On a Roll

When I completed the quilting on "Burgoyne Strikes Gold", I felt rather invincible. I had faced my fear and had walked away victor, so to speak. I decided I needed to ride that wave and pull out something else I have been afraid to quilt, before the feeling passed.

This was what I made when Lori (Humble Quilts Blog--this link takes you to the beginning of her latest little SAL) had her "Faithful" SAL. We were to use any  6" block we might have on hand, or make a new one, and she walked us through the steps of adding those HST borders.

The 6" Mariner's Compass that I used for the middle was made a couple of years ago on a dare (sort of) from Karen (Log Cabin Quilter blog). I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I had to see if I could really make it. The pattern is named Sunburst (find it at the bottom of this blog post). It seems to fit, so that is what I think I will name the quilt.

I had decided that I would ditch stitch around the compass points and all of the HSTs, and put feathers in all of the black borders and around the compass.

Using the bendable ruler (this is a method I learned from a Patsy Thompson tutorial), I marked my feather spines.

Then I pin basted, and as I always do on minis, I did the ditch stitching on my DSM. I take ditch stitching  seriously. Stitching slowly, I really try to stay in the ditch.

The final touch was the feathering, on Gidget. When I feather on an outer border, I always draw a containment line 1/4" from the edge, so that my feather plumes don't end up under the binding.










Then finish with the 1" cut, single fold binding. Very happy with the results of this one.

My two "brave" finishes together.

I had a rather low-key Labor Day weekend, but I did get in some stitching. With the leftovers from "Burgoyne Strikes Gold", I made this little quilt, which finishes at about 7" square.

I think I'll name this little quilt "Pumpkin in the 9-patch".

And the little pincushion (yet to be stuffed) was from the leftovers of the little quilt.




I have been eager to try out this little pattern from issue #21 of Miniature Quilts Magazine. I have simplified it by not lining it. It is too tiny to see inside of, anyway.



















They are paper pieced, but it isn't as involved as the little ornaments. I'm pretty sure I am going to be making a few more of these.












Speaking of ornaments, I also made a few of those over the Labor Day weekend.

Have yet to stuff them and add the hangers. That is the easy part.

I didn't feel like I had accomplished much over the weekend, but when I put it all together I guess it adds up.

One last thing. I have made slow, but steady progress on my little Thimble quilt in honor of my visit to Cyndi's Busy Thimble shop last month, in Maine. I've been using it as a leader/ender, but you don't do much of that when you are machine quilting, or paper piecing.

I love seeing how these little quilts shrink as the pieces get sewn together. This is at the halfway mark. It will probably finish somewhere in the neighborhood of 10"x16".

One of these days I am going to make progress on my current big quilt project. Won't that be shocking?

Until next time,
Janet O.

Now you see it...

Yes, I see the 4-patch turned the wrong way, but I didn't see it until it was being quilted!

...now you don't--almost.

How did my Mother's hand get in this picture?

Could you tell it was that small? I know when it is enlarged that much the stitching really gives it away. But I'm trying to get better at making the borders and binding "to scale". The binding is tricky when you try to get it close to 1/8". If anyone has any tricks as to how to make it work, I'd love to hear them!

This little quilt went off to my dear friend, Carole, who is undergoing chemo. It is named "Heaven Can Wait"! It is a variation on the Stairway to Heaven pattern. I just changed the name and the value placement. It goes to Carole with lots of prayers for successful treatment. I was waiting until she received it before posting. 

Not much else happening here in the way of quilting. 

I have continued to stitch up little things that just hang around. When there are lots of HSTs left in my "parts" bowl (do you have one of those containers?) it is easy to put together some of these...

...when you don't have time to get involved in a big project.

And then I found enough R/W/B ones to make some more hangy things to go with one of my little mini quilts.

So many patriotic quilted things decorating the house now. I've shown most of them at one time or another, but maybe I will have to do a R/W/B post soon.

I have a niece getting married next week. Unlike some of you who make quilts for your nieces' and nephews' weddings, graduations, babies, etc., I have no such tradition, but I admire those of you who do. I have 11 nieces and 10 nephews, besides my own two girls and two boys. Half of them are married or engaged. All but two have graduated from high school, half of them have graduated from college, about half of those have gone on to complete advanced degrees, and between them all I think they have 26 children, so far. I don't have that much quilting time!! So for this niece, who has been very close to my Mom, I have been making a few pineapple ornaments from my Mom's quilt scraps. This is four of the six she will be receiving.

I hope they will mean something to her. I think they will.

DD#1 flew in from NH on Saturday. I look forward to a week with her here!

Until next time,

Janet O.