Small people quilt

 Hi everyone! How is your summer going? Has it been too hot for words? Yeah, same here. We actually spent a couple of weeks visiting our grandchildren, and I hoped that the shores of a Great Lake would be cooler, but apparently that 'lake effect' thing was broken because it was sweltering.

 

Being the amazing grandma that I am, I took a sewing machine and a bunch of scraps and fat quarters with me to fill up some of our time on rainy days. They loved it! I let each of them make a small quilt any way they wanted and it turned out great! They really took to the lessons and enjoyed mashing down that foot pedal. They also showed remarkable color sense! Take a look at the three little quilts:

 

Aren't those great? If they look wavy to you, I swear it's the ground, because there was no way that I was going to let them turn out crummy, you know?

 

This one is from the 6-year-old:

 

The colorful strips are off-cuts from another project that ended up in the bag. She put them together in the order she wanted and used a couple of the white strips after I suggested it. I expected her to alternate the colorful ones with the whiter ones, but you can see she had her own ideas. I did let her 'help' stitch everything together, with her sitting in the chair and me off to the side. Not great for the back, but great for the kid! The quilting is just a few lines of the serpentine stitch. Check out little miss personality's choice for the back: 

 

 

This is the 8-year-old's quilt:

 

Stripes and florals! What great color sense! It's so funny because she was so precise and every square was put together individually in it's own place. A lot of short seams, but by the end I think she could have done it herself. I drew the quilting lines and she mostly followed them. (With lots of help and supervision!) There are a few wobbles, but I believe she may have natural talent. Here is her backing:

 

Those two are doll quilts, already well-used, but my 10-year-old grandson obviously was not going to make a doll quilt, so we're calling this small masterpiece a wall hanging. He and I use the Merlin app together, so he made a bird:

 

This was a blast to make. You'll see that he's quite a literalist, so we had to look up what a cardinal looks like and try to copy it exactly. He was quite directive and it took a little while to figure out how to do the black on the breast and the little cap on top. It took him a long time to choose the beak and the legs because apparently I need more colors. I did the quilting, except for around the green edge, which is all he was really comfortable with. He did give me a LOT of directions, though. It took some convincing, but I did get him to let me put a few 'feathers' on the bird, too. And look what he found for the back:

 

 

Serendipity! This is my favorite bird ever, and it was so much fun to watch him picking fabrics and giving me directions on where everything goes. (If you want to make birds, I used Lynne's tutorial, which is HERE.)  Two suggestions if you're going to sew with kids: use your walking foot, which prevents wrinkles and tears, and set your machine speed to slow, because they really do like to use that foot pedal.

 

But wait, Mari, don't you have four grandchildren there? Yes, but number four, an 8-year-old boy, was so completely uninterested it wasn't funny. Not his thing, but you should have been there to answer all his questions about how the machine works when I was cleaning it! He was amazed that I could take it apart AND put it back together.

 

Now that the scraps and I are home again, I have to finish off an absolute behemoth of a quilt for my nephew and his new wife. It's easy, but it's huge. He's 6'5" and she's 6'1", so it's king size. Huge! I am chaining myself to the sewing machine until it's done. Wish me luck.

 

Since it's still sweltering, here's a nice lake picture to cool you down as we cruise into August:

 

 

Have a great day, everyone!

 

Sharing at Alycia's for Finished or Not Friday. 

Small update, big blocks

 Hello all, and happy summer! I wrote today's post earlier and set it to post while the hubs and I took a bucket-list trip to Iceland, but it didn't post! And there I was in Iceland with only my phone and I'm too afraid to try posting using that. Ah, well. I hope your Memorial Day weekend was relaxing and meaningful. And please tell me that no one left the potato salad out in the sun!

 

As for me, well, we got everyone graduated and  I spent a few days getting stuff from the library to work on this summer, then I logged off, closed the door, and locked it. For some reason that felt amazing this year. And then I packed a bag and headed for Iceland, which felt even more amazing, if that's possible.

