Three Quilts Basted

This has not been a productive summer quilt wise.  I have had too many other things going on.  I had previously held two "basting parties", although it's not really a party if you are there by yourself!  I basted several quilts each time and have them all quilted.  I started that process again.  One basting party was in this post.

For my design wall my One Block Wonder is still there.  Check it out here.

I am trying to get back in the quilting mode, but of course school started and I had to go back to work last week!  Hence, the basting so I don't have to think when I get home from work and there will be a project ready.  I need to do more, but I need to get the bottom one quilted first as it is part of a quilt along.

These are the three quilts I have basted so far.  Two of them are OLD, OLD UFO's!

My younger daughter came to visit for the weekend and brought her 21 month old twins Finn and Remy.  Her husband stayed home to do some house painting.  Much easier to do without toddlers underfoot!  The kids were not totally impressed with the farm equipment.  They each got a truck ride to the field and saw the combines in action.  We have home storage and the truck was dumping food barley in the bin.  It is used to make items like Fiber One granola bars.

I did post a quilt a day on Instagram for August, so if you are not a follower follow me there @julie.huffman .  A very original handle!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Finished Easy Street!

In 2012 I made my first Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  It was the first year we were not having our daughters home at Christmas time so I had time in December to keep up on the clues.  I finished the top right on time according to the mystery, but as to the quilting....  The top languished in my quilt top cupboard since then.  In September I pulled it out and quilted it.  I already had the backing with it.  It took me another month to sit down and stitch down the binding, but the quilt is now finished!!  I love it!  I need to steam the binding a bit and take some better photos but I threw it up on my design wall with a lot of pins to get a photo. 

Easy Street Mystery Quilt

Here is the finished baby girl quilt for the twins.  My daughter is in preterm labor and in the hospital but the babies are doing well so far, my daughter is just very bored having to stay in bed.  She is 32 weeks now, and we are hoping they babies stay in a little longer.

baby girl fox quilt

On October 14, my older daughter hosted a baby shower at her home for the twins.  My husband and I took my mom down (six hours each way) and had a great time.  Here is Lisa after she opened the two baby quilts!  She had already seen them (and had picked the fabrics!).  Just a few days later Lisa went into the hospital!

 I went to a large quilt show in Spokane, WA this past weekend and really enjoyed myself.  It was overwhelming with over 500 quilts!  I only bought one Hoffman Spectrum panel and a pattern.  I did deliver 4 quilt tops to be quilted to a longarm quilter, getting them finished will feel good.  They are old ones in my stash that I just didn't feel like quilting myself.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Finished a Quilt!

I still haven't gotten caught up on sharing pics of projects I have been working on, but I pre-entered two quilts in a quilt show that was this weekend.  One was done and the other was just a top!  I worked hard last weekend and into mid week and finished it!  It is a Judy Niemeyer paper pieced pattern called Crown of Thorns.  Nothing like a little pressure!  The other quilt I entered was my green/lime/black quilt shown here.

Crown of Thorns 72 X 72

closeup

closeup

I was surprised to receive a first place ribbon in machine quilting, non-professional!  It matches the quilt!

My daughter's "twin" is having a baby in June.  They met their freshman year in high school and found out they had the same birthday.  Lisa bought this panel (and coordinating backing) and I machine quilted it, going around the animals.

 These are blocks I started at quilt camp in early March.  They are distorted from the camera angle and the brown carpet does nothing for them!  I haven't touched them since, I have some of the arcs pieced.

I did a bit of stash enhancement at the quilt show today, buying some Kaffe fabrics and found a grouping of bright fabrics that I REALLY wanted, but I need to plan a quilt and then drive to that shop.  I came home with lots of inspiration from the show!

Linking up with Patchwork Times.  

Lisa's Birthday Quilt

My daughter Lisa's birthday was July 5th.  This spring she had asked for a quilt for their guest room. She and her husband Kevin had a color scheme and idea in mind.  We worked on EQ7 and had a rough design but somehow it didn't get saved!  They came to visit again and approved the fabrics I had set aside and we got the design finalized.  I showed parts of it in progress.  I had it pieced and half quilted before our trip to Hawaii.  I managed to finish it and mail it to arrive on her birthday.   The leaves are fused on and then free motion stitched. I forgot to take a picture of the piecing backing!  

