Orange Lozenges - Swallowed!

YAY!! I finally finished my Orange Lozenges quilt, and I made it before the end of the month. That means I can link up to OMG - One Monthly Goal - for the September goal completion linky party at Elm Street Quilts. Wow, lots of other stitchers have been busy, too, and there’s lots of great eye candy there to check out!

First, I had lots of help from my trusty sidekick, Darla. She likes to hang with me down in the studio, but usually she sleeps on HER kitty quilt. Today however, she felt this one needed some extra attention first, even though it was under the needle.

Then Alfalfa had to get in on the action, so he came by for a cuddle and reassurance that Mom didn’t like Darla best.

With the feline needs attended to, I was able to finish quilting and binding Orange Lozenges. It finished at 62x72”.  I had just enough of the black and white striped binding to finish. Well, if truth be told, I had enough to go around the perimeter of the quilt and just meet, end to end. Not even enough to stitch a seam. So I had to cut off a couple inches and add in some leftover orange binding - it shows for about an inch - to finish it. And as I was stitching the last of it down, I ran out of bobbin thread about 4” away from the end. It was just one of those days, I guess.

The quilting was a vine motif with loops (and occasional hearts) that ran vertically down the center of each lozenge. The batting is my usual Warm & Plush by The Warm Company. This quilt will be a keeper for the living room. 

Tonight we’re going to dinner with my son Ryan and his wife Kim and our DGD Lauren. We’re meeting up with our friends Marilyn and OD, who are visiting from Kenya. It will be so nice to have a mini-reunion. I made a picture perfect apple pie for dessert (no picture). Plus we’re bringing garden produce for the Ryan’s family and the Safari Baby quilt for Marilyn and OD’s son. I’d better get a move on!

Coming and Going

It’s been a crazy week.

My brother Steve arrived from Colorado to move his stuff. He came by Amtrak so he could drive a U-Haul truck back full of his stuff while towing his Model A on a trailer. The train was delayed before leaving and didn’t arrive until 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. THAT was fun - driving into downtown Salt Lake at that hour to pick him up. Train stations aren’t usually located in the nice part of town. But we got home safely,  I got my sleep, and Steve has been loading his stuff up slowly but surely. Today, Saturday, should be the last loading day, and hopefully he’ll be able to take off tomorrow. He has help unloading on the other end.

Bruce is working ComicCon (now called FanX) and doesn’t get home until 9-ish. That ends today, too, thank goodness. And since the commuter trains and buses run less in off-peak (non-commuter) hours, I have to take him and pick him up at the Trax station. Meanwhile, between running Steve around for errands and appointments, and shuffling Bruce, I’ve had precious little time for myself. But that’s fine - I was prepared for this week and its resulting chaos and messes. But not much sewing got done.

I did sew up two of the Squared Away blocks that Angela, our Rainbow Scrap Challenge hostess, and Mari of Academic Quilter  have cooked up for us.  After doing the first one on the right above, I started in on the second one. I didn’t like the lack of contrast in the fabrics I’d selected, so I just made it up as I went. The pieces are the same, but shuffled and with different shading to form a different pattern. I sorta kinda like it a tiny bit, but not as much as the original block. I may still do another blue block.

The Orange Lozenge top did get finished this week. It’s now awaiting its turn to be basted.

And finally, I got started on the quilting of Linked Squares. It’s halfway done. There’s not much to see at this point.

I’ll finish quilting it today and tomorrow (sew day with Cousin Kim!). It will be a finish for this week. My goals for the coming week are also to sew and quilt the baby quilt top whose pieces I showed last week, sew up all 7 bird blocks in blue for my Lattice Birds top, and baste the Orange Lozenges quilt. I have a mammogram on Wednesday and lots of housework to face during the week sometime. But at least there will be a slow return to normal - or what passes for it - around here. Thanks for dropping by! xo.

August Sewing and a new September Goal

August was a great month for sewing. With all our kids having flown the nest long ago (and now sending THEIR kids off to school), our focus was just enjoying the summer, family, the garden, hobbies, and - in Bruce’s case - work. Yes, he really loves his post-retirement job at The Leonardo museum where he is the Resident Engineer. It keeps him out of trouble (and my hair) for 4 days a week.  :-)

I completed three quilts, all of which were near the final stages at the beginning of the month. They just needed basting, quilting and binding. More information about them is in the Quilt Gallery tab, above. They are Groovy Guitars for Bruce, an aqua donation quilt and the Farm Girl quilt for me. So glad to have these all done!

