A Couple of Small Quilt Finishes

I finished a couple of small quilts this week.  Hooray for progress!  I also finished physical therapy for my hand.  Whoop-whoop!  

Fortunately, I didn't need the splint for the left middle finger that may be developing trigger finger.  I'm just supposed to keep an eye on it and make an appointment with the hand clinic if it gets worse.  The left pinky finger that had surgery will just take time to heal completely and the swelling may last up to a year, she said.  I went down a size in the compression sleeve, from a large to a medium, so it feels like things are going in the right direction.

Anyway, quilts...  Last time I mentioned I was able to practice my quilting again on a small scrappy piece.  Since then I finished binding it and have given it to my niece's little girl, Jade, as a doll quilt.  

Jade's going to have a new little sibling around Christmastime, so I'll be starting a quilt for the expected baby soon.

This little doll quilt was made from scraps of scraps of scraps!  Scraps from mask making were turned into a Scrappy Rail Fence quilt, which yielded scraps for this doll quilt. 

The other small quilt finish is what I'm calling Little Farmer, for the farm-themed scraps it's made from.  These were leftover bonus HSTs and other scrap pieces from the County Fair quilt I put together recently.

Don't you love it when you get another whole quilt from the main quilt?  I had enough leftover fabrics for the pieced backing too.  It ended up about 45 inches square.

I imagine little ones, as they get a bit older, playing with toy tractors on it, weaving through the "fields" of corn, hay, wheat, etc.  Here it is with the John Deere tractor and wagon that my daughter and her cousins all used to play with at Grandma and Grandpa's house some 30 years ago.

I quilted it with a simple meander in a gold colored thread.  I think it turned out really cute!

This one will be donated, but I'm not sure where yet.  I have to review my list of donees and see where the best fit for it may be (size-wise, etc.).

Linking to:  Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Quilt for Pulse

It's a good thing I finished all last month's Quilty 365 circles by the middle of June (that post is HERE), because it was right about then that I read about the Quilts for Pulse drive headed up by the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild.

I decided to use the made-fabric I had been assembling from various monthly one-color scraps from the Quilty 365 circles, and use that in making rainbow heart blocks for a donation quilt for the victims' families and survivors of the Pulse nightclub tragedy.

The top is now done, and my trusty quilt holder-upper helped me get a few pictures of it today.  He has impressive technique and flair, no?  Just look at those fingers.

The light was shining through it in this spot on the deck, which made for a neat effect, but then we moved to the shade for a truer shot.

The backing is now sewn together as well, and I'm ready to baste and quilt it after the 4th of July.

* * * * *

In other news, we continue to enjoy the trails and this gorgeous summer weather.  

 

I have rediscovered a new "happy place," other than my sewing room:  On my bike.

Where's (one of) yours?

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict-Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

Hands2Help Quilt Finish

This Hands2Help quilt has been ready and waiting for quilting for a couple months, and this past week it was time to finally "git 'r done."

And done she got, with some lazy, large meanderings—kinda like me, he-he.  Well, depending on the day; I do have my industrious and focused moments.

This colorful nine-patch and snowball quilt came in at 62.5 x 62.5 inches when all was said and done.  It will be sent off to Covered in Love, the Tyler, Texas charity that provides comfort quilts to families of patients who have passed away in the hospital.  I hope it brings a much-needed quilty hug to a grieving family and a special way of remembering their loved one.

Glad I happened to find the thrifted but never used blue vintage sheet as I was planning this quilt.  Sometimes you tuck something away so well, you almost don't find it again, you know?  There was enough to cut the snowball blocks as well as just enough for a backing, with the help of a strip from the stash.

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict for the final H2H roundup!  Click over and have a look at the generosity and creativity of all the participants this year.  You will be amazed!

And while I'm at it, I'm going to join the Can I Get a Whoop Whoop! link as well with this baby quilt I finished recently for my niece Kayla. 

I gave it to her at her baby shower a few weeks ago, and she loved it.

Last week her little baby girl arrived, and all are doing well.  Happy news!  

Oh, and one more thing I've been working on, but just a sneak peak (or two):

I've been trying some Crafted Applique using the technique Lara Buccella details in her new book!  It's been fun and I can't wait to tell you more about it soon.

 

Come back on June 1 when I'll be a stop on the Crafted Applique blog hop, AND you'll have a chance to win a copy of her book!  See you then!

Little Bits of Beautiful

I had a "Squirrel!" moment this past week—and it's so compelling to chase those squirrels when you're busy procrastinating, isn't it?

I think there needs to be a word that combines procrastinating + distraction.  Protraction?  Discrastinating?  I like the sound of the last one.

So as I procrastinated on quilting (some things never change...much) two basted (basted!) flimsies, I spied this baggie of little bits from Marei, part of a scrap swap we did last year.  By little bits, I mean about 2.5" pieced squares.

When I first got them, I may have fiddled around a little but nothing really struck me.  This time within a minute, I was like, DUH, red pinwheels!  And I was off chasing that squirrel. 

It all came together pretty smoothly from there.  Tried a few borders...

And soon I had a mini quilt!

It has a Valentine's Day kind of feel, I think, so it will go up on the wall for the season once it's quilted.  

With three projects now basted together and ready to quilt—and my basting pins bowl completely empty—it's time to "just do it."  I started quilting the Joy in the Evening quilt last night.

Linking to:  Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

String Diamond Quilt Top

I set off on a tangent this week, stringing together a little string diamond quilt top.  

Bright strips pieced on rectangular phone book pages, slightly trimmed to 6.5 x 8.5 inches.  

I started with a black and white strip centered on the diagonal of each block.

Thirty-six blocks made this little flimsy, which measures roughly 36.5 x 48.5.

