A Finish, a Challenge, and a LOT of blue plaid!

Kim Diehl's Porchside Garden is finished. It currently hangs in my dining room.

The plan had been to hand quilt the center and machine quilt the rest, but hand quilting won out in the end.

It is quilted a little less densely than the first one I made, but it is enough.

Secretly working on a little quilt for a Challenge swap with Randy. We are swapping 12" quilts, like we did last year. The one I am making involves this stuff...

...a book of foundation patterns, a copier, and sheets of newsprint paper. Sounds like there is some  foundation piecing involved (there is).

When I am piecing minis (whether foundation pieced or not), I use lots of pins--the extra fine, glass-headed variety--and I sew over them! Do you sew over pins, or do you always remove them?

I have never had a problem doing this. Yes, I have winged a pin or two, but they have only been slightly bent.
Well, as I have been working on this little piece, I have hit more pins than I can recall doing on any previous project. Look at the results of one such encounter--the pin on the left! Have you ever had that happen?                                                              

In spite of the mishaps, the little top is assembled. Now to remove the papers and get it quilted.

Aside from these projects, I have done a little bit of quilting on the beast, and I have been cutting up Dad's shirts to make a simple quilt for Mom. Can you tell he had a thing for blue plaid shirts?
There are some green ones in there, too, but blue definitely is in the majority!! He had a few favorites that were fraying at the collar and cuffs, and worn a little thin at the elbows. Dad wore a suit, white shirt and tie all his professional life. When he was working around the house he would don a plaid shirt. After retirement he only wore the white shirts and ties for church meetings, and plaid shirts everywhere else. I don't know that I ever saw my Dad in a t-shirt. Well, at least I don't have to worry about making a t-shirt quilt from his clothing. As I cut up these shirts I recall times Dad wore them and relive some of our experiences together. They are all good memories. He was a very good man--and still is, just on the other side!

If you have any ties to Canada, you may want to get in on this offer from canuckquilter. She designs wonderful patterns and has created this design for Canada's Sesquicentennial. If you click the link above and scroll down her post, you will find a link to this pattern, which is free if you move quickly. Joanne has even posted a suggested timeline to have the quilt done by the July 1st Canada Day celebration.

Until next time,
Janet O.

 

Hiding in the Closet (projects, not me)

In January, in this post, I showed you several small design boards with the beginnings of little quilts upon them.
This week I found more hiding in the sewing room closet, and a couple of them demanded attention--as if I had nothing else to do. One of the boards had lots of mini charms that had been randomly sliced into three strips. One row of them had been sewn into the beginnings of a mini Chinese Coins quilt. So I finished the other two rows, and found a lovely Betsy Chutchian stripe to fussy-cut for the border.

It turned out more square than I had anticipated. That is what happens when no planning whatsoever is involved in the design process. It is approximately 9".

Another bunch of mini charms that had been sliced up were mostly from Primitive Gatherings Old Glory line. I had originally intended to make rail fence blocks alternating with sawtooth star blocks, as I did in a few pieces shown in this post. I had a couple of the rail fence blocks assembled when the design board got buried in the closet.

The blocks finish at 2" and the whole things is 8" square.

I decided to switch things up. I put good old Abe in the middle of the rails, made  5-point stars, and after attaching the narrow red border, I decided it needed a sawtooth border. One more side to piece and it will be ready to layer and quilt. This may get a combination of hand and machine quilting. I'm trying to decide if this will be what I take to my family reunion auction this year.

A combination of hand and machine quilting is what I had planned to do on my Kim Diehl Porchside Garden, but after hand quilting the center, I just felt compelled to continue by hand, instead of quilting the borders by machine. Getting pretty close to finished.
 




My thanks to my friend, Mary, who has helped prepare me for the classes I am taking from Bonnie Hunter in July. She surprised me with this in my mailbox!


I am plodding along very slowly with the quilting of The Beast. I keep this picture of the blocks pinned to my design wall and whenever I finish a block, I cross it off.  You can see this is moving at a snail's pace, but at least it is moving.

