First Finish of the Quarter

I finally finished the Cityscape quilt after spending waaaaaaay too much time quilting.  Not to mention too much time watching Netflix, LOL.  And errands, appointments and having our alarm system upgraded.

This is the first finish of this second quarter of the year, and was #1 on my Finish Along Goals, Quarter 2.

It’s been rainy and gloomy here, so my only finished picture is with the quilt pinned (not very evenly) on my design board.  I will try to get better pictures outdoors when the sun decides to shine again.

I outline quilted most of the buildings.  While the rays of light were done a few weeks ago in white (on the light upper background), the buildings were quilted in black. The quilting on the front and back really just disappears. I don’t intend to wash the quilt at this point as it will be a wall hanging for my son. I did add a hanging sleeve to the back.

The first black border, as I mentioned in a previous post, was quilted in the ditch. Then the outer colored border was just given simple straight line stitching, using my walking foot as a guide (but still not very straight...)

When I do the next one (yes, I have another identical panel), I am going to do the same light ray quilting, but it will morph into a simple quilted grid. But I don’t need to worry about that one until fall; it will be a charity quilt.

Meantime, I found an afternoon to catch up on the Splendid Sampler blocks I’ve chosen to do. There are six, and I believe one may be an alternate block. And two were changed by me (the Measure Twice and the house). We are encouraged to do our own thing. I modify designs I want to and ignore the embroidered and paper pieced blocks.

I have 20 6.5” blocks so far. I’m not sure how long I will continue to do these - I should sit down and do some math. I think eventually I would like to add some plain blocks and sashing to extend these. When we get to the months of green, yellow and pink, I will see what the stash says, although I could probably finish a nice sized quilt with just the fabrics I’ve already pulled for this thing.  :-)

And that’s it for this week’s finishes. Tomorrow I plan to cut into some fabric for my next quilt. If I can get it cut out before the May rainbow color is announced (I am betting on red), then it will be ready to start piecing when my colored blocks are done.....

See you on Saturday with my Orange Scrappy Update.

Finish-Along Goals for 2nd Quarter 2016

As the deadline looms, I better get my rear in gear and list my Finish-Along Goals for Q2 of this year.  Because they are all quilts, I am going to keep the list short and realistic.  Here we go.

1.   Cityscape Quilt.  This one is a digital cityscape print from Hoffman Fabrics that I have bordered with black. A second border in graduated colors surrounds that. It is currently in the process of being quilted by me on my Bernina 550QE.  So far I have completed the rays of sun and light.  I hope to finish this one later in the month.

2.   This is Shane’s Magic Carpet.  I made another quilt for my son Shane last year here, but it was rather small. He would love something bed-sized. He is an artist and picked these colors (THAT was a process) and I bought them at end-of-year Kona Cotton sales. I will gift it to him on his birthday, June 30, which also happens to be the end of the quarter....

3.   Aria (by Benartex) Quilt.  Yes, if you have seen any of my past lists, you will see that this one has been on it for several quarters.  But this is the quarter I will actually work on it. In fact, after I finish the Cityscape quilt, this one is actually next up before Shane’s quilt, above.  I enlisted hubby’s help to select a pattern, as this will be a bed quilt for us.  Our bedroom is decorated totally in neutrals, so I can switch up the bedcovers as I please. So fun!!

4.  Finally, a log cabin quilt. This one is actually a pie-in-the-sky wish for this quarter and will likely not happen unless I develop insomnia or they invent a 28 hour day. It seems I usually spend the first two weeks of every month stitching my blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, the Sugar Block Club and the Splendid Sampler. But I love the `I Love Log Cabins` book, and fell in love with the cover quilt. In fact, I had so many of the same fabrics in my stash, and have been dying to do another Log Cabin since I finished up Rainbow Orbs. So, this one is in the queue.

Collage of my Quarter 2 Project Goals:

It’s not too late - you have until the 16th (Saturday) at 11pm EST to link up if you would like to join us. Regardless, why not check it out - lots of great plans and eye candy to rev you up!  The link in the sidebar is clickable. There are several hosts this year and I vary between She Can Quilt and Clover and Violet.

