Picking Up Where I Left Off

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged. What invariably happens is that I get busy, put off writing a blog post, and next thing I know it's months later. After all this time, I figure I'm mostly writing for myself anyway. 

At the end of February I finished the Chevron Chic quilt, which was a companion piece to Tango, using the cutaway corners. 

The leaf quilting pattern came out just fine, and I think it's a sweet little quilt. I haven't decided yet if I'll donate it. 

I can't think what I was so busy with after the end of February, but I didn't get another quilt finished until April. The Square in a Square quilt was the product of a charity workshop we did in my quilt group. I particularly liked that the points of the center square don't come right out to the seam line, which means there's no matching at those points, which I find difficult to do with 100% accuracy. 

Four fabrics were all I used in this quilt, and it was a good way to use up a little bit of yardage. I can think of a bunch of color variations to make with this block and might try another one at some point.

I quilted this one with white thread using the Angel Wings pantograph from Urban Elementz (I think), which is my go to for a fast way to finish a charity quilt. 

In April, the work I do for the Maine Quilts show started to ramp up. I was busy with that work through most of the summer and finally finished up for the year in early August. In that time, I only finished two other quilts, small ones; but I did get a couple of larger tops done. 

In May I finished 'My Favorite Season'. The theme for Maine Quilts this year was Quilting Through the Seasons, so my quilt group's challenge was to make a seasonal quilt that was 6" x 60". I used a gold hand dyed fabric for the alternate block, along with fabrics I used in a fall quilt from a long long time ago. I'm surprised most of those fabrics were still in the stash. 

I did some straight line quilting for this one, following the lines of the blocks. 

 

This has been done for a little while but still only a top. These scraps were given to me by a gal who sat near me when a friend and I went to the Bar Harbor retreat in April. They were left overs from a jelly roll project she was doing, so I found this project called 'Dot Dot Dash' on the SewCanShe website and stitched it up. 

I was supposed to sew it in horizontal rows, but I made blocks instead and sewed them together that way. So much easier to handle.  

This is also still a top and a lot more involved. This is a low volume I Spy quilt for my granddaughter, from a pattern I saw on the Woodberry Way blog. With only two or three exceptions and except for the bottom row, all the other fabrics occur only once in the quilt. The bottom row is all duplicates, and I figured that could be a separate matching game. 

This turned out a lot bigger than I expected, not twin sized but a good sized throw. 

 

Last but not least, this little Halloween Twister was a yard sale purchase. I have been really struggling to figure out the ProStitcher computerized tablet that came with my secondhand Handiquilter, so I took four classes at quilt show in July, three of which were specifically for ProStitcher. I loaded this little top and successfully quilted it with no thread breaks or tension problems. I started small in case I had to rip, lol. I was positively overjoyed that I finally got this to work the way it was supposed to. 

I chose a pantograph with pumpkins in it, managed to scale it to what I thought was an appropriate size for this small quilt, and stitched it out in a variegated rust colored thread.  

I haven't been able to get another quilt loaded on the HQ nor on my Tin Lizzie. The kids have been up to camp twice this summer, and I'd like to get some camp time myself, so it may have to wait a little longer. In the meantime I have other projects I am working on, of course, lol. 

 

For years I've had a dedicated camp quilt to work on, for whenever I do manage to get up to camp. This year it was blocks for Bonnie Hunter's Serendipity quilt from her book 'String Frenzy'. I had a 6-foot table set up in my dormer at camp and laid out all the strings by color, so I could pick and choose what I wanted. 

Unfortunately, with the kids up in the loft, there just wasn't enough space for that big table, so it all came down, and the project came home. Next time I get to camp, I'll be taking a mini to work on, lol, because the kids will be up at least once more this summer.  

I need over 200 of these quarter blocks to make what is a pretty good sized quilt, and I'm more than halfway there. I'm piecing these on phone book pages. 

I've also managed to fit in some more ornaments. I love ornament making as much as I love quilting, and ornaments take a lot less time, lol. This one is Blueberry Pie.

The next two are part of a bird series. I don't know when #3 will be released. Below is a Twisted Snow Globe and Tumbleweed. 

