Week of Charity Sewing

        Where has the week gone?  You might think that since my sister was here to visit with Mom that I would be able to get a lot done.  Well, the way it worked out is that I have only worked on a couple of charity projects.  We did get a little clothes shopping in. 

        Tuesday was charity sew day for GCQ and Wednesday was sew day for church group.  The church group had to plan for the trunk show we are presenting next Tuesday for the XYZ club so we did not get much work done.

For GCQ I did get a top together. 

 For Shandon Quilt Group I pulled a couple of orphan blocks, made a few more and have 12 blocks together that will make a small lap quilt.  Irene helped with the choice of colors.  I never would have thought of putting orange with pink, but it works!  

Organizing, Finishing and Quick Project

     This weekend has been a good time for work on a variety of quilt projects plus a little gardening time.  I was cleaning the house to get ready to host Monday night’s Quilt Mavens group and spent a couple of hours organizing my stash.  I was looking for a piece of green recently and could not find my tub of green fabric.  I finally did and I took that as a hint that I needed to reorganize some fabric.  I found out that I have a lot more brown and cream than I thought I did. 

   

    I finished step 7 of the Day Bee Mystery Quilt.   We had the option of using a solid piece of fabric for the center of each star, but our leader encouraged us to piece something.  Originally I pieced some small nine patches and some four patches.   When I started the step to sew the stars together, I did not like the look with the nine patches and I used only four patches.  I almost wish I had used a solid piece of fabric.  The stars would look very differently. 

       My church quilt group will be giving a short talk for the XYZ ( eXtra Years of Zest) Club about our work and show quilts.  It was Joan’s idea for us to have a mug rug in the center of each table; and after our talk have a drawing to give them away, so this afternoon I made another mug rug from Woodpile quilt crumbs.   

Working on Day Bee Mystery Quilt

   Today I decided to tackle the HST borders for step 7 of the Mystery Quilt.  Each border is made up of 44 HSTs.  Two are done; two more to go.  I am a step behind so I would like to get more done.  This is not a quilt for a beginner.  There are LOTS of pieces but I like how it looks so far.

Woodpile With Dresdens Finished

      

        Sister Miriam was here for the weekend to visit and spend time with Mom so I was free to spend hours quilting.  I quilted each Dresden plate as though it was a flower, FM stitching into each petal.  I hope you can see some of the stitching in the photo.

Meandering around the Dresden plates was a bit trying but it got done.  For the border I FM quilted a leaf motif that I have used before.

This makes #3 that I have made for the VA Hospice unit.  This afternoon I also took a short time to quilt the half-step bargello lap quilt.   It just need binding.  This is my sample for a simple bargello class I hope to teach. 

Now I can get back to working on the floral pinwheel quilt and the Day Bee mystery quilt.

 

Lego Quilt Finished

   It has been a while since I pieced the top.  Wednesday during sew day at church I finally got my Lego top sandwiched and the Woodpile top with Dresden plates. Thursday I quilted most of the day.  I did all over meandering on the Lego quilt.  Today I added the binding totally by machine so it is finished for the VA Hospice unit.   

       I used 2 1/2" strips instead of the 1 1/2" strips that some others have used.  I enjoyed these simple free pieced blocks.

Creative Setting and Half-step Bargello

       Sunday afternoon I was not in the mood to tackle sewing 44 HSTs together for each Mystery Quilt block border and I need to decide border options before I make more floral pinwheel blocks so I pulled out some UFO pieces from my box of guild charity projects.  I have had the dinosaur musician pieces for at least a year.  Sometimes I enjoy the challenge of piecing a creative setting for blocks.  This morning I added the second border to finish the small quilt top.  This is what I came up with.

 I still have 3 of the dinosaur blocks for another small quilt for another day OR maybe someone else would like the challenge.

    I am planning to teach an easy half-step Bargello quilt at Midlands Tech spring 2013.  I love Bargello and half-step has NO matching of seams.  I pulled out fabric and cut strips to make the sample quilt.  I managed to piece the entire top today even with breaks to help a friend get his car to the mechanic and visit the nursing home to check on Mother so this should be a nice beginner small quilt.

                From strips ........

         To top ..........

Working on Day Bee Mystery

     Tuesday is the Day Bee meeting and I'm expecting our Bee Queen will give out the next step for the Mystery Quilt.  I am a couple of months behind on the Day Bee Mystery quilt so I pulled out the parts to work on. I chose to make the small version so it was not difficult to finish step 6 with only 4 large blocks.  Here they are.

For the next step we will be using the HSTs ( half-square triangles ) we made in step 3.  It takes 44 HSTs to surround each of the large blocks.  It took at least 2 hours to press them all.  I pulled the paper off about half but decided not to start sewing tonight.

Have a Happy Easter!

Another Quilt Top

     Thursday after my company left I appliquéd the Dresden plates onto the Woodpile top. This morning I added a wide border and pieced a backing so I have another top and backing ready to be sandwiched for quilting. It is for the VA Hospice unit.  The tops ready are large enough that I need a space larger than my kitchen floor.  When I need a larger space, I like to use the church fellowship hall, but this is not a good weekend to do that with it being Easter weekend. 

Finished Her First Quilt

    Cierra started sewing early this morning on her blocks.  When she began to sew the strip set that would make her 12th block, she decided to make her quilt a little smaller than we originally planned.  Remember, this is the first time she has used a sewing machine.  She sewed the whole top together.  We made the sandwich.
Then I started looking to decide how it would be easiest for her to quilt using the walking foot.  I decided on simple diagonal lines.  Cierra used a water soluble marker to mark stitching lines. 
She did all the quilting.  After helping her to square it up,  I machine sewed on the binding and she added a label. She did an amazing job!

Beginning Sewer Starts First Quilt

      This is spring break for many students and sister Asenath and niece Cierra are here for a couple of days so they can visit Mom.  This afternoon I gave Cierra her first sewing lesson.  First she picked out 3 fabrics and used a rotary cutter to cut strips.

After only one practice strip, she started sewing her quilt strips together. She did a great job!  Here are her first 2 blocks for a rail fence lap quilt.