I am quilting them by thread color (am I the only lazy quilter that does not like to change threads?). I started with all of the black blocks. Now I am doing the white ones. Then I will do the green blocks, the turquoise, the gold, and the grey. I will finish with the navy blue blocks. There are bunches of those!!


It will put a damper on anything else being quilted until this is finished. Not that I can't move this out and change the thread to quilt other things, but that is a lot of effort for a lazy quilter. :)

The winner of the "Bee" panel from my last post is Denise. I already had her address, so it is winging its way to her abode.

Until next time, 
Janet O.

In scanning through the photos I have taken this month to find what I needed for this post, I came across this one I wanted to share.Took it on March 1st.
 
We don't have all this snow now, but there is still plenty in the mountains. We are out of a drought for the first time in 10 years!

Absolutely no focus, and a Bee-utiful opportunity!

Just bouncing from project to project!
Patrick's Pinwheels was finished on St. Patrick's Day.


It spent most of the day in the clip for which it was made.
Very simple quilting for this--stitch in the ditch around the pinwheels, straight lines in the sashing, and some free motion swirls in the border, which you can almost barely see in the photo above.



I've spent a tiny bit of time hand quilting on the little Kim Diehl Porchside Garden  quilt. I am outlining the applique and crosshatching the background. Then I will be machine quilting the borders.



 You can see the slow progress much better from the back.
 






 

I made a little cake block for Temecula's Anniversary quilt. Did you make one? 
 









Four more ornaments have been made from my Dad's shirts for family members with March birthdays. Two of them were sent off before I got a photo.

A couple more blocks have been quilted on the beast. This is definitely not a rush job. (Considering that this was for my youngest son's graduation from college and that was years ago, that is an understatement!)
My shoulder is whining about  working on this, so I will only do a block or two at a time, and there are 30 blocks.

Quilters are so generous. I have been the beneficiary of the kindness of some sweet bloggers once again. I had commented on how much I loved a little quilt Sandi (kwiltnkats blog) made and when she was finished, she sent me the pattern. I am excited to make it!
Then  Wendy (theconstantquilter blog) and Cyndi (busythimble blog) collaborated and sent a book my way that I mentioned I was trying to resist buying. They were so right--it is "me". I love browsing through and have pulled out scraps to make one when my "to do" pile gets whittled down a little more.
Thank you so much, ladies! 






I don't know if you have a Jo~Ann store near you, but I picked this up with my 60% off coupon on Thursday. It was the last one at my local store. I purchased clips and adhesive magnets and made a little quilt hanger out of it. Love the rustic look.
 
















Maybe you recall that I had chosen "Be Kind" as my motto for 2017.  Well, look at this wonderful panel I bought from my friend, Kris (lavenderquilts blog). She vends at quilt shows and has an etsy shop (link on her blog). Look at the upper left corner of this panel (or the center). How perfect is that? I am going to make little wall hangings of a few of these--and I bought a second panel to make a quilt, along with some of the accompanying prints.
The panel is as tall as a full width of fabric.
This is from a Deb Strain line named "Bee Creative", that is now out of print. Deb has a new one called "Bee Inspired", but I like this one better. If you like it, too, make mention in your comment and one lucky reader will win one of these panels!
A pretty random post, but that has been  my week. : )
Until next time,
Janet O.

Maybe next time

I have been working on the fusible comparisons and hoped this post would include the results. But my testing just raised more questions, so I am trying out a couple more things before posting any results. So hopefully my next post will have the results for you.

In the meantime, there has been another little finish--this is small quilt finish number #43 for the year.

 This little brick quilt was made from leftovers from the swap I did with Randy.

I quilted it with the 1" clamshell stencil I bought at HMQS last May. It has sure come in handy for little quilt finishes. And I love the backing fabric on this. It was the leftover from the backing I put on Randy's quilt. I had to border it to fit this quilt, but I really like the way the bird centered in it.

I got the borders around the little Kim Diehl wool piece. I hand quilted the first little quilt I made from this pattern and now I am debating if I should do that again, or just machine quilt it and be done!

The first block of the Buttermilk Basin "Give Thanks" wall hanging is finished. Actually I finished stitching down the words, too, but I am too lazy to go get a photo.

