Finally, another finish

The end of January became very busy with my daughter and her husband and the twins arriving for several days.  The twins are 2 1/2 months are just beginning to smile and are up over 11 lbs. now!  Remy is on the left and Finn is on the right.

I did manage to finish one quilt yesterday.  I posted a picture of the blocks in an earlier post.  They were sent to me when my son Brad passed away 4 1/2 years ago at the age of 22.  It was a very difficult time as who would have thought his heart would stop in his sleep for no known reason.  This blue/purple batik won the audition contest.  It's quilted and bound although I don't have a label yet.  I wrote on the back who made each block, but I missed six of them so they are unknown.  It was the right time to finish this.

This quilt top was made from the Quiltmaker blog a few years ago, from a monthly segment called Bitty blocks.  I am ready to quilt it!  Moving another UFO to the finished pile this week I hope!  You can barely see the border, but I will be doing a colorful binding.

pin basted and ready for quilting

Linking up with Design Wall Monday. (on Tuesday)

National Quilting Day

Today is National Quilting Day.  I came down with a nasty virus yesterday, courtesy of students at school I'm sure, but I persevered and did some sewing.   
I finally finished the top of my QM Bitty Blocks.  It's still longer and skinnier than I wanted, but it's okay.  It now measures 56 X 89.  I struggled with border ideas and finally just used the same black mini dot fabric that is used in the sashing.  I will bind it with a scrappy multi color binding.

Quiltmaker Bitty Blocks Row Quilt

I also pieced a backing for Fair and Square I posted last week.  I had LOTS of strips left over and they were all sewn end to end as that is how the quilt was made.  I started sewing them together like the jelly roll race quilt (aka 1600) and then decided I should really have a plan and see how much I needed.  I have only scraps leftover!  The blue was in my stash but needed to be bigger.

backing for Fair and Square

Now I need to make the backing for my Fire Island Hosta.

A Bright Finish and Quiltmaker Scrap Squad

Last week I showed the start of a very bright quilt top.  I was able to finish the piecing this weekend and I'm happy to share a photo!  I love how this turned out and seem to have drastically overcut the strips so I can play with more of them.  I was making a throw size pattern called Fair and Square into a queen size and kept cutting without planning ahead! My sister will be the recipient of this quilt eventually.  Sorry for the crooked photo.  

My year with the Quiltmaker Scrap Squad has come to a close.  This past year has been such a rewarding experience, using a provided pattern and making it scrappy.  For the last quilt we were allowed to choose any quilt Quiltmaker had published.  That was a hard decision, but one kept calling me, Vintage Sunburst.  This was the original photo:

Here is my version that I named Pie in the Night Sky.

Pie in the NIght Sky

In front of our old barn

I will be doing a complete Scrap Squad recap of my quilts later in the week so be sure and check back!

I am working on finishing the top of the Quiltmaker Bitty Blocks that were a year long monthly row quilt on their blog last year.  I decided to take my quilt apart and make the sashing a bit narrower.  I still have to get the last two rows down.  Here is the photo before I started taking it apart.  I have shown it before.  It was going to be too long and skinny.

Linking up with Main Crush Monday and Patchwork Times.

Finish-a-Long

I decided to join in the 2016 Finish-a-Long.  For the first quarter I am listing six projects as my goals.  I hope to do a few more than this, but things come up and change my schedule.  Excuse the unpressed pieces, my tops cupboards are CRAMMED with tops waiting to be quilted and I didn't take time to press them.

First and foremost I need to finish my Quiltmaker Scrap Squad quilt by mid February.  I can't share what the pattern is until it's posted on their blog.  All I can say is the paper piecing is intense!  I love to paper piece, but somehow misjudged how long this would actually take.

parts of Scrap Squad quilt

 This project is so close to being ready to quilt.  I have just a few flowers on the border to hand stitch.  The DJB stands for Debra Jean Bepple, my good friend who passed away in 2010.  She had purchased the BOM but couldn't get it going so I inherited it.  I will do closeups when it's quilted.

This is a scrappy Fairy Frost leftovers baby quilt.  I think I will add one more border and then quilt it.  The scraps are from Gemstones shown in this post.

 Super scrappy 2" squares used as a leader/ender project made up this project.  It will also be donated.

This wallhanging was hand appliqued and will go in my main floor bathroom when it's completed.  The pattern was gifted to me and I used an earth colored batik for the applique.

I still have two months worth of blocks to add to this top, but I need to take all the rows apart and narrow the sashings.  It's just too long and skinny.  I totally mis measured and need to remove some length.  This is the Itty Bitty blocks project from Quiltmaker's blog in 2015.

There it is, six projects to finish before March 31st!  I am looking forward to getting some UFO's done!

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

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

This past weekend I was at a quilt retreat in Lacey, WA.  It's a long drive for me, about 8 hours with stops each way, but I wanted to meet many quilters I have "known" online for around 15 years.  I knew three of them personally, having retreated with them in other areas of Washington.  I had a fantastic time, but all the photos are on my phone and I will get them off later. We were close to a lake that I walked to several times.  My main project is one I can't show for a couple of weeks!  I will have to keep you in suspense.  These pics are the other projects I worked on.

I purchased a layer cake and a charm pack at a retreat last year and found this pattern.  I had this dark green and I thought it would work well for a background.  It's okay, but there is not enough contrast in some areas.  I still like how intense it is though and different from my usual style. I need to add the green border on top and bottom and the piano key border

Christmas Candy

I showed this quilt kit last week, but this is my actual top without borders yet.  I dislike cutting and adding borders at a retreat.  I have a system at home, and usually miscut elsewhere.

Northern Cardinals - with Holly Taylor fabrics

In January I started participating in the Quiltmaker IttyBittyBlocks and got the top row done.  This is a partial photo, there are 16 3" bowties, 12 4" baskets and now I have 16 3" houses.  I have April, May and June cut out but not sewn and July and August have been posted.  I haven't decided on sashing between the rows yet.  The blocks are not yet sewn into rows so I can play with color placement.

partial view of 3 months of #IttyBittyBlocks

Two friends and I went out to 3 quilt shops and had a lot of fun.  I collected their row by row patterns and saw way too much inspiration!  I also met a quilter from another online group, it was great fun!

Linking up with Patchwork Times