Scrappy Orange Saturday and March Roundup

Happy Scrappy Saturday! Angela at So Scrappy just announced the color of the month for April (orange) on Thursday evening, but I haven’t had a chance to do anything yet except gather my orange piles together: orange cotton scraps, orange vintage sheet pieces, orange waste triangles and orange strips. I will be sewing like a madwoman this month..... I’m sure there are others who have already whipped up some great orange eye candy, so why not hop over to Scrappy Saturday and check it out?!

March was a good month for my RSC purple blocks; I finished:

12 blocks for the scrappy sampler,
2 Dresdens,
1 Mama cat with 12 kittens,
12 rail fence blocks,
10 16-patch blocks and
6 - 8” crumb blocks,
1 miscellaneous block of tiny HSTs.

That’s a total of 56 blocks, which was better than February (39) but not as good as January (67).  Yes, I am keeping track. I have a color-coded spreadsheet on my desktop with what I’m working on, my goals in total numbers of blocks, and what I accomplish each month I just cannot keep it all in my head....  :-)


I am almost done with Cityscape, but it is in the process of some detailed quilting, which for this quilting hack is pretty tedious. Here is a picture of some of the progress.

I used a light gray on the front for the sky part (top 25 percent). Now I’m on to the other 75% (about halfway done) and am using black for that. Basically, I’m just tracing the major building shapes. The black border has been ditch stitched. I have no idea yet how the outer colored border will be quilted. but I’m thinking something angular and simple, like just quilting 1/4” inside each block. Any ideas??

Thanks for stopping by!

Midweek Sewing Update

Did you have a nice Easter? Ours was quiet, which afforded a lot of sewing time for me. And yes, we had Belgian chocolate from Trader Joe’s. What more could you ask for?

On Sunday I sewed the borders onto my Cityscape. I’m pleased with it, but dreading (as always) the basting process and the quilting even more.

I’m going to attempt to quilt those rays in the skyline with clear thread.  And I  know the borders will be different than the main part. But that’s all I’ve decided for now.

Below is my latest Splendid Sampler block. It’s #11 for me (I think).  I’m going to sew another one today after I baste the quilt.

I also recovered my ironing board and you can see a bit of the Makower laundry fabric beneath the left of the block. I didn’t take a picture of the ironing board itself because.... it’s just an ironing board. But a cute ironing board now!

That’s it for now. Short and sweet. See you on Saturday!

Spring Stitching

Happy Spring everyone unless you’re in the southern hemisphere, then Happy Autumn!  Either way, the temperate seasons we’re coming into are beautiful!

Last week I mentioned but didn’t show my purple improv (scrap) blocks. They’re 8.5 inches and I had enough of the smaller scraps to do 8. I still have larger chunks of purple scraps - from fat eighths to FQs, but I didn’t cut them up for these blocks. I`m doing other quilt tops that may call for those larger chunks. If not, they’ll be ready for RSC2017.  Speaking of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, why not join us over at Angela’s SoScrappy for Scrappy Saturday. There is always lots of great eye candy!

This week I finished my Birds and Bees quilt which uses mostly fabrics by Tamara Kate for Michael Miller. I love the navy fabric with colored stars, but am not crazy about it as the first border. The quilt finished at about 56x64” (after washing), so it’s not a huge quilt.  I worked out the pattern on Pattern Jam according to the fabric I had on hand. We forgot to take a picture of the back which is made up of the outer border fabric, plus the binding fabric (aqua) and yellow. The quilting is a simple stipple and batting is Warm & Natural Plush. It will go into the linen closet to be added to the pile of Quilts for Christmas Gifts this year.

This is also a finish for my 1st Quarter Finish Along Goals, #6 to be specific.  And this is the 3rd quilt finish this quarter.  I am hoping to possibly finish one more this month.

I have finished three more Splendid Sampler blocks since the last time I shared. They have just introduced block #12 (the 36-patch ), but I have only done 10 blocks to date. Two of the introduced blocks have lots of embroidery and I am not enjoying that right now after doing my crazy quilts (see older blog posts) for the last 15 years.

The bottom block was supposed to have an embroidered center, but I included a Lori Holt little fabric piece instead  and then surrounded it with selvages. It did not turn out as I hoped. In fact, I think it’s fugly.  But it’s done and it’s staying as is. In a quilt, who will know or care?

