!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Not a lot of Quilting Motivation

July has been a crazy busy month and I just can't seem to get back to the swing of quilting.  I do bits and pieces, but since it's August I need to get a move on before school starts up again!  I had a list of house projects to accomplish and I still have a few more on my to do list, but I have gotten a lot done.  They just take so much time.  I have a big house and it's hard to get rid of stuff, but I have been hauling carloads away.

I do have a bit about quilting at the end of this post!

Our biggest news this month was the birth of our fifth grandchild, Kathryn Ruth.  Her mom is my oldest daughter Amy.  Kathryn was born July 11th.  My sisters were here staying with us for a few days for a family memorial service and visit and we caravaned to Boise on the 15th.  Kathryn is adorable! 

I got to see my twin grandchildren, whose mom is my younger daughter Lisa. This is Remy

And this is Finn.  

On the 17th I brought Kathryn's brother and sister home with me.  Nicole is 5 and Jared is 7.  We had a lot of fun with them.  My husband took Jared on a 9 mile backpacking trip one night.  Nicole and I were the drivers dropping them off at one end of the trail and picking them up the next day.  The trail goes along Dworshak Reservoir (lake behind the highest straight axis dam in North America).  

One of my sisters came back up with her son and and we took our boat out on the same lake.  We love the swimming docks in the lake, the kids really enjoyed jumping into the deep water.

Dent Bridge in the background.

My sister gave the kids a ride back home on the 24th and I started in on house projects.  I finally got to my quilt room.  I pulled a bunch of fabric off the shelves and got it all refolded. 

 I got these three blocks done from the Enchanted Garden Block of the Month I joined.

I have been doing leader ender 9 patches with an alternate block out of Kaffe Fassett leftovers.

 I am machine quilting this quilt for a friend.

Other than that I have been organizing projects and cutting up scraps and staring at all the things I want to do!

Turning Twenty Seeing Stars Quilt

In 2015 I joined a mystery block of the month through Turning Twenty Seeing Stars kit through Tricia Cribb's site.   The link shows a precut kit, mine was not precut.  The pattern was designed by Sue Carter.  I finished assembling the top in Jan. 2016.  I decided to quilt it and finish it!  It used Kaffe fabrics with a black pindot background.  I am linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday.

Two more finishes

So far this year I have finished 24 projects, 7 of them were start to finish (mostly baby quilts).  The rest were UFO's I finished, mostly machine quilting.  I also made 10 quilt tops for my friend's shop.

The first project I finished this weekend is an OLD, OLD UFO and it's UGLY in my opinion.  It is a 4 patch stack and whack with junk food fabric.  I purchased the fabric in about 1998 and made the blocks.  It eventually got set together but I am so not a fan of green!  I used fabrics I had on hand for sashing and borders.  I posted a picture of it on Facebook and my son-in-law likes it so it will go to him!  I just did a large stipple with variegated thread.

I finished this quilt this weekend as well.  It was a mystery quilt kit I did last year.  I was so excited it was a mystery with Kaffe fabrics and was honestly a bit disappointed in it. I do love the background light blue polka dot though!  I loved it so much I bought an additional 5 yards and I am using it in a Kaffe scrap quilt leader/ender project.  The quilt measures about 83" square and I didn't have enough fabrics to add to it at the time.

 I did very simple quilting and machine binding. 

I am linking up with Design Wall Monday.