Sewing a Blue Streak

While the snow is gently falling outside (may I say.... FINALLY!!!), I’ve gathered up my sewing progress pictures for the week and am ready to blog! My supervisor Darla is deftly pacing back and forth here in front of the big computer screen, raising an occasional paw to catch  the cursor. When she tires of it, she will perch on the back of the chair to read over my shoulder. I’m so lucky to have such great support!

Starry, Starry Day is now a completed quilt. YAY!!  

It finished at 72x78”. The batting is Warm and Plush cotton, and the quilting is just simple wavy lines. I did wash it before photographing. I just love how it has a lit-from-within look radiating out from the yellow center.

The binding was a simple orange and white print, and the backing was pieced from random fat quarters and pieces that have aged well (and too long) in my stash. This was a Rainbow Scrap project from 2017 and is my first finish of this year.

I will be sharing this finish and post with Rainbow Scrap Saturday, Oh Scrap!, OMG - One Monthly Goal, and the 2018 Finish Along as the link-ups come online.

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Once Starry, Starry Day was done, it was back to sewing blue scraps.  I made two blocks for the 2018 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler, Squared Away. 

The next block is the beginning of a new quilt for me, and it will combine two blocks; the birds  plus an Irish Chain block. Irish Chains have been on my bucket list for a long time, and I will start off with a single chain in this quilt to create a lattice effect. The background of the quilt is Kona White, and the lattice will be Kona Ocean, the deep blue in the fabric of the body of the bird.

In fact, it is that fabric that I fell in love with. I ordered yards and yards of it last spring to be the inspiration for this quilt. It’s called Maggie Jean and is from the Frolic line by one of my very favorite fabric designers, Tamara Kate. The birds will all be made in coordinating rich blues, greens, pinks, and warm orange-yellows. I found a free bird pattern at Quilting Support, and also ordered the Feathers pattern from The Scrap Basket. I looked at both, but used neither. The Feathers pattern was poorly written and made an 8” finished block. The Quilting Support pattern made a 12” finished block. I needed a 10” block to work with the 10” Irish Chain alternate block, so I drafted my own in a similar style. Half the birds will face right, the other half left. I will show more detail as I complete more birds and chain blocks.  This quilt will definitely be for me. I originally drafted my pattern to be 50x70” plus borders (probably 60x80”), but I may go larger and turn it into a queen bed size. Time will tell.

And then all my blue scraps got sewn into these 12 miscellaneous 6.5” (unfinished) blocks; three nine-patches, one block of half-square triangles, and the others being crumb blocks. They will join all the other 6.5” blocks in the Parts Departments for eventual inclusion into either kennel quilts, baby quilts or who knows what....

And next up on the design board is Hot Rods, a quilt for my brother Steve. The fabrics are all here and I am playing around with them and letting ideas percolate. Lots of accent colors are being auditioned. The larger motifs have been cut up and will be trimmed and framed. This one is going to have to lead me instead of me leading it. 

The only part I am not enjoying is that my dear brother is hovering too much and weighing in on every.little.thing. I know he’s excited, but geez. I know what I’m doing (for the most part, LOL). Anyway, this project may end up going on vacation with me next month just so I can think in peace. 

Speaking of thinking, I think that wraps it up for this past week. Oh! Just one more thing. I often get questions from No-Reply bloggers. Often I am slow to reply, but I do get there. So if you don’t hear back from me, it’s because I have no way to contact you. So be sure to either include your email address in your comment, or update your account. Bonnie Hunter has full information on how to correct your No Reply status HERE.

Another Blue Saturday

It’s been a good week of seeing family visiting from out of town and getting things done.    The weather has been mild (for a mountain valley winter), with highs averaging in the high forties and no snow.

Bruce and I have taken to mall-walking. We love it! Fashion Place Mall is about a mile from our house, and any time between 7am - 10am when the mall opens, you can find lots of people walking. The mall plays great music and there are two coffee shops that are open and a lot of old-timers congregate there afterwards. There are even parents and grandparents walking babes in strollers. And I love when we run into (metaphorically speaking) someone we know! Once the weather is nice, we’ll switch to walking in the neighborhood and at Wheeler Farm, a block from our house.

Anyway, there was also a lot of sewing happening this week. I have linked up to the Scrappy Saturday blog party and you can see lots of great blue happenings there. January is for our light-to-mid range blue scraps. 

