First flowers of spring

 Hi everyone, and welcome to the weekend spring begins-- hurray! It's been a long winter, and I am glad to see the end of it. At least I hope we've seen the end. Winter never seems to want to leave, and could still surpise us once or twice. But check out what is blooming on our hillside:

Yes, it's first daffodil of spring, and I am very, very happy to see it! And here's something else I'm happy to see-- a finished quilt:

There's a chance that this quilt has been done for a little while and was waiting for a binding, but that's not really relevant, is it? This is a quilt I called Cactus Flower, and was a pattern by Sharon Holland called Saguaro. I made this as a part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year. Unbelievably, I finished it last October and now it is a cozy finished quilt!

I really love how this turned out. It looks much better than expected, though it is really different from Sharon Holland's cover quilt. This quilt is all scraps and looks like flowers to me. I do love flowers, you know. It's quilted with Omni thread in a color called Cheesecake, and I'm telling you this because I now want to quilt every quilt with this color! It looked really yellow on the cone, but it blended really well with every color in the quilt. I really do want to use it for everything.

I long armed this quilt with a panto I got from a friend. It's called Loose Leaf from Urban Elements and I have had many quilts finished with this pattern. It always looks great, but there's a twist with this one. My friend wanted the pattern to be a different size, so she ordered it to be 10 inches, thinking that she would get it printed with two 5-inch rows. Well, no. She got one 10-inch row. So this is Loose Leaf in a really big size. But it went really fast and made the quilt nice and cozy!

The backing here is a neutral piece that I got somewhere and used up on this quilt. It's not exciting, but you can see the quilting nicely. I dithered on the binding, but then I just bound it in the same fabric as the border. It makes a nice frame and isn't distracting from the quilt's flowers.

This quilt finished at just about 65 by 65, and I'm donating it to Mercyful quilts for the Hands 2 Help Challenge. I really enjoyed making it, and it finished off light and soft, and I think someone would really find comfort in it. Everyone deserves beauty and comfort, especially at the end of life.

 

And that's the story of this quilt! Next week is spring break for me (happy dance!) and I have a longarming appointment to finish off the quilt that met with disaster from the messed up tension last month. It took forever to pick out all that bad quilting, and even longer to get all the stupid little bits of thread out of the quilt, but I think I should be able to finish it off this time. And I have another one I hope to finish, too. Just a ton of things happening, and those machines will be churning away!

Everyone have a great weekend. Hope you have warm breezes and some happy flowers coming up where you are, too! And just a note that Hands2Help signups start Sunday, so be sure to come back then!

Look at all those daffodils coming up!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, soscrappy for RSC22, and the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique.

Chains and waves

 Here we are at the weekend, thank heavens! It has been another difficult week around here, though the weather has been lovely. It was 52 degrees yesterday, and it might hit 60 today. I went walking in a sweatshirt, not a heavy jacket! It was wonderful. I understand it's supposed to snow on Sunday, but we'll deal with that when we get there. 

 

I actually have a finish today. You know how you can just start mindlessly pushing a quilt through the machine and it's repetitive and calming?  Yep, that's how I felt when I was quilting up this one. It was a nice respite from the chaos that was the week. Here's a look:

 

 

Well, that's fairly colorful and fun, isn't it? I made this quilt from last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks and just quilted it this week. I quilted it on my regular machine, Miss Rosie, and for the first time ever I used the serpentine stitch. Why haven't I ever done that before? It turned out great!

This whole quilt is made from scraps and leftovers, including the batting, backing and binding. The batting was pieced together from leftover batting strips. The backing is made from the leftover wide backing from another quilt, and the binding is also made from leftover backing. When I trim up a quilt, I often make binding from the trimmings. The side trimmings are perfect for this, and the bindings turn out great. And look, it's aqua-- the RSC color for this month. Bonus!

I am so happy that this quilt got finished. It was nice and meditative for me to quilt up, it looks great, and I got a second quilt back out of that leftover backing. That's a win no matter how you look at it. There's a small bit of it left, so it may also go into another quilt backing as well. 

Another thing to be happy about-- this will be one of my donation quilts for this year. As happy as I was to make it, I'll also be happy to give it away to someone who could use a quilt. Can't you just see this wrapped around a teenage girl? I can, and I know for sure it will absorb lots of those teenage tears, too.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and that you get some stitching in, too. I'm hoping for good weather on Saturday so we can go get some takeout (which we all know is my favorite meal) and run some errands, and then it can snow on Sunday if it wants. All the better to enjoy some nice warm cookies and tea, right?

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique, Oh Scrap! and soscrappy for RSC22.

