Sunshine in the rain

 Hi everyone! I don't know about you, but we have started to get out and about some more, but not quite normal yet, and this week we traveled to our nephew's high school graduation. They held it in person! In a cicada-free area of the country, too. It was a bit like a family reunion, and most of us spent some time sobbing over lost time. It was so great to see my sister and niece and nephew, and my parents were there, and some siblings, too. And J. got safely graduated and is off to college soon, which was our whole reason for getting together. A great time was had by all. And did I mention the absence of big ugly bugs?

On the home front, I have been making really good progress on the quilt tops that are hanging in the closet, and today there is another one finished. Hurray! I have four others in various stages, but here is today's:

 

 

I've tried taking pictures during what they call "the golden hour," but it is so, so not working for me. Too many weird shadows. Plus we have had rain, so it's quite damp and I have to run between the raindrops to get decent photos. Can you see those threatening clouds at the top of the picture? Here is the quilt with fewer shadows:

 

That's a bit better. If you look closely, you can see some of the different blues in the setting triangles. This quilt was made in 2018 and 2019 and is from the Community Sampler offered by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell. The flimsy was done in February of 2019, so I think it has aged properly. I just checked and the patterns are all still available, and there are a few other free quilt alongs still listed, too, so you could make this quilt yourself.

 

 

The centerpiece of this quilt for me is the yellow fabric with roses, which is in several of the blocks. This might be my favorite fabric ever, and I only had a fat quarter of it, which was all used up in this quilt. There might be one tiny square left, but the rest of it was used up, which makes this a special quilt for me. I named it Hope for Spring, and I think the name still fits, even if it is summertime now.

 

As much as I love the front of the quilt, I also love the back! The backing is a bird print in a perfect blue color, which Diane the quilter was kind enough to run vertically. I know that sometimes this doesn't work, and I would have been okay if the birds had gone sideways, but this time it worked out. I auditioned several different colors for the binding, but went with this bright (but not too bright) green. I think it worked out, too.

 

The shadows make the quilting really apparent, but just for the record, this was quilted up in a pattern called loose leaf. I love this pattern because it's curvy and loose, which makes the quilt extra cuddly. This is important, because I am keeping this quilt for me. Yep, it's mine! I have plenty of other quilts, but this one is sure to become a favorite once the gray and cold makes its inevitable return.

 

So there is another bright and happy quilt, all done and out of the closet. Hurray! Speaking of getting quilts out of the closet. . .did you know that our friend Preeti has launched an Etsy shop with some real beauties for sale? You can find it HERE. Even if you aren't buying anything, it will certainly bring a smile to your face!

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. After the excitement of the last week, I think we're going to hang out here and do housekeeping-type things. That bathroom floor isn't going to scrub itself, after all. I went back and read my post about the flimsy, too, which mentions brownies, so I think I also feel inspired to make a pan of those. Maybe lemon ones! Perfect for a rainy weekend. Hope you enjoy your weekend, too!

 

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Brag about Your Beauties, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Hope for spring

Welcome to another weekend, everyone! Congratulations on making it through the week. This one was a nasty one, wasn't it? But we've made it through, so now it's time to look at pretty quilty pictures and maybe-- maybe-- have a gluten free fudgy brownie or two.  Don't forget some milk!

For the quilty pictures, today I want to show a very springy quilt top that I finally finished off.  Ready for something bright and happy to finish off the week? Here we go:

I just now noticed that this quilt is hanging upside down.  Oh well!  It's a little washed out, but I will not be complaining about the sunshine.  This quilt top came from a free quilt along from Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell, called the Community Sampler, and you can still find the free patterns on Sharon Holland's website HERE. It took me longer than it should have to finish the top, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. 

It was super nice and sunny when I took these pictures and it felt great. I mean, like there was hope that the cold and rain (and some icky ice we had, too) might actually end some day.  Then, of course, it started raining Thursday.  Sigh.

You can see that I had a favorite yellow fabric that I used in the centers of most of the blocks.  I had a fat quarter of that fabric forever and I never used it because I just loved it so much.  Plus I only had a fat quarter and sometimes that doesn't go very far when you're making a quilt.  It's from a pretty old line called Hartwood by Timeless Treasures, and I was so pleased to finally be able to use it in this quilt.  I have a couple of small squares left, but otherwise I used it all up, which we all know is a win.

I debated forever about the border for this quilt.  Sharon Holland had a great border design, but I just didn't like it for the colors I used in this quilt.  I auditioned several fabrics and different designs, including the greens and yellows in the blocks, but in the end I just finished it off with narrow strips of the blue background.  I also didn't have enough of one blue for all of the setting triangles that formed the background, so I used up a few lighter blues with about the same value.  I think they work pretty well together.  I might use one of the greens for the binding, or maybe the yellow.

Here's a hazard of taking quilty pictures in the spring:

Yep, mud.  The ground out there is very, very wet and the quilt top got dragged on the ground.  I was very sad, but it came right out with a little water. Thank goodness I didn't step on the top!  That would have been a tragedy.

Hope everyone has a really good weekend! Apparently we're going to have another temperature plunge, or maybe a roller coaster of temps.  I can't keep track any more.  All I know for sure is that there is a pan of brownies in the kitchen and someone is going to have to eat them.  Maybe I'll let the hubs have some, but maybe not!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Brag about your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty.

Needing some spring

Hi everyone! How is your week going?  We had a small snowstorm last weekend, which gave many students a bad excuse for missing the first day of classes.  I can't really blame them-- because who likes trudging through melty, gross snow?-- but really, they live a block away in the dorms.  It's not that hard!

I don't know about you, but as soon as the holidays are over I'm ready for spring.  Snow is great in December, but not so lovely in January.  Since I can't do anything about the weather, I've pulled out an unfinished project that uses pretty spring-like fabrics:

Yeah, the springy colors look a little odd against the snow, but don't they look happy?  This is the last block I had to make to finish off the Community Sampler, which was a summer project from Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell.  I have no real idea why I didn't finish this, except that I hit that wall where you have only a little bit left to do but it just seems impossible.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?

So, I've been working on the sampler, which is actually all cut out, so I have high hopes of finishing the top soon, plus I've been adding to these:

Yes, the blocks are in the snow, which is why everything looks a little blue. These are blocks for a quilt like Bonnie Hunter's Tulip Fields quilt.  My blocks are much bigger than hers, though, because I made these string blocks as an RSC project a couple of years ago and I wanted to use them up.  And yes, I cut mine across the strings instead of down the middle and I'm not sorry at all.  My quilt won't be exactly the same, but it will be equally cheerful and spring-like!

 That's pretty much all I've been working on since it's been a pretty busy week so far, but I do have a question.  I have a bunch of fabrics that I would call corals.  You know what I mean by coral-- not red, not orange, not pink:

I have a project in mind to use these fabrics, but I'm not sure what colors to put with them.  What colors would you use?  I'm thinking green, but maybe yellow as well, like in that small print piece?  Or would you stick with the cooler side and add in some blues?  I really don't know, but I do want to get started on the project. (Because I have no others to work on, don't you know.)

Thanks for any help you have to offer with those colors.  I hope you're all having a good week, and that you're not facing down another snow event. There haven't been many for us this year, but I'm already done with it!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social.