But this past week I just focused on moving other projects along.  I basted Linked Squares.

I started another quick quilt (gulp). It’s just going to be a quick patchwork baby quilt for our friends Marilyn and OD from Kenya, who are visiting here in September. It will be a simple patchwork quilt. The patches are already cut. The zebra fabric on the left below is the backing (with a stripe of the blue) and the blue will be the binding. It’s for their son S. This fabric is from an older line called Origami Oasis by my favorite designer, Tamara Kate.

I made progress on Orange Lozenges by sewing up an additional five blocks - each block containing 24 lozenges. The last row that’s pinned to the design board is overlapped by the row above it due to space considerations - my design board isn’t long enough.

So, I only have four more blocks to finish, and one of them is almost done.

The other three are ready for their corners. It was a challenge to make sure that there were no more than two of any one print in any block, so I was sorting and re-sorting until the end.

This WILL become at least a finished top in September, although I want to finish the entire quilt. In fact, I’m declaring that as my OMG - One Monthly Goal - for September as I link up to Elm Street Quilt’s September Goal Link-up, HERE

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Moving along, I also began sewing together my Bow Ties into a quilt. These little blocks are 4” (finished), and there are 288 of them that will be set 16 x 18, resulting in a quilt that will measure 64x72”.  I got half of the quilt done!  I have so enjoyed this Rainbow Scrap Challenge project over the last two years and really look forward to seeing this one completed.

I finally settled on this very basic, traditional set with random color placement. It’s going to be a keeper for me. There are just so many memories stitched into it from all the fabrics!  I would love to finish this top in September, too, but September promises to be a hectic month (more on that later), so we’ll just have to see.

Here are some close-ups.

Alfie and Darla won the voting for the 2018 Pets On Quilts category Cats on Quilts over at Lily Pad Quilting. YAY! Thanks to all of you who took the time to go over to see the contest (it’s for a good cause) and vote. They won a jelly roll of fabric, which they gave to me. And some of YOU won prizes, too, for participation. Way to go!

And now we start on dark blues for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I’m happy we’re finally getting back to the blues. I have lots more birds to make in blue this month, plus all the rest of the blue Irish Chain blocks for the top.  And we have another block for our Squared Away quilt, so there is certainly a lot on my plate for September.

And speaking of a lot on my plate, my brother Steve will be returning to visit us in the coming week. He found a cute house in Montrose County, Colorado (southeast area, about an hour from Grand Junction) with about 3/4 acre of land, and bought it. He closed on it a couple weeks ago and is now ready to return here to gather his stuff and haul it home. 

Steve will return here by train so that he can rent and drive a U-Haul truck and trailer (to tow his 1930 Model A Ford) home. While he’s here for about a week, he also has all sorts of business - banking, medical, etc - to wrap up. Since I’ll need to chauffeur him around, I imagine it will seriously cut down my sewing time for a week or so. LOL. But the upside is seeing him, to say nothing about getting our storage areas and guest bedroom back. So it’s all good, right? 

Teal Zeal

I guess I could’ve titled this post Aqua-something or Turquoise-something, since those are all the colors (not blue but not green) that we’re working with for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month. But it’s summer and I’m lazy, so there you have it. Teal.

My scraps this month are tamed as much as they’re going to be. Lots of nice chunks got put away to use for next year or for when I decide what other teal/aqua/turquoise blocks I’ll need for other WIPs.  For now, here’s what I finished up this week to share.

I made 13 - 6” (finished size)  quarter log cabin blocks. It always seems as though I have an odd number of these blocks when I make them. 

This month there will be no birds sewn because that color is not represented in my Birds in the Lattice quilt. So, the final blocks for this month (unless I begin a new project) are my 6” (finished size) crumb blocks. I got seven of them before the smaller scraps ran out, and really didn’t want to cut down any bigger chunks.

So, that leaves me a couple weeks to twiddle my thumbs sew on other things. So, just for the sheer joy of piecing (because I already had all the orange lozenges and a large pile of black and another of white 1.5” squares), I worked on these lozenges.

