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

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!

A Few Finishes

I have managed to finish 4 projects out of six so far on the 2016 Finish a Long that I shared in this post.  First, my Scrap Squad quilt is finished, photographed and the blog post will be done today for Quiltmaker.  I can't wait to share the quilt with all of you!

I then picked three small quilts to quilt and bind.  I am getting back into the mode of machine quilting and it feels great!  I am also working on a secret gift for a friend's birthday.  I had to deal with getting all my tax stuff together for our CPA last week.  The joys of being self employed farmers and dealing with the estate of my FIL!  

I am thrilled to have this Dragonfly wallhanging finished and hanging!  It was all hand appliqued in the car or on trips.

Hand Appliqued Dragonfly wallhanging for my guest bath

quilting closeup

Leaders and Enders project for a donation quilt, quilted in the ditch

Fairy Frost leftovers - donation wheelchair quilt for care center

quilting closeup

 My friend Robin in Washington sent me these beautiful vintage Grandmother's Flower garden blocks. She also sent some precut hexagons and extra fabrics!  I sewed the row together on the left and I will sew the next row and then try to hook the two rows together.  The blocks are beautifully done, but they have a super tiny seam allowance.  It will be a great quilt when it's finished and I'm excited to own these blocks!

I am linking up with Patchwork Times and Main Crush Monday!

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

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

I have a lot to be thankful for on this Memorial Day.  I am proud to be an American.  My grandfather served in World War I and survived or I wouldn't be here today.  So many people gave their lives for our country.  I grew up going to cemeteries for Memorial Day putting flowers on deceased family member graves.  It's hard to go to my son's grave but I decorated it along with Doug's parents who are in the same plot.  Doug's grandfather purchased a plot of six graves in 1925 in the little country Teakean Cemetery in the middle of farm fields.

I have a lot of machine quilting to do in the month of June and there are 11 days of school left this year.  I am ready for a break!

I have been busy working on my quilt for the Quiltmaker Scrap Squad.  My reveal is in mid June, but here is a teaser.  I do love those bright colors and the blocks look awesome on my design wall if I say so myself!  I am toying with borders now.

 This quilt was made from leftovers from my Strippy Pyramids quilt I posted last week.  The quilt evolved based on how many strips I had.  I looked for coordinating solids in my stash and came up two shades of blue.  I don't normally do charity size child quilts with so much white, but this is the way it worked and I love the modern look.  My issue now is binding (planning ahead for having it quilted!).  I don't have enough blue and I could do green or the orangy color or I could go scrappy adding in some blues to the orange and green.  I ruled out red, it didn't look right.  Even though orange is my least favorite color that is the binding color I am leaning towards.  The quilt top is 43 X 54.

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday - finished tops!

For a few weeks I had a couple scrappy small charity quilts on my design wall.  I had used them as leader/enders when I was sewing other projects.  I actually have them sewn together now into tops! Plus I got the pyramid quilt top together.  I have a lot of machine quilting projects going on so all these will go into my collection of "to be quilted" tops.

Wallhanging from leftovers from making this quilt for Quiltmaker Scrap Squad

made from 2" squares (1.5" finished) charity quilt top.  It's very purple, my favorite color!

Strippy Pyramids - double bed size

For years and years (at least 20) I have been sewing 1.5" squares together as leader/enders.  Of course I have made several other quilts in between using this same technique but bigger squares.  I have been sewing them in rows of 16 squares and throwing them in a box not pressed.  Over the years I have sewn some of the blocks together.  I thought surely there was enough for a quilt...  I have six completed 16" blocks and enough strips for four and a half more blocks.  Hmmm.... not quilt the 12 blocks I was planning on but getting there!  I will do a solid sashing some year when I get more blocks done.  It's very busy!

1 inch finished squares randomly sewn squares

Check out Patchwork Times for lots more inspiration!

Design Wall Monday

I haven't gotten to do much quilting lately but have dreams of new projects and I'm working on my first quilt for the Quiltmaker Scrap Squad.  Sorry can't share pictures of that one!  I have sewn a few rows on the scrappy 2" squares quilt.  Its fun and bright.  The Itty Bitty blocks are still on the wall.  I'm linking up with Patchwork Times.

Here is a new project I want to start at a retreat in early March.  I fell in love with the Fire Island Hosta pattern and struggled with fabrics.  This isn't the final selection, but I'm loving the blue and green.  The colors aren't showing true on this one.  The light fabric is a Fairy Frost pale aqua.

I have been working on cleaning our rental house instead of quilting.  Bleh!  We purchased the property in 2010.  Doug's grandparents had owned the property and sold it in the 30's after putting up a windmill and building a grainery.  All these years later we were able to acquire it.  The house is different, but still an old farmhouse.  We had been renting it to Doug's brother for four years and after their dad passed away New Year's Eve BIL moved back to the family home as he is inheriting it.  We hired a few things done but I'm sort of a fanatical cleaner.  We have had some interest in renting without advertising so I hope those pan out.

side view, we had the windows put in instead of screen for circuit break safety

We also had a new front porch built.