Clouds of stars

 Hi all, and happy weekend! I have finished my grades for the semester, so now my brain is mush, but I feel pretty good. I taught a course called Death and Dying this semester, and I cannot tell you how happy I am that that is finished! I won't have to think about it again for three years or so, plus I can now fully enjoy the sparkly lights and happy songs. It's something like 60 degrees outside, so the effect is a little muted, but I am loving it anyway.

Today I have the last finish of 2021 to show off. Can you believe this year is ending? Me either! I thought it would never get out of here, but now it can't wait to leave. And here is what it's wrapping up in at the end:

 

 

It's the Ohio Star quilt that I finally quilted up into something nice and cozy. I love how old fashioned it looks, but still pretty contemporary. 

I made this quilt as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge at soscrappy. I know it doesn't look like a rainbow quilt, but it really is! I made three blocks a month in the color of the month, and then put them together earlier this year. Since this is a scrap quilt, I kind of threw everything in there for the setting squares and it turned out. That always surprises me.

I quilted this myself with a pantograph called Cotton, which is really curvy and easy to follow, and gives the quilt a great texture. I'm getting much better at the long arming thing and I want to try some more complex pantos. The ones I have look so good, though, and this one went pretty fast. 

I used a green wide print for the backing, and then dithered for a while about the binding. I wanted to use the border fabric as a binding, but there were only a few scraps left, so I auditioned several choices, mostly blue and green. They all clashed terribly. I happened on the red and it looked pretty good to me. A surprise, but a good one!

I think my mom would like this quilt, so I'm going to offer it to her, and if she doesn't want it, it's going to live here for a while. What a tragedy that would be, right?

And that's a wrap for 2021! We have a lot of merry-making to do, and no one has cleaned this place in a while, so maybe I'll start on that. And I think some people may be expecting Christmas cookies and other goodies, too, so there's another thing to do. In fact, that sounds yummier than cleaning!

Thanks for coming along on the ride that was 2021, and I hope all of you have a lovely, restful, and peaceful holiday, whichever one you celebrate. It's been a rough year, so everybody take care of yourselves, and come back for the year end round up post next week.

Happy holidays!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, Patchwork and Applique, Oh, Scrap, and soscrappy for RSC 21.

Cactus Flower in the rain

 Hello all! So, I tried and tried and tried to get pictures of today's quilt so that I could post it on Friday, but would the weather cooperate? No, it would not. It has been raining for days, and yesterday was incredibly wet. It just would not stop, and it's still drippy and gloomy this morning. Nothing you want to take a quilt outside in. Some coastal areas in Maryland flooded, and you should have seen the little stream at the back of our property. It turned into a lake!

 

So, I didn't get pictures until just now, and they're damp. Ah, well, it's still a good-looking quilt top, however damp it is:

 

 

Hurray, it's a picture! This is the completed top made from the Saguaro blocks (pattern HERE) that I've been working on for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at soscrappy, and I am so, so happy to have it finished. This means that I have finished off two whole quilt tops from the RSC this year!

You might notice that this top does not contain all of the colors in the RSC. Here's the thing-- I pulled the blocks out and put them up on the wall, fully intending to make some orange blocks and then maybe a few others to fill out the quilt top, and then suddenly, I just didn't want to. I love stitching, and I love when a quilt is finished, but I just didn't want to make any more blocks. Do you ever feel that way? I think it turned out well even without a few of the colors, and I like the overall vibe.

Anyway, I counted and I had 25 blocks, which would make a nice quilt in a good size. I don't really go for square quilts, but I didn't want to either make more blocks or leave one out, so a square quilt it was. This finished at just about 66 by 66, which is bigger than I thought it would be, so I'm happy. And really, does this look like a rainbow quilt?

 

 

One pattern change that I made was to add some more of my scraps to the big blank areas. Putting the blocks together left big empty white spaces, so I used some of my prints-on-white scraps to make stitch and flip corners that came together in the centers. This broke up the big spaces and used more scraps. Hurray for that, because I never know what to do with those prints.

 

 

The pattern doesn't call for a border, but I felt that the quilt looked unfinished without one, so I auditioned a bunch of different fabrics and landed on this one. Are you surprised? I was! I would not have picked this in a hundred years, but I think it looks great with this quilt, kind of like a frame.

So, one more quilt top in the win column! I finished two RSC quilt tops this year, and I feel like that's a good RSC year. I still have far too many scraps, but I do have a plan for next year, and it involves very complex calculations, lots of math, and drawings. . .just kidding, of course! Still thinking about next year.

I admit I took this picture just to show the trees in the background. It's raining, but that makes them look so good!

Everyone have a wonderful weekend! I hope it is drier where you are than where I am! 

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC21, and also Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and the Patchwork and Quilts linkup on Sunday.

