The Phoebe Quilt

We had another round of snow last night, another 6 inches or so, and just a few days after the last round. Because the temps have been so cold, nothing has melted; so we probably have a foot of snow on the ground now. Too bad it came so late in the winter before the ground froze because without that insulating layer of snow, we think the line coming off our septic tank at camp froze and split. Water ran down the hill under the sheds and froze, so the entire shed is now sitting on ice. Nothing to do about it now, but no idea what that will look like in the spring, but we'll get it fixed. More snow next week. Oh good. 

These are my sedums in the header photo, which we never cut down in the fall. I love how they look with the snow piled on top.

I spent all morning watching James Bond movies and finishing the Phoebe quilt. It finishes at 60 x 80. I intended to donate it; but hubby liked it, and I thought he wanted to keep it--until he saw a four patch quilt I started with the scraps from this one. Look! Over there! So easily distracted, lol. So this one will in fact go to Maine Veterans.

There isn't much blue in the quilt, so I used up another piece of blue fabric languishing in the stash for the binding. I also didn't have thread to match, so I used a variegated thread with that color blue in it, and I quite like the way that looks. Never occurred to me to do that before, but I'll definitely be using more variegated thread for bindings in the future. 

The backing fabrics were maybe 3-yard pieces that I've been wanting to think of a way to use for a long time. Truthfully, I don't know why they appealed to me. Maybe because they were a good buy at Mardens, lol. In any case, the middle piece is now out of the stash. More and more I'm liking the strip pieced backings on scrap quilts, an idea from Bonnie Hunter's blog. Great way to use up some stash.

This neutral strings quilt is the next one to get prepped for the longarm. When my friend passed away in 2017, I inherited 48 of these 4-inch string units.  

I had no idea what her plan was for these, and I didn't know what to do with them either because they're very busy. I finally decided to just sew them all together, and I really like the result. These are made of those low volume prints that are too busy for a low volume quilt, but they're perfect for this. 

The blocks came with a huge bag of strings in these mostly tan colors. Koleen loved those colors, but I much prefer whites and creams, so it took that much longer to figure out what to do with them. I needed another 72 units to bring the quilt up to the size I wanted, so I worked out of her bag of strings, and they blend well. That bag is so stuffed with strings that you'd never know I took anything out of it, lol, isn't that the way? The quilt is now 40 x 48, which will fit on the wall in my bedroom perfectly. 

Linking up with Oh Scrap!

First Finish for 2025

We had about four inches of snow the other day, the biggest storm we've had this winter, I think. Florida has had more snow this year than Maine, lol. Bad news for skiers and snowmobilers, but I'm glad about it. The cold is the bigger story--single digits and teens during the days and below zero a few nights this week.

This is a plain and simple little quilt called 'Allure', a 3-yard quilt design from one of Fabric Cafe's books. I finished the top last year and never got it quilted. Too plain maybe, but I wanted to use up these fabrics. I have another cut out, same white and blue, different floral print; both of which will be donated. 

I used a pastel variegated thread to quilt it, which made it a wee bit more interesting. 

This is the next top to get loaded for quilting soon as I put a backing together; I finished this top last year too, and I'm just getting caught up with some machine quilting. This is the 'Phoebe' pattern from kitchentablequilting.com, but I set my blocks together in a completely different way. This is a larger quilt than 'Allure', so I plan to donate this one to the Veterans Home in Augusta.

 

This is what the original 'Phoebe' pattern looks like. Maybe I'll make this layout another time.

 

The Color Purple

I was all over the place last month... and I still am, lol, but at least I'm being productive. 

The color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month is purple, so I am making 3" hourglass units ....

 

..... to make these blocks.....

.... for this quilt, which is Bonnie Hunter's Hourglass Leader and Ender Challenge from 2016, and which you can find here. The purples are the outermost border, and I need 200 units to make 50 blocks. Lots of cutting, lots of sewing, lots of scraps. 

When the RSC rotation for pinks, limey greens, and aquas are selected, I'll be working on those rounds. The neutrals can come whenever. In the meantime, the center two blocks, which are orange, are assembled. This is so fun!
 