 

Finished or Not Friday

Temperatures were more moderate this week, in the 30s and 40s. Daffodils are already poking up out of the ground along the back of my house, where the ground is warmer. Just in time for 5-7 inches of snow tonight, lol. It figures.  

Yes, we have finishes! Tango is quilted and bound and ready for the block demo I have scheduled in a couple of weeks. 

Linking up to Alycia's Finished or Not Friday here. 
 

The mini Hourglass quilt is quilted and bound. Even though the edges of the units were all on the bias, I staystitched the edges all the way round, so it was easy enough to get the binding sewn on. I quilted in the ditch around the outside of each block with invisible nylon.  

This is how I incorporated the three blocks I had left over into the quilt back. I really didn't want a pieced back because there were enough seams in the front! These blocks were just put up on the design wall willy nilly to get them out of my way, and I decided that was a good look for the back too, lol. 

I cut down the size of the blocks a little bit, fused them onto the backing, and then zigzag stitched around them with invisible nylon. 

I messed up when I picked out the backing fabric--I didn't choose a piece with enough yardage to make a sleeve. I like the sleeve to be the same as the backing fabric but had to choose another fabric, so this irritates me. At least it's on the back so I don't have to look at it, lol. 

 

All 11 of the scrap bin baskets I had planned are finished and in use. 

 

I do like these baskets so much. The neutrals and the multicolor one are my favorites. 

I also have a couple of Button Boats, pattern from the Lazy Girl Designs website, for the blacks and greys. Small ones because I don't often get these scraps. 

Joan Hawley, who was the owner of Lazy Girl Designs passed away three or four years ago. I liked a bunch of her patterns, and I took a couple of her classes on Craftsy. She figured out how to put a different color zipper tab on a zipper, which was brilliant. 

In 2023 her business was taken over by Jaybird Quilts. The patterns are still available. I misplaced one of my patterns not too long ago, couldn't find it anywhere, and it had a bunch of handwritten notes on it. Don't you just hate that? Sometimes I spend half my day hunting for stuff in my sewing room. Think I have too much stuff? Maybe, lol. Anyway, still haven't found it, so I wound up buying another copy.

Chevron Chic, a companion piece that goes with Tango, and also from Diane Harris, the Stash Bandit, is getting the quilting treatment today. The arrangement of the triangles makes me think of stalks of leaves, so I am quilting a leafy, vine-y pantograph on it called Novaya Zhizn from Beany Girl. 

I like this one, but it's a little more difficult for me to stitch out. It's forgiving though, so I'm making it work. 

 

The square in a square quilt is getting the border treatment today. It's a plain and simple quilt, so I picked up the yellow from the purple squares and added it as a middle border. I was going to use the purple for the outer border but didn't like the way that looked, so went back to the aqua. 

I have another small quilt to batt up; and I started another project. Sigh. So many quilts, so little time. If you're bored in this life, you're doing it wrong. 

Almost There

First, sometimes I am just exasperated at how difficult it is for me to leave comments on other blogs, to the point where I just give up. When I manage to have some success, they don't always show up on the person's blog. I don't know whether it's because they never got it, or if it's because it never got moderated and posted. 

I too have enabled moderation on my blog, but I have comments forwarded to my regular email address. I don't always get them, particularly if it's been a while since I blogged, and I don't always think to check the blog, which means I may not respond. My apologies if I failed to respond to a comment. 

Today I had to go into the blog and delete about 8 spam comments, all from the same source. So I fully understand those who also have comments moderated. Who needs all that? I also accidentally deleted a comment from Alycia, who hosts Finish or Not Friday. No idea how to get it back. :(

So today is Finished or Not Friday on Alycia's website. Linking up here. Or not! Can't get the LinkZ to work correctly. 

Finished or not? No! But almost there--on several fronts. I finished the quilting on Tango yesterday and got the binding machine stitched to the front ...

... and started hand sewing the binding to the back this morning. I machine stitch binding on a charity quilt but hand stitch the binding on quilts I plan to keep. It's the only hand work I really do anymore, and I enjoy it. Sometimes I think maybe I should start hand piecing again, but it never happens. 

For the quilting, I used a pantograph called Gussied Up by Urban Elementz. I hadn't used it before, but it was easy, quick, and fun to do. Not a very dense pantograph, which seemed fine to me given the finished size of these blocks. 

