Let the Finishing Frenzy Begin!!

For the month of November, I’m focused on finishing up quilts in my studio. I have such a backlog of quilts that are either pin basted and waiting to be quilted and bound; assembled tops waiting to be pin basted; groups of finished blocks that are waiting to be sewn into a top; and groups of blocks that need just one or two more blocks sewn to move them along. As my time and attention span permit, I’ll be flitting about the various piles and tasks, with a goal of finishing up at least 12 quilts this month. That equates to about three per week, totally doable. Some of these quilts will be Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts, either personal or going to Quilts for Kids. Some are Community Quilts that were sent to me by Jo Kramer (Jo’s Country Junction in IA. She runs this national program to move along quilt tops into finished quilts for charity), and some are just quilts sewn by me for our own gift-giving.

Here is my first finish. I sewed these donated scraps (triangles) and strips together into a top last month. The solid green and purple were from my stash. The edges look wavy here, but it’s really a flat and even quilt. I just didn’t take the time to straighten it before the photo. My bad.

It’s a wacky quilt that measures 38.5 x 46”. The quilting is a mixture of serpentine stitching, loops in the print outer borders and a stipple done in the nine center blocks. I used the last of my favorite green fabric for the backing.  

Next I began quilting up - and completed - two of the four Community Quilt tops from Jo. I’ll do the other two next week. The first one is farm animals alternating with a pastel checked fabric. This little quilt measures 38x38” and was quilted with loops.

The third and final finish for this week was the same checkerboard pattern (also finishing at 38x38”) with bright yellow fabric and colorful jellybean-like alternating squares. This time I quilted the print squares with loops (I knew it wouldn’t show up) and the yellow squares with some free-form floral motifs.

Here’s a close-up that shows it off a bit better. 

And then it was on to assembling one of several elephant quilts that are waiting patiently in the queue. Gotta love those elephants! My friend Nann sent me this awesome elephant print fabric. There was enough to use as the outer border and the entire quilt backing. Thanks, Nann!! This top is now ready to be basted and quilted next week.

And finally, I had some 4.5” pastel blue blocks (60 of them) from Blue September in the RSC that I had paired with other pastel (-ish) miscellaneous 4.5” blocks that had been in my stash for far too long. The colors are way darker in the photo than in real life, but it’s the best I (read: the camera) can do. I had intended to sew this top together in September, but then sciatica struck and it was set aside. Anyway, they’re all sewn together now, and this will be the fourth quilt that I intend to finish off in the next week. Stay tuned!

I’ve also determined that my crumb tumbler RSC project needs two more rows: a brown row before the dark red and a gray row at the bottom below the purple. The solid-fabric tumblers are cut, so I’ll take some time (hopefully) this week to sew up the necessary scrappy tumblers to finish this top off. 

Yesterday I sorted my drawerful of black (and black/white, black/bright) scraps into crumbs, chunks, strips of 2.5” or wider, and strings of less than 2.5”. I will be sewing black string blocks this week. I plan to pair them with solid (or tone-on-tone) bright colors for a hopefully lively kid quilt. I don’t have a particular setting in mind yet - we’ll see how many string blocks I get out of the black first. The wider strips can wait another week or two. I’m hoping to get at least two quilts with the black scraps done, although there are probably enough to do four or five. 

A group of my WW (formerly Weight Watchers) friends came over last Tuesday evening to play the card game Hand and Foot. It was organized by several of us who have grown into great friends, and several  others were invited. Even our leader Kris joined us, and she lives up by Park City! There were seven of us all together, and we had a blast. The snacks were all fruits and veggie trays, with some little WW snack bars (2 points) for anyone wanting a hit of chocolate. Several of the ladies are also quilters, so that was fun to have them playing along in the studio. I had moved two of my  four sewing tables aside. We played our games on two of the other tables and it was perfect!  Fun fact: Kris grew up in this neighborhood, and her boyfriend was Kurt S, whose family lived in this house (for 40 years) before us. So, she knew the neighborhood and the house, although we’ve remodeled or changed every room as well as the exterior of the house in our 20 years here! It’s a small world! 

Have a great week. Are you in a finishing frenzy before the hectic holidays arrive?