Summer

 It's been very hot here of late. Upper 90s most of the time. Our guild had a Sew Day Friday to work on quilts for tornado victims. By the time they are finished the weather will be cooler and the quilts will be needed.

I have a quilt top that I could have quilted or at least made inroads with quilting it. However I couldn't get the last border to cooperate. I am going to get cataract surgery soon and the cataract is slowing me down. I had a fellow guild member help me. Turns out I cut two pieces about a half inch too large. That is never going to work. Now that I know what the problem is I can fix it. It's a three yard quilt pattern. 

I haven't been interested in these patterns before. They weren't scrappy enough (or at all really) for me but now with my vision problems they seem just right. No brainers.

I am making a Christmas stocking from a Sheperd's Bush pattern.

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.

 

 January

One of the times of the year I like is January, followed by February. Nothing much going on after the hubbub of the fall and winter holiday season. My cup of tea. Plenty of time for quilting and other leisurely activities. I am slowly making progress on the desert palette quilt. I am quite pleased with the colors I have chosen and the slow pace of evening EPP sewing.

My back is fairly comfortable. Not perfect, but much better. No need for ibuprofen, etc. I have been getting chiropractic treatments, but remain skeptical that they are doing anything more than depleting my wallet. I don't feel much different afterwards. I still thing chiropractic is 95% placebo. I know there are lots of people who believe otherwise. This has been my experience.

I recently visited my brother in Escondido, CA (San Diego). I had a very relaxing time. The timing was good as I missed the extremely frigid weather in St. Louis and the heavy rain and flooding in San Diego that happened upon my return to St. Louis. The days are slowly lengthening and we are almost through January. Can spring be far behind?

My calendar is fairly empty allowing me time to make an entry for our guild's president's challenge - "Make a Pink Quilt." I am the president of the guild currently and also a breast cancer survivor. The parameters - other than the color pink -were non-existent - make a quilt of any size or technique that reads as pink when first viewed. We will vote on our favorite in February and the quilt with the most "likes" will get a small prize. I look forward to what folks come up with. I am continually amazed at the creativity of our members.

My entry was inspired by one I saw at exuberantcolor.com. It consists of half-rectangle triangles. I was a bit challenged at first because you need to make two types of triangles which are mirror images of each other. When I finally got that idea straight in my head, things progressed swimmingly. I like the pattern because it looks like a twisted breast cancer awareness ribbon.

I finished a memory quilt for a friend and it has been gifted to her. Her two sisters also wanted one, but I didn't have enough fabric left to make two more quilts. I decided to make them each runners that can be used across the foot of a bed or on a longish table. I made one with log cabin blocks and the other will be blocks from Denyse Schmidt's "Free Wheeling Single Girl" quilt. Here's the finished memory quilt.

 

 I made one of these quilts each for two year old identical twins. Both are scrappy and pretty similar. I varied the border fabric so they can tell them apart. It's "Dancing Plus" by Jan Ochterbeck at colourfulfabriholic.com. I don't normally make the same pattern more than once as there are so many fun ones out there to try. This pattern is very forgiving. No seams to match except for sewing the blocks together. I have made it any number of times and it is scrap basket friendly. A neighbor h ad a baby over the winter. It's a boy and I will be making this again for the new baby. Maybe in blue and green.

 Lastly I will be starting an Elizabeth Hartmann quilt for my niece who is due in April. The shower is this Saturday. I bought her some things from her baby registry so there is something from me to open at the shower. Her theme for the nursery is animals. I will be making Fancy Forest", which I have made once before. More of that mirror imaging in the piecing. I follow Gyleen Fitzgerald's suggestion and lay out all the pieces for one block next to my sewing machine. She calls it "making the picture". I still manage tp get things backwards at times, especially with mirror imaging but it does help. I imagine I will have some time with the seam ripper.

I will make one fourth of the quilt. Each section repeats, just in a different colorway. and there are already two of each animal in each quarter. The size of one section is plenty big enough for a baby quilt.

I have chosen a mantra for the coming year. This is in lieu of a New Year's resolution. It is a focus for my thoughts and this year it is "believe", as in believe in yourself, love, friendship, etc. I have a subscription to the weekend edition of the New York Times. I had a daily subscription some years ago and could not keep up with all the content. It is a great newspaper and I missed it so have taken the weekend edition again. Anyway last weekend it contained an article on delight practice which sounds goofy given the current state of affairs in the world. It consists of taking note of small things that delight us in our daily lives. A sunset, smile from a friend, etc. Quilting has many such small moments to savor. A perfectly pieced block, fabric selection for a new project (even if you never make it!), stitching down the last inches of a binding, etc. I encourage you to try it.

