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.

Two rounds

 Hello all! How have you been? I'm doing okay. Classes are well underway and I'm already giving quizzes. Yeah, I'm that kind of professor. And hey-- apparently I'm in Blogger jail! I can't comment on any Blogger blogs. I just tried and it first refuses to 'sign me in' (even though I'm already signed in) and then when I try the other ways it tells me either that my comment failed or that I'm insecure. Okay, maybe the comment is insecure. It's unclear. So I'm sorry that I haven't commented on your lovely creations! Anyone know how to get out of this, or is it just a 'wait it out' kind of thing?

Anyway, all I've had time to work on for the last few days is the Stay at Home Round Robin from Quilting Gail and friends. Here's where I am after two rounds:

The first round, from Wendy, was the signature blocks, I made three sides in red and the bottom in blue. Do those blue ones not look like choppy seas? I added the green borders just to bring everything up to a 'normal' size. It was 36-1/2 by 26-1/2 after that first round.

 

 

Wondering about that odd red thing in the center of the upper red row? I couldn't make the math work for the red signature blocks to fit properly, so I made a piece a little bigger than the other blocks to fit in the middle and space everything out so it looked decent. I didn't really figure on the nice way it fits with the signature blocks, but it works!

The prompt for the second round was 'two colors' and I thought this was a great opportunity to use some leftover quarter square triangle blocks. The blues aren't as light as they look in the picture, and we can just pretend they're fog rolling in to the harbor or something. These blocks are 4 inches finished and I am so thrilled to use them up. 

So that's where this project stands! I'm hoping to stitch some things this weekend, and maybe send off another quilt top for quilting. Or maybe I'll just put my feet up and read a book until I figure out how to get to make comments again. Have a great weekend everyone!

Sharing at the SAHRR linkup and Finished or Not Friday.

Centered and quilty

 Hello all! How many quilts are you sitting under right now? It is seriously cold here in Maryland right now and I'm just sitting here crossing my fingers that someone moves our upcoming big work meeting to Zoom. Too much to hope for? Well, today I shoveled snow for the first time in literally two years, so I'm feeling entitled to hope for that.

I just have a couple of updates today. I know I told you about the Stay at Home Round Robin by Quilting Gail and Friends, and it starts this week! You can get more information about the whole project right HERE if staying at home and sewing sounds pretty good to you. The first step is to choose a center block to start with, and here is mine:

Okay, that's more of a center panel than a block, but I'm using it anyway. I made this a long time ago and I had so many ideas for it, but none of them ever got done. So why not use it now? And can you tell I was really, really motivated to take an outdoor picture? Look at that snow! This block measures about 19-1/2 by 28-1/2, which is kind of big to start with. The rounds don't have to go all the way around, though, so I expect I'll be putting a few on the top and bottom and not all around. Some will go all around, though, don't worry!

The other thing I've started working on is the Dot to Dot Quilting Challenge from Angela Walters at Quilting is My Therapy. Unbelievably, the videos and some of the extras are free, and you can get all the information right HERE. 

Angela is selling a couple of practice panels, but I have a ton of medical bills to pay from this past year, so I pulled these two pieces out of the closet:

 

 

These have a lot of the same shapes as her panel and are good sizes for me to handle (the bigger one is about 36 inches square) so I think they'll work out.  I basted them and was brave enough to quilt in a couple of triangles so far, and I'm pretty pleased. I figure I'll get some practice and learn a few new things, and get a couple of pieces out of the closet as well.

That's life in the sewing room around here right now. We're going to get more snow, so I had better locate that heating pad and be ready to shovel again! Stay warm, wherever you are!

It's a little windy as well as snowy!

Sharing at the SAHRR linkup at Quilting Gail.

Another dose of Mercy

Hi all, and happy weekend! It has been a warm week here, and today it is supposed to be about 95 degrees. Yikes! It's only early June! We might get some rain, too, which is great because the grass is already turning brown. Thankfully, I have not yet shriveled in the heat, but I'm eating popsicles and drinking iced tea just in case. Wouldn't want to take chances!