Circling the squares

Hi everyone! I can't believe it's October, can you? The weather has definitely taken a cooler turn, which is nice, but we have no turning leaves yet.  We do have leaves all over, though, because our neighbors had some gigantic trees taken down over the last couple of days. When I say gigantic, I mean really, really tall. They brought in cranes and everything. It was quite the project.

 

I had a project, too, though it did not involve cranes or leaves, and only a tiny bit of drama. And it turned out much prettier than a pile of branches and sticks! Here she is:

 

 

Like I said, prettier than a pile of sticks! This is my second hollow 9-patches quilt, made from scrap squares for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I made the top in the "before times," in 2019, which seems like so long ago, doesn't it? If only we had known what was coming. . .

 

 

I am so happy with this quilt, and not just because it's so bright and cheerful. I rented free time (not lessons) on the longarm and quilted this up myself. (I also quilted another one at the same time, but that will have to wait just a bit for its debut.) As always, it was more fun than a box full of scraps, and I came home with a finished quilt, which is just the best.

 

 

Look at those great colors! I tried to quilt this all over with circles in various sizes, but some of them are more circle-ish or only suggestions of circles, more like ovals, really. Some of them overlap a bit, but most of them are separate. I had a little trouble in a couple of spots, since I quilted myself into a corner, so to speak, and had to make some very, very small circles to back myself out of it. But that's why we use blendy thread colors, right? Since this was my first shot at making circles, I feel pretty okay about how they turned out. If nothing else, it makes a nice texture.

 

 

When I was quilting this, there was another quilter using the other machine, and we spent some time admiring each other's quilts and encouraging each other. It was great! When I was feeling bad about my flat circles, she picked me up, and when she had to rip some backing that had folded over and gotten quilted in, I commiserated. I can't even tell you how good it felt to be with a kindred spirit. Plus, it helps to know that I'm not the only one who screws up when stitching. 

 

 

Every bit of this quilt except the backing is a scrap, including the binding. The backing is a really pretty gray and white print that I bought for something else, but that didn't work out too well, so it was available for this quilt. I know, I actually bought gray and white fabric, but like I said, it didn't work out!  

 

I am thrilled to have this one quilted up and out of the closet, and I am so, so pleased that I'm making so much progress in that area. I might be trying to make up for last year, when it feels like I got nothing done. Anyone else have that feeling? 

 

 

Hope you all have a lovely fall weekend, filled with fall-themed goodies. Is it cool enough for hot apple cider, or should I wait? How about pumpkin pie?  Maybe pumpkin donuts! Thoughts?

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished or Not Friday, Oh Scrap, and soscrappy for RSC21.

Chained together

 Hi everyone! It's another weekend, and I'm told that it's officially the last weekend of summer, since fall starts this coming week. Wednesday, I think. I can believe it's still summer, because it has been really warm here. And raining. Today's pictures are weird because the light was all strange, mainly because it was about to rain again. And it's raining again this morning, too.

In stitching news, I have finished off the Color Chain quilt top for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge! Here she is:

 

 

See, it's super wet outside. I know there are a couple of months left in the RSC, including this month, which should be orange. Here's the thing, though-- I took out the blocks to make some orange ones to add to it, and I put the existing blocks up on the design wall. And the quilt told me it was done! It was a good size and plenty colorful, so I could just assemble it and be done. Sold!

 

 

I did add in a little bit of orange with some cornerstones, and there is one in a bright green, too, which I think might be our last color for the year. I thought the cornerstones made the chain effect even better, and who can resist throwing in a few more scraps?

 

See the leftover raindrops?

The hardest part of putting this quilt top together was choosing a border. I wasn't going to have a border, but it looked pretty washed out without one. (If you look closely, you can see that there is some orange in the border, too, and plenty of green.) Somehow, multicolor brights never look good with my RSC quilts. They always seem to clash, but I auditioned a bunch of others and settled on this one. I think it works fine.

 

Unbelievably, that means that I have finished off one of my RSC quilts for this year! Hurray! This will become a donation quilt and will likely get quilted next year. That means it's not unfinished, just waiting its turn. Right? And speaking of unfinished projects. . .have you all seen THIS? 

 

 

Leanne at Devoted Quilter is running a WIPs Be Gone challenge for the last 100 days of 2021. Unbelievably, next Thursday is the first day, because that will kick off the 100 final days of this year. Who knew? She has a lot of prizes included and it looks like fun, so consider jumping in if you'd like. Heaven knows I have plenty of unfinished things around here. . .

 

The dampness makes it look really sad and saggy, but I promise it's a happy quilt!

 

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. Remember that it's officially still summer, so you could totally justify a quick trip to the beach!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC21.

A quilt to end the summer

 Hi everyone! Well, we made it through the first week of school and here we are, suddenly a few days into September. 2021 is now in its last quarter. Yikes! And right on schedule, we had a huge storm and the temperatures and humidity dropped lower than they have been in ages. It feels great out there today. Plus, I'm happy to report really good compliance on mask-wearing and distancing from my students so far. Hurray!