 

Of course I came right home after the library and caught up on my RSC blocks. Here are my pink and orange ones, although I've been thinking of them as raspberry and grapefruit. Am I hungry? Are you?

 

 

As you can see, I also planted some flowers in the planter box. We can see them from the living room and they are so cheerful! Heaven knows we need that around here. Now, someone tell me how to keep it from becoming a salad bar for the deer. I planted "deer-resistant" flowers, but somehow that never really means anything.

 

These blocks are huge and will finish at 16 inches, which means big pieces and easy sewing. This is the Fireworks pattern from Sew Preeti Quilts, and there are no templates, which helps my overwhelmed brain.

 

I pulled the other blocks out and took a "family picture" of sorts:

 

 

I plan on making 9 of the big blocks, so I am halfway finished! Hurray! I see that Angela has posted "pastels" for June's colors, which is great for June brides but not so much for my quilt. I don't think a pastel would look great with all those jewel tones. Maybe a yellow green that would look more like a peridot? Or a tourmaline kind of color? If you have a suggestion, let me know! 

 

Hope you all are enjoying the summer so far. I know for a lot of people it doesn't really start until the kids are out of school, and around here that's not for another two weeks. And because I mentioned our trip to Iceland, here is one of the astounding places we visited:

 

 

Bucket list indeed!  A little wet but worth it!

 

Sharing at Angela's for RSC26. 

Pink flowers and yellow blocks

 Hi everyone! I hope it's been a nice week where you are. We had a freeze a few days ago (!!) here in Maryland, but I have been too busy/ lazy to get any plants in yet so I was just cold, not traumatized. At least there was sunshine!

 

Continuing in my quest to keep on keeping on, I've made a few more things in the last couple of weeks. We're coming to the end of the semester, so 'just blocks' is okay with me right now. Take a look at the next step in the Angela Walters' Build a Quilt:

 

 

Check out those azaleas! Can you even see the block past those beauties? The bushes are really old and scraggly and every spring I think "I need to cut down those ugly bushes" and then they spite me by blooming really profusely. The deer have eaten them so only the tops bloom, so there are flowers kind of floating in mid-air on top of basically bare branches. Someday I will cut them down-- just before I move.

 

When I first showed the Build a Quilt blocks a couple of weeks ago one of my friends got a hold of me and told me she had gotten the Build a Quilt from last year, but she didn't like the fabric she chose so she never made it. Have you ever done this? Of course, you can't cancel, so she sent me the kits for all 10 blocks from last year. (Thanks El!)  I made the first three so far:

 

 

A little washed out in the sun, and not my favorite colors, but they look okay! I can at least get a charity quilt or something out of it. This is a better representation of the colors:

 

Not my favorite, but not bad! Like I said, probably a nice charity quilt. 

 

Just to end on something really pretty, I was out walking and took some pictures of the cool spring blooms and look what happened:

 

 

Serendipity! Truly one of the best pictures I've ever taken (except of my favorite people.) I never planned to get such a great picture, but sometimes things come together. These are apple blossoms on a tree down the street and I'm pretty sure I've never seen apples on it.

 

Everyone have a great week and a great weekend! I'm going to write a final exam today. Can you feel the excitement?

 

Starting blocks

Hi everyone, and happy weekend! First, thank you all for your kind messages from my last post. I really appreciate all the warm thoughts and encouragement. It was nice to read all of that and really do appreciate all your kindness.

 

So, I signed up for a block of the month from Angela Walters at Quilting is My Therapy, mainly because I liked the fabric. And sometimes when your brain is overloaded it's nice to have someone tell you what to do. I've finished two blocks, just in time for block three to get here:

Hey, look, our friendly garden turtle wanted to be in the picture too! He's waiting for flowers but it's not quite time for those yet. The blocks were easy enough and turned out nicely, and the right size, but when I opened the envelope, here's what I saw:

 

 

Usually, a BOM will have pieces of fabric with it, but this is the first time I've seen it as a panel with just enough fabric for you to make the block.  And I do mean just enough. There were some techniques in there that I don't use, but with this you must use those techniques or you won't have enough fabric. There's a lot of 'make it bigger and trim it down,' which I don't usually do, but not enough for me to make hsts the way I usually do. Block two was the same way. Is it weird, or is it me?

