Baby Quilts and Paper Piecing

 It' finally really hot here - in the upper 90s. We have had a relatively cool and wet spring and those with swimming pools are finally happy to have the hot temps. I am glad to stay indoors and sew. I have made many baby quilts for donation to the various charitable organizations that our guild supports. We will have a Sew Day  on Friday of this week to  make quilts to support tornado victims. If you didn't know, a very destructive (aren't they all?) tornado ripped through St. Louis a couple of weeks back and there was a lot of destruction, especially in the north end of the city. I don't know that a quilt is going to alleviate much of that misery, but we are quilters and that's what we do. 

I also have a rolling cart full of baby quilts that I have been making There are a few that are a bit larger. The guild supports several local charitable organizations that seem to really like our quilts. Sweet Babies was started by nurses in the NICU at a local hospital and that is where the majority of baby quilts land. 

The larger quilts are donated to Home Sweet Home, a local group that provides gently used furniture and household items to people moving into a home or apartment after being homeless. The warehouse is staged like Ikea where furniture is arranged in room type settings. Clients can choose what they want in the morning and volunteers deliver it to them in the afternoon, moving everything in for them and getting it all arranged. Our quilts are much in demand and are displayed on beds and couches. The guild member that delivers them is mobbed whenever she walks in with our quilts. We make really nice quilts - none of this "it's just for charity so it doesn't matter."  If that is your attitude, I really don't want you making anything for donation. If I wouldn't give it proudly to a friend or family member, then it's not good enough in my opinion to donate to someone else. After all these folks have been through, they deserve our very best efforts. The quilts don't have to be fancy or complicated or of the newest fabrics, but they do have to be made well of quality materials. Off my soapbox now.

I am taking a break from making baby quilts for a few days. I picked up a pad of foundation papers from my sewing table. It's been there for several months and I don't remember where or how I got it. Its a Sew Emma pad that makes 4" Woven Star blocks. I am an experienced paper piecer, but the 4" size is kind of small to make it really useful. I have a lot of charm packs (I didn't think I was a pre-cut girl, but I have quite a few 5" charm packs after all) .I will make them into a table runner. The small size makes paper removal even more tedious than usual. I have seen the technique wherein there is no need to remove paper at the end. You sew alongside the paper instead of through it. Rebecca Bryan has a good tutorial if you are interested. The small size of these blocks makes that method impractical so there will be an evening of TV watching while I depaper the blocks. It reminds me why I don't do more paper piecing!

I signed up for Fat Quarter Shop's monthly Sew Sampler subscription boxes. I have to say I am really enjoying them and feel they are good value for the cost of $30 per month plus $5.00 shipping. There is a bundle of fabric in each box, one included pattern plus an additional freebie that you can download, coupons for fabric discounts, and one or two notions. There is a monthly pattern for a mystery quilt as well. Those blocks finish at 18" which I think  are kind of large. I only made two from last season's offerings but I ordered some extra fabric so I can keep them uniform. I will eventually make them all. May be I should set a goal of one a month so that they get done! I ork best when I have a definite goal or deadline.

. I have liked everything so far but haven't really delved into the boxes much up to now. They make a satisfying stack on the sewing room floor.. I finally started working through the boxes (my first one was June 2024) and am up to November. The fabric lines are not ones I would have chosen, but I like them all well enough and they have gotten me outside my box. I enjoy the process and end up donating the finished quilts. You can also get finishing kits for all the monthly projects and the cost is usually under $50. I assume that the fabric choices are liked by most quilters or they wouldn't have been chosen. The things I make from the boxes should have wide appeal. My favorite of the fabrics so far has been Denim & Daisies. I finished that project. I am not big on florals but this line wasn't too fussy in that regard.

Gonna quit now and go sew something. My sewing machine had to be serviced twice in two weeks. The first time was the annual "spa "day. The needle threader and needle cutter were not working among other things. The thread would snarl in the bobbin area after 20 or 30 minutes of sewing. I was totally frustrated. The technician finally fixed it the second time. He had to replace a stop spring (no sure what it's function was) and made some other adjustments and now it's sewing like a top Happy Sewing!!.

Hawaii!