 

You know what's a good place to be when it's very warm outside and you really can't be out there planting anything? In a basement sewing room, that's where. So you know where I hid out for much of this week. And look what happened while I was down there:

 

Yes, another finish! Happiness abounds, especially because this quilt gave me a few fits in the quilting process. It may not look like it, but this was a beast. And it took three bobbins to finish!

 

Some of you may remember this quilt from earlier this year, when I made the top during the Stay at Home Round Robin, a quilt along by Quilting Gail and friends. It was a fun project and I got a great top out of it. I knew all along it would be a donation quilt, and I'm quite pleased now that it's all finished and ready to send off.

 

Because there was so much going on in this quilt top, I decided to quilt it in straight lines so that the piecing could be the star. Truth be told, I also thought it would be the easiest for me to do because the quilt is about 62 by 72 and that's a bit big for me to wrestle with. Lines across the width of the quilt was probably the easiest way to go, but that was still a lot of quilt.

The problem, of course, is that this quilt did not have a grid of any kind that I could follow across the quilt, and that made everything extra hard for me, because my brain is very strange and just kept wanting to slide over and follow some seam lines. I ended up marking the first line across the quilt and then using the space bar attached to the walking foot. I still had to wrestle, and I still had to pay really close attention. I did rip out a couple of partial lines and start over. In the end, it did get finished, though. Hallelujah!

The backing for this quilt is a wideback piece with a pale beige leaf, and the binding is the same blue that is in the quilt. Every part of this quilt is a scrap or a leftover, except the binding, which comes from a saved half yard. I washed the quilt and it came out very soft and cuddly and overall worth the trouble to quilt it. 

Oooh, artsy!

This quilt is bound for Mercyful Quilts, which benefits a palliative care unit. Our friends Bernie and Preeti have just started the Positivity quilt along, which also benefits Mercy, and you can find all the details and links right HERE. It's a very cool and easy pattern, and you should definitely join in!

So, another quilt is in the books! Hope everyone has a great weekend and doesn't melt out there! I may wrestle yet another quilt through the machine. I've got it basted and everything threaded up, but there are some chores I have to get to as well. And those popsicles won't eat themselves, either!

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

Scraps all around

 Hi everyone! I hope you have had a good week. I am starting to see some leaf buds on our trees, and I am happy dancing like crazy over that. Soon there will be leaves! That means there will be shade over the balcony and the deck again, and at some point it might get warm enough to have breakfast outside again. Won't that be glorious?

 

If you have been following along, you'll know that I started the Stay at Home Round Robin, a project hosted by Quilting Gail and featuring several of my favorite bloggers. (waving wildly to Roseanne and Sue, Wendy, Anja, Emily, and Chris!) Astoundingly, I have finished the round robin quilt top! Take a look:

 

You know, I had my doubts, but I think I like it! The center block is a panel that I have had for a long time, and the final border is a coordinating print, which I cut lengthwise for the side borders. I had folded the receipt in with that yard of fabric, and it appears that I bought the panel and coordinating yard in 2008. Yeah, time to use them up.

In addition to the round robin challenge, I challenged myself to use up a specific set of scraps that I had saved that went pretty well with the center block. I used up a whole lot of them and only have a few squares left, which is a huge win in my book.

 

Because I only had small pieces left by the time I got to the end, I made the final pinwheel round as spinners instead of pinwheels made with hsts. I only had big enough pieces to make a few, but I think they work scattered in with the bird fabric. I also used up a ton of leftover 4-patches, and man am I happy to see those used up!

This quilt measures just about 60 by 70, which is perfect because I wanted a top big enough to donate. Because there is so much going on in this quilt, I'm thinking of just quilting it with straight lines across. Or do you think a serpentine stitch would look better? Or meandering? Now I'm confused. . .let me know what you think!

So yay me for finishing this, using up those scraps, and having something that I'll be able to donate, too. I feel very accomplished about this. Before I sign off for the weekend, I have to show you one more thing:

An entire herd of deer in a field near us where an old house was torn down! It was quite the majestic sight!

