39 and 40

What an odd title for a blog post, but it’s been my mantra for about 5 or 6 days now. It refers to quilts #39 and 40 that I wanted to finish up before the end of June. It was close, but I made it by the skin of my teeth.  It’s July 1st as I write this, but they were June finishes. Yesterday was a busy day, with Cousin Kim coming over to sew. I already had the two final quilts basted up, and quilted them in the morning and early afternoon. 

 Image Courtesy Jordan Fabrics

Then we decided to do the cutting on a project that we’re both taking to the retreat at Missouri Star Quilt Company in early August. The pattern is Ribbons, a free pattern from Jordan Fabrics that you can find here. The only thing that complicated it for us was that instead of using 10” squares, we cut ours from yardage I had bought on sale last year. It took us both working (oh the quilty math!) about three hours to get it done. But we did it. I’ve now got two projects down and one to go. I’ll show them all in another post before we leave. 

After Kimmie left, son Shane and DGD London came over and we all went out to dinner for Shane’s birthday. By the time we got home it was after 8, and although the two quilts had been trimmed, I still had to turn the bindings and sewn on labels. Got that done, but didn’t get pictures until this morning. So, here they are.

This is the Zippers quilt that I made for Quilts for Kids. It measures 48x54”. It’s the second one I’ve made - the first one I kept for myself! There will be many more of these, I’m sure, because they are so fun to make and are a great scrap eater. 

The 6x9” (finished) blocks are set 8 across and 6 down. After consulting with our QFK chapter President, we decided that a majority of the quilt kits (that I’m making up for our scrappy workshop in the fall) should probably be limited to 42” wide to accommodate a single width-of-fabric piece for the backing. 

Isn’t this backing great, though? It’s a riot of color, just like the front!

Anyway, now that this quilt is finished, I can spend July cutting and bagging up the remaining blocks for the kits. In August I can write and print up the handout, and in September I’ll do any final cutting (including the contrast squares) of any more fabric scrap donations. 

The second quilt came into being in between Sunday and Tuesday. I had a bag of brightly-colored scraps, containing 4.5 - 5” squares, some strips and some bricks (about 3x5.5”). I pulled out the bricks as their colors told a different story. Most of the strips ended up with their like-colored friends in my scrap buckets. Some strips that were multi-colored were sorted out for future Zipper blocks or strip blocks. The reds and greens stayed with the squares, and I was off and running.  Sorry for the wonky pin-up job on the design board...

I trimmed all the squares to 4.5” and drew up a quick plan. These multi-colored squares were the starting point. I used 9 of the 11 in the center portion along with some lighter contrast squares cut from some backing yardage I have on hand. From there I used the two strips of red Pokémon fabric to frame the blocks and create the 16x28” center.

The next round was more 4.5” squares and some four-patches in the main colors of green, red and purple. I sewed together a white and green 1.5” strips and made another border with four-patch cornerstones. The final round of blocks used up most of the scraps, and I finished the top off with a blue border to tie it all together. It was purposely wider on the top and bottom to add more length.

The final quilt measures 39x47”, and I can’t tell you happy and bright it is in person! This was such a fun little project and used up a lot of miscellaneous bright scraps.

This afternoon I’m off to visit one of our QFK board members, who called me to come and get some scraps. Twist my arm.....

Life is good. xo