Desert Palette Quilt 

I have been working most evenings on the quilt that was inspired by the desert near Santa Fe, NM. I am working on it in EPP, a technique that lends itself well to the pattern which has a jillion Y seams. I don't like doing them by machine, although Gyleen Fitzgerald has a great technique for them. I like handwork and needed a new project for evening TV watching. I changed up the colors a bit from the tile mosaic at the Governor's Inn in Santa Fe to more closely reflect the desert palette I experienced on my road trip there in September. Specifically there needs to be more  green - sage, gray green, and some brighter (almost) spring green. I am pleased at how it is coming along. I have about 70 blocks finished and need either 96 or 108 depending on the width. I will know better when I can lay things out and measure. The blocks are finishing at 5" square. I figure the quilt should measure at least 60" in length, giving a total of 12 blocks per column. 45 to50 inches in width seems about right, so then either 96 or 108 blocks are needed. I am not in a hurry and enjoy the process. Either amount will be okay.

The Inn looked like this yesterday after a light snowfall. The pool was supposedly available a bit later in the day. It is heated to 87 degrees. I doubt I would have braved it, though.

I am also nearing completion of a memory quilt for a friend. It is turning out well, although today I realized I had miscalculated the width of the borders that are needed to make the last element fit. I cut the borders to a width of 2" finished and should have made them 3". A simple enough fix to take them off and sew on the correct ones. The 2.5 strips that will be taken off won't be wasted as I need that size to make the strip sets for the final borders. I hate wasting fabric so was glad to realize the strips are completely usable. I have plenty of fabric on hand, too, so I can recut the borders without the fear of running out of fabric. I was intending to go  to a local quilt store today to select backing fabric but I want to soldier on and get the top completed today if possible. A longarmer form our guild told me a couple of weeks ago that she can get it quilted for me in time for Christmas. I hope so. I could quilt it myself, but it would by ever so much nicer to have it professionally done.

A friend gave me an EPP kit last month. She said she will never make it and thought I might like it. I do!  It is a lovely pattern with all the paper pieces and acrylic templates (for cutting the fabric) and will probably be my next evening project after the desert one is finished.

Back Surgery

 I had back surgery March 28, 2023. The pain from the compression fracture and herniated disc has been alleviated with an L3-L4 lumbar fusion. The surgery was laparoscopic and spared me a large incision. The surgeon still did all the same work internally, so there was a healing process from the surgical wound. Currently I am pretty comfortable. Physical therapy has been completed, and while I have good mobility and am pain free, I need to build strength and endurance. I will call on the services of a personal trainer for that. I still have to limit time sitting at the sewing machine, but I have been working on a memory quilt for a friend from his deceased wife's clothing. I have also done quite a bit of EPP and knitting, which require no time at the sewing machine.

Besides the memory quilt and EPP, I need to finish up a quilt for a friend's grandson who became a US citizen last October. I am using a pattern from Gyleen Fitzgerald in red, white, and blue. It only needs one more column to finish it up. I will send it to a longarmer to be professionally quilted.

Last weekend our guild had a retreat held at a location new to us. It was a wonderful venue and quite an upgrade from our previous meeting place. The sewing room was large and we each had our own table. The room was so big and we were able to spread out, that it seemed almost as thought there were fewer of us than there were! The food, served buffet style was excellent. We have booked our retreat for the next two years.

Since I am feeling better, I have been traveling some. First was a three day trip to Eureka Springs, AK, and then a12 day road trip to Santa Fe, NM and Colorado. I rode a narrow gauge steam train in Colorado which was spectacular and the highlight of the trip. From there we traveled north through Rocky Mountain National Park and then home to St. Louis. Two weeks ago I traveled to Livonia, MI (Detroit area) for a reunion with people I worked with prior to retirement. We stopped both coming and going in Kalamazoo, MI to visit a friend's daughter. She is also a quilter and asked my opinion of the Singer Featherweight. Since I have three, the response was what you would expect. She will be visiting Missouri at Christmas and I will gift her one of mine. Since two of the three that I own were given to me and I don't use them all that much, this will free up one of them and make her happy. A win-win situation.

                                                         Favorite photo from Santa Fe trip

Tile mosaic from hotel breakfast room. I am making this now with EPP.

Desert Palette in New Mexico

Back to Quilting!

 My back has healed enough that I am not in constant pain and can sit at my sewing machine long enough to make it worthwhile. While I was unable to do that, I did some hand work - mostly EPP projects. Lately I have been putting together and quilting smallish baby-sized quilts. Our guild makes up kits with donated fabric. The kit includes everything needed to make a small quilt from start to finish - 5" squares in various coordinated fabrics, batting, backing, binding fabric (already cut!), and a label. They do a really nice job with the kits and are generous with the items they include so you don't run short.

