The last three blocks of Summertime Sampler

So, these are the last three blocks of the Summer Sampler wool applique wall hanging.  These were left for last, as they had the smallest pieces, the most colour and would be the most forgiving.  After all they are flowers and flowers could be any combination of colours.  I still stayed close to the original pattern for this first one, with the two tone leaves and white and red flowers.

With this next bouquet of flowers I changed it up some, to suit the colour pieces I had left.  I changed the pink bow for a turquoise one, to spread out my turquoise across the quilt. I am liking the change in direction that I achieved with the fabric weave of the turquoise.  It actually looks like the ribbon is twirling into a bow.  I am also liking the colourful flowers.

This next one, I did my own thing.  For the vase, I used turquoise, to spread out the colour and the leaves on the vase were done as singles, not halves.  For the leaves in the vase I decided that I didn't want the colourful half purple and half fuchsia and other colours.  Instead, the shape if the leaves reminded me of fall leaves, so I went with that theme.  I used various shades of orange, gold, brown and greens.  I think it turned out great.

There you have it!  All twelve blocks set up and ready to be hand stitched.  Doesn't it look gorgeous?  I really love it.  This is so different than anything that I've done before.  I like all of them, some maybe more than others, but I couldn't pick an absolute favourite.  It would be too hard.

Today, other than a customer quilt drop off, later in the afternoon, I have nothing pressing to do.  So with the rain poring down outside, I think I am going to just stay inside and try to work on my So Many Strings quilt units.

I finished all of the 252 neutral/light units a few days ago and I have 150 dark units done, with 270 dark units left to do.  I'm getting there......

Enjoy the day!!!  Keep warm and dry!

Two more NICU quilts

I am still working away at getting these orphan blocks into NICU quilts.  Here are the latest two.

This one started out as just three pinwheels and a bunch of half square triangle blocks (HST).  The pinwheels only measure 4" finished, so I needed a way to use them, that would expand them.  An easy way to make your blocks into a bigger quilt is to use plain alternating squares.  I made the remaining HST into pinwheels, which gave me five in total.  I treated them as part of a nine-patch with the plain blocks between.  After that was done, I felt that the block was still too small to start adding borders, so I turn the block on a diagonal.

To make the pinwheels stand out a bit more, I added a small matching border, creating a floating affect.  After that I added the darker corner blocks to square it off.  I added another matching border, followed by the last dark border.  A simple little quilt, for a little boy's incubator.

Next we have this NICU quilt.  Also for a little boy (there is more of a demand right now for boy quilts).  This quilt started out with the leftover pieces of a quilt I made for my niece and her husband.  All the blue and green four patches, plus all the green and blue 2" blocks were part of the leftovers  The four units in the middle, with the dark blue HSTs were also left over from their quilt.  

I can't really explain how this one came about.  I just sort of put the pieces down on the floor by my feet and sat there moving them around.  This little quilt was born from my playing around with shapes.

This weekend, I found time to quilt six of these small little NICU quilts, however these two did not make this round of quilting.  These two will be in the next batch of five waiting to be quilted.  As soon as I bind the others, I'll post about them. 

Stay safe and enjoy the sunshine.

Three more blocks done of Summertime Sampler

Today I thought I would show you another three wool appliqué blocks that the pieces are cut out and secured to the background fabric, waiting for me to do the handwork on them.  Mostly the handwork will be the button hole stitch, some French knots and back stitch for all the stems, vines and other details.

The first one, above, is the birdhouse, with two birds standing on top of it, while the vines are twirling up and around the birdhouse.  It really does not look like much right now, but once the details are added it will be pretty.

This second one, below, is a cottage house, with the light on, in the one room.  Flowers grow in a planter and a large flower vine arching over the cottage.

This last one is potted plants, with a shovel and a frog perched on one of the terracotta pots.

These blocks were fun to watch transform into colourful pictures.  I can't wait to see how pretty they will look, once I am done with all the handwork.  They are so pretty, with their bright colourful pieces.

Today, I have given myself until noon to play some more in my quilt room, but after that, I have to get in the garden to start the cleanup.  This morning I plan to play with all my strings on my So Many Strings quilt. Still have too many units and blocks to do, but I am having fun while sewing these mindless blocks.

Enjoy your day and take some time to play.

What's on my design wall today (May/2019)

This morning I got up and thought I would get out into the garden.......however while I was sitting in my quilt room having my morning tea, I thought about how nice it would be to get these quilt tops done.