 

Oh well, it's only one block a month and they do turn out well.  I think I can take it.

 

We did have a few flowers just starting in the garden. Last year I transplanted a bunch of daffodils from the side of the property and one of them is now blooming:

 

 

Along with a very tiny bleeding heart:

 

 

They'll both get bigger, right? 

 

With that, have a very happy Easter if you celebrate, and a great weekend all the way around. Our daughter and granddaughter will be here and I might cook something, but I do have pizza in the freezer!

Hello again

 Hello all! Long time no see, as they say. It's been a while and there have been a lot of changes around here--some work related, some family-related, some health-related (see the note at the bottom of this post about that last one.) Too much to go into, really. But I thought I would give this another go. I've missed blogging, though I've been reading yours the whole time. You're all way more creative than me!

 

To get things started again, how about some Rainbow Scrap Challenge? This year I decided to make the Fireworks quilt from Preeti's shop, but with nine blocks instead of twelve. Here is my red block:

 

 

And just to catch everyone up, here are my first two, in blue and (kind of) green:

 

 

This is the right project for me right now because it is super-easy, requires no precision measuring, and is very forgiving. No templates, and the only matching is in the yellow centers. 

 

That's where that project is for now. I have a few more things I'm working on, mainly just blocks. I have a couple of BOMs I'm working on, because that's all I can really handle right now. I do have a couple of quilt tops that I'll show at some point. There is a LOT going on and I've got to stay within my bandwidth, if you know what I mean. And now for that note:

 

My husband has cancer, a bad kind that doesn't go into remission, and that means there is only one endgame. We're not at the end yet, but it's a heavy lift. So, yeah, not a lot of bandwidth. But I'm told I should do things that make me happy, and this is one of them, so I'm glad to be back!

 

What a downer! Just letting you know why I probably won't answer any comments, but I do appreciate them and I hope everyone has a good weekend. Here is a deer photo from off our patio a couple of weeks ago to cheer you up:

 

Sharing at Angela's for RSC 26.

On hiatus

Hello quilty friends! I was really hoping not to have to write this post, but here we are. Things have taken a turn, as they say, and I need to put the blog on hold for a bit. If you're a blogger, you know that it takes a bunch of time and energy (and sewing!) but I just don't have that right now. It's time to admit that I can't photograph and write and plan and also look after what I need to look after at the moment. So, I need to take a break.

Not quilty, but enjoy this calming mountain view!

Not to worry! I love blogging and connecting with all of you, so I will be back. I can't tell you when that will be, though. Probably a couple of months. I am turning off comments to keep the spammers and such away, but you can email me at academicquilter at gmail dot com if you feel like it. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer (or winter, depending on where you are) with lots of fun quilty projects.  See you soon!

Mari

Lit up from within

 Hello everyone! How's it going? I am very slowly getting better and I'm sure that the end of the semester will help a lot. Also helps that the trees have finally fully leafed out and there is shade and green everywhere. Also a ton of rain, but that's another story.

I have a finish to show today! What? Yeah, I sent this one out to Alycia and she did a great job with it, then I've spent the last three weeks putting the binding on. Baby steps. But it turned out so great! Take a look:

It glows, does it not? One of my neighbors stopped when I had it hanging up to take pictures and told me how much he liked it. That never happens! Note to self: finally get around to building that arbor in the back yard. . .

If you recall (and who can blame you if you don't?) I made this last year and it's just 3 inch finished squares arranged in various gradients. I actually started with a split 9-patch design, then added some more squares to one side and started twisting and turning things. I thought it would be a mess, but it absolutely isn't.