Currently I am working on Hexagon Charm School with Gyleen Fitzgerald. I am also participating in her sew-along from  her booklet, "Evolution." Although these blocks were made in the smallest size using acrylic template intended for EPP, I managed to sew them by machine to speed things up.

I have photos of several other things I have made since feeling better, but the photos are on my phone and I am composing this on my desktop. When I get the photos transferred over, more photos will be forthcoming.

Some Respite in Sight (I hope)

 I still have terrible back and leg pain from a piece of protruding disc that is caught between two vertebrae and impinging on a nerve root. I also have/had (healing now) a compression fracture of one of the lumbar vertebrae. Yes, it's as painful as it sounds. I have tried hot/cold, prednisone, acupuncture, physical therapy and pain killers. However none of this is going to move the vertebrae off the nerve. I will probably need some relatively minor surgery to fix this.

In the meantime I have been able to sit for a time in some comfort in a recliner and work on EPP and other hand sewing projects. That is truly a blessing as otherwise the time hangs heavy on my mind and hands.

Healing. Slowly.

 I am slowly healing from the pain of sciatica. Lots of clinicians/therapists visiting and treating me at home. That's one silver lining to the whole Covid pandemic. Many practitioners have already changed over to online or in-home protocols. I have found that ice and Aleve are more beneficial than heat and ibuprofen. There are daily stretches and exercises to do as well, which I am doing religiously.

I have mostly been working on the cross stitch project shown in the previous post - that is as my pain level allows. The past few days have been better so I am making progress. I have a few baby quilts for donation that are small enough that they could be sandwiched on my breakfast bar. If I feel up to it I may get them ready so that when I can again sit at the sewing machine, they will be ready to quilt. Needless to say, my therapists are not happy to hear that. They don't like the idea of sitting for any period of time. I am not sure what the alternative would be. Lying in bed? I certainly can't stand for a prolonged period. 

We had a big snowfall Wednesday overnight and all day yesterday, Thursday. We received around 8 inches where I live. It could have been worse. It was predicted that a record could occur of up to 18 inches! It's very pretty and I am glad that I can't drive right now. It's supposed to be in the 50s by this time next week.

With anticipation that I will have something quilty to show soon, I will sign off now. Wishing that you are all safe and warm.

Hiatus

 I won't have anything to post about quilting for a bit. I am not sure for how long. Sciatica has reared its head and I am not comfortable sitting at the sewing machine for any length of time.  I have taken up an unfinished cross stitch project for now.

I am working with a personal trainer, chiropractor, and physical therapist to vanquish the sciatica. Nothing is immediate as far as pain relief. Fingers crossed that I feel well enough for Quilting on the Beach next month. I am going come hell or high water!

Asian Attitude

This is the third UFO completed this year. It only needed the dark outer border cut and sewn on. This was a BOM from a local quilt shop started in 2009. The center of each block is an Asian print. Various indigos with a constant cream fabric are the alternate blocks. It's in the pile for the longarm quilter.

Next I am looking for another quilt made from BOM blocks from the same local quilt shop. I set the blocks on point with Kaffe Fassett fabric in autumnal colors. I saw it recently so it shouldn't be too hard to lay my hands on it. I even have a photo. BOM started in 2011.

 

Update 1/17/2022. I found the project box with this top in it. I also found plenty of extra fabric for borders.

And Then There Were Two

 Two finishes for 2022, that is. Stepping Stones, a paper-pieced Judy Niemeyer pattern, needed only the outer border, a print by Kaffe Fassett.  Truthfully, I don't know why I procrastinated so long.  It's really childish.

Admittedly this is not a great picture, but you get the idea. I like this pattern a lot and I remember that I enjoyed piecing the individual blocks. At the time I started this (August 2014) in a guild workshop with May Gunter, a certified Judy Niemeyer instructor, I bought an extra set of papers to make a second quilt. I can't find them, so I may order them again. I am forcing myself not to order them until I get a fair number of UFOs finished, otherwise I will be down the rabbit hole again, starting something new when I have plenty of things to finish up. 

One of my fellow guild members was working on this same pattern at retreat in October. She was using jelly rolls in neutral shades with gorgeous metallic highlights. If I was able to locate the same - or similar - fabrics, I would already be down the rabbit hole. She had bought the jelly rolls by haunting every JoAnn's for miles around. I was amazed that she had found them there, because I had never seen anything like them in JoAnn's.

First Finish for 2022

 Virginia Bound is a completed quilt top. I am pleased with how it turned out. Bonnie's directions are really well written. I had to do only a minimum of futzing and finagling to get the borders to fit. I changed the dimensions from using 3" squares, as her pattern directs, to 2.5" squares and I still got it to work. 