All Over the Place

I have been all over the place in the sewing room this month because there are so many projects I want to work on that I just can't get focused. I keep taking things out of the closet and putting them back, knowing full well I should work on just one or two projects at a time. Not necessarily a bad problem to have, but not as much is getting done as I'd like! 

I did get the Winter Garden top finished by the end of January. I had planned to set the blocks 4 x 5; but as I was getting ready to start the bottom row, it dawned on me that it would be too long to hang on the wall, so I left it at 4 x 4. It still needs to get quilted. I do love this series.

I thought quite a while about what, if anything, I wanted to do for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I've made two rainbow quilts, and making the same block every month again this year didn't appeal. And I especially don't want to make string blocks. Chantal had a better idea in her first post in January , which was to choose a quilt each month, maybe one already in progress, and tag it with the color of the month and work on that. 

Last year in January, I had a similar plan, which was to start with a new quilt every month using the color of the month. I got so frustrated sorting through tons of scraps to find the colors I wanted that I abandoned that idea by February. I spent the rest of the year sorting scraps into bins, mostly by color. I wrote a post about that process here. I have one very large carton to finish going through, but I've sorted enough to have scraps at hand to work with. 

The RSC color of the month for January was green. I didn't have a green project in the works yet, so I started making these Tilted Nine Patch blocks by Missouri Star Quilt Co from a tutorial on their YouTube channel. The blocks finish at 10 inches, and I did get 10 blocks finished by the end of the month. I plan to set the blocks 5 x 6, so there is more work to be done, whenever. 

I'm also using up bunches of muslin scraps for the backgrounds, so win-win. There are some different shades of the muslin, which doesn't bother me, it's a scrap quilt.

The blocks may not be done yet, but green scraps got used. This large storage bag was stuffed when I started making blocks, and I've emptied more than half the bag. Some of the scraps got sorted or cut into squares and strips and put away; the rest were used in the blocks. Yay!

While I was rummaging around in the greens, I came across this unusual print. I've have gotten scraps from a variety of places over the years, and I missed this one. I think it's ugly in an appealing way, lol, so I intend to chop it up and use it in one of Bonnie Hunter's scrap quilts I'm working on. 

Red is the color for February, so I dug out my Talkin' Turkey blocks, a two-color quilt from Bonnie Hunter's 'String Fling' book. It's been in progress for years; and near as I can tell, I had already made all the units to build these blocks, just have to put them together. I need 30 blocks for the quilt, and I have 20 blocks done.

I think I have most of the border units finished too. What I still need to make are these strip units that also go in the border, and that is what I'll be doing with red scraps the rest of this month. 

For today, I am working on some QOV blocks, two sets of five. My local quilt shop became an official QOV chapter 9 or 10 months ago, and I became aware of it and started participating in December, I think. This is one of two blocks I am working on for February.

The shop is using Eleanor Burns' book, Victory Quilts, and making two blocks a month. The selection of blocks in Eleanor's book all finish at 12", and they're not difficult to make, so a sampler would go together pretty quickly. Last month I made two sets of these blocks.

First Finishes of 2024

 * Linking up to Oh Scrap!

I haven't blogged for quite a while, but I'm still here. It's disappointing to follow a link to someone's blog to read about their quilts, only to discover that they quit updating a long time ago. I always wonder if something happened to them, or if they just lost interest or what; so I won't do that. 

Last year was another year that was not as productive as I'd hoped. I did finish 10 quilts in the first half of last year, and then mostly nothing for the latter half of the year. 

I just finished this quilt a few days ago. It's called RST2 (Right Sides Together Squared) from 3 Dudes Quilting. It was a kit I found in Madison on a quilt chapter bus trip. I wasn't crazy about the pattern, but I very much liked the colors. I also liked that there was no specific background fabric. Wish I could find more patterns like that. 

I quilted it with a pantograph called Twofold Feathers, one of my favorites, from Urban Elementz.
 

These colors just sing to me.

I just finished this quilt today. This is another Fun Patch that I made with leftover pieces from the first one I made last year. The original quilt was an already made top I bought at a silent auction. I added blocks to the top to make it a little larger, but there were still many print pieces left over. And there are still more left over that will go into a third quilt.