After all that fun on the front, I chose a pretty plain print from Connecting Threads (I think) for the back. It's not quite as humdrum as it looks, and when the quilt is tossed on a chair it actually looks quite nice. The binding is a blue and black floral that's been hanging around here far too long. It works for this quilt. I did a hand binding so that I could stitch a few inches at a time when I felt like it. I forgot how great a hand binding looks. I might have to find myself some more hand sewing. You know, to fill all that extra time I have.

 

Alycia quilted this with a check and chase style panto and I love how it turned out. So much texture! I was worried about the white thread on the dark blue, but it really doesn't look bad. I'm usually okay with a little light thread on dark, but I really dislike dark thread on light fabrics. Is that a weird thing? How about you?

So there we are, another fun finished quilt! I'm fairly impressed with myself because I've been absolutely exhausted and I still managed to bind this thing. I am feeling better a little at a time but it's still hard to get through a whole day. Mostly I've come home and collapsed every day. But at least I know now that I will get through it, however long it takes.

Ah, well! Have a lovely weekend, enjoy the spring flowers, and a Happy Mother's Day to all US moms, grandmas, and mom-like people. I hope you get unburned pancakes with your breakfast in bed!

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday and Quilting, Patchwork, Applique, too.

Some yellow, some purple

 Hello all! How have you been? I don't know how it is where you are, but wow the pollen has been amazingly bad this year. Everyone I know has itchy, watery eyes. And the cars turn green. And the sneezing, and. . . yeah, you get it. It is zero fun on top of everything else.

I have made a little tiny bit of progress on my RSC projects. Hurray! It's been hard but rewarding to work on the stitchy stuff, even if it's a little bit at a time. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a couple of nice quilts at the end, no matter how slow it is.  Since it's the yellow month for the RSC, first up are my yellow blocks:

                     

Oh, very cheerful! And will you look at those happy trees in the background? Even if they're shedding a bunch of pollen, it's like seeing old friends.

If you recall, I'm making Preeti's Granny Long Legs one color at a time. It's a really easy pattern, and would be even easier if I strip pieced it and made it like she wrote the pattern. Oh, well! Here are the purple blocks:

Purple and green always look so good together, don't you think? The whole quilt would look great in purple with a green background. An idea for later!

And of course, the blocks so far all together:

Yep, it's going to be a cute quilt! I skipped the red, but only because I didn't have the energy to sort through the red bin. I'll do those next and then whatever color comes after. I think it will really come alive with a few more colors. 

That's it for me for now. We are heading into final exams and my energy level is at an all-time low, except for maybe when I had newborns. I know I haven't answered the lovely comments you all have left, and I feel bad about that, but I just have no bandwidth right now. Please forgive me, and know that I appreciate every one. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and try to stay away from that pollen!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC24.

Full aqua hearts

 Hi everyone! How are you doing? I am getting a little better, but I still don't want to talk about it. I do appreciate the kind messages and comments, though, so thanks! I am really cheered by them, and by all the spring that is happening. We already had to cut the grass, after first getting all the sticks picked up. Danged trees! I do have some very happy news, though-- my sweet niece has had her baby! She had a cute little girl with a very old-fashioned name. I know she's very tiny, but I swear she looks just like her mama!

If you recall, my niece requested a baby quilt in 'aqua and gray and Harry Potter.' She got a lovely aqua heart full of love. Take a look:

It turned out almost exactly like it looked in my head. I feel like there is something 'off' about the heart, but I didn't have a pattern and I fussed with it enough. My niece loves it, and that's all that matters. As you can tell from all the wrinkles, I washed the quilt before I photographed it, because I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures first. Oh, well! I did iron it, but it didn't much help.

I couldn't bring myself to put gray on the back of a quilt for a baby, so instead I used these fun owls. If you know anything about Harry Potter, you'll know that owls are pretty important to the story, so I feel like they fit. And the quilt looks great on both sides, too.

But what about Harry Potter? Well, if you look very closely, you will find several things in the quilting, including:

A magic wand!

