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.

Forging Ahead

I did get a "little" sidetracked as I was forging (sounds like I have clandestine operations going on in my basement, or something). Realizing I only had 3 mini quilts to display with a St. Patrick's Day color scheme, I had to do something to put in my standing clip.
So this happened. Maybe I'll call it "Patrick's Pinwheels".

Shouldn't take long to quilt. It will finish about 7" x 10". 
The pinwheels were made from a couple of strips of the fabric Randy had wrapped around a pincushion she sent me last year. You may  recall the little Valentine quilt I whipped up from the two strips on the right in this photo.
You can see the strips I used in the quilt above--and this took every last bit of them. I just added the black from Moda's "Essential Dots" line. 
The strip to the far left was partially used in my Quilters Madder, so now all of the strips have been put into little quilts.

Okay, here is where I start forging ahead. I decided that rather than spending months agonizing over finding just the right setting, and/or sashing for these 64-patch blocks made from Mom's watercolor quilt leftovers, I needed to just use Mom's scraps to finish this off. This quilt is all about sentimental value, not design perfection. 

I tried greens for the sashing, but the green in the blocks just does not stand out enough to make the green sashing feel unifying. There were a few strips of light purple leftovers from Mom's watercolor quilt, but not enough to sash the blocks. So I dug deeper and came across some strips of purple in a bag of scraps from the last quilt Mom made. I had to give them a try. They were a variety of shades, and when combined with the first purple strips I found, there were barely enough. I decided to put the lightest shades around the darkest blocks, and vice versa.

The setting triangles stumped me. Mom's scraps were not big enough, and there was nothing in my stash that clicked. I'm really trying to meld warm yellows and cool purples and pinks in the quilt, and that isn't easy. That is where my buddy Kris, from Lavender Quilts blog, saved the day. She had this warm yellow batik with a soft purple print. I took a sample home and it did the job for me, pulling the yellows from the inner blocks, through all of the purples, to the edge of the quilt. So this is my final answer. Probably no one would put this all together by choice, but I look at this as a "make do" quilt--making do with Mom's leftovers, and I am okay with the purchase of the setting triangle fabric.

The really big forge ahead was that I finally pin basted "the beast"!

And last night I actually began the quilting!
 
If you have ever made a t-shirt quilt before, you know they are heavy. Quilting a king sized one on a sit down machine really gives the shoulders a workout. After only 1 1/2 blocks quilted, my left shoulder is talking to me. I was supposed to have it scoped the end of December, but it was scheduled for the very day my Dad passed, so I canceled. My shoulder was actually feeling pretty good by that time, too, after having been a problem for over a year. So I didn't reschedule. But after shoveling a few driveways following one of our many snowstorms, it is troubling me again. 
I'll have to take baby steps quilting this, or I might not be in shape to sew when Bonnie Hunter comes to Utah this July to teach classes. Two of the classes are only 30 minutes from home, so I will be there to meet the first quilt blogger I started following, over 6 years ago.

Until next time, 
Janet O.

Coming to the end of the line.

In mid-January I decided to see what was left of my little flimsies. I have made major progress on these little quilts starting about Fall of 2015. Then I made 2016 the year of finishing the minis, and a whole lot more were completed. So this was all that awaited stitching from my mini pile (we aren't talking about the big quilts hanging around the house somewhere--just step away from the closet).

You have already seen three of these finished up in the past couple of months.

Here is a fourth.

 

Quilting was kept very simple and very free hand, except for the wavy line around the outer border. I did mark that.




Now I have two more basted and ready to go. The Buttermilk Basin pumpkin banner is leftover from a batch of basting last year. I just noticed that all three of these involve wool applique, and they represent 3 of my favorite designers--Kim Diehl, Lisa Bongean, and Stacy West.

The top quilt will be a mix of hand and machine quilting. I have made this before and I completely hand quilted the first one. Don't feel a need to do it to this one. I will machine quilt the other two.



And I also finished off the little Buttermilk Basin Noel pillow from a kit I picked up at the workshop with Miss Stacy last year.
You can see it there at the bottom of my little sewing room tree, which proudly displays ornaments all year, made by friends and family (including me).






So these are what I still need to get basted and ready to quilt. Once I get to that stage, they usually move along pretty well (with the exception of the pumpkin banner seen above).   

One of these days I have to gather my courage and actually decide how to finish those two bitty ones at the bottom.



Julierose, you will be receiving the Primitive Gatherings "Be the Good" pattern from my last post. Please send me your snail mail so I can get it on its way.

Until next time,
Janet O.

I wanted to share last night's reflection of the sunset in the West onto the snowy mountains in the East. Wish I had been able  to avoid the telephone lines in the photo. This was taken from my kitchen window, and by the time I could have run downstairs, outside, and down the road to see past the tree on the right, the moment of wonder would have passed.
 

Small stuff keeps happening

I gathered my courage this week and quilted my version of Primitive Gatherings Pinwheel Garden.

Of course, I made my units smaller than the pattern called for, and I made mine square. 

It has been awaiting quilting for some time, but I couldn't make up my mind.

Linda Hrcka posted one on
Facebook a while back that she had quilted in an all-over pattern. I really liked it, but couldn't bring myself to do it here. Since my units are smaller, I was concerned that the all-over quilting pattern on such small units would overpower the piecing. I ended up doing mostly SITD and some curves.