 Are you familiar with Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts? It is a premier (in that it costs more than the usual ones) brand of shirt. A friend's husband has quite a collection of them going back years and he wistfully said that he wished they knew someone who could make a quilt from them. My friend knew that I made quilts, so when she visited her son here in St. Louis last October, she brought the shirts with her. I cut them up into usable pieces and put them in a largish plastic bin. I decided on 6" finished square-in-a-square blocks for two reasons. The center square (finishing at 3") would nicely feature the shirt fabrics without being too large and clunky. Secondly the blocks work up quickly. I made 10 last night in an hour or so. To make a queen-sized quilt (100" by 100" or thereabouts) I will need 256, but I am going to figure out how to reduce that number. Maybe with borders? I will see when I get farther down the line making the blocks. 

Reyn Spooner The shirts are more subdued than other Hawaiian shirts and have a linen-like texture which is nice. In some cases I used the "wrong" side of the fabric for more vibrancy. The shirts are so numerous and the yield from each shirt large, that I have already begun using the offcuts to make a second, and possibly third, smaller quilt. One is a coin quilt and the other may just be squares with some type of simple sashing. Throw sized, not another queen-sized one.

I want to find a print reflecting the Hawaiian esthetic for borders and/or backing. There are a number of (kitschy) prints with surfers and hula girls that I found online. I was not entirely charmed by any of them. I decided to google quilt shops in Hawaii and found better choices at those stores. I will probably order from them when the time comes. I would much rather give my business to a local, smaller store anyway. I saw several two color prints featuring hibiscus and some others with Hawaiian birds, flowers, and foliage.

Maui Quilt Store. Here is one example.

This & That

It has been extremely cold here the past several days. Close to one degree at night. My dog likes to stay outside, often sleeping in a sunny corner on a pile of mulch. We have also had snow, so this has not been possible for him at present.. Nonetheless he wants to say outside and is not particularly compliant about coming in when called. He will obey after his first time out in the morning because he knows breakfast is waiting for him when he comes in. The rest of the day he is not as compliant. He is a miniature labradoodle and Labradors are a hearty bunch but it is too cold for him to stay outside indefinitely. I attached a tether to him so I can get him back in without having to chase him around the yard. Problem solved

I have taken advantage of the weather to stay inside and quilt. I am almost finished piecing a top for a friend's granddaughter and I must say I am really liking it. It is an uneven log cabin which gives the illusion of curved lines. I apparently cannot count as I needed 48 blocks and ended up making 52. The extra four blocks I used as "seeds" to make another baby-sized quilt to donate to one of the children's charities our guild supports. But four blocks were not enough so I proceeded to make more blocks and again, ended up with four blocks too many. I need to go back to school to learn counting and arithmetic, I guess. I will set the extras aside for now.

I had a fair number of blocks made from a pattern in one of my instruction booklets I have that uses charm packs. I had to make about 10 more to have enough for the quilt top. I counted correctly this time. They are sewn together and all that is left now is to make the borders. I will work on those later today.

I will make another baby quilt from Jan Ochterbeck's "Dancing Plus" tutorial. 

https://thecolorfulfabriholic.blogspot.com/2015/08/dancing-plus-blocks-tutorial.html

Here is my latest version, gifted to a neighbor:

This pattern is an exception to my rule of not making the same pattern twice. I have made it a number of times and really like it. It is somewhat charm pack friendly but there are four corner squares required that finish at 3". These are the background fabrics however, and I choose that before I get started. The next one will be in an analogous color palette of blue, green, and purple. It will be for a boy.

Winter Stamp Collection

 One of the blogs I follow, Pinker n' Punkin Quilting, is hosting a winter SAL, "Winter Stamp Collection". The designs are super cute, easy, and finish up small. It is suggested that they can be worked up as individual little pin cushions, which I plan to do throughout the coming year. With any luck and perseverance, there should be a collection to give out as Christmas gifts to quilty (and other) friends. Take a look! https://pinkernpunkinquilting.blogspot.com/2025/01/winter-stamp-sal-introduction.html

I have been doing a fair amount of cross stitch recently, resurrecting projects that have been too long in the time out basket. Somehow my quilting mojo has temporarily disappeared. This has happened before and I know it will return at some point. For now I am content to sit, cross stitch, and look at the snow we received last week. It is disappearing as the temperatures have risen a bit and the sun is out. We first had freezing rain and sleet before the snow. My driveway has been shoveled and the top layer of snow removed. Then it was salted with 40 lbs. of snow melt. The ice is now fairly soft and I expect it to disappear entirely in another day or so.

