Rainbow Cats is a Finish!

The title would be more accurate if it said Rainbow Cats IV is finished, because this is the fourth quilt of momcats and kittens that I’ve done over the years. But who really cares, right? I’m just excited that this is finished for Xander, my granddaughter London’s cousin. And I’m ready to quilt the dinosaur quilt for his brother Brody, but I’ll talk about that momentarily.

Rainbow cats finished at 58” square and I quilted it in simple loops on my Bernina machine. The backing, which I don’t have a picture of, is just a cute wide-backed black and white cat print. I’m holding up the quilt while Bruce single-handedly snapped the picture. (He only has one arm so has been retired as quilt holder, LOL)

Rainbow Cats was stitched along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) this year, each litter when its color turn came. I purposely made two yellow litters and omitted pink since it’s for a boy. I’m linking up to share at Scrappy Saturday.

I love the quilt picture, though (even if it’s a bit washed out by the sun), because you can see the beautiful blue sky and our nearby mountains. What you can’t see in the above picture, however, is the tree. So I snapped a picture of that in all it’s autumn glory a bit later in the day.

Last Sunday as I was starting to sew, my iron died. It was a 3-year-old Rowenta that was heavy, and I hated it. It didn’t die without first spitting out a lot of black gunk all over the fabric I was ironing. It did wash out, however. So I ran off to Target to get a new iron. It was a toss-up between Target and Home Depot. I wanted just a good old cheap Black and Decker iron, because those have always been reliable and durable for me. Target had three irons. And by that I don’t mean they had three types of irons, they had just three. Period. Two were Rowentas at $64.99 and $79.99. HA! I wouldn’t buy one at any price. So I got the only other one they had - a $29.99 Hamilton Beach. I’m not going to use water in my irons anymore (I’ll use spray bottles instead), so hopefully this will work OK. It’s actually very sturdy without being heavy, and so far I quilt like it. 

Now, in the background (the design board) of my iron picture, you’ll see an in-process photo of the dinosaur quilt for Brody that I mentioned above. The top is sewn and the backing is ready. I just need to baste and quilt (and bind) it. My plan is to do that on Sunday so that I can hand it over to DGD London’s other grandmother on Tuesday. 

I’ll chat more about it next week when it’s finished. By then I will also have finished up the quilting of my DGD Lauren’s quilt, which we’ll give her for her high school graduation. That’s the Framed Pinwheels quilt that I started last summer when we visited Missouri Star Quilt Company, and whose progress was so rudely interrupted by the basement sewing room flood.

Here’s a peek at the quilting Framed Pinwheels. Lauren plans to major in ecological engineering with a minor in PSC (Plants, Soils and Climate). So I quilted her quilt with loops and leaves and vines. 

This will get its binding this weekend, so it will be another finish to share next week. So many “almosts” this week!

For November, I plan to devote my RSC sewing to my brown scraps. In November 2019 I did two quilts that combined black, gray and browns. Last year during November, I did one brown/blue/gold quilt and two gray quilts. This year my browns are threatening to burst their drawer, so I’m going to knock them back! 

So, up on the design board I have ten 16-patch blocks. They’re just pinned up there, so excuse the wonkiness as some are overlapped for the picture. I had So.Many.Pieces. of the two-tone brown chevron scraps from Quilts for Kids. They were only large enough to cut one or two 2.5” squares from. I was able to get over 300 squares, but only enough to do 41 out of the 42 blocks I’ll need for a quilt. And because they were individual pieces, I can’t strip piece them. But I am being careful to keep the zig-zag oriented in the same direction in every block.

Anyway, because I came up slightly short, I’ll just have to use some other brown for the last block. Or maybe I’ll insert an 8” plain block to give it some interest. I mean, really. How exciting can a brown quilt be? We’ll see. I’m trying to sew two blocks per day, in between other things, which would have me finish the blocks by the 21st or so.  

And then I’ve got all these brown strips that will go toward making another outdoor/camping theme kid quilt. As usual, my process starts by slapping things up on the design board to see if what I have covers enough area to make a kid quilt. This will work. I’ve even got an extra Masala Box block in there. Actual sewing and trimming will start later in the week. I may spice it up with another rusty orange stripe. You know it’s bad when “spice” means rusty orange, LOL!

Sometime during the week I hope to tackle the first of the brown elephants. I want to do several, since I have lots of brown chunks large enough. And I may even rummage through the gray for elephant fabric, too, as the month progresses. Then there are strings and crumbs to deal with, but I can’t even think about those yet...  