I can't recall now what made me choose to do it in scrappy browns, and blues. The photo on the pattern shows a beautiful, totally scrappy little quilt, but I think I may have had some blue/brown HSTs leftover from something else, and I liked the combo. So there you have it!
















I will continue to work on quilting up the small quilts, until I can get "the beast" basted. My shoulder is not looking forward to that quilting job!

This is what is under my needle now. It is shown here getting some SITD.

Some happy mail arrived recently. Kevin, the quilter, shared some lovely repro scraps with me, and it appeared the be the perfect bundle for making something I have long wished to make. Lisa Bongean's "Tiny Tears" is a very scrappy little thing, and I think this bundle will be great for this scrappy look.                                                      
Lisa designed this little quilt after she lost her son a few years ago. I thought it would be an appropriate quilt to make with these scraps, which were sent to me soon after the passing of my Father. Thank you, Kevin!

Betsy's fabric bundle

So maybe I have caved in for a SAL this year. I went ALL last year only doing Lori's doll quilt SAL, as had been my plan (and continued to be my plan this year). But the Moda Blockheads SAL called to me and I even ordered a bundle of Betsy Chutchian's fabrics. I have plenty of Jo Morton's and Lisa Bongean's lines. I was going to order Jan Patek's bundle, too, but I stopped the insanity at that point and figured I could get by with what I had.
I won't be making any applique blocks that may be a part of the SAL, and if I don't love a block, I won't make it. Very likely I will fall behind, but I am hoping I won't get discouraged and give up, like I usually do. A block a week may not seem like much, but it is often a block more than I accomplish in a given week. I'm hoping I don't regret this. : )
 

Found a duplicate pattern as I am slowly sorting through things in my sewing room. If you are interested in this, please say so in your comment and I will draw a name to receive it.

Thought I was going to keep this short. Didn't happen.

Until next time,
Janet O.

Little Finishes and Big Plans

The love birds were finally able to settle into their new spot--at least for the rest of February.

(Maybe I should have pressed it so the edges wouldn't appear so wavy. They really are straight.) I did NOT have this done in time for Valentine's Day. The last two sides of the binding were stitched down the day after. Close enough.

This was mostly hand quilted. I machine stitched around the block and the HST border. I would never want to hand quilt through all the bumps of those seams! This little jewel was appliqued by Karen (logcabinquilter blog), and it finished at 9".

Haven't named it yet, but the label is in place, just waiting for words.






As is the label on this one.
This top was whipped up about a month ago when I needed fabric therapy, and was quilted entirely with the walking foot. 
It finished at 7 1/2" x 9 1/2".








It can't decide where it wants to live for now. But come June it will come out and play with all of the other r/w/b quilts.

 

One more little finish. Had some of Pam Buda's Old Plum Calico line laying out in the sewing room and after making the ornaments from Dad's shirts I had to try one in these lovely colors. On a whim, I made the border a little wider than usual. I'm not sure I like the "larger" size.


As for my big plans, I purchased the backing and batting for "the beast" yesterday. I use low loft poly batting in T-shirt quilts--gives a little fluff without adding weight to the already heavy top. Now I need to baste the thing!!

So what is on the design wall now? More of Mom's scraps! I do not usually work with florals, so this is a stretch for me (help me, Debbie).

These 12" 64-patch blocks are made from scraps from a few of Mom's quilts. I started with leftovers from her watercolor quilt, but ended up having to dig into scraps from a Dresden Plate quilt and a postage stamp style (though not using 1" squares). I'm thinking about narrow sashing--possibly black? But I can't decide on setting triangles. I don't own any floral pieces large enough to fill in those spaces. I just hope this doesn't occupy the wall for a year before I can decide what to do with it!

So little happening in the sewing room, and I don't see that changing any time soon. 

Until next time,
Janet O.

A Few Finishes and a Work In Progress

Finally got the binding on Quilters Madder. Love this SAL quilt from Lori at Humble Quilts blog.

Mine finished at 17 1/2" x 14 1/2".

Mom's birthday gift of ornaments made from Dad's shirts were completed and delivered this week.

She was thrilled with them. As usual, they finished at 2 1/2".

When I received a pincushion from Randy at Barristers Block blog back in October she had wrapped it in 5 strips of fabric.  
I immediately sewed 2 of the strips together and used them to make 4-patches as leader/enders. I knew I wanted to use the 4-patches for a little Valentine quilt, so when I needed a quick project this week for therapy, I grabbed the 4-patches and this quilt was born. I think I may call it "Sprinkled with Love." Inspired by the recent Temecula "Box of Chocolates". Finished at 7"x 9".






Progress on the little lovebird block by Karen at Log Cabin Quilter blog. I machine quilted around the block and then around the HST border.







Now I am working on hand quilting around the applique, and a cross-hatch pattern on the background.
 
Don't know that these little lovebirds will be ready for Valentine's Day, but it will be close. I need to set them aside for now and focus on polishing up my Sunday School lesson. : )

Our little farming community has been ravaged by severe winds and flooding this week. Prayers are with all my neighbors that are trying to stay above water, and pick up the pieces from the wind damage!

Until next time,
Janet O.