I hope you have found something interesting to work on as winter settles in. I think that I had best get going on the president's challenge for Thimble and Thread. We are to make a baby-sized quilt using any disappearing block pattern. I make take the easiest route and use the original disappearing four patch block. It is the easiest one and pretty straight forward. See it here:

Happy Quilt

I had a rainbow charm pack and came up with this.

FRUSTRATED

I am beyond frustrated at this point. I want to print out a pattern that I bought and saved on my phone. I would like to have the pattern in a reasonable size to keep beside my sewing machine as I cut and assemble. My laptop has developed a problem with the appearance of video content, making it next to impossible to see anything clearly on the screen. It is only two years old, but was a cheap purchase. I ordered and received a new Acer laptop yesterday and finally have it set up. I want to use Google Chrome as my default browser, but Microsoft wants me to use Edge. I like Chrome and have it used it for years with no problems. I had to Google how to get around Microsoft to be able to download and use Chrome. Everything seems to be working now. 

 Printing was a problem on my desktop computer. Sometimes it would print and other times not. The desktop is probably 10 years old and the printer drivers are not being updated any longer. Printer software is notoriously unstable and the ones on the desktop are no doubt corrupted to some extent. I can print with an HP app from my phone but that can take some time as the file circulates through the internet before winding up as a signal that will print. It is finally done printing and I will be sitting at my sewing machine soon. 

My back is all healed and the surgeon has said everything looks fine; no need to come back to see him again. I have gotten my quilting mojo back since it is now comfortable for me to sit and sew as long as I like and whenever I want. I have made six smallish quilt tops in the past week or so. They are crib or baby-sized and I can quilt them myself (nothing fancy, mind you) on my Bernina. Our guild supports two or three local organizations that love our quilts. These will go to them. Recently, in addition to quilt kits, our guild has supplied baggies of 49 five-inch squares of novelty print fabrics. Each one is different and make a very easy "I Spy" quilt for children. It is relaxing to sew these squares together into a quilt top, not worrying about what fabric goes next to anything. 

My niece recently gave birth to a little boy - two months early which left me flat-footed as I had planned to make this quilt for her. I am starting it today or tomorrow. I only recently  received the back ground fabric I needed - Essex linen in light gray.

This is a photo taken by a friend. I thought it would make a good art type quilt.

This is a very simple baby quilt made with 5" squares.

Another simple quilt made with 5" charm squares. For one who has said she didn't use precuts I find that I have a lot of charm squares - 5" and mini 2.5" ones. I am starting to use them now that I realize how many of the darn tings I have; they give a quick start to a baby quilt. Already cut and coordinated, they need only the inspiration for a decent setting and some alternate squares of sashing from jelly rolls.

 All Better Now

The surgeon told me when I had my back surgery (March 2023) that it would take a year for full healing to happen. Not that I would be in a lot of pain during that time, but from a medical perspective it would be that long before everything was fused, etc. Well, it's been nearly a year and my back feels great. No pain and I can stand without my back feeling tired and wanting to sit down. The past several days I have been able to sit at my sewing machine and sew as long as I like.

Saturday our guild is having a paper piecing workshop. I already know how to do this, but want to show support for workshops and also socialize. I resurrected a UFO from (10?) years ago. I have completed five of the blocks and prepped another for Saturday. It's a pattern by Carolyn Friedlander and I am excited to finish it up.

I have a number of her patterns and have made several of her quilts. The latest pattern I have acquired is her Alphabet pattern.  

I have made Grove. Pieced but not quilted.

 I have this pattern, "Hunter." Each block has many narrow blades and I haven't tried it yet because I am wondering how well I will be able to line up the pieces for applique.

I started Eads with a fair number of blocks completed. I need to dig this one out and finish it! I don't remember if this is paper pieced or not.

I have Outhouse ordered. Simple but effective with repetition.

I hive several other patterns by this designer, but at the moment I can't recall the names of the patterns and therefore can't find them to show pictures of them.