Have a great week! 

Quilting to Plan and Planning to Quilt

Although I still don’t have a quilt finish to share, I’m getting closer. One Cousin Kim and I basted All You Need is Love on Wednesday, I began the quilting process on Thursday.

Here’s a picture of the top again so you will understand what I’m referencing.

The thread I’m using is a barely-there pale green cotton. It’s so pale that it looks almost white on the front.  So, on Thursday I started out by quilting the center panel with a basic stipple. 

Then I switched to a dark blue thread and quilted the navy border around the center panel with lines. They’re not visible, so I didn’t take a picture. And I quilted wavy lines in the dark floral borders in the top and bottom final border, also not visible. 

On Friday I tackled the yellow flying geese that surround the center panel. After searching for some simple ideas, I settled on this pattern. It was tricky to do because I didn’t want to wrestle with the quilt by continually changing directions and pulling its bulk around under the machine. So some of these motifs were stitched while I was looking at them upside down or sideways, although they all came out the same on the geese. My best motifs actually came out while I was stitching them upside down! I’ll thank you not to laugh at that.

After that, I tackled the next round, which consisted of the lollipop and friendship star motifs. By that time, simple was sounding real nice, so I just went with loops.

And here is how the front looks so far. I know, I know; it’s hard to see the quilting.

And here is the back. The thread matches the back wonderfully.

So, today I’ll continue. I think I’m just going to ignore the little checkerboard round since it’s only two inches. I’ll switch to pink thread and first go back to stitch in the solid pink border between the flying geese and the next round. Then I’ll tackle the pink hearts. 

My goal is to finish the quilting today so that I can trim it up and sew the bright pink binding together. Then I can bind, launder and photograph it on Sunday and get it packed and mailed on Monday. At least that’s the plan. 

I’m also participating in Bonnie Hunter’s Good Fortune Mystery Quilt-Along, and have the Clue 3 pieces to start on this week. And I’m trying to make a decision on what quilt to finish up next. Right now it’s a toss-up between turning all my selvage blocks into not one, but TWO finished quilts (and I’ve already pulled the sashing fabric) OR to start sewing together the Birds in the Lattice quilt blocks. There should be a third choice in there - a quilt that I need to start and finish before we go on vacation to Arizona in February. I’ll introduce that one in the next week or two....

Linking up to Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge 

and Cynthia’s Oh Scrap!

Reading Rainbow Quilt Finished!

I am so thrilled that I finished my Reading Rainbow quilt this weekend! It has been 10 months in the works - since we started with purple in January for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Every month I’ve added blocks of books in the color of the month according to a plan I drew out ahead of time.

The quilt was constructed with 5 12” blocks per row. Some rows, like green, orange, and yellow are all one color - because I had more of those scraps in my stash. Other rows combine colors like purple and black, red and pink, and teal and blues. And here and there I tried to add in little whimsical bits of interest; a mouse, a fishbowl, a globe, flowers, etc. All designs were pulled from my warped own imagination except that awesome Laurel Burch cat on the yellow row.

The “wood” shelves are 2” (finished) wide and the outer borders were cut at 3”. Even the back has the same Joel Dewberry woodgrain fabric, except where I had to supplement with a plain Kona gray. My husband Bruce was kind enough to haul a chair out to our colorful flowering pear tree in front. He graciously stood on the chair holding the quilt so I could snap pictures.

The finished quilt measures 66x86”. The batting is Warm & Plush cotton (my favorite), and I used a basic stipple quilting pattern. No surprise there, but there was a method to my madness. Let me show you.

The book titles were taken from fabric selvages. Most of the time, but not always, selvages are woven more tightly than the fabric itself in order to prevent fraying on the bolt. And that is one of the reasons we trim selvages - they will shrink (or not) at different rates than the main fabric. When I sewed on the selvages, I reduced my the stitches on my machine to a 1.0 length - very tiny. That doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be fraying; I fully expect that there will be fraying over the first couple washings to those seam lines.

So that’s where the stippling came in. It was another opportunity to go over the selvages with more stitches, as Alfie points out here...

And here....

And.....whoops!

It appears my Supervisor got a bit sidetracked with the camera strap ....

Now, where were we? Oh yes..... stippling. So, all in all, it seemed to make the most sense and give me the best maneuverability to get everything secured as best I could.