These are my two Linked Squares blocks for January. I saw a quilt with these blocks in it on Pinterest, but there was no linked site or instructions, so I just figured it out on my own. The finished blocks will measure 16” and be set 4x5 in a rainbow quilt. I won’t use sashing, so it  should measure 64x80” when done. I’m thinking it will be a great 2018 start and finish for a donation purposes.

Next I tackled my selvages. Selvages reproduce in the dark, you know. They grow like mint in your garden. You can’t get rid of them. So, I made ten 6.5” squares of light blue selvages. The rest are going into a baggie, and at the end of the year I’ll give them away with my other color selvage leftovers.  

And finally I began some 6.5” quarter square log cabins. I had done several of these last year in mixed colors, trying to alternate light and dark colors. It was a failed experiment, and they reside in the parts department where they will eventually find a home in a donation quilt. In the meantime, here are my ten light blue (with some medium blue) quarter logs:

And since the logs and the selvages are the same size, I had to mix them just to see what that looked like. Hmmmm..... Well, they’re not really meant to go together, and this is still just January. My guess is that I’ll have plenty of both blocks by fall to make separate quilts. 

And then this happened this week...... Starry, Starry Day is a finished flimsy that is sandwiched and ready to be quilted. 

I’ll do that on Bernadette (my Bernina 550QE, returned from her annual “spa” treatment) this week. I haven’t decided on a quilting pattern yet, but I’m leaning toward simple lines or even ditch quilting. I think the only thing that would actually ruin it would be too too much (like matchstick) quilting. 

I’m so excited to have this one nearly complete and am planning on the reveal next weekend.

First Quarter 2018 Finish-Along Goals

I’m joining, for the fourth year in a row, the global Finish-Along challenge. We make our own quarterly lists of things we’d like to finish. While there are no penalties or even stern looks if we don’t finish them, we DO get to link up each finish to an end-of-quarter party. Each finish then becomes an entry into prize drawings from lots of great sponsors - fabrics, patterns, gift cards, etc. Wow, sign me up! LOL. Actually, the link is in the sidebar, LOL.

These are my hopeful finishes for FALQ1 (Finish-Along Quarter 1). No particular order here, just how the pictures loaded.

1.  Bruce’s Guitar Quilt.
This is a pattern by Robbie Joy Ecklow and it’s giving me fits because I’m really not good at working in reverse (as in fusing images, paper piecing, etc.).  But it’s got to happen sometime.

2.  Autumn Sampler Quilt
FINISHED AND BLOGGED ABOUT HERE.

This quilt is actually a flimsy that is backed and basted. So all I need to do is quilt and bind it. It will be a good project for when I need a break from piecing. I expect this one to be an easy and quick finish.

3.  Starry, Starry Day, a Friendship Star variation Quilt.
FINISHED AND BLOGGED ABOUT HERE.

This quilt is now officially a flimsy too. The next step is to piece a backing from my orphan fat quarters. Then baste, quilt and bind it. It’s my January goal for OMG - One Monthly Goal.

4.  Rainbow Strings.
FINISHED AND BLOGGED ABOUT HERE.

This Rainbow Scrap Challenge project actually started with some test blocks in 2016 and was the first time I’d string pieced. Now I’m obsessed! I only have 10 more 8.5” blocks to make to finish this one. I originally thought I would wait until the missing colors rolled around in the monthly assigned colors of the RSC, but now I’m anxious to finish this so I can piece string blocks for Covered in Love and also start my own new strings project. Like I said, I’m obsessed.

5.  Hot Rod Quilt.
FINISHED AND BLOGGED ABOUT HERE.

This is a quilt that I’ve finally started for my brother, Steve. What a mishmash of fabrics from clothing, panels and fabric. It’s really not just hot rods, it’s vintage cars, motorcycles, license plates and more. I was finally able to devise a plan that would separate some of the bigger or more incongruent fabrics for the backing. That, with the addition of lots of blue, green and black solids will hopefully help to unify this into a merely nauseating (vs. migraine-inducing) quilt. One can hope. Don’t tell Steve I said that.....

6.  Kennel Quilts
FINISHED AND BLOGGED ABOUT HERE.

Yep, I’ve done dozens of these in the past, but I’m going to add them in here for good measure. I’d like to get 10 done this quarter to deliver to some of the California animal rescue sites after all the autumn fires. Ten kennel quilts for one checkmark, not a bad deal.

Darla models some kennel quilts from 2017.