An alternate way of putting this together could be like so:

Norm wasn't keen on that layout, though, for this particular quilt, and I agreed that the original idea of a central diamond with the blocks radiating was my preference as well.

Kind of trippy, no?

Trippy and happy, just the way I like it!

Linking to:  Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?  Hop on over and see what Sarah and others are sharing!

Joy in the Evening

"Joy in the Evening" is my version of the "Joy in the Morning" quilt pattern by Gayle Bong, which featured yellow as the background for the bright squares.  I went with a deep teal/almost navy blue instead. 

Interestingly, it's what I used in one of my earliest quilts, a Bonnie Hunter Chunky Churndash, which remains one of my favorites.  I was happy to find that fabric was still available at Jo-Ann.

The flimsy measures about 51-1/2 x 61-1/2.  It'll be a happy little quilt! 

On the Quilty 365 project, I've found it difficult to make one circle a day—as in just one.  

They're kind of like potato chips in that way.  So much fun!

I've decided to do all the circles in one color per month.  January is blue (or mostly blue).

There may be a month (or two) of "multi" as the color, or "anything goes."

In scrounging around for light backgrounds, I took some light squares out of part of a charm pack Marei had included in her fabulous scrappy treasure box.  Since the rest of my backgrounds had been prewashed, I hand-washed and dried the dozen or so charm squares as well.

Interesting to note the amount of shrinkage.  The prewashed squares are on the left for comparison.  

They lost on average about 1/4 inch in length along the grain line and 1/8 inch in width.

Now I wouldn't prewash a whole pack of charm squares if I was making something with them all, but I'm glad I did it for the handful of charm squares I'll use in this project, to hopefully minimize puckering around the appliqued circles.

Have you ever prewashed your precuts?  Feel free to 'fess up!

Linking to:  Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

String Ring Table Mat Finish

The string ring table mat is finished and in place under the Christmas tree.  I had it all pretty much done last night, except for just enough quilting to hold the layers together, which I did this morning. 

I made this one a little differently than my tutorial.  As I mentioned in the last post, I changed the size of the Dresden wedges.  And instead of fusing the center circle in place, I used a different technique.  I sewed a piece of lightweight, non-fusible interfacing to my circle, trimmed the seam to 1/8 inch, slit the interfacing and turned the circle through the opening.

It gives you get a nice smooth circle that, after pressing, is ready to applique onto the center, which I did by machine with a decorative stitch.  Hard to see in the picture because the red Auriful thread matched my fabric so perfectly.  

I also used a piece of muslin this time as a lining (there's no batting) to give it a little bit of stability and weight.  It's sewn together pillowcase style, leaving an opening for turning.  You layer your sheet of muslin, then the string ring right side up on top of that,then the backing right side down on top of the ring.

As you can see, I fussy-cut my circle from a snowflake print fabric.  This was Plan B, believe it or not.  Plan A was a green plaid center circle, which I accidentally cut too small (forgot to add the seam allowance since I wasn't going to fuse it).  I only had the small scrap of green, not enough to cut another, bigger circle, so I had to rummage through the scraps for an alternative.  When I exhausted my bin of green scraps and nothing seemed quite right, I opened a bin of reds, and bingo!

The back is a pretty Vintage Holiday Wreath fabric from Spoonflower that I was a lucky winner of in Lara's giveaway last year at BuzzinBumble.  It fit the circle perfectly, and makes the whole thing reversible!

We found this little wrought iron table at an antique store quite a few years ago.  The table itself isn't an antique, but the parts are. 

I'm not sure where the round part came from for the top, but the feet are from an old sewing machine.

I didn't see the need for a rickrack edge on this topper because the edge of the wrought iron table kind of does the job of embellishment. 

Our tabletop tree is small but can't be beat for the ease of setting it up.  Especially since I leave the ornaments on it year round and just throw a cover on it in storage.  ;)  If you had any question about my level of laziness when it comes to Christmas decorating, there's your answer! 

It may seems a little stark at the moment, but it always looks better with some presents underneath it.  Better start wrapping!



Linking to Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Finally Finished Tea Towel Challenge 2014 Quilt

Hoo boy, this has been a long time coming. I finally finished the Tea Towel Challenge 2014 quilt!

I had the flimsy sewn together way back in May 2014.  Nevertheless, at long last, here is the whole enchilada.  Quilted, bound, and hung on the wall last evening, right before the trick-or-treaters started ringing the doorbell.

I was a little stumped as to how to quilt it (it waited a year and a half...ya think?), but once I decided to finally put my nose to the grindstone, I knew it would require a bit of quilting in the ditch for starters.  So that's where I began.  

As things proceeded, I started to get a better inkling about the quilting.  I'd scribble down ideas as they occurred to me.  Funny how that usually happened while I was in the middle of something less than creative, namely my day job. 

Some doodles worked, others not so much.  It's why they make seam rippers.  Thankfully, there wasn't a whole lot of stitch-picking, just here and there. 

In the end, I determined that, overall, less was more with the quilting.  I didn't want to cover up those chickens in the center of the tea towel with anything that would detract, so I followed a lot of the black outlines around the chickens and then filled in with quilted scallops, squiggles, lines, and loops to approximate feathers, etc.

I sewed some tiny yellow beads in the chicken breast areas, for lack of a better idea how to quilt that particular space.  And just for kicks, I put a bead in the center of each eye as well.   The beads make me smile! 

For the quilting in the eight orange and green blocks in the outer border, I used a few different shapes characteristic of George Briard designs:  Spirals, leaves, diamonds, and an orange peel kind of thing (click to enlarge).

The feathers/leaves were loopy quilted.  A close meander filled in the yellow background around them.

I'm definitely doing the happy dance about this finish—with Sarah and the gang at Can I Get a Whoop Whoop!