Bricks and Vines for Lisa and Kevin

Happy 4th and LOTS of Quilting!

Happy 4th of July!  Happy Independence Day!  This is a picture of our flag flying proudly, hard to see the waves of grain in the background, bt that is a spring wheat field.

I have gotten a lot accomplished in the last week!  I have pretty much ignored yard work, but I will have to tackle that this week.  I wish I had taken pictures at the wedding we went to Saturday evening but did not take my phone or camera.  The location was beautiful in a wheat field overlooking a lot of fields including some of ours.  The reception was at the former Grange Hall, now Community Hall next to our rural volunteer fire station.  The log building was built in the 30's.  I'm mentioning this because last week I showed the quilt I was giving as a gift and here it is all finished!  There is one closeup block and one scenic quilt picture.  I just did an allover free motion stars and loops in brown variegated thread.

center block - quilting closeup

Lewis and Clark Bicentennial quilt - gifted July 2, 2016

Next quilt up was Lisa's quilt I have shown parts of.  I am not going to show the completed quilt until she receives it.  She should receive it tomorrow on her birthday!  I was going to wait until my sisters were here next weekend to send it down with them, but mailed it instead.

After that quilt was quilted and bound I tackled Amy's quilt.  Again, I am not going to show it until Amy receives it. I am mailing it tomorrow if I get the binding done today.  Since we are going to a celebration later today I hope I can get it finished!

Since my granddaughter is only 2 and can't read yet I will show the progress I made on her quilt! I had gotten this far in May.  Her birthday was May 7th, but since she is still in a crib there was not a huge rush to finish her big girl quilt.  This is the Farm Girl Vintage quilt, perfect for the granddaughter of farmers and it has lots of pink!

After staring at the top as it was below, I knew I had to enlongate it before adding borders.  I made a row of block using leftover pieces I had in a baggie.  I had drastically overcut 2" squares so several of the blocks used those.

Farm Girl Vintage

Here is the finished quilt top, twin size.  The border looks wrinkled as it is sticking to my flannel design wall.  I have horse fabric for the backing since Nicole loves horses.  It's next up for quilting!

 Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Finished Top and Vacation

June has been crazier than usual!  I had a busy last couple weeks of school, getting out June 9th and that weekend we had some company.  We spent a wonderful week in Hawaii and I got to one quilt shop on Big Island, Quilt Passions.  On Oahu, we had several activities planned and didn't take the time to go find a quilt shop.  I played in the ocean instead!

Sunset on our last night in Hawaii

Fish fabric as a remembrance of our wonderful snorkeling cruise

Floral print for a backing

I also bought a pattern and their last year's row because I thought it was cute. I was too early for this year's Row by Row.

Monday I got out an OLD UFO, from 2004/2005.  I knew it was in colors that would be perfect for a wedding gift.  The BOM was Lewis/Clark Bicentennial and there were fabrics made for this.  Since Lewis and Clark are HUGE in this area (they traveled through here and built their canoes across from my mom's house) I bought it back then and had apparently made the first 11 blocks pictured below.

The directions for completing the quilt were awful or non-existent.  I might not have printed them all at the time. I searched the internet high and low but couldn't find a completed quilt.  I have had a busy week sewing this top together.  I made the final two sampler blocks, the alternate star log cabin blocks, and then had to figure out borders.  I drafted one and cut all the pieces and it wouldn't work!  I have no clue what happened, but I ended up using all the pieces I had cut and just doing improv piecing for borders.  I needed to make it longer to be queen size and the lights are the only fabrics I had enough of left.  I had a plain brown in my stash I supplemented.  I will be doing a scrappy binding after I get it quilted.  I have it basted now and will start quilting this afternoon with an all over design.  Did I mention the wedding is this coming Saturday?

Lewis and Clark BOM

I didn't get my daughter Lisa's quilt finished before I left for Hawaii but it's mostly quilted!  My daughter Amy's is basted and next up for quilting after these two!