This is a one-patch pattern with a single template piece. The copy of the pattern I have, called Fun Patch, I think, was from an old Quiltmaker magazine; but once I started hunting for it on the internet, I found it under various names, like Whirligig. I also discovered that Creative Grids makes a ruler to cut these pieces. The angle is not as steep, but using a ruler to cut out the pieces is a whole lot faster. 

I really like this pattern a lot. I can see it in a variety of fabrics or scraps or a rainbow version. I also made a miniature version from a French General charm pack, still just a top; and there's a second one in the works.

Last Finish for June

There is no rain in the forecast today, but more is predicted within the next week. The sun is peaking out through cloudy skies. We got another 4-1/2 inches of rain this week at camp. The water level at the lake is so high now that more than half our dock is underwater and the top step of those two little staircases is underwater too. The water level was three inches under the end of the dock when it was installed earlier this summer. When hubby goes out to the boat, the water is over his ankles. 

Last summer we were in a severe drought condition; this summer we're flooding everywhere. It's just crazy. Conditions have been just right for a sturgeon run up the Cobbossee stream that hasn't been seen here for 40 years. You can't see them especially well in this photo, but they're big, about 3-6 feet in length but up to 10 feet. These are Atlantic sturgeon, and they're spawning right under the bridge downtown. 

I planned to sew all day yesterday, but my plans were derailed by other work that had to be done; so I was up til midnight finishing this quilt. This is 'Feels Like Fall', a round robin my quilt group did, which we called the Tacoma Pizza Box Challenge. Each participant provided a center block and a pizza box full of fabric, and I included some yardage and an abundance of scraps in fall colors in mine.

We made our center blocks in early 2019, and the reveal was in June that year. I don't know why I never blogged about it, I just never did. 

I quilted it with a leaf design, which I liked but hadn't used before. The design is nice but maybe a little too open to suit me, so I'm not sure if I'd use it again. 

I love these embroidered labels. I had a lot of information I wanted to include, and I hate to write them by hand; so an embroidered one was just the ticket. I embroider almost all of my labels and have for years.

A Few Days at the Lake

I got a chance to stay up to camp for three days last week. It was cloudy and/or showers the entire time I was up there. I thought I would make it up there again this week for a few days to help hubby put some dirt in what we hope will be a garden area, but it is supposed to rain all week. The entire month has been cool, cloudy and rainy. Other than June 1 and 2, we have seen only two days in the 80s. I hate the heat so I am not complaining, but a little more sun would be nice. 

I had a specific summer project to work on at camp for three summers running, and that was The 21-Year Pineapple Project that I finished early last year. Last summer I worked on a couple different sets of blocks but not a dedicated project. 

This year, my summer camp project is Conestoga Star, another oldie but goodie. The pattern originally appeared in an issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting. I bought the pattern and fabric as a kit from Sew Batik, which no longer assembles their lovely kits like they used to. I am adding bunches of my own batik scraps for variety. Got plenty of those!

All of the blocks in the center of the quilt are paper pieced; and although the picture doesn't show it, I now have three complete rows. Three more rows to go, and I'll be ready to start on the borders. This quilt is a big one, finishing at 88 x 100. 

A Couple Other March Finishes

It was 40 degrees when I got up this morning, which was a nice change from below freezing temps. April has arrived in Maine, and that means less snow, longer days, warmer temperatures, and... flowers! My daffodils have been up for quite a while, but they are refusing to bloom until it warms up.

I finished this little strippy last month for my granddaughter. I was going to donate it to a good cause, but she saw the top and wanted to know if she could have it. Of course! It's a perfect little nap quilt for spring.

I quilted this in a variegated pink thread, and the daisy swirl pantograph looks so nice on it.
 

The pink flannel back will make it soft and cuddly.

Wiggle Time in 30s repros is finished too, which used up more fabric scraps from the quilt chapter bin. It takes most of a fat quarter to make one row, and I only had enough fabric for three rows. So I added a row from my own stash and duplicated one fabric for the fifth row.

