Masks and a H2H Quilt Finish

    Yesterday I finished 12 more masks that I was asked to make.

I am not a quick producer like some I have read about. I know some are needed, but it is not enjoyable sewing time for me. Today I needed some fun sewing time.

     From my stash of flannel I pulled some suitable for a baby and coordinates. Since flannel can be stretchy, I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance and sewed with my Walking Foot. It went together quickly and smoothly. I used a fluffy poly batting and instead of using binding I turned it pillowcase style. It is very soft and cuddly. This is one finish for Hands2HelpComfort Quilt Challenge and will go to Little Lambs foundation for kids. Follow the link for information on how you can participate and help.

    It has been beautiful weather here and since I am stuck at home, I thought it would be a great time to work in the yard. However, yard trash service has not been a priority during this quarantine time. Since a factory is temporarily shutdown, I am thankful to  have a son available to help in my yard. Wednesday he hauled piles of yard trash to the local collection center.

Please stay safe and healthy while doing something you enjoy or to help others.

Get inspired by the creative projects of others at Whoop Whoop Friday.  

Last Finish of 2019 – Looking Forward for 2020

     I finished quilting and binding the last giant rainbow star quilt. If it looks familiar that is because using Leah Day's construction plan creates the HSTs for 2 rainbow quilts. Check out my tutorial if you want to make 2. 

I quilted a different mofit in each color diamond and 

Angela Walters flower motif in the background. 

I got tired of quilting it but made it to the end.  I will probably not use it again background even though it creates and interesting texture.

      As I review the year's quilting projects, I finished 22 and worked on parts of a few more. Five were given to charity organizations and 11 for church comfort quilts. Four were gifted to family and friends which leaves 2 added to my supply at home.

No other projects are close to being finished in 2019 such as the leader/ender Jewel Box quilt in progress.

I still have one UFO that has been a finished top for at least 7 years. It will be a priority to quilt in 2020. A couple of QOVs have been requested and I want to make them. The rest of my list for 2020 is still developing.  If I look very hard, I'm sure I will find several WIPs that have been hidden away.  Several projects in progress have adopted blocks and one the whole kit. I plan to work on some but they will not be a priority.

Hope you are happy with what you accomplished in 2019 and look forward to a creative 2020.

Have a Happy New Year!

Enjoying the Holiday Season – Mostly

     Not a lot of sewing or quilting has taken place in the past week because I was enjoying time with family. The granddaughters and I spent an afternoon decorating small gingerbread houses as is our annual tradition.

 

    

       

I also went along for their visit with Santa.

Will cooked a great lunch and we celebrated out Christmas Sunday.  

     Monday I arrived back home to find that the deluge of rain had caused problems and I spent several hours of worry until it was resolved.  I am especially thankful for quick responding plumber who installed a new sump pump.

    This morning I was able to relax and actually finish the quilting and binding on this comfort quilt that was started before knee surgery so it was delayed by more than one issue.  I used a poly batting with some loft so it does not lay very flat. 

I chose red binding because I thought it went well with the front and backing.

This may be my last finish for 2019.

Hope you enjoy some special time with friends and family for the holiday season.     Merry Christmas !

Busy Week of Finishes

    My life is getting back to normal after knee surgery as I have done some quilting. Today  I have several wonderful finishes to share with one being mine. Wednesday was the last meeting of the year for my church quilt group. 

    Mary Ann brought 2 fabulous finishes.  Here is her Trip Around the World. She chose the colors from the border fabric.

She also finished this cowboy quilt from a kit which was pulled together to use some orphan blocks.

    I finished this lap size giant star quilt. The black background floral fabric came from a deconstructed unfinished skirt a member donated.

I'm linking up with Finished or Not Friday and Whoop Whoop Friday.     Hope you see some inspiration. 

 I hope all your holiday projects are nearly finished. Happy Holidays!

Finish and Work in Progress

      The past few weeks I have not spent a lot of time quilting.  Since the weather is cooler and we have had a couple of nice days of rain, I took the opportunity to work in my flower beds hoping they will be lovely next spring. 

       I have worked on quilting for my church group.  This one is quilted and just needs binding. 

I am counting it as finished even though I don’t have enough of the brown fabric for binding. I will find something.  

Here is a close-up of the quilting of each block.

I used a pastel variegated thread. I stitched in the ditch to move from one area to the next without breaking thread. It took planning to move to the next area with the shortest distance stitching in the ditch again. After I trimmed the quilt and took a photo, I saw one block that I had skipped the half feather above the fan so had to go back and quilt that.

       

      I quilted the diamonds of this giant rainbow star top and the faint blue marker is my plan for quilting free-form feathers around it. 

You can see the free-form feathers on a similar quilt in this post.

I enjoy quilting them but would like to find a new special quilting motif for large plain areas. Especially since I have 2 more of these giant star quilts to quilt. 

    I spent one day sewing a baby bunting for an expected great nephew.  The fleece is especially soft.   

   

I linked up with Alycia for Finished or Not Friday.  

Have a great day and enjoy some time sewing and quilting.

A Pile of Finishes

    A couple of months ago I decided to work on improving my curve piecing and started a couple of projects. I have finished my Strips and Curves quilt that was inspired by quilts of Louisa L. Smith. I used strings from my stash.