That’s it for the first quarter.  Wish me luck, and thanks for dropping by!

Still Sewing Stars - and a Tulip Quilt Finish!

Hi friends. I can’t believe how quickly the weeks are flying by. Christmas is only 9 days away!

But let’s talk about quilting first, shall we?  On Thursday Bruce and I went to visit our friends Mike and Terri, who live about 30 minutes away. Terri had finished binding The Tulip Quilt that we did together.  She had sent me this picture of her Quilt Supervisor Trixie doing the final inspection. It passed!

You can see the backing fabrics. The majority of the back is the green and pink and gold floral, with a stripe of the pink and white at the bottom back and in the binding. Isn’t it lovely how Terri curves the corners? She is able to do this with regular (not bias) binding.

There’s also one tulip on the back (not shown) that bisects the pink and white fabric. We used it as the quilt label to put in all the information.  :-)  In the pictures you can see more of the added texture of the looping vine quilting I did. One loop is a heart, and that is a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” kind of thing. Only Terri and I know where it is!

The guys took our picture standing on the hearth holding the quilt. This is officially done and ready for gifting. It looks like all three couples will likely get together sometime between Christmas and New Year.  The com

This quilt is my Finish Along Quarter 4 goal #1. Not my first finish of the quarter, just goal #1. My list is HERE.

And then there are the Friendship Stars. It’s slow going because of my process. With every row I add, I starch (using Best Press) and press most of the seams open. Then I trim each block before sewing them together. There is probably not a single perfect block among the 200+ that I sewed, but that’s OK with me. They are going together well. Look at those fun, happy colors!

I’ve noticed that the busy-ness of the pattern really forgives and hides the piecing imperfections. And that has helped me relax and enjoy this as I put it together. Matching so many seams is pleasant work, and it helps keep everything lined up.  Below is a shot of the right side with the white inner border sewn on. The blue blocks are just pinned for now.

For a galaxy of other rainbow projects and finishes (including other lovely star projects), why not beam over to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday linky party?

I’ll work on the blue round this week, but it will be between so many other things. My regular sewing day with Cousin Kim is tomorrow, and I hope to get a start on Clue #4 for Bonnie Hunter’s On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt Along. And maybe get the white border on Starry Starry Quilt and begin the blues.

Today I have a Christmas recital to attend this afternoon for granddaughter Lauren. Then she'll be over on Thursday for a baking day. We’ll be doing sugar cookies and biscotti.  But honestly, I’m marking time by counting the days that my daughter Megan flies in from Seattle to spend a week with us. She arrives next Friday - only 6 days from today! There is so much to do in preparation for her visit and for Christmas.

And argggghhh! Last night I was up until almost midnight, reading. My ebook was expiring in one day, and I made it to the epilogue. I had seven e-pages (about three regular pages) left when it expired. Couldn’t turn the page. So, Bruce and I need to have a coffee date at Barnes & Noble so I can find the book and read the last few pages.  (#storyofmylife)

Starry, Starry Day

So much sewing this week, but not a lot of finished results to show for it. But our annual family FIESTA is today, and I spent a good part of the week in preparation for that. In addition to some housework (have to break down and do it sometime), there was a lot of prep and cooking of the enchiladas, fajitas, mole’, etc etc. Today I still have to wrap Christmas presents for the grandkids - the best place for them is under the tree, wrapped, to avoid curious eyes and little snoopers. Of course, I will outsmart them by writing their names on the tags in shorthand so no one will know what belongs to whom.  HA!

OK, so let me start with the most underwhelming things first. My brother, who is living with us until spring, needed some flannel pajama bottoms for our cold winter. Thanks to JoAnn’s Black Friday sale (which started on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, when there were no crowds), I bought some FUGLY flannel for him. PJ bottoms made. He loves them.

I also worked and finished up my Clue #2 to Bonnie Hunter’s On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt-Along, and that was detailed in my last post. Just lots of coral-colored geese.

And then your Christmas fabrics overflow-eth, make table toppers and runners! I have NO Christmas table runners, so I did get a start on one, using my oldest scraps. It’s a basic patchwork of light and neutral background squares onto which I fused/stitched holly leaves and berries.

The red and green are left over from Steve’s quilted Christmas stocking that I showed last week. It’s pin basted, and the backing will fold over as the binding/facing once quilted. Should be quick work to finish this up tomorrow. And then maybe I can pull some cute scraps out and work on something more fun!

