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)

On Ringo Lake Part 2, plus Belated November Recap

I’m still playing along with Bonnie Hunter’s “On Ringo Lake” Myster Quilt-Along. The instructions for Part 2 are on her site, but suffice it to say that there are thousands of us all over the world are stitching up a plethora of flying geese units! This time around there are so many that the cutting and sewing was quite challenging. But they’re done and pressed, but not all trimmed yet. In the meantime, I am linking up to Bonnie’s Part 2 show and share post HERE.

And today I’ll finish quilting the loopy lines on the Tulip Quilt so I can drop it off to my friend Terri for binding (then washing and wrapping) for our friend Diane’s Christmas present. We will make sure to get a picture of the finished quilt first!  :-)

I forgot to tally up my quilting and weight loss progress for November and post it last Saturday, which was the last Saturday in November. So now is as good a time as any. The color of the month for our Rainbow Scrap Challenge in November was dark neutrals - black, brown, dark grays. Although I didn’t use up all of my scraps, I did sew 12 brown bow ties, 26 black bow ties, 4 brown strings blocks.

And my weight loss continues, slow and steady, just the way I want it. I lost 4.8 pounds in November. But I lost too many of those pounds in the last week when I was sick (over 3) and did gain one back when I started eating again. No surprise there. I’m still down a total of about 29 pounds since June. And I’m loving the new Weight Watchers Freestyle program that they introduced here in the US this week (earlier in the fall in the UK). We don’t have to track the no-point foods (fruits, veggies, eggs, fish, chicken and turkey breast, and most beans, etc.  We still track foods not on those lists (fats, dairy, breads, potatoes, rice, pasta, etc), but it’s simpler. It’s all about the nutrition, which is why it works so well!  :-)  But if I’m being honest, I am craving some Kahlua and eggnog. Maybe ONE SMALL glass this season?

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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!

A Dark Week, In Color, Weather and Mood

This was another week of dark colors for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Many of us are trying to finish up year-long rainbow quilt projects and making blocks from our dark black, brown and gray scraps. Perfect color choice for November, right? Why not join us over at Angela’s blog for Scrappy Saturday.

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“Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall”. The saying is taken from a song recorded in 1944 by Ella Fitzgerald (when she was with The Ink Spots) which, in turn, was taken from a line in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem entitled “Rainy Day”. (Yes, I had to look it up).  The line has pretty much summed up the last month for Bruce and me. I’ve mentioned before about a dear friend Colleen who died suddenly in late October and possibly about Bruce’s lifelong BFF who suffered a major stroke but is, thankfully, home and recovering nicely. And now our friend and neighbor - and honestly, a local “hero” - Cal, died this week. He is the one for whom I made a What Cancer Cannot Do quilt a couple years ago. Cal fought valiantly for 7 years, but lost the battle this week on Tuesday, the same day that sewing legend Nancy Zieman died. He was only 52. The rain and clouds this week have matched our moods. Things can only get better, right?  We’re counting on it!

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Back to what you’re probably here for!  These are the only dark scraps I got sewn up this week; 26 bow-tie blocks that will finish at 4”. That brings me to 240 of 304 needed.

I got both the Autumn Sampler and my Rainbow Selvages quilts basted. I should have the selvages quilt finished by next week to show you. I also pieced the tulip quilt top for a friend Diane. This is the one that my friend Terri and I are collaborating on for a Christmas present for Diane. We split the making of the tulips. Here it is without the final white sashing on the top and bottom.

I accidentally cut the vertical sashing 2.5” wide instead of 2”, so the top grew in width by an additional 4”. When the top and bottom borders are added, it will measure 72” wide and 88” long. That’s bigger than I like to quilt on my machine, but it will be perfect for Diane, who is tall. Once it is quilted, Terri will finish up the binding. But one way or another we will get a finished picture to share.

This week I also put together a trial quilt block for a project I’ll be working on next year. I have a huge store of vintage linens, both from my family and from years of collecting (and occasionally selling online). But some were just “cutter” quality, meaning they were stained or had bad parts with holes, etc. I wanted to give them a new life. So, this project will combine sweet little cotton fabric prints with bits and bobs of embroidered and lacy linens.

It will be a jumble of pieces, sizes and orientations. I’d like to make the blocks in sizes of 6, 9 and 12” so that they will hopefully be easier to sew together later. But who knows if the scraps will let me stick to that plan! I would also like to try a combination of machine quilting (in the ditch between blocks) and hand quilting and/or embroidery on the blocks. This would bring an element of crazy quilting into this piece for me, which is something I admit to missing after having not done any for a couple years. 