A Golden Snitch! (Which looks like baby Yoda, but oh well!)

And the part that made my poor niece cry. . .

"You are so loved."

There are several other things hidden in the quilting, but you get the idea. They aren't perfectly quilted, but they're meaningful to my niece and her husband, and that's what counts. All in all, it's a little unconventional, but the baby looks adorable on it, and she should be able to use it for quite a while, as it finished at just about 40 by 50. Can you get any better?

Hope you are having a good week! I'm getting better slowly, so I hope to see you again really soon. Take care!

Sharing at all the usual places. See sidebar for details!

Attention Baltimore quilters!

I was contacted by a lovely woman named Cindy who is the founder of Ryan's Case For Smiles, which makes and donates pillowcases for kids hospitalized for cancer. Sadly, the coordinator of the Baltimore chapter is retiring and they are looking for a new person to head this very active chapter. If you are interested, please contact dana (at) caseforsmiles (dot) org.

Thanks!

Spring is busting out

 Hi all! How are you doing today? Obviously something very big is up with me right now, as I haven't touched any fabric in weeks. Not taken one stitch. I don't want to talk about it right now, but I did want to pop in and say hello. So, hi! (waving wildly) Hope everything is going great with you!

Spring is busting out all over right now, and in addition to the pollen it has brought us some really pretty scenes. One of these is on the walk I take every day, and I just want to share it:

Forsythia, magnolia, dogwood! Don't they make a pretty picture? And do I need to mention that those would be some great quilt colors? The flowers and color are definitely raising my spirits. 

One other thing that's quite happy-- the daffodils on our hill are blooming, too:

Is there anything prettier than yellow flowers? Maybe pink, but there are no pink daffodils!

Hope everyone is enjoying spring, or whatever season you are entering. I am looking forward to warmer days, more sunshine, and longer days.

Take care, all! See you when I can.

Just a little late

Hi all! How are you doing? I have been very busy, and very tired. It's possible I'm overworked. This makes me no different from anyone else, but I am certainly feeling it right now. Also, I went to two-- two!-- big gatherings where I interacted with many people, and my introversion kicked in big time afterward. You know how you just want to curl up sometimes by yourself and read a nice book? Just me? Well, okay, then. . .

 

There has been sewing but not posting! Part of that tiredness thing, you know? I did finally finish my Stay at Home Round Robin quilt top, and I could not be happier with it. Here he is:

 

 

Yes, this quilt is a he, but isn't he handsome?  And, as usual, he turned out to be very different from what I expected. But I'm still very happy with how it turned out!

 

The Stay at Home Round Robin is a project run by Quilting Gail and friends, and you should definitely go look at the finished quilts at the linkup! Everyone gets the same prompts but they all turn out so different. I skipped the last prompt for this project, which was 'letters and numbers,' and opted for the border instead. It worked for me!

I messed up on the almost-last round with the pinwheels. The prompt was 'four,' and pinwheels have four parts, so that worked. What didn't work is that the Accuquilt die that I used was mismarked. The half-square triangles were supposed to be 1-1/2 inch finished, which would have made 3-inch finished pinwheels. Nope, they were 1-inch finished. Adjust, adjust! A little cutting and it worked out okay. Hey, maybe I can pretend those dots are really Os and then I will have gotten the last prompt, too!

This little quilt finished at just about 50 by 54 and will eventually be quilted and donated. It's just the right size for a kid quilt and I think the ships will be captivating for some young person. And do you see what else is that picture? Daffodils are coming!

I said that I went to two people-intensive gatherings, and one of them was Quiltcon. What a show! I went with Preeti and met some lovely people (Hi Emily! Hi Michelle!) and saw a mess of really great quilts that are far beyond my abilities. I have just two pictures from Quiltcon to show, and they're not of quilts! 

This was a double rainbow from our window at the hotel. I feel lucky to have seen it, and even luckier to get a photo!