The Tulip Quilt is quilted and delivered to my friend Terri, who will be binding it this week in preparation for Christmas gifting to our friend Diane. Terri will get a finished picture and send it to me so that I can post it here in the next next week or two. We plan to have a luncheon get-together (the three of us ladies plus our hubbies, The Muddy Gutter Boys) before Christmas to exchange gifts.

And Friendship Stars is coming along. I’ve finished the green round of stars and have moved on to the next ring, which is red and orange. It’s grown enough now that I have to hang it sideways on my design board.  Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog.

The pattern, with the movement of the white patches, is very forgiving overall. The myriad seams, which are crazy-awful to press, help line things up as one is sewing. There are a lot of cut-off points and not-perfect seams, but they get lost in the busy-ness of it all. I’m loving it, even though it is far from smooth and flat. But all that will be inconsequential once it is quilted and washed. And my thoughts are turning to..... how should I quilt this?  I’d welcome your thoughts.

Once the flimsy is sewn, it will go on the back burner until January so that I can begin putting together my Plus Quilt top. Or start the promised Hot Rod Quilt for my brother (groan). I’ve collected the fabrics for that, and narrowed the design ideas down to a couple, and am running out of excuses not to start it. The up-side to the hot rod quilt is that my dread is inversely proportional to his excitement, so I’ll be focusing on his excitement to carry me through. :-)

Moving Things Along....

Nothing much got accomplished in the sewing department this week because I was hit with The Cold From Hell, complete with laryngitis. We had to reschedule our annual Fiesta with the family to next weekend. But I got a lot of good reading time, plenty of rest, and Bruce fixed dinner for three nights. And now that I’m feeling better today, it appears I’m no worse for the wear. In fact, if I weigh the plusses and minuses, I think it was a pretty good week! And I do have some things to share.

The Friendship Stars flimsy has begun.....  The yellow stars and most of the pink ones are sewn together. This is slow going because I didn’t trim them as I made them, knowing they would sit around for the better part of the year before assembly. So as I work on each group to attach, I must press, starch (with Best Press) and trim them. There are a lot of seams and it’s sometimes frustrating to figure out which way to press in order to nest them or otherwise reduce bulk. But it’s working so far.

But it will be a long process to finish this up!  In the meantime, why not join us over at Angela’s Scrappy Saturday link-up to see what everyone else is working on?

And I finished up Step 1 of the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt, On Ringo Lake, and am now busy cutting out flying geese for Step 2.  I may or may not have a mid-week progress report on that. For now, there is nothing to show except a new rotary blade, LOL....

I did manage to work on a few things early in the week.  First, I made my brother a quilted Christmas stocking (ancient green and red fabric picked by him) to join the rest of the family stockings (assuming I can find them before Santa comes calling).....  The little stockings, which have since had rick rack hanging loops added, are ornaments which will hold gift cards. They have been filled and mailed to their recipients.

Did I mention that I am done with Christmas shopping already? We ordered the last of the toys from Amazon before Thanksgiving, and they have arrived. They'll be wrapped this week and put under the tree. Everything else was gift cards except the Fitbits I bought for daughter Megan and myself. We have 2 December birthdays (daughters Megan and Stacy),  but one wants a quilt and the other cash, so that’s easy.

I had ordered this gray reindeer fabric from Spoonflower last year, and made it into a cushion this week. I’m not crazy about the white-with-silver-swirls fabric I had to use at the ends, but needs must when you don’t have quite enough of the main fabric. It is now on a couch in the living room and looks cute enough.

And finally, I did this test block for a Rainbow Scrap 2018 project. Yep, I like it! I saw a quilt (no pattern or other information) online, so I worked out this block using a 2” grid. It will finish at 16”, so I guess I’ll be making 20 of them for a 64x80” quilt next year.

That about finishes it up for me this time. I plan to make a grocery store run today, then spend the afternoon sewing and listening to Christmas music. It’s heavenly to feel good again and have some energy!! Thanks for dropping by!

On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt Part 1

Along with hundreds, if not thousands, of other quilters across the country/world, I am participating in Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery quilt-along. This year, Bonnie’s inspiration was taken from a family visit to Minnesota and Ringo Lake.  The colors she chose were aqua blue, coral/melon, chocolate brown and neutrals of white to ivory. Since I always try to use my stash first, I switched the chocolate brown to dark grays. The colors look great together.