I have a finished quilt to show today, and it's a quilt from earlier this summer. I saved it just for the end of summer, because I knew this would be a very hectic week, and because this particular quilt makes a great wrap-up to the season. Here she is:

 

 

Earlier this summer, my sweet niece Annie got married! I can hardly believe it, as I still think of her as about five years old. They had postponed the wedding twice because of Covid, and they were finally able to pull it off. Thank goodness they did, because they managed to squeeze it in before the Delta variant surged, though nobody knew that then, so a lot of us were able to go and dance at their wedding, including my parents.

 

 So, since my niece was getting married in a vineyard (in an area along Lake Erie which is full of vineyards and mostly grows Concord grapes), I decided not to take any pictures here at home, but wait and take pictures of the quilt in the vineyard. Those would be great pictures, right? Very pastoral and beautiful. 

 

 

Uh, no. You guys, grape vines are waaay taller than they look from the road. And they're attached to weird wire fences that did not look like anything that I wanted to put a wedding quilt on, plus it turned out to be quite windy. Plus, they have actual grapes growing on them, which can get crushed and get all over the quilt. So we have some odd pictures, but they still work, right? Here's the best one with the grapevines:

 

 

Yep, I had someone hold it, and it still blew all around. Ah, well. It was an idea, but not a great idea. At least you can see that they had a beautiful, though breezy, day! The rest of the pictures are also from various spots around the vineyard property, which was quite lovely.

 

I made this quilt as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at soscrappy. I made the blocks in 2018 and finished the top in 2019. All of the fabrics except the backing and sashing are scraps. I had promised it to a friend, but a while ago she graciously relinquished her claim, since she has plenty of quilts. When I got the news about Annie's (original) wedding date, I knew it would be perfect for her, and I sent it off to my friend Diane to be longarmed. As a bonus, the quilting panto is actually called meandering stars!

Needless to say, Annie and her new hubby were thrilled with their gift and started using it immediately, which is what we all want for gifted quilts, right? I don't know him very well, but the bright colors and happy layout certainly fit my niece. And we all know that's who has to be pleased, right? 

 

With a happy quilt for a happy bride and groom, that wraps up the summer! I can hardly believe we're at the end. Overall, it was a good time for me and let me reset my overworked brain. I still got a lot done, and I'm happy with how we're heading into fall. And I'm almost looking forward to some much cooler temperatures, though we all know what that leads to, right? (Hint: it starts with "s" and makes a very slippery mess!)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Labor Day weekend. I plan to relax and maybe hang some new curtains, and the hubs and I may go for a small picnic. I might even sneak in a few stitches here and there. I didn't post any wedding pictures here, mainly because they're full of people I don't know who might not like their pictures posted, but I do want to end with a picture of the bride's beautiful flowers, which were made by my cousin and were definitely not scraps. Enjoy the weekend!

 

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, soscrappy for the RSC, and Oh, Scrap!

Just three more

 Hi everyone! It's the last weekend before school starts for me, and I'm nervous as all get out. We had a ton of meetings this week (ugh) and by the time the last one was finished there were students on campus. Actual living students, right there on campus! It was thrilling, like the campus is alive again. We require vaccines and we all have to wear masks, but I still don't know whether to be happy or terrified about going to class. What a strange world this has become.

Thankfully, the sewing room remains its messy self. I've come to believe that the one constant in life is scraps. They never really go away, and the more you use, the more you make. In that vein, I've made three more Saguaro blocks for the RSC this week:

 

 

All of those meetings meant not a lot of stitching time, but I'm glad I was able to eke these out. I love aqua and turquoise, and choosing the fabrics for these was kind of hard. I think I made decent choices, though. 

I counted all of the blocks that I've already finished, and I have 22, including the new aqua ones. I can either make three more and have a square quilt that is at least 60 by 60, or make eight more and have a quilt that's at least 60 by 72. I'm pretty much ready to be done, so I think I'll just make three more, whenever we get to orange. (I know I could just make two more and have a quilt that's 4 blocks by 6 blocks, but that's 48 by 72, a bit long and skinny for me.)

 

I didn't do any other stitching on the RSC projects, but I did have a little retail therapy arrive, in the form of some wide back fabrics, shown above. Look at the size of those dots! That was a real surprise, though overall the fabric is really pretty. I'll find something to use it on, though it won't be a small project. Speaking of retail therapy, don't forget to hop over to Bernie's shop for her retirement sale, where the fabric is now 30% off. Still a lot of bargains!

Hope you all are having a good weekend! Enjoy these last few days before school, because after that comes fall. Maybe it will cool off by then!

 

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC21.