Five quilts sitting there, all in partial state of completion.  All but one were started from leftover orphan blocks.  The one is going to be a class sampler.  

It was a mistake to go into my quilt room, if I really had intentions to get into the garden.  I should know better.  It looked too cold out there for me.....and that was enough of an excuse to stay in and quilt....lol.

By the end of the day, or should I say, the end of my energy, the design wall looked like this.

I'll speak more of the quilts in a later post, as I quilt them.  For now, it's 6:30 pm and I still have to get dinner on the table.

Hope everyone is enjoying the Victoria day long weekend.  Me, I plan to take advantage of it.

Finished quilting mom's charity quilt

My mom is at the stage where she realizes she has a lot of fabric and may not be able to use it up in her lifetime.  So she is challenging herself to only use her stash, or at least the majority from her stash.  This quilt was completely from her stash and used a bunch of her scraps too!

She did a whole lot of four-patches from her already cut blocks a while ago and is still trying to use them up.  These four-patches were put on a diagonal with alternating light blue blocks.  The perimeter half blocks and the corner blocks were done in a darker blue colour than the centre blocks.  I think this effect is nice, it kind of frames the centre blocks and created the first border.

The last border is hard to make out, but it has mini daisies all over it, so I quilted this quilt with an edge-to-edge Apricot Daisies pantograph.

It turned out lovely.

Gathering flowers quilt last block for this batch

During the Christmas holidays I made a lot of progress on my Gathering Flowers appliqué blocks.  Throughout the time since, I've shared them on my blog.  This month, the month of May, is the #4 for the American Patchwork & Quilting UFO challenge.  For me, that is my Gathering Flowers quilt.

I've not taken it back out yet, as I feel I need to get some other things done first, but I do want to find time to work on it, as it is a quilt that lately I've wanted to have finished.  There is still a lot of work to be done on it and it will not happen in a month, that is for sure.  So....since I am not ready to take it out just yet, let me share with you the last block in the batch, that I worked on, during the Christmas holidays.

This is called blooming buds from page 70 of Mini Dietrich's Baltimore Basics book.  I've changed up the colours a bit, but essentially it's the same block.

It's different from most of the other blocks with that middle piece.  I'm not sure what that blue piece is to represent.  Maybe I vase?  I'm not sure, but I am doing it anyways.

I am thinking that later in the month, I may take at least one other block out, to play with the quilt and move it along just that little bit more.  We shall see....

In the meantime, I have many other things that I am trying to complete, to reduce my list to a more manageable number.  My list has gotten a bit out of hand lately.

Finished the drunkard's path quilt

The drunkard's path quilt was my American Patchworks & Quilting UFO challenge quilt for September/2018.  I did manage to complete the top in September, but it had to sit and wait in line to get quilted.

I finished quilting it in the beginning of October.  The year 2018 was a very good year productivity wise for me. Many quilts got done.  Many of the quilts were long time UFOs, lingering around for years, for some reason or another.  Last year was the year for me to get things together.  I had determination, focus and the desire necessary to see things through.  I am proud of that year.

I call this my spring quilt.  It's cheerful, soft pastel colours, with the majority of the fabrics being floral.

I continued with the feminine theme of the quilt and quilted this quilt using a feathered pantograph.  I love how it turned out.  It's a traditional quilt, done in your basic 40s style fabrics in a traditional layout.  Nothing fancy, new or modern about it, but I love it.  Don't get me wrong, because I also like modern quilts and anything in between, but I guess I am partial to traditional older looking quilts.

To celebrate this quilt finish, that I started in 2004, I decided to make a special label.  This label, is made with a doily that came to me as a gift with a pretty vase, from a dear aunt, many years ago.

My aunt Alice was very special to me.  Now I get to remember her and how special she was to me, every time I take out my spring quilt.  She was definitely loved by many.  She had that special bright and positive outlook and went out of her way to make you feel good.  I know on this day especially, Mother's Day, that her children miss her.  God bless.

To everyone out there in bloggerville, Happy Mother's Day.  If you are still fortunate to have your mother around, don't forget to hug her and tell her you appreciate everything she has done for you.

Finished my Xmas solstice star quilt

Christmas in May anyone?  I know I am late, but finally got some pictures of this quilt.  This is a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt pattern, called Celtic Solstice. I finished it back in November/2018.

This is my Christmas quilt, for my bed.  I am calling it Christmas solstice.  I quilted holly leaves edge to edge across the quilt in a green thread.