I was sewing these into 3x2 blocks, then sewing those together. Only I kept going and somehow got the starting colors reversed. But this is still early days in this quilt top, so it will be easy just to add to the bottom part before proceeding. And that little lozenge in the second row, fourth from the left - that has got to come out. That fabric needs black corners. But that, too, is an easy fix. Anyway, I’m liking it. I don’t know when we will have orange month for the RSC - hopefully not next month when I’m gone for half the month - but I plan to work on this pretty heavily this year in order to finish it up by Christmas. It’s already 2 years old. At least 90% of the cutting is done. 

And then, guilt struck. Bruce’s poor Groovy Guitars flimsy shamed me mercilessly (“Having fun piecing, are you? What about me? I need to be appliquéd!"). And finally when I found one of the tiny purple circles that represent a tuning peg, I caved and switched gears yet again.

You may recall, the top looks like this:

After reattaching the errant purple tuning peg, I began hand sewing those down. That was no fun. Well, it was, but the other larger pieces are not taking well to being scrunched while I hand sew. So, I actually began machine appliquéing them down. All the blue parts are done, and now I’ve started on the yellows. They’re done with the exception of one seam.

The very fine thread I bought for the appliquéing of Groovy Guitar didn’t work out. It was just too fine. Originally this was meant to be a wall hanging, but Bruce wanted a useable quilt. So I expanded the edges and filled out the guitar shapes, adding headstock motifs, etc. to make them all float on a larger black background. The fusible, per the instructions, was not lightweight, but a lighter medium weight. It has changed the hand of the pieces and I hope it will soften after washing. But at this stage, using a fine thread was not cutting it. So, I’m back to my 50-weight Aurifil and it is behaving admirably.  

Today I’ll finish up the yellow and do the orange and perhaps move on to the green and purple. I’d like to be able to sit down and enjoy some slow stitching of all the tiny dots once everything else is secure. Then I’ll probably add a red border. My goal is to get this ready to be basted by the end of July. 

This garden photo was taken last Monday, and the garden has grown even since then. The various squash plans (left side, middle area) all have blossoms now, as do the tomatoes and the tomatillo. We’ve finished up the radishes (“we” meaning Bruce, because I hate them) and are feasting regularly on spinach. And I’ve been making lots of rhubarb-strawberry compote for the freezer to enjoy during the off-season.  

And the white climbing rose in the middle on the back wall is now blooming mightily. It’s lovely to sit out on the patio and see it all!

Goal Setting for the Second Quarter

It’s time for me to set my quarterly goals for finishing up quilting-related projects. I’m going to pretend that Spring will really arrive one day and that the cold, rainy weather and blustery days will give ‘way to warmth, sunshine and flowers. But I’d be an ingrate if I did not acknowledge that Mother Nature has already blessed us with three - yes, only 3 - daffodils. Wha????? I planted at least 30 last fall..... Well, the tulips are poised to open any day now....

My list for the second quarter proposed finishes is relatively short. But even so, I know that with everything else going on in spring, I will be fortunate to finish just half of them. Anyway, I’m linking up to the 2nd Quarter 2018 Finish-Along Goal Setting linky. 

1.  Bruce’s Guitar Quilt

This quilt is also my One Monthly Goal (OMG) for April. But I’m advising everyone, Bruce included, not to hold their breath. I don’t even want to pull it out until I finish my yellow Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks, probably next week. And that’s already half way through the month.

2. Baby Quilt for Stacy
FINISHED AND BLOGGED ABOUT HERE.

Our daughter Stacy is expecting a baby girl at the beginning of July. Yay! I was hoping it was a girl, because I’ve had this ABC panel (Tamara Kate) for over a year, just waiting.

3.  Geese Migration

FINISHED AND BLOGGED ABOUT HERE. 

This is a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project. The pattern is by Cynthia Brunz. It’s a flimsy currently, but will be basted and quilted soon. Probably it’ll be my first finish of the quarter.

4.  All You Need is Love

I’ve used this picture before, but actually the quilt is well under way. It’s for my Beatle-loving daughter, who needs another quilt. Well, she has a Minky-backed winter quilt I made her about 3 years ago, so this will be an all-cotton alternate quilt. So “need” is appropriate, right?

5.   Lozenge Quilt in Orange

I’ve been working on this off and on for a couple years. Mostly I’ve just worked on it when the orange month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge rolls around. But I’ve got all the orange rectangles (all 475 or so) cut out, as well as a majority of the white corner squares. Now I need to cut out the black corner squares and do some heavy chain piecing. But the priority is after the four above-listed quilts.