And finally, to beef up the visual aids on this post, here are some pictures of my “Teddy Bears". Alfalfa and Darla have taken to napping on our bed.  Both of these pictures were taken the same day - one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Because cats are Superstar Nappers.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’ll see you back here next week!

Finally - I finished a YELLOW Project!

This project is two months behind, color-wise, as yellow was the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for June. But it is finally done, and I have a couple pictures to share.

Pineapples finished at 63x82” (60x80” after washing). I love this picture out in the backyard, with the hollyhocks blooming in the background. My brother is standing on a chair holding it up.

And here is the back. It is an old bedsheets that cousin Kim gave me - a two-toned green pineapple print. I had enough of the fabric left over to use it as binding too.  That upper left  corner in the picture? Steve is pinching the quilt as he holds it, LOL. I guess I am going to have to give him a crash course in holding quilts for pictures.

This finish crosses off #6 on my list of 3rd Quarter Finish-Along goals, which can be seen HERE. 

And below are some of the tulips I did. My friend Terri is doing the other half and is using some gold color in a few of hers, too. We are both using several of the same Joel Dewberry fabrics with a few others added in as well. Next time we get together we can lay them all out on the design board and sew up the top. I will quilt it (probably just a simple loop or stipple, then Terri will bind it.  There is no rush on this, however, as it is meant as a Christmas present. We both are working on other projects in the meantime, so this will now be set aside for a couple months.

I didn’t work on any neutral scraps this past week. But in addition to the pineapples and tulips, I did some mending and have mostly completed two large Euroshams to match my Aria bedspread. I don’t know why I’m actually doing them, because I like the clean look of the bed without all the big pillows on it. But I have the leftover fabric and the large fluffy pillows have to be put SOMEWHERE since my closets are overflowing with quilts again.

This coming week: more neutrals for sure! Plus finishing up the Aria shams and making a start on the guitar quilt for Bruce. In the meantime, why not join us over at Angela’s blog for Scrappy Saturday??

Working those Neutrals

It’s been another busy week here, but at least I was able to spend lots of time down in my studio, sewing my cares away. There was quite a variety of things to work on this week. My ADQD (Attention Deficit Quilting Disorder) was in overdrive, so I switched between sewing neutral string blocks, quilting the pineapple quilt, and sewing tulips and leaves. And mending clothes, sewing on buttons, etc. Life in the fast lane. Not.


But there is a method to my madness. The needle in my machine needed changing, so I figured that sewing on a paper base in order to do the 4.5” neutral string blocks would be better on the old needle. Therefore, for three days I cut, sewed and trimmed blocks. The result was 78 (of 168 needed) neutral string blocks.


There are plenty more strings and scraps and fabrics where these came from, and I will be working on them throughout the month.  Come visit us over at Angela’s blog for Scrappy Saturday. Lots of us are working through our neutral scraps this month!

Anyway, by Wednesday I put a new needle in the machine and switched to quilting the pineapple quilt, which I had basted on Monday. The first thing I did on the pineapple quilt was to stitch all the vertical seams in the ditch with my walking foot.

And then I began doing X quilting in the pineapples themselves. So much moving and shifting the quilt around (!) and my Bernina has an average-at-best harp space. My shoulders hurt after quilting five pineapples. So, I set myself a goal of quilting 5 pineapples a day. With 24 pineapples in the quilt, that will take 5 days. To date, I have completed 15; 9 left to go. I’m using a light, icy yellow on the front instead of white - not that you can really tell from this picture. The thread on the back is a variegated light green. When I finish the quilt next week, I’ll have pictures.

After quilting my quota of 5 pineapples a day, I figured it was a good time to start assembling tulips and leaves for the quilt that my friend Terri and I are making for our friend Diane.

I originally added the gold color in because there is gold in the small pink floral print that you see in almost every tulip. But I think the gold strips overpower the pastels and need to be taken out and substituted with another pastel (probably that aqua with pink strawberries). What do you think?

All the tulips will have a stem and leaves; that is the next step. And this is only half the tulips anyway; Terri is making the other half of them.

So now I am a stem-and-leaf-making fool, and hope to get those done this week in addition to finishing the pineapple quilt and making the rest of the neutral strip blocks.  The next project on the horizon is Bruce’s guitar quilt....