 

 

And finally, a lovely camelia. Spring is on the way! 

A great big thanks to Gail and Wendy and everyone involved with the SAHRR. It was fun and a really nice quilt came out of it. And everyone have a great weekend! I'm off to finish grading some midterms, and then it's pizza for dinner. I love it when that happens!

 

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Quilting, Patchwork, Applique, and the final SAHRR linkup at Quilting Gail.

Another round for the house

 Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday! Halfway through the week, so everything after this is heading for the weekend. It is very loud here at my house right now. They are finally fixing the floor after our roof leak and there is a lot of pounding. There are four guys here and they all have hammers or nail guns. I know it will be worth it, but I really need somewhere to hide.

I have put another round on my stay at home round robin! This is a project by Quilting Gail and friends, and I think this is its third year. It's my third year, anyway. Here is the current status of my project:

Okay, it's looking better than I thought it would! I usually have no confidence in how things will turn out when I start them, other than 'that might be pretty.' This week's prompt was 'square in a square blocks,' and you can see mine right there in the corners. I started with the ships in the center and I'm pretty happy so far with how the rounds are turning out. And I'm really happy that those ships are getting used in something! I had so many ideas for them, but none actually came to pass, so I'm happy they are being used here.

Last week's prompt was triangles, but I really thought I had enough triangles in this little quilt already. Instead I added the golden yellow spacers to the top and bottom and decided to use the star fabric for whatever the next round was. The stars were left over from another backing, so so far everything here is a leftover or scrap. The blue square in a square blocks made great cornerstones and they also go nicely with that pretty yellow. 

At this point, my little quilt measures 42 inches square. Wait, what? How did that happen? I don't know, but here we are. There are two more rounds to go, so I think I will end up with a very nice toddler quilt, perfect for donation. 

Whatever the next prompt is, I'm ready! Hope your week is going well, and I hope the hammering is done soon. Then I will have a floor again!

Sharing at Songbird Designs for the SAHRR.

Still brown, but bright

 Hello all! How was your week? We had a decent week here. The weather has been more like spring than winter, though you can see from the pictures that we still have that winter landscape. I am really starting to long for spring, even though we have not had a very harsh winter. We're starting to get longer days, though, and the extra light is making me happy. I am looking forward to some serious sunshine not so long from now.

And in this still-brown winter landscape I have a very green quilt to show off! It's a bright spot, that's for sure. Take a look:

Is that not bright and happy? And scrappy as all get out, too.

I made this quilt last year during the purple month for the rainbow scrap challenge at Angela's blog. Just about every bit of it, including the backing, is a leftover or a scrap. I started out with the plan to use up all those leftover purple 4-patches. Long ago, I started to make Bonnie Hunter's En Provence pattern and instead ended up finishing it (much later) as THIS quilt. But it's the quilt project that keeps on giving, because this is the fourth quilt that has used up the pieces that I made for that quilt. Gosh I hope all those pieces are gone now!

If you notice, the green in the current quilt is the leftovers from the backing of the main quilt. I had to stitch some bits together to get it all to work, but it did work! I love this green and I think it works so well with those purple 4 patches. The backing is the final pieces of backings left over from other projects. I did cut the binding from a half yard I had, mainly because I was feeling too lazy to piece one together from scraps. Ah, well.

This was quilted in a nice swoopy design by Alycia, who did a great job, as always. It just ties all those weird bits together in a really nice way. Her blog is really interesting, too.

See that blue tarp on my neighbor's roof? A tree fell on it and there is a ton of damage, as you can tell from the size of the tarp.

So that's my bright spot in a brown, dreary February! I love how this turned out and am happy to have used up those purple 4-patches at long last. Now I can stop feeling guilty about them! That's as good a reason as I've ever heard for making a quilt.

Hope everyone has a lovely, relaxing weekend. I hope I do, too! I'll be packing up stuff and moving furniture so that we can finally have the floors repaired after the roof leak in December. I can't wait!

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Quilting, Patchwork, Applique.