6-7.   Charity Quilts

I’ve been trying to add charity sewing to my quarterly output (whether listed as a goal or not) this year. I may as well list a couple of them here. The two I’ve selected are basically whole-cloth quilts that were selected by virtue of being on the top of the 12-quilt pile! LOL

Sorry for the lousy picture; the purple fabric is even shown wrong side up. I just match pieces of fabric, flannel, batting and keep a baby quilt-to-be pile going. These are all meant to be baby sized, from 36” square up to about 48x54”. They either go to a local church group, online charity drives, or the local Primary Children’s Hospital. 

And that’s it for me for the second quarter. Now, must get sewing......  Thanks for stoping by!

Pink Scraps Under the Needle and a Quilt Top Finish

Hi all, and welcome to the first pink Scrappy Saturday in October. I’m going to link this post up to Angela’s So Scrappy blog for our weekly Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Join us for some great quilting ideas and eye candy! I have so much to share that this is likely to be a long post, but at least there are a lot of pictures. Some things, though, I’ll save for a mid-week post. Let’s get started!

In my September scrappy summary, I mentioned a quilt I’m working on (off and on) that will take about 450 -  2.5”x5” lozenges. These will be cornered with 1.5” white and black pieces (it is a Bonnie Hunter pattern taken from a vintage quilt). The link will take you to her Free Patterns tab, where you can find a couple of posts regarding the cutting and construction of the quilt. Anyway, after finishing most of the cutting (I think I saved about 50 lozenges to cut from next year’s scraps to avoid too many duplicates), I cornered 40 lozenges. Obviously, I haven’t started applying any of the black corners yet....

So let’s talk PINK, shall we?  I had one 8.5” strings block from last year, and it takes 4 of them to make one big 16” (finished) square. And I am going to need 20 squares altogether. So, I sewed up 11 more string blocks to finish up the three large blocks. That gives me 15 of the 18 required.

And then it was time to focus on selvages. My Rainbow Selvages quilt calls for two pink columns; one light pink and one bright, hot pink. Done and done.

And sewn to the other finished columns it looks like this:

All that’s left is one column to the very right of the purples. Originally I planned a black/gray column. But now I think I will add two columns next month when we do dark neutrals. One will be the black/gray and the other will be browns. It will add another 4” of width, which I think this 72” long quilt will need, making it 60x72”. Stay tuned.

And the last of my pink scrappy sewing this week was my favorite - the bookcase quilt AKA Reading Rainbow. I needed two 12” pink blocks to finish up the red/pink row (you can click on all pictures to enlarge).

And since the only thing left for the bookshelf was one dark block for the bottom corner. So, I went ahead and made a black/gray block of books. I LOVE how this one finished, especially that Egyptian fabric (a scrap left over from making boxers for one of my sons when he was a teenager). And it has the perfect title - Timeless Treasure. Is that serendipity  or what?

And then I assembled all the books, rows, shelves, borders, etc. Oh my, what fun!  Here it is hanging on the design wall.

I know it’s not a very good picture, but we just didn’t get outside for a photo shoot.  This one is planned for pin basting on my new tables in the coming week. It will be the first quilted that way, so I am rather looking forward to it. And then the quilting will begin. I’m planning to do just some basic stippling or loops - a basic allover design that won’t detract from the action on the shelves. This quilt is about my favorite ever!  Hopefully I’ll have more to share on this next week.

And I am still making progress on my Autumn Farm Girl quilt. This week I finished up the Indian Corn block.

I’m almost done with the owl block, too, but I will save that for my mid-week post.

Finally, I wanted to share a recent make for my friend Diann of Little Penguin Quilts. Diann and DH Mike were going to join us on our recent Colorado trip for a couple days, but due to a death in Mike’s family, their plans changed at the last minute. So, I mailed this off to Diann when we got home from our respective trips. Now that she’s received it, I can share.

It’s just a little quilted, lined zip pouch stuffed with some little goodies. It’s quilted with a lefty vine motif.

A couple Christmases ago I made dozens of these for gifts, but this was the first one this year. And it seems that I was a bit rusty and could've used a refresher course! The first pouch I made (below) used my first fabric picks and colors.

But, I forgot the lining! OOPS! See the batting showing on the inside in the picture below. Sheesh.

If I had a dollar for every sewing missssssnake I’ve ever made, I’d be wealthy.