Here is a close up of the free-motion quilting.  I used the same motif in each unit. 

 

    I quilted this for my church group.

This was the first time I have used a loopy meander overall.

 It was pieced by another member.  The pattern is Fair and Square from CrazyMomQuilts blog.  You can get the free pattern here. 

    After making fabric postcards, I was inspired to make some fall mug rugs.  Here are some finishes. 

    Carole at FromMyCarolinaHome blog is hosting Autumn Jubilee again and sharing a variety of projects. Check out the new projects or ones from past years like this mini quilt that I just made. 

Directions can be found here and here.

I guess I need to post more often so I don't have so many different things at one time; but then I would have to take time from sewing. 

Hope you enjoy some time sewing or quilting.

Watercolor Block Play and Finishes

   Several years ago a church quilt friend passed and our group was given 4 yards of fusible grid interfacing that can be used for watercolor quilts.  I offered to demo the method for others.  I precut interfacing blocks and made up kits for the others to make a block or 2.  A few in the group did a block a few years ago.  Here is the quilt from 2016.

Today we were reminded of the importance of value as we laid out the blocks. 

    

        

Hope someone will be interested in doing more since we still have several yards of the fusible grid interfacing.

    A friend asked me to make a Quilt of Valor for his best friend who served during the Vietnam War.  It is finished. 

I hope it will be presented to him soon, but I don’t know when.

    When I made the border blocks, I also made two sets so another QOV can have the same border.

    In my efforts to finish up projects, I made 2 more placemats to go with 2 made a couple of years ago.  Now the 4 will make a nice gift along with a blue wrapped coil basket.

  

With our very warm weather now is a great time to stay inside and sew.  Hope you get to enjoy some time sewing or quilting.

I have linked up with Alycia for Finished or Not Friday and 
Sarah for Whoop Whoop Friday.  Check out the fun projects  others are working on. 

A Finish Plus a QOV Top

     I enjoyed trying many different free-motion motifs on this purple and green curves quilt.

I tried to use a different quilting motif in each pieced area but there are some repeats. 

 

Some were inspired by Angela Walters and others by Christina Cameli. 

    

   I added the Appalachian Mountain block border so one QOV is a finished top.  I could not think of how to do the corners so simply used a square.

    I used a new cutting technique learned from Debbie Caffrey in her Bluprint class “Cut To It: Strategies for Smarter Quilting”.  It saved a lot of time. I stacked units in levels and cut 4 at a time with ease and accuracy. Next time I will try stacking more layers.

     

Hope you enjoy time sewing or quilting.

I'm linking up with Alycia for Finished or Not Finished Friday
 and Sarah for Whoop Whoop Friday.  It is fun and inspiring to see what others are making.

A Small Finish and Other Progress

     This has been a week of work on numerous smaller projects. I finished this top last year and finally got it quilted and bond.  The piecing was inspired by a quilt by Wanda of ExuberantColor blog.   

          

I pulled out all my bright strings and sorted them by length.  Then I sewed strip sets from 5 ½”, 10 ½” or 20 ½” wide.  Next I cut whatever squares or rectangles I could.  I love the design and would like to piece more similar to it.  I don’t have a special child waiting for it so I can hold on to it and enjoy it for now.

    I have not tackled another big UFO but am trying to use up other small odds and ends.  I pulled some orphan blocks from church, appliqued some horses, pieced some simple 4 patches and Mary Ann volunteered to piece this top. 

   I pieced the border on my strips and curves top so it is waiting for quilting.

      One morning I woke early and could not get back to sleep so started sorting some red, white and blue UFOs. This is the mess that was stuffed into 2 bags.

 After sorting, some cutting and piecing, I have 20 scrappy blocks for a quilt.  I pieced another set of 20 simple nine patch blocks into this top.

 I plan a wide pieced border so they will both be a good size for a Quilt of Valor.  

     I uncovered 2 RWB blocks plus extra units that were class samples that finish at the odd size of 13 ½” plus another 5 RWB crumb pieced hexagon blocks.  Someday I will have to piece more or figure out how those can become quilt tops. That just left a small container of RWB scraps. Quite the improvement.

    While the RWB scraps were out, I cut and pieced these 4 blocks for a guild QOV project.

     

Hope you are staying cool if you are in the hot south and enjoy time sewing or quilting.

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict -Whoop Whoop Friday

Two Comfort Quilt Finishes

     I started this week busily quilting to finish up some projects and I have.  I finished the quilting on this comfort quilt. 

The pieced blocks were made from bonus HSTs adopted years ago. I still have a few I will give away or stuff in dog beds. I quilted the plain blocks using a template to mark quilting guide lines and a gold color thread. The pieced blocks are meandered with a variegated light green thread.  For the setting triangles I stitched half a feather motif. Here is a closeup of the quilting.

   Next I finished a comfort quilt using Pat Sloan’s free Oh My Stars pattern.

 I did change the size of the units from 4.5” finished to 6” finished for a little larger size quilt. For the binding I did not have enough of one fabric I wanted to use so decided to use a scrappy binding. Here is a closeup. 

Both of these quilts will go to church quilt group for our quilt ministry.  Now I hope to get the binding on my 4 patch swirl quilt for a another finish so I can tackle another UFO.

Hope you take time to enjoy some sewing or quilting.