Lisa's brick and leaf quilt

Linking up to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

Progress on Quilt Tops

I have made some progress this week.  I am making both my daughters big quilts at their request.  I showed LIsa's last week, it is a queen size.  I couldn't get a great picture without things in the way but this is a sort of layout on the leaves.  There will be three vines randomly coming down and leaves will be on either side.  I wanted to see if I had enough.  They have fusible web on the back with the paper still attached currently.  The quilt will be bound in red.

Gentle Moments partially finished

I have this top in my collection for awhile.  The pattern was in McCall's quilting in 2001 and my friend Debi wanted to make it and bought the pink. She gave it to me along with all her 30's. Amy wants a quilt roughly 126 X 108 with a very thin batting and navy blue on one side so it can play double duty.  When she was here she saw this in my stash and said it would work.  I had set it aside because there was a booboo.  I had somehow mismeasured on the pink border and the quilt was not laying flat.  After taking the outer borders off and removing 2" off each side I got it back to this point.  Then I had to make two more white boders and then the piano key and finished it off with the only piece of 30's I had that had enough yardage.  It's so big I didn't have a place to lay or hang it.  It's in my lumpy yard so it doesn't look even and it's wrinkled so ignore that!  It was sunny so the color is a bit washed.

Gentle Moments 109 X 125

strange mushroom



Linking up with Patchwork Times.

We have woods behind our house and I have been going out and laying out trails for our dog to follow.  She is 15 months old and is doing very well at her search and rescue training.  I loved this mushroom, not sure what it is, and I love the purple flowers on the skunk cabbage.  

skunk cabbage flowers

Bricks!

It seemed to take forever, but I finally got the background done for my daughter Lisa's quilt.  The short mortar pieces between the bricks sewed up quickly but it took a long time to sew all those horizontal rows.  Now comes the fun part of drawing up leaf shapes to applique over the top.  They will be fused and stitched, it would take me forever and a day to hand applique.  The binding will be red.  

I did get several pieces sewn on my postage stamp quilt as leader/enders as I was sewing this!  I wish I had taken the time to cut more tumblers for my patriotic leader/ender tumbler quilt.  I need to see how many more I need to assemble that top.

For fun I thought I would revisit some older quilts in future blog posts. I did it a few years ago and had fun.  I finished this one in 2003.  It was a series quilt in the old Foundation Piecer magazine and made completely with Moda Marble fabrics.  It's still one of my favorite quilts and I usually take it to quilt camp.

A Little Progress

I haven't made progress on the Farm Girl Vintage quilt because I decided it needs to be longer, so I have to take a row off and make six more blocks.  In the meantime I did get my One Block Wonder pieced.  I love it!  I am debating borders, nothing is really grabbing me, so I may just quilt and bind it as is.  However it gets added to my long list of "to be quilted" for now!

One Block Wonder

I also started piecing my daughter Lisa and husband Kevin's quilt.  They designed it and there will be red vine applique over it.  There will also be "mortar" between the rows, for design wall purposes it's not there!  I have the rows on top sewn together.  It's split in the middle on the unsewn rows strictly for layout purposes.  I don't like to have pieces over the two pieces of design wall, they don't stay as well.

Lisa and Kevin guest room quilt

That's all my excitement.  11 days of school left, and we leave for Hawaii 4 days after that.  

Road Trip and Quilting Progress

Yesterday I needed to go on a road trip to Sandpoint, ID, 7 hours of round trip driving, but it was a beautiful day, with beautiful scenery. As a reward I stopped at Bear Paw Quilting in Coeur d'Alene.  It is a gorgeous shop with so much variety!  From 30's to wool to Kaffe to modern to batiks and everything in between.  I have no business EVER buying more fabric, but I get bored sometimes.  I have so many projects to work on.  Both daughters want certain quilts, my granddaughter a needs a big girl quilt (she will be 2 in May) neighbor "kid" needs a wedding quilt July 2nd, and lets not mention those 40ish quilts that need quilted.

Don't laugh (I have one friend that will laugh!) but this is SOME of my fabric storage.  Yes, it is exploding!