Moving along, this is what I am working on now. I was originally doing some crazy-pieced 6-inch blocks with the thought of graduating the colors as I went around. But it wasn’t looking good. Then I pinned the 2.5” black strip around it and really liked that. So, from this picture I have decided to include the black border, skip the crazy patch, eliminate the red and olive green, and cut off the top light blue/white part of the print.

And then the colored outer border surrounding the black inner border will be pavers (bricks) of color, and most of them will be from two fat eighth assortments from Vicki Welsh in Blue/Green color wheel and Grape. They are drool-worthy!  So, hopefully I can finish this up next week.

Have a wonderful Easter!

My Sewing Studio: Purple Haze

It’s PURPLE month in March for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. And as this is also my birthday month (and a new iPad Air will be mine this weekend!), I am tickled purple that Angela at So Scrappy has chosen it for us.  The accent color, which is optional, is yellow. A little yellow goes a long way (especially with its complement, purple), so we will see how that goes.....

For the last month I have been dying from   suffering with dealing with the nasty 100-day virus.  Let’s just say that my personal color for February was green..... (ewwww!)   But even though it’s only been 4 weeks, I feel so wonderful today as I write this. It has been in the high sixties temperature-wise today, and I have thrown open the windows to get some fresh air. I’ve had no meds for 24 hours, and I even slept through the night with no coughing or nose-blowing. I have energy!!  It is common to feel good with this virus, then relapse, but I am hoping that maybe I’m finally over whatever it was..... Fingers crossed.

So, here is my Purple Progress for this week:

These are the Vintage Sheet Rail Fence 9.5” blocks. There are 12 of them, and they will join the 18 blue and 3 brown. At the end of the RSC (or maybe I should just say “at the end of the rainbow”) there will be enough to make some sort of zig-zag rainbow scrappy sheet quilt. Or something.

I did pull all my purple scraps and sort them by size. I have been cutting like a madwoman and the picture below is my proof.  It contain the makings of: 12 kittens (foreground on tray), Mama Cat (purple with yellow stars fabric pile on right, 2 piles of 20 Dresden blades to be made into two blocks (one on pale pink, one on pale yellow) and 2.5” squares which will be sewn into 10-12-ish 16-patch blocks with white and black centers.

I hope to get at least half of that done this week, as I expect Angela will be introducing our RSC Challenge Quilt Block for March. Then I will need to make lots of those, depending on size.   Whatever is left over from that will go into purple crumb slabs....

And although there is a purple haze in the studio this month, I am working on several other things (like any quilter worth her salt, right?)

I am playing along with the Splendid Sampler hosted by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. These are my first five blocks. I chose those colors because they are what I have most of in my stash, and I wanted to trim them down. The result is a very girly-girly look, which is really not me, but IS perfect for my granddaughters. So who knows how long I will play along or how many quilts it will end up making. I’m thinking that by the time these 6” blocks are done (100 of them in the Sampler), I can sew up some basic alternate blocks to use with them. Another one to wait on and see....

The block below is my favorite. It was designed by Jen Kingwell, However, instead of using fabric circles as the pattern calls for, I went with my crazy-quilting background to add crocheted flowers, bits of lace flowers, yo-yos and some embroidered greenery.  And doesn’t that green fabric look rather like enamelware?

The project below is that Hoffman digital cityscape print that I am adding borders to. I have two of the prints and will do the  same for both.  They should both finish out at about 48x60, which is either a large wall hanging or small lap quilt. As I get further along, I will be using a lot of my Vicki Welsh hand-dyed batiks in the border piecing. Stay tuned.

And finally, my Birds and Bees quilt has been pieced and bordered. I have the backing sewn and the batting ready. All I need to do is baste it in order to quilt it. But I have not felt remotely like doing that for weeks.  If these good vibrations keep up, however, I expect I may baste and quilt it this week.

Sorry for the long post. The non-purple items should have been a separate post earlier in the week, but...... you guessed it. I didn’t feel like it.

If you like scraps, why not join us at So Scrappy for Scrappy Saturday, and see what everyone else has been doing with their purple!