Hope you all have a great weekend! They're predicting rain for us, mixed with snow. I guess winter isn't done with us quite yet!

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

Playing a round

 Hello all! I hope your week is going well. I've had a bunch of tests in the last couple of days so I'm a little worn out, but it has been quite warm for February, so that's a small compensation. While out walking I've seen things already starting to grow and a bunch of trees that are starting to leaf out. That also means that allergies are already growing, but I'll take it in exchange for some flowers any day.

Today I have an update on my Stay at Home Round Robin quilt. This is a fun project, but I'm always behind, so I haven't had a chance to show my work yet.  Here we go:

Okay, I think I like it so far! I'd make those spools a different color, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with it so far. Because I started with a big center block and wanted a lap-sized quilt that I could donate, this quilt now measures about 44 by 52.

This is my quilt through round 4, and round 5 is currently in progress. By far the hardest round for me was the stars round, mainly because I decided to make those complicated stars. They were paper pieced and then put on point, making that border 6 inches wide. They look great, but they took a while to make.

 

I've made some of the square in a square blocks for the next round, using the biggest pieces I have left of the scrap fabrics I'm using. These will finish at 3 inches square. I chose this size because I'm hoping to combine these units with these other leftovers:

These are leftovers from the same quilt as the pink triangle in a square parts that I'm using for the rainbow scrap challenge this month. I have at least 80 of these, and probably more if I look in all the nooks, crannies, and bins around here. I swear I really did make a quilt that used a whole bunch of pieces, just not the quilt I started. You can see that quilt HERE.

So I'm still a bit behind, but at least I have a plan to catch up, and I'll use those pieces up, too. Hurray for that! I'm hoping for a very easy final border so that I can find a way to use up the rest of those scraps, too. I'll leave you with this very encouraging picture:

Daffodil shoots! There will be flowers soon! Enjoy the rest of the week!

Sharing at the SAHRR linkup at the Darling Dogwood.

Triple project updates

 Hi everyone, and happy February! Are you caught up in the ice storm that is sweeping the country right now? I hope not, and if you are, I hope you are safe. We are not in the path of the storm, but that didn't stop our furnace from giving up the ghost. We had a very shivery night because they needed a part so it couldn't be fixed right away, but it did finally get fixed. $1700 later, it should be good for another long while now.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a few different projects at the same time. As always. First, there is the Stay at Home Round Robin:

 

This is my finish of the first round, which was spool blocks. Not my favorite block! But it turned out all right and made a nice chain at the top and bottom to turn my center into a rectangle. This now measures about 32 by 24 and is ready for the second round, which is stars. I'm working on them! They're multicolored and very festive.

I also started finally doing the final assembly on this quilt, which I started last year for Hands2Help:

I don't know why I never finished this. I think there was just a lot going on right then and it just got pushed to the side. Sarah is starting up Hands2Help again this year, and I'm here to tell you that it's a lot of work, so give her as much support as you can. I'm hoping to have this one all finished in time to donate for H2H this year. The pattern for this quilt, such as it is, can be found right HERE.

The last thing I'm working on today is yet another repurposing of old blocks:

Not a great picture, but you get the idea! I made the strings a LONG time ago and used some of them in a different project (still unquilted--sadness!) but was left with a whole bunch of string half-blocks. There they sat (because I can't throw anything away) until I saw the Heading North pattern by Sandra at mmmquilts. I knew I would use this layout, so I purchased the pattern and here we are. My blocks are a little smaller than Sandra's but I love it already. I also have a cool idea for making it a bit bigger. We'll see how it works out.

And there we go! Everyone stay warm and safe. I'm leaving you with a picture of the ancient heater cover in my office. I think it would look great as a hand quilting pattern, don't you?

Sharing at the SAHRR and Midweek Makers.

Centering a block

 Hi all! How is your week going? I've been getting ready for the start of classes, so I've had a lot of computer time. And today I requested like a dozen books from the library, so I had some fun in there, too. Not all of them