Tuesday, March 15, 2016

A Flimsy and a Finish

Behind the scenes of this somewhat quiet little blog space, I've been sewing on a few things during the past couple weeks.  Let's catch up!

(The crocuses are popping up!)
I've been following along on Sarah's Nifty-Nines Quilt Along and was inspired to start a nine-patch quilt of my own.  I hit up the stash and pulled a few color combinations that spoke to me in a scrappy kind of way.

Pretty soon I had a design wall of nine-patches.  (That subtle checkerboard pattern is my design wall, which is the fuzzy side of a vinyl tablecloth pinned to the wall.)

Then it was time for some snowball blocks in between those nines, and again I turned to the shelf of stash for a background for those snowballs.  Nothing really spoke to me there, so I started looking in some more out of the way spots in my sewing room, eventually opening a thrift store bag to find this.

A vintage but never used muslin sheet I'd scored at Goodwill sometime in the past couple years.  It's more of a robin-egg blue than the above picture suggests.

I washed it up and cut 9.5-inch squares for the snowball blocks.  A day or two later, I had them all done, and a few days after that, the top was together.  And I had enough sheet left for a pieced backing!

This will be a quilt for Hands2Help, the annual charity quilt drive Sarah coordinates.  I look forward to making something for it every year.  Head over to Confessions of a Fabric Addict to read about this year's H2H Challenge and join in!  It's fun, it feels good to give, and there are prizes!

Confessions Of A Fabric Addict

Recently, Sandy, my local long-arm quilter, brought back two of my quilts.  It is said that "absence makes the heart grow fonder," and I think that's true for quilts.  Especially when they come back beautifully quilted!


This was my living room a few days ago, with WIPs on the floor and furniture.  We manage to navigate along the edge in that narrow walk space—balance training, you know! 

[Aside:  That little corduroy and flannel HST quilt on the left is actually not a WIP; I finished it last year.  The chair is holding a recent thrift store find, one of those "start the car!" moments when I snapped up a piece of salt-glazed Rowe Pottery from the employee cart at Goodwill before it even made it to the display shelf.]

Yesterday, I finished the binding on one of the two quilts that came back from the long-armer.  I had started this 16-patch and X-block quilt last year about this time.  It was one of two 16-patch quilts I made, the other one being donated to last year's Hands2Help charity quilt drive.

This one will stay with me (at least for a while).  I used some gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics by Vicki Welsh in this quilt, on a background of dove gray.

I made two backs for this quilt—which is what happens when you can't remember you've already made the first one.  I gave the second backing to the quilter, and then about six weeks later found the first underneath something in the sewing room!  

I called Sandy to say, "Stop the presses!"  Fortunately, she hadn't started quilting it yet, so I was able to take her the first one, which was my favorite.

That's a little of what's been happening around here.  What have you been up to?

8 comments:

Quilting Babcia said...

You are a lucky Goodwill shopper! It's been years since I've found any treasures at Goodwill. I love your 9-patch/snowball quilt top. Such a great design from such easily pieced blocks. I'll be sharing this design with our new quilt ministry members soon.

Lara B. said...

The nine patches and sixteen patch quilts both look great Paulette! I remember the one you made for H2H last year. Whew that was lucky you could switch quilt backs in time.
Great find on the Goodwill cart Mrs. Eagle Eyes!

Kaja said...

I like your 9 patch/snowballs a lot. Love the orange and greens and they look lovely against the blue snowballs. Your finished quilt is lovely too - I can see how beautiful the fabrics are.

Robby said...

That 16-patch quilt is really striking, and I can see why you wanted to make sure that gorgeous backing was used. That would be a keeper at my house. Hope you enjoy it.

Sarah Craig said...

Your quilts are beautiful, as always, P.! Thanks for the H2H shout-out, too!

Vicki @ DottyJane said...

Oh my gosh...beautiful! I love the one with the hand dyed fabrics and the back is perfect for it.
That's a nice little preview of spring in the first photo!

Heide said...

WOW! Your quilts are stunning, love looking at them. GREAT find at GW with the blue fabric.

Karen said...

Patch blocks makes the prettiest quilts. Great choices for H2H quilts.