Reading Rainbow will be my own quilt to “read” and cuddle with this winter. It also represents a finish for the 4th Quarter 2017 Finish-Along. It is my goal #3. The link to my list is here. 

Thanks for dropping by! I will show another finish (a pink baby quilt) on my next post and catch you up with my other works in process.

Crayon Quilt Finished!

I was hoping to finish this quilt before month-end, and I did. The pattern is Color Me by Emily Herrick, but I added an additional crayon (aqua/teal) to make it bigger and fit in better with my monthly Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors. This was so easy and so much fun - and a great way to use up scraps. I started it last summer and wanted to finish it this summer so that all my rainbow scrap quilts wouldn’t finish up at the same time. That happened to me last year and it took me months to get them all done (in addition to Christmas quilts).

So Color Me finished at 51x68”. The batting is my usual Warm & Plush. The background is a white on white print I had just enough of, the backing and binding are this crayon print that I picked up on the local shop hop earlier this month.

The backing is pretty basic and not too exciting. I would have loved it if the print had contained some greens and pinks, but that’s just me.  Below is a picture I snapped on the floor of the living room. Not a great showcase for the quilt exactly, but it does show all the textural goodness after it was washed.

I spent several days quilting this, trying new-to-me things. First, I did the white sashing between the crayons. I was inspired by Lori Kennedy of The Inbox Jaunt. Between her blog, Instagram and Pinterest (I have all my favorites pinned) and her new book Free Motion Quilting 1-2-3) which I bought a couple months ago, the only problem was narrowing down the ideas. Some I tried and just couldn’t “grock”, even after practice (case in point; the motif between the aqua and green, below). It’s no secret to me that my brain works differently, LOL. But other patterns I tried I really loved.

The crayons were all quilted with what I call a sine wave.  Easy, zen, not necessarily even from patch to patch but I don’t really care about that.

My favorite motif was the little curvy line with bubbles (mine have 3 instead of 5) between the yellow and orange crayons and in another spot, too.

All the crayons had swirls in the tip and dense quilting (either small stippling or pebbling) around the tip to make them stand out.

I also quilted waves, zig-zags, leaves and more with varying amounts of success. The border ended up being a wavy line with hearts, with the exception of the first 3 motifs, which started as leaves before morphing into hearts. Like I said, my brain is different - it had already carved a mental heart path and didn’t want to do leaves.

So, Color Me is my 7th quilt finish this quarter (I am not counting those 4 whole-cloth flannel baby quilts that I showed in the last post). This one was #2 on my Quarter 2 Finish Along Goals. But, there I ran into a problem. It seems that when I posted my list back in April, I didn’t link up properly to the Finish Along link party, and my post never appeared to them. So, have I been toiling in vain? No! Although I am not eligible for the quarter-end linky party and prizes, the main motivation for me is to make goals and stick to them. Out of the 7 quilts I had listed as goals, I finished five of them. Not bad, especially considering that I also finished six baby quilts and countless kennel quilts that were not on the list.

**pats self on back**  

I may be an airhead, but I can be a productive one!

By the way, just a reminder that you can check out my Quilt Gallery page any time. The link is right under the blog header. I’ll be back on Saturday with a yellow scrap recap and the start of a new color for July!

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday and
Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

January Rainbow Quilt Recap

Today, the last day of January (who else is cheering?!?), we are holding a celebration of Rainbow Quilt goodness over at Angela’s So Scrappy blog.  Everyone who has finished a Rainbow Scrap Quilt this month, regardless of when it was started, is invited to show it to the world! We are hoping to inspire newbies and those who might be teetering on the brink of joining us in our goals of monthly scrap-busting, color by beautiful color.

This month I finished up three of my 2016 rainbow quilts, all of which were flimsies before the month began. All (ha!) I had to do was baste, quilt and bind.

Rainbow Rails
This quilt was made from vintage sheets (except 4 lonely strips I had to fill in; one in orange and 3 in brown). It finished at 72x81". The “batting” was merely white flannel as this is meant to be a summer-weight throw, and the quilting was a large meandering stipple.

Cool Scrappy Improv
All during 2016 I made improv blocks (8.5” unfinished) with the bits and bobs left over from all my other planned blocks. These bits included experiments, half square triangles, flying geese, and just about any scrap over 1.5”.  I had so many at the end of the year (over 90), that I divided them into warm and cool color groups. This is the cool colorway. It is sashed with 2.5” (2” finished) black strips and set 7x7. It measures 72x72” and is batted with Warm and Plush. The quilting was a simple vertical large zig-zag.