Our first step was to sew dozens of small nine-patches. Bonnie gave lots of great time-saving and accuracy tips for us, and in no time at all, my patches were finished and trimmed. I can hardly wait for Step 2, which will be released on Friday. I’m linking up to Bonnie’s weekly sharing post, HERE.

If you are new to my blog, welcome! I’m an avid quitter who blogs once or twice a week, mostly about my quilting. But sometimes I add in other creative pursuits (stitching, gardening), our cats’ antics, and occasionally personal stuff. 

Meanwhile this week, this is on the design board, just plastered up there. The blocks are only partially trimmed, and I’m just beginning to sew them together. It will basically be a medallion layout using most of the colors of the rainbow. Stay tuned!

And I’m quilting the Tulips quilt this week for a friendChristmas present. I really need to finish it off this week so I can pass it on to my buddy Terri to do the binding. Terri and I both sewed the tulips, then I sashed it. Now it’s basted and ready for quilting.

So much quilting, so little time!  See you back here on Saturday for Rainbow Scrap Saturday!

Tickled Pink with Sewing!

My pink sewing priority for this week was to finish up my Friendship Star (variation) blocks. The scraps and I just cruised along for a day or two, and in the end there were 24 of these 6” blocks. I now have 162 blocks and only need 136 to finish the quilt. The leftovers will either go on the back or into the “Parts Department”.

My tentative layout calls for concentric rings of colors, but some rings will have combined colors (like red/orange). I have to see how it’s going to look all laid out before I make a final decision. And this won’t happen until November anyway. In the meantime, I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s So Scrappy Blog. Come see the pink fun for this month - and why not consider joining us for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2018?
Also linking up to Oh Scrap! over on Cynthia’s blog.

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This week I also worked on my Autumn quilt, finishing up four of the final five 12” blocks.  First, there was the crow, a Lori Holt pattern.  Secondly was the turkey, of which I have no picture.

Next was the Schoolhouse, also a Lori Holt pattern (free on her blog, HERE).

And then there was the requisite SQUIRREL block, courtesy of Sally at The Objects of Design. Sally didn’t have a formal pattern written for her cute squirrel, but did have a line drawing here that she gave me permission to use.

I needed to convert it to a 12” block so decided to make the tail bushier. And I’ll be honest, I’m not half as talented as Sally in the design department - I don’t like my squirrel as much as hers. He still needs an eye sewn on, and his haunches/leg is rather unwieldy with the changes I had to make. I may “operate" on the back part of his leg to remove some of the obvious cellulite from eating too many acorns. .

The final block will be a barn block, then all 20 will be done and ready for sashing. The last time I showed some blocks with sashing, I used a brown grid fabric seen briefly here. Well, it just did absolutely nothing for the blocks, and I discarded that idea. So now I have switched to the 1.5” mustard strips that I originally cut (then rejected) for my Scrap X+plosion quilt here. I like this color with the bright autumn blocks much better.

I’m also auditioning fabrics for a border, because the 1” sashing only yields a quilt that is 53x66, too small for a lap quilt. The border size will depend on how much of the chosen border fabric I’ll have, but I’m hoping for a 4-5” border. Possibilities so far include the orange and yellow in the left of the above picture, and the leaf print shown below that I picked up in Colorado last month. I like the leaf one best, but I’m not sure if it is bright enough to hold its own as a border....

Chances are that once I have the blocks all sewn and sashed (a goal for the coming week), I will have several other possibilities to pick from and may be asking your opinion!

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And finally, I have basted with feline supervision Reading Rainbow.  I sewed a backing, then cleared the tables (a feat in itself) and got to work. Of course once this happens....

 then THIS is never far behind:

We’re here to supervise the basting, Mom!!

Alfie was pretty miffed at first when he discovered that I had put a mouse on the quilt. But he got over it once I agreed to his demand: an extra large safety pin right near the mouse’s butt.

And then Alfie began feeling frisky. See how his rear leg is up in the picture below? He kicks it in a frenzied manner whenever he gets excited. But the mouse wasn’t moving and he eventually lost interest. And I was able to finish basting the quilt.

Beginning today and over the next week I plan to quilt Reading Rainbow and the pink scrappy baby quilt I threw together last week. And then I’d like to sew the 12” barn block and assemble the autumn quilt top. After that - and thank goodness my calendar isn’t full like it was this week - there are lots of pink scraps left to sew into blocks or slabs for possible kennel quilts or ??? I may post mid-week if I have a finish or two to share.

Make it a great week!