The back of the quilt was fabric I picked up years ago, when I initially thought of making myself a Christmas quilt.  I got 9 meters from the bolt as it was on sale.  The tag was still on and I gasped when I saw it.  Can you believe that I bought this bolt for only $2.49/meter.  Wow!!!  Can't get those kind of sales now a days.  It is good quality fabric too!

It was not a wide back, so I did have to piece it.  I decided to use up all the leftover units from the front, to make a strip going side to side horizontally.  Note that the small fist size dot above the strip, is not a defect.  It's the spot that touched the ground, while I was trying to get it out of the car and into the house.  That was the corner while it was folded up.  At the time it was raining.

You may not see it in the picture, but the binding is stripped candy canes, sewn on a diagonal.  I love using strips for binding.  They add a bit of fun.

A couple more NICU tops done

Just last week I wanted to work on getting some more NICU quilts done.  I while back, I went through my sewing room and gathered up a bunch of orphan blocks.  Blocks that did not make it into the main quilt and/or stuff customers gave me to make something out of.

I gathered up enough pieces and parts to make 20 NICU quilts.  Since, I have been making them and have dwindled it down to thirteen, minus the ones that I have since added.  So, I figure that if I do two per month, I will be done all of them by November.  These next two are my goal for May, so I am ahead of the game.  Just have to quilt, bind and label them.

The quilt above I am calling it the checkerboard quilt, for obvious reasons.  I could have added any colour for the first border, and went with blue, as there is a greater need for boy NICU quilts than for girls.  I get that.  As a whole, I find I tend to make more girl quilts.  I have to make an effort to think about colours suitable for a boy instead.

Below is a girl quilt.  These were four log cabin blocks that a friend had given me, when she cleaned out her quilt room.  I have one more like these, but the size is 10 1/2" instead of these, which are 6 1/2".  I couldn't figure out a way to fit the larger block in, so I think I will just keep it to make another separate NICU quilt.  Maybe I'll put it on a diagonal and add corners to make it bigger.  We'll see.

Here, below, I have a pattern that was left on the free table at the HHQG.  I was cleaning up and putting the chairs and tables away, this somehow got left behind.  The pattern is paper piece and it was started, with some fabric cut out and paper patterns ready but that is where it stopped.  I am thinking someone already made it and had left over parts.  Since they put it on the free table, I guess they decided they didn't want to do another one.

The pattern says the size is 14 1/2" X 14 1/2", so that tells me it is a miniature.  I checked if anyone that was still there wanted it, and when they all said no, I brought it home with me.  Couldn't just throw it away.  I'll make another NICU quilt with it!  I can add some borders and such to make it bigger.

I'll finish up this post here, as I have given myself until 10:00 am, before heading downstairs to work on customer quilts.  I have a few I need to get done, and if all goes well, tomorrow I can be working on quilting some of my own.  Wish me luck!  I am needing a few very productive days to get to a point where I feel caught up.

So many strings quilt

I have been busy with all sorts of stuff lately, finding myself spinning my wheels and going nowhere, but now we are May, and I have decided to just take a break from what I feel I have to do, to doing something that I want to do.

I am having fun playing in my scraps.  It was a few days before May when I had some time before American Patchwork & Quilting UFO challenge would announce the number for May, so I decided it was time for me and some mindless sewing.

I took out a few handfuls of strings from my light and my dark drawers and started to sew them together.  I am working from the piles on the table.  When the strings get too small, like less than 7", they go into the purple baskets, to be used for the second round, and when they are less than 3 1/2" they go into the single black basket to be sorted into my crumbs.  The last two black baskets are my completed units.

Right now I am just concentrating on the units. String after string.  So far I have just over 70 units of dark strings and 40 of lights.  To complete the centre of the quilt I need 420 dark units and 252 light units. So.....lol I have a ways to go.

Later on as I get a bunch of units done, if I get tired of sewing strings together, I can start assembling the blocks.  Below is what the block is going to look like.

I've shown this block a little while ago, when AP&Q magazine came out with a quilt-a-long challenge, both in their magazine and on Facebook.  This is my version of their quilt.  The block will basically have a light half and a dark half, which can be used in any layout that you can do with a log cabin block.  For my chosen layout, I have to make 42 of these blocks for a queen sized quilt.  The individual units finish at 3", which makes a finished 12" block.

Between making these units, I do still plan to work on other things, like all the quilting I have to do, the NICU quilt pieces ready to assemble, plus other UFOs, but right now, I am just enjoying the mindless sewing.  

Enjoy your day, and don't forget to take some time for yourself!