This is one of three new small wool projects, as of tonight.
I haven't fused the other two down yet. I will be comparing the performance of the fusible products as I stitch up these projects. I decided one little wool bird was not enough stitching to get a feel for the performance of each product.

Gorgeous sunset last night--just wanted to share it.

Until next time, 
Janet O.

A Wooly and Wonderful Week

Thursday I did a kind of silent trunk show of wool applique at a local quilt guild to get them in the mood for the class I will be teaching for them next month. So I was trying to get a couple of WIPs to the point of flimsy so they could be in the display.

 This is a Kim Diehl design that I have made before. Still needs borders.

This was the one I made last year. I gifted it to a friend last year shortly before she died.

Then it was to go to her dear friend that had taken such good care of her during her illness.

I also added another border to Dedication Rose.

 Sometimes I love it and other times I think I will take the last border off. I'll have to ponder this one longer.

I've also spent a lot of time dying wool for the kits for next month's class, but I won't bore you with photos of that. That ends the wooly part of this post.

This is the wonderful part. Randy and I have completed our challenge. This is the quilt that arrived in the mail from her Friday. Doesn't it look great?

I love that Courthouse Steps block in the center with the other blocks forming a pattern radiating out from it. It is wonderful, Randy! Thank you so much!!
It was wrapped in this beautiful fabric. And look how fun that pieced back is!

This is what I sent to Randy.
It was really fun to swap, and we plan to try another swap when life slows down a little in the new year. Who are we kidding--does life ever really slow down?!?


The wonderfulness finished up Saturday when our church women's auxiliary brought in 5 of the Six Sisters and a bunch of their stuff.

They each spoke to us and then demonstrated some of their favorite recipes. They were inspirational, funny and delightful. DD#2 attended with me and we had a great time--laughing, crying, and eating.

This is my favorite time of year. Aside from the cooling weather, the golden hue of the sunlight and the colors of the changing leaves, I enjoy the Sandhill Cranes that migrate through our area. The other day they were so noisy and I could tell they were getting closer. I grabbed my camera and got out the door just in time to catch this. There were several more that wouldn't fit in the frame. I haven't seen this many together in our neighborhood before. I was thrilled.

This was a post of randomness, but that was my week. : )

Until next time,

Janet O.

Multiple little things.

 I hadn't intended that this little quilt would step ahead of other projects in line. Some projects get so unruly--even though they may be small, they throw their weight around. These HSTs finish at 7/8", so the quilt is just over 9"x7".

I'm nearing a finish on the little Kim Diehl Porchside Garden.

All I have left to quilt are the squares in the outer border. I'm stitching an X through those, as Kim recommends. I'm excited to get this completed.

 I also whipped up three of the little blocks for this Primitive Gatherings quilt I have all cut out. Mine will be in blues and browns, and my blocks are smaller than the pattern. The instructions will give you 3" finished blocks. Mine finish at 2". The idea of doing all of those little HSTs all at once kind of made my mind go numb, so I decided to just stitch up a little block now and then. Eventually it will get finished.

 I spent the last day of July making this little block from a pattern I discovered recently. I wasn't ready to let July go.

This block is about 5" unfinished. The pattern didn't have any words on it, but I wanted them there. Maybe the variegated thread wasn't such a good idea. The lighter shades don't stand out too well.
This pattern was in issue 22 of the OOP Miniature Quilts Magazine.

Remember this little flag wall hanging  and tumbler table topper I made this summer? Well, I had a few leftovers and I decided to see if anyone would like to play with them. . .

. . . along with the extra copy of Issue 22 of Miniature Quilts Magazine that I came across  in my sewing room.



So if you are interested in the assortment shown below, leave a comment and I will draw a name sometime next week. I realize this isn't much fun for international readers, and I am sorry.

There is the magazine with the tiny paper pieced flag pattern, the leftover flag from the little flag wall hanging, and about 70 tumblers cut in R/W/B fabrics. I used 90 in my tumbler topper, but I think I could have gone a row shorter.  You could make something a little smaller than mine, or cut more tumblers for whatever size you'd like.

I'll announce the winner next week when I can find a minute to post. It is our county fair week and that is a busy week for me.

Giveaway Now Closed!

Until next time,
Janet O.