We won't mention strings and strips.  I did make two cute blocks as leader enders when I was piecing the backing for Fire Island Hosta.  I will continue with this project but if Judy D. thought she had a lot of strings, she hasn't seen mine yet.  I'm afraid to put them all in one place because they will NOT fit in one big bin.

So back to my trip, I have been wanting to find fabric to make Tula Pink's City Sampler, 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.

I am not a green fan, never have been, BUT I was drawn to black, gray and lime green.  I bought the bottom 8 fabrics at Bear Paw and then stopped at Stitches and Petals in Moscow.  I bought the two fabrics on the top row left side.  Amazingly I found the next four from the left already in my stash in a FQ grouping from the Wild Hare in Orofino.  I then picked the final 4 fabrics on the top row right from my stash.  The most amazing find was 5 yards of this Kona gray for background already in my stash!

Now back to fun things, like defrosting my freezer and cleaning house! I did make a bit of machine quilting progress on Fire Island Hosta.

Unfinished Project a Day for August

I have a goal for August, to show a picture a day of an unfinished quilt project.  I am hoping I can do this, I will have to learn dating posts ahead for times I am gone.  The first thing to show is just fabric.  It's actually almost a completed top but since it's a wedding present for my daughter and husband I am not showing it until they receive it.  Their wedding was July 12th and I have simply procrastinated.  These are the three fabrics. 

Still Quilting!

So much has happened since my last post! I got behind and then it seems like it was easier to let the blog go than catch up. However, I decided to give it a try now.

I threw a ring ceremony and reception for my oldest daughter Amy and her finance Nate August 14th in Orofino. The next morning Lisa and I had to take off at 3:30 AM for the airport to fly to Atlanta. She is at Georgia Tech for a two year Master's program. This photo is at her apartment complex.We went to Orem, Utah, Sept. 3rd for Amy's reception and to meet all of Nate's family. We weren't allowed to participate in the wedding in Salt Lake, so I don't have much to say about that. I took this photo after everyone else left. I did get Lisa's quilt finished in time for her to take it to Georgia with her.I also made Amy and Nate a quilt this summer. I pieced it at the Leavenworth retreat in June and had been working on it off and on all summer. I did finish it before their wedding! Amy had picked the colors and the pattern.That's enough for this post!

New Quilt Top and a Light Experiment

This was a rough day dealing with a leaking hot water tank that ruined a couch the floor below it and all the chaos that comes from working on plumbing. However during all the commotion we managed to finished Lisa's college graduation quilt top! She designed it on EQ5 (even though I have 6 & 7 both here they are not installed!) Now to get it quilted...This is the school guinea pig we are babysitting for the summer.Tonight we went to test the theory that florescent tubes would glow under high voltage power lines. It worked! We leased some farm ground recently that has power lines coming from the dam headed to Montana. One picture is with a flash and one without.

Quilt a day #49 and misc.

I can't believe I skipped over a whole week of blogging! There has been so much going on it's hard to keep up. I do have a couple finished quilts, I just haven't taken pictures! I haven't dug into my old photos either.

My oldest daughter Amy is a teacher in Utah and just recently got engaged. She is getting married in late summer and mentioned she would like a Double Wedding Ring quilt! I'm still in thinking mode about the technique I want to use for that. Do I use Judy Niemeyer's Wedding Star (I adore paper piecing), do I use the Quiltsmart interfacing or do I use the Marti Michell templates?

My second daughter Lisa graduated from college this past weekend and I helped move her furniture to her little brother's apartment. It's going to be weird not to have Brad here for the summer! He is an Undergraduate Research Assistant in Crop Science. I hope I got that right!

Back to quilts: I am leading 4-H quilting and here is one of the projects that is being worked on. Her father collected law enforcement patches from trainings, etc. and she has them all appliqued (with invisible thread) to the backgrounds. She is putting a 1" finished sashing between them. It will be a large wallhanging.I got out my Hawaiian blocks to stare at and realized I don't have enough of the blue fabric to do the setting triangles. I ordered some and it was too light. I ordered some more from Fabric Depot this weekend and they called today and said it's out of stock! I got the fabric quite some time ago (like five years) so I'm leaning towards some darker blue. We shall see. The other option is to take out one blocks and do a straight setting and that is too boring.