 

The little hourglass blocks are all sewn together now, and every single edge is on the bias, so that should be interesting when I get to binding. A little extra care may be required.

 I had three blocks left over that didn't fit in the quilt. I plan to incorporate them into the backing but in a little bit different way. I have a fairly plain light blue backing picked out, and that should work just fine. 

I have been hell bent on finishing all the scrap bin fold up baskets, and I now have 8 of the 11 baskets I had planned done. 

As you can see, I am using rainbow brights for the baskets, and each basket has a lining with a white background and a small motif the same color as the outer fabric. 

 

I was stumped however, when I got to the one for neutral scraps, until I found these two fat quarters in the stash. These so work for me, and this basket is done!

Same with the one for multicolor scraps. How perfect is this!

I'll be making the last three, orange, purple, and multicolor over the weekend. I don't often come across  black scraps, so I eliminated that color in my line up. Didn't have any more room across my countertop anyway, lol. 

I am a fan of Emily Dennis at Quilty Love. I like her aesthetic very much, and I look forward to her newsletters. She wrote one the other day about some string blocks she was making. It might have been just in her email newsletter because I'm not seeing it on her blog. 

Anyway, she was using scraps of batting to do her string piecing on instead of fabric of paper, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Who among us doesn't have batting scraps? I have bunches. Her only concern was the bulk in the seam allowances when she sewed the blocks together. 

It occurred to me to cut the batting square to the finished size and sew the strips on. I asked Emily about it, and it had occurred to her too, only she said the batting shifted when she tried it. 

Then it occurred to me to sew the strips on using a walking foot, and that worked pretty well! You can see in the photo, that the batting square still measures a pretty square 7", which is what I started with, with some minor pulling away at the edges. I haven't tried sewing two squares together yet, but I think I can work with this!

  
 
 

My chapter is having a Stay in Your Own Bed retreat in April. We did this last year and had a blast. The idea is that you go to the venue, sew like a maniac all day, then go home, sleep in your own bed, rinse and repeat next day. It's a three-day retreat and catered for lunch for a nominal fee. 

The coordinator for this event likes to have some little giftie bags for each participant, and this year she decided to do personal care items. I volunteered to make soap, so I am making spools, buttons (two to a bag because they're small), and flowers, all in spring colors. I only have one spool mold and two button molds, so I can only make a small batch at a time, and I can make about three batches a day to allow them time to set in the mold. 

I need about 25 all together, and I have 17 done now. Plenty of time for the rest--started early because I didn't want to be rushed. 

So many projects, so many things in my head, so little time. If you're bored in this life, you're doing it wrong. 

First Finish for February

I finished machine sewing the binding on the Courthouse Steps quilt this afternoon; and as soon as I get it laundered, it will be ready for donation. 

Linking to Oh Scrap 

It may not be the most beautiful quilt, but it's all made from scraps, at least some of which I used up completely. That's always a good feeling. In the end, I liked it, and I hope someone else will too. 

Today I am working again on the aqua and purple square in a square quilt top, and this little hourglass quilt. These little blocks came to me in a scrap bag. I don't know what the quilter's intention was with these, but I decided to sew them up into a mini. They have a modern look to me, so no borders. The blocks finish at 2" square, so the whole quilt will finish at 10-1/2 x 12-1/2. 
 

A Very Crafty Month

My yard still looks exactly the same as it did in the photo from my last post, only there's more snow. A LOT more snow. We had a little January thaw in the middle of the month, and most of the snow on the ground melted. Sunday's nor'easter dumped 14 inches in my town, and it's been so cold there's no hope of melting. We're still waking up to mornings near or below zero this week with daytime highs in the teens. Perfect sewing weather!

The second little Courthouse Steps mini got finished earlier this month. The fabrics are mostly the same as the first one, except where I ran out of the original fabric or changed my mind. I hang my minis down my hallway wall with the Command strips, which work perfectly, and this one has been hung.

I finished quilting the big Courthouse Steps yesterday afternoon. Once I settled down to work on it, I was surprised how fast the blocks went--they're 14 inches finished. The quilt will finish at 56 x 70 inches, which is a fine size for a lap quilt. This one will be donated to Maine Veterans Home after I get the binding on. 