For the backing, I pieced together larger chunks of that green and yellow fabric and used up most of that. Then from the 30s scraps that were left, I cut and pieced a scrappy row on the back. I really like this, maybe more than the front, lol.

Tis the Season came back from the longarmer about a week and a half ago. When I see the lovely stitching that a computerized longarm will do, I'm tempted to trade in my Tin Lizzie. It's a whole lot of money though, so I guess I'll think about it for another year. 

I have the binding sewn to the front and have yet to start hand stitching it to the back. 

My focus for the rest of this month is to finish the top of my Christmas Words quilt. This was a Moda QAL called Letters to Santa that started last July and finished at the end of November. I've been wanting to make a words quilt, so I issued a Christmas Words challenge to my quilt chapter for this year's Maine Quilts show, because the show theme this year is Christmas in July. It simply won't do for me not to get my own quilt finished, so I have to get this done!!

There are 6 or 8 filler blocks scattered throughout the quilt to even out the rows--trees, wreaths, stars, gift boxes, etc. For only one of those fillers, I wanted to make a palm tree, just to remind myself of this year's theme. I'll have to locate a paper pieced pattern somewhere. 

December Finish

The weatherman predicted 6-10" of snow for us today, beginning about 10:00 this morning. It finally started snowing at 8:30 this evening. 6-10" ? I don't think so. 

I finished Wiggle Time Oceana yesterday and gave it a good washing so it would be soft and cuddly. 

 

The quilting looks like swirling water to me, and I love it. The Riptide pantograph was perfect. 

I also finished the four small bowl cozies for my kids. The base of these is about 5 inches. I have cut out four of the larger size and will be working on those over the next week.
 

Ribbon Candy, a pattern by Doug Leko of Antler Quilt Designs, is the next one being moved into my five-project quilt rotation. And I'm quilting it with a pantograph called Ribbon Candy, haha. I finished this top earlier this year, but I don't think I ever blogged about it. 

These were all scraps left over from my Holiday Solstice quilt that I made in 2020. I used up a bunch of different white-on-white scraps for the background too. I used the wrong side of quite a few of them to make the print less noticeable.

 

This Debbie Mumm print is what I'm using for the backing. 

The last several days of the Advent Calendar have consisted of a bunch of interesting notions--a threaded needle case, which I've never seen before; a little redwork kit, which will be given to my daughter-in-law; a spool of beeswax, which I will definitely use....

..... a zippered hard case, very nice; fingernail art stickers, which my granddaughter will love....

.... and this thread cutter that uses an old rotary cutter blade, which I've also never seen before. 

Fun, fun, fun!

One More November Finish

I should probably change the photo in my header since fall has gone by; but I love the colors, so I'll leave it up a while longer.

I finished quilting Sashed Tumblers the other day and got it bound yesterday. Every bit of the fabric in this quilt came out of the chapter stash bin, including the binding. Tacoma Lakes Quilters made a raffle quilt in 2020 for a quilt show we intended to have, which never happened because of the pandemic. For whatever reason, the group that worked on the quilt made yards and yards of binding, and there was more than enough left over to use on this quilt too. And there's still some left over. 

The piecing was simple, so I chose a simple pantograph, Ebb and Flow from Hermione Agee; and I like how it turned out. Plus it was pretty quick to quilt.

The backing came out of Tacoma's scrap bin too. The tan print had been kicking around for years, and I used all of it up on the back of this quilt. Just a few scraps left over from the overage. 

This block is from a quilt design called Dart by Amy's Creative Side. I think I found it on Pinterest. I liked it so much that I had to make a block just to try it out.

And just like that, another UFO was born. 

Amy wrote a blog post about the Dart quilt here, and of course there's a photo of the whole quilt. The block looks simple, but it makes a great design when a bunch of them are all sewn together. Must make this!

 I recently discovered Cynthia Brunz's blog, and I have spent quite a lot of time reading her old posts. She has some wonderful ideas for scrap quilts, some of which I definitely would like to make at some point. She also hosts a link up on Sundays, so I'm linking today's post to her blog. 

Linking up:

Quilting is more fun than Housework