I intended to finish a second UFO today - Stepping Stones - a  Judy Niemeyer paper pieced top. The universe conspired against me, though. Power went off in my house shortly after noon today. Service was spotty. Refrigerator, furnace, garage door and some lights and sockets worked. The range, microwave, kitchen lights, sewing room, internet and wi-fi were out. The culprit was AT&T. They have been installing underground cable for a 5G network since the summer. Despite all the underground utilities being marked with literally hundreds of flags, the AT&T workers still managed to nick quite a few electrical lines. That was the case at my house. It's strange because some houses lost all or partial power and some not at all. The Ameren supervisor I spoke with a couple of months back said that AT&T will be getting a bill for all the damage they have caused.

Suffice it to say that by the time I set up a temporary sewing station in my living room, the power came back on but it's early evening here and I am done for the day. Tomorrow I will tackle Stepping Stones.

2022: Year of the UFO

 Two years later and Covid is still with us. After a brief period of relative "freedom", I am back to being more careful and restrictive in my activities thanks to the Omicron variant. With the start of the new year, I am focusing on completing some of the many UFOs that clutter up my sewing area. I don't make resolutions as such, but I t think it will be productive to take stock of things and work on some of the UFOs I have. This is one that was started in late 2018 or early 2019. It is Virginia Bound from Bonnie Hunter's book, "From Scraps to Shirttails" and uses thrifted shirts. It was taking up three large containers - a basket and two large plastic bins - in my sewing area so it makes sense to clear those out. After taking stock of what I had already completed, I only needed to sew together a block to make enough for the quilt top. Then I worked on the borders, which are now almost complete. Tomorrow should see this UFO done and dusted. Well, at least the top. I will have it long-arm quilted, putting it in the queue for quilting.

I have made several projects that Gyleen Fitzgerald gave us for getting through Covid. Here is "Library."

This is Men's Undercover (her title, not mine).

Both of these have been quilted and donated to a local charity organization. Here is a table or bed runner from one of Gyleen's books: It is not quilted. At some point I will quilt it myself.

Here is "Octo", a paper-pieced pattern that I started several years ago when Janie Lou, a local quilt shop, was still in business. The blocks are fairly large and I really think this would have been easier to do with conventional piecing instead of paper piecing. My daughter liked it, so I gave it to her.. 

The next photo is made from the alternate blocks of a local quilt shop's BOM from  ten (?) years ago. It just lacks some sashing and a border. I have the fabrics selected and stored with the top. I really don't like sewing on borders; I find it boring and several projects in the UFO pile just need borders. How pathetic is that? I have even taken this one to retreat with me, but didn't touch it. Time to finish it up. The setting was inspired by a quilt in one of Kaffe Fassett's books.

 

I have another BOM from the same shop that is in the UFO pile to finish. It also only needs borders. there is also a Judy Niemeyer project,, "Stepping Stones" - all done except for - you guessed it - borders. I may be able to get the two BOMs and "Stepping Stones" finished this month. Wouldn't that be great!

After these are dealt with, it will be time to take a deep dive and see what else I can finish. There are at least two Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts lurking in bags and bins somewhere in the chaos of my sewing room. There are also two leader\ender projects of hers around somewhere, too. One is Hourglass, which I got bored with but want to complete. I could probably stop now and get it into the long-arm queue, but I would like to add one more round of  blocks - possibly in red - to make it large enough for a queen-sized bed quilt (.https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2016/07/hourglass-leader-ender-challenge.html). the other is Cheddar Bow Ties. I have quite a few blocks made, but they are so small, finishing at 3", that it takes a ton to make a top of much size. I will see what I have and perhaps settle for a throw sized quilt.

I have been busy the past couple of years making a ton of small baby quilts for local charities that our guild supports. There are too many to show here and quite a few were made from kits  of  5" squares that the guild gives to members. The fabric is donated and they are not all that exciting. Someone else selected the fabric, cut the squares, then bundled them up with batting, backing, binding, and a label. I feel a sense of accomplishment when they are completed, but it's kind of mindless work. I appreciate the kits; having everything packaged up is a real time saver and I can usually knock one out in a couple of hours.

I cam back to my blog because it affords more opportunity to document things than Instagram. Stay tuned. I will try to be more regular in posting.

Shell Game

I thought the shelter at home situation would spur me to complete things and get focused. Not a chance. I have started a new project with Gyleen Fitzgerald through an online workshop she is running on her Facebook page. We are using her Polygon and Polygon 2 tools. She is creating this on the fly, so right now we are just making blocks. Her original plan was to use plaids and stripes, but many of us don't have the collection that she has so we are using what we have. Gyleen says the wilder the better, as if I needed any encouragement.