Warm Scrappy Improv
This quilt used the scrappy blocks of the warm colors from my 2016 rainbow adventures. The colors are yellow, orange, red and pink. Again, they are sashed with 2.5” strips, in this case Kona Cream. The blocks are set 6x8 in this quilt, resulting in a quilt that measures 62x82”. The batting is the same Warm and Plush, which I love because it gives a slightly higher loft than the Warm and Natural. I buy it in 25-yard rolls from JoAnn online (when they either have a good sale or free shipping, or both). The quilting is a free-form loopy design that I do on my Bernina.

I was pleased to finish these three in January. There are still 2 quilts left to do from my 2016 Rainbow piecing; the Rainbow Dresdens and my Rainbow 16-patches. I have started sewing the patches into columns. There will be 9 columns (colors) of 10 blocks each.

As I will be on vacation for about 10 days in February, I’m not sure if I will finish either of them. My first priority is finishing a quilt for my brother-in-law that I can deliver when we get to Arizona.  But I’ll keep you posted.

And finally, I thought I would just throw in a Gratuitous Cute Kitty Picture. Because, why not?
Alfalfa (“Alfie”, in orange) and his sister Darla are best friends and partners in crime. They look so innocent, don’t they? HA! You should’ve heard them running around last night about midnight. They could wake up the dead.

Holding Paws

Have a great week, everyone!

I Needed a Vacation from my Vacation

As I wrote the title of my post I thought of the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it!”  I felt I needed a vacation so badly because I was sick of winter and the cold, nasty weather/air here in the Salt Lake Valley.  I felt as though it had been nose-to-the-grindstone sewing and cooking and housework and entertaining for weeks. Months. I cannot express how much I was looking forward to getting down to Tubac, AZ, where Bruce’s siblings all live. It is all the way south in AZ - south of Tucson and Green Valley even.

The weather was perfect. Low to mid eighties (F) all week. BUT.  There were too many of us cramped into the family double-wide mobile home that serves as our (free) accommodations. Five of us adults with one bathroom. I know this is the norm for some people, but Bruce and I live in a home with 3 bathrooms, so it was, um, different. And then there was the lack of privacy (except in our own bedroom). Too much family quibbling, even though we love them all dearly. And the kicker - we were (and are) sick. The cold that we had prior to leaving (that had seemed to abate for our 14-hour drive) came back with a vengeance and spread among all but (thankfully) our law-school-attending niece.

I did take daily walks in the glorious sunshine. The picture above is not much, I know, but it was the only one I snapped. It is looking at the Tubac Country Inn (orange roof) and the Tubac Trailer Tether (the rest of it continues quite a ways back and down the street) which Bruce’ brother Dennis owns. (Along with the laundromat and propane/camping areas)  The Arts Festival was fun, and we ate from there (instead of cooking) for the two days it was going. And then I got my usual souvenirs - T-shirts for Bruce and I, and some outdoor garden decorations. This year we got a tile table for the patio, a copper wall hanging of quail family, wind chimes and a covered Talavera butter dish. Usually I bring a planting pot home, but I have so many already.....(see posts here,  here and here).

Anyway, we are still sick and have been diagnosed with the 100-day virus. Bruce is still going to work, my cousin Carrie is on a 12-week FMLA leave for it (she works at a call center and has no voice!) and cousin Kim and I just have good and bad days. Mine are at home and hers are at work. This is a nasty bug, folks. Three months to go......

Anyway, let’s get on to some good stuff. Namely, sewing.

You may remember that I am doing two blocks per month through August for my Notting Hill Quilt.  One is the Sugar Block Club 2016 block of the month, which for February is a variation of the classic Log Cabin block.  Here is mine:

The second block I do every month is any interesting 12” block pattern I can decide on, and for this month my second block was Castles in the Air.

That brings me up to a total of 8 blocks now, and I need 20. So, it will be six more months of sewing 2 blocks per month. In August these will all be sashed and sewn together!

While in Tubac, I did do some sewing a couple times when I felt like it, and got the blocks pieced for my Birds and Bees quilt. Since I’ve been home, those are now sewn into rows and will be an official flimsy by tomorrow. These are just some sneak peaks, but I will show the quilt when it’s done.

Bright and happy colors. It has been so cheerful to work on!

