Monday, November 15, 2021

Finishes and Starts

I visited a new-to-me quilt store with my daughter recently called Blue Bar Quilts.  What a neat place!  So many beautiful fabrics, I was a bit overwhelmed by it all but in a really good way.  I should've taken more pictures of the store, but at least I got one right when we came in, before I went into full ooh-ahh mode as I wandered among the pretty bolts.


I can show you what I came home with, though.  Most of this is for Christmas and other secret sewing, so I won't be elaborating more until those projects are done and gifted.  Fun stuff, though!


What I am happy to reveal is that I finally quilted the redwork baskets quilt top that I had finished a few months back.  You can read more about that HERE.  Evie had sent me the beautiful embroidered blocks to put together into a quilt to be donated.  While I rehabbed from finger surgery (and then procrastinated some more), it patiently waited for me to figure out how to quilt it.

Ultimately, I decided that simple straight-line quilting inside the embroidered spaces was the way to go, but I didn't want to make tracks all over that pretty stitching.  Just enough to keep the layers together and not detract from the embroidery.


The baskets of flowers seemed to have a somewhat overall V shape, so I did some doodling on paper and finally went with a V overlaid with an inverted V within the embroidered blocks.  Above you can see the painter's tape, which I used as a quilting guide, marking some V's.  I'd quilt a couple areas at a time and then rotate the quilt 180 degrees and repeat the process.


I did end up going back and making a horizontal line through the center to make sure it didn't puff out too much in the resultant diamond shape.  Hence the V's turned into A's, but whatever, it worked.  You can see the quilting better in the back view.


Now it's been mailed off to Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo.  Yay, I'm doing the finished quilt happy dance!



While I was at it with the quilting foot yet on the machine, I quilted the streak-of-lightning baby quilt made with Star Wars fabric scraps.  



Both that and the "Little Farmer" baby quilt will be donated to Project Linus.  I'll drop them off this week at the local collection spot.


Here is what's currently on the design wall.  These are the scrappy string Hole in the Barn Door blocks to date.  I like them a lot!



I'm considering how (or whether) to sash and border them, and whether I want to make a few more blocks or call it quits with these.  I'm leaning toward just stopping with what I currently have done, but we'll see.

The weather has turned cold and we had our first snow of the season this weekend.  Our silver maple tree in the back yard is always the last to drop its leaves, and when it finally decides to do it, it's over in just a couple days.  It was beautiful to watch the snowflakes and the green-gold leaves swirling through the air at the same time in a race with each other to the ground.



7 comments:

Cindy said...

Loving the string Churn Dash blocks! What a great idea! I like the look of the gray sashing peeking thru...

Anonymous said...

Love Hole in the Barn Door - it’s on my make list. And the Red Work quilt is so lovely. Good to keep the quilting minimal and unobtrusive in this case. Love your new fabrics. That coral color featured in so many us gorgeous!

Paulette said...

Thanks Cindy! That's my design wall peeking through, it's the flannel side of a checkered vinyl tablecloth pinned to the wall. :)

Anonymous said...

Paulette, thanks for doing a great job on the baskets. So happy I sent them to you for finishing! And, I've got that scrappy Hole in the Barn Door block on my list to do with my many, many scraps.

The Joyful Quilter said...

Quilt store visit? SEW fun, Paulette!!!

Sarah Craig said...

Love the fabric with the pegasi! (A new word from my granddaughter who told me that "pegasuses" is TOTALLY incorrect.... she's such a word snob!)

Kaja said...

You have done a really good job on those blocks; I think the diamond-y quilting is just right and nicely compliments the blocks. Now I'm looking forward to seeing what you get up to with all those lovely new fabrics.