I used a pantograph called Two Fold Feathers by Lorien Quilting. I love this design because it's easy and not too dense, and because I love feathers. The large scale of the pantograph worked well with the big blocks, I thought. 
 

With the last of this hunting print stripped into the middle of the backing, I had just enough green to finish it off. More fabric out of the stash, my quilt chapter's stash, that is. 

It would be nice to get another finish for the month of January; but with only two days left in the month, I doubt that will happen.  

At our second chapter meeting this month, we did a square in a square workshop for charity. The blocks are set 7 x 7 and finish at 7", so the quilt should finish at close to 50" square. 

These block were pretty fast to make, and I especially liked them because the on point squares are floating; that is, after the seam allowance is taken, the point of the square is back from the seam line. That means nothing to match when you sew them together. 

There are plenty of patterns out there for square in a square blocks and variations, so I could see another one of these in my future. 

 We cut 5" squares for the centers of these blocks, but you could substitute a pieced square if you wanted. Coincidentally, Studio 180 just came out with a brand new ruler for nine patch blocks in nine sizes or something, so for example you could put a nine patch block in the center. Or you could change the dimensions of the outer triangles so you didn't have to deal with crazy math. 

The Tango top has been finished for a little while and will be the next quilt to go on the frame. This was from a workshop I took with Diane Harris, the Stash Bandit, last summer at Maine Quilts. It was a fun class, but I changed up my methods a bit when I got home. The fabrics are all from my Lori Holt collection. Because like 30s repros, they just all go together, lol. 

This is another pattern I've seen around the web in different sizes and variations. SewCanShe has one called Fancy That, 1 and 2, I think. 

The block size was pretty big, and I took all my cutaways from the corners of the big blocks, turned them into half square triangle blocks and sewed them together this way, which will turn into a nice sized baby quilt. 

I'm hoping I can find a backing fabric in the stash big enough to quilt both of these tops at the same time.

I have large scrap bins with lids in every color squirreled away in another part of the sewing room. The organization of said scraps occurred several years ago, here, one of the most sensible things I ever did. Additionally I had a big drawer full of scraps, also sorted by color, that I could dive into for something quick or throw in a few handfuls left over from some other project. It was handy to have that drawer full so accessible right in the sewing room. When it got too full, I'd move some scraps into the larger bins. 

Last month I guess, the triangles got out of control; so I moved all the scraps out of the drawer and replaced them with these containers of triangles. These are baby wipe containers I saved from when my granddaughter was still in diapers, because what good quilter doesn't save all kinds of containers? 12 of these containers fit perfectly in the drawer, all sorted by color. Brilliant.   

Then I had nowhere to throw a few scraps before I either sorted them into the big bins or used them. So I cleared everything off my countertop, and I am making these small bins in rainbow colors for a quick toss of a handful of scraps. 

I am loving these containers. The pattern is the medium fold up basket from SewCanShe, and they finish at about 5-3/4 x 7 inches, plenty big enough for a few good handfuls of scraps. After the sewing is done, the flaps allow you to fold it up into a basket. 

These fold up baskets are available in three sizes. The directions are free on the website, but you have to contend with ads; so the patterns are also offered as pdf files for $5. 

You need two fat quarters to make the medium size basket, so that's another half yard out of the stash! 

The best part about these containers is that they're easy to sew, there's no hardware to attach, and they unfold to store flat. This is what it looks like unfolded. 

I have three made so far and trying to get two more made this week. 

Two more ornaments were finished this month. This one is called Bethlehem Star....

... and this one is called Reflection and was given to a friend for Christmas. 

I finished this little cross stitch last week too. This design hung in the bathroom in my friend's quilt studio for years. When she passed away, it was given to our other friend Sherry. 

I hunted in vain for the pattern online and never found it, so I borrowed it from Sherry and duplicated it. At long last it is finished. The cost of having it framed like Koleen's original is stupid, so I want to make it into a small quilt. I haven't a clue how to do that right now, so I'm trying to find out something about that online. Blue Pip Designs has a little tutorial on how she finishes her small cross stitch pieces, so there's a starting point. 

Somewhere in there, a dishcloth got finished this month too, but I didn't take a snap of it. 

More fun next week! 

**Linking to Alycia's  Finished (or not!) Friday