Until next time,

Final Finish of 2015 - Helen’s Garden

With the weather being snowy and snuggly over the last week, it was so perfect to spend time in my studio sewing and playing with fabric. It was no surprise that this quilt was whipped out before I realized it!

Helen’s Garden finished at 68 x 84”. I used the Intersections quilt pattern (tutorial on their YouTube Channel and also published in their Block magazine) because it had large pieces that would best show off the gorgeous patterns and colors in this fabric line.  The fabric is also called Helen’s Garden and is by Tamara Kate, one of my favorite designers. She named it after her mother Helen, who loved to garden. My mother was Helen, too, so this quilt was meant to be. It is for ME, to curl up with on the couch when I read or watch TV or whatever. It is the first quilt I have made for myself (well, not counting the bed quilt, Rainbow Orbs).

As it was cold and snowy (as it has been for days - but no complaints here), after snapping the picture above, we came indoors and I just laid it out in the living room.

The back is a vintage sheet in lavender and white check, that I extended with bits of leftover fabric.  The binding was also one of the lighter prints in the line that I didn’t use in the squares because I didn’t feel it contrasted enough with the cream sashing. Quilting was a simple stipple design, and I find that my quilting is getting better. Practice really does help!!

So, all this quarter I have been linking up my finishes to my goals that I published at the beginning of the quarter here.  But it turns out I had two #6’s !!!  Anyway, I actually set 11 goals, and this finish (which was #5 on the list) makes the 8th of 11.  Not bad, since the goals were meant to be pie-in-the-sky.  Soon we will be linking our 4th quarter finishes up to Adrienne on the Windy Side’s linky party in hopes of winning prizes from great sponsors.

In 2016, the Finish Along will have several hosts, because it has grown in popularity. And no wonder - a great motivator to finish things as well as visiting new blogs and seeing great eye candy. This is NOT limited to quilting; embroiderers, crazy quilters and crafters take note.  You can go HERE to read about the 2016 Finish Along.

My next post will be a sort of recap of the year. I hope you’ll be around!

Hugs,

More Rainbows for a Snowy Day - Finished Euroshams

The weather outside is frightful......  it has been snowing virtually non-stop since before dawn. To say it’s a winter wonderland would be apt if it weren’t Monday. Sure glad it’s a day off for Bruce, and that I am happily retired.

But while it may be cold and snowy outside, it is very cheery and bright in our bedroom! OK, minds out of the gutter, please.  I mean my Rainbow Orbs quilt that I finished last week-ish. I have now also finished the two euroshams and the bedskirt.

Alfalfa (and Darla in other picture) OF COURSE had to be part of the action. Anyway, you can see the completed shams. They measure 24x24” and were each made with four 12.5 inch blocks.  The orbs in the quilt were 16” finished (four 8.5” blocks).  The shams have a slip opening in back for easy laundering.

The bedskirt is a small black dot on white (a Riley Blake fabric) that I used to make long strips which were stapled to the box spring. And I also (see picture) fashioned a pleat on each side.  The idea came from a tutorial I saw online somewhere, but after a week I’ve decided the industrial staples are not a permanent solution. I'll have to sew the skirt to a flat sheet (hello, thrift store).

The pillowshams were Goal #3 on my Finish-Along goals for the 4th quarter of the year, which you can see here.  This is the 7th finish out of my 10 goals. I may be able to squeak another one in before the end of the year.

I had to add the picture of Alfie and Darla above. I didn’t notice their expressions until I was editing and enlarging the pictures. It looks like Alfie is saying something and Darla is just rolling her eyes (“WhatEVer”)!

Continuing along....

I still consider myself a very new/green quilter. And this monster quilt (80x96” approx) was a real challenge to quilt on my Bernina home machine.  I started off doing long rows of alternating loops.  After a couple rows, a heart sneaked in and I rather liked it.

So I tried to include hearts in bright color areas where they would show up. Just because. And it’s kinda cool to search for the random hearts now and then.

The backing was a mixture of white on black and black/white fabrics and the gray thread seemed a happy medium although it looks white in the picture below. The picture proves what a novice I am at quilting. I decided to show it, warts and all because although it’s not perfect, it is certainly good enough. And I am improving.

I’ll be back later in the week with a couple Farm Girl blocks to show you. I just need to photograph them first. And this afternoon I am quilting the I Spy quilt I threw together, so that will be something, too.

Until next time,