Finally, if you have a moment, why not stop by Lily Pad Quilting and the Pets on Quilts Show for 2017. Darla, my sweet quilting tabby, is entered in the Cats on Quilts category. You can visit the linky party HERE. Voting will open next week, and we hope you will consider voting for Darla, the Quilting Cat!

And now, it’s back to the sewing room for me...... unless Darla is using the machine! (wink)

Rhythm of the Blues

With a tip of the hat to Mary Chapin Carpenter (listen to Rhythm of the Blues here), I’ve been sewing on my blue scraps at quite a clip. That song, with its understated guitar and her great voice and beautiful melody, has been my theme song this week.


The blue selvage column is on the left. Then I sewed together all the columns I could for the Rainbow Selvage quilt. All I have left are two orange columns and two pink columns when we get to those colors. The red column is already done. Oh, and I may add a brown, black or gray column to the very right. Depends.

Next up were my string blocks. I had a couple blue blocks from last year because I started them late in the summer. So, since they’re 8.5” each and will be sewn together into big blocks of 4, I had to make six of them this month.

And here are all 8 together. I still have quite a way to go on these blocks because I only have 4 (resulting in one large 16” block) of most colors. This will continue into next year as I accumulate more scraps and strings.

And then, of course, there are the bookshelf quilt blocks! So many good titles this month! We have that runaway bestseller (pun intended) “Embracing Horses” by Laurel Burch as well as Metro Cafe and Treasure Bay by Elizabeth Miles.
















EEEEEEEK! There is a mouse on the shelf!!  Thanks to my friend Mary Anne for suggesting it. Mary Anne and I used to work together on the staff of the Crazy Quilting Quarterly magazine and still keep up with each others’ doings.

This month I only had to do three blue blocks, so here they are, section by section so you can see them close up.

The blue blocks were added to the aqua blocks from February to form the blue shelf. Then I added the actual “wood shelves” themselves and sewed together three rows:

Yep, we are getting closer to having a finished library. I still need a whole shelf of orange, 3 blocks of pink to finish off the pink/red row, and one block of black or brown to finish off the purple row, which will go beneath the blue row. Progress!

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Last month it was my intention to dig into my yellow scraps and do a pineapple quilt. Although I did make a start (a lot of cutting), I was only able to finish one block. But the pineapple sewing will continue on the sidelines as I make my way through blue in July. Hopefully I can do one or two per week at least. Here is the first one.

There is no real pattern on this; I just eyeballed it and decided to use 2.5” strips of yellow to make the body of the pineapple and greens for the top. The 2.5” HST’s so far have come from my scrap drawers. I`ll have to break down eventually, though, and piece fresh ones as these blocks progress. I haven’t thought yet about quantity or settings. The pineapples will all be yellow, with the exception of one rogue pineapple that will either be aqua or pink. We will see when the time comes. I’m pretty laid back about this one.

And there is one final project that I haven’t introduced you to yet. But first, a little background.  As I’ve mentioned before, my husband Bruce is in a folk trio with two guys that he’s known since he was a teenager. Yep, back in 1964 they got together and formed the Muddy Gutter Boys, modeling themselves along the lines of The Kingston Trio. They’ve played thousands of gigs over the years. And, they are still friends, as are the wives and all the kids and now all the grandkids. Their gigs aren’t as regular now due to health issues, but we still get together to practice about twice per month. The three couples are Rob (upright bass) and Diane, Mike (guitar and banjo) and Terri; and Bruce (guitar and banjo) and me.  And as of this month, we are all retired. Diane was the last holdout.


Rob has been struggling with his huge upright bass, so Mike, who is a luthier (guitarmaker) in his post-retirement life, decided to make him a smaller base. Naturally, they wanted to amplify it, so that is where Bruce came in with his electronics experience. The group has quite the sound system when they perform. So, Mike and Bruce have been tinkering for weeks on the bass and amplifier as a Christmas present for Rob.

So then Terri and I decided we would collaborate on a big, comfy quilt for Diane. After finding out her favorite colors (another story, too long for here), we searched Pinterest and came up with the idea for a tulip quilt. It looks like others I’ve seen on Pinterest, but I just put together this test block from scratch rather than purchasing a pattern. It measures 8.5 x 16.5” (unfinished). We’ll be using our recently purchased pink and green fabrics as well as plenty of additions from our respective stashes. This is going to be so much fun!


I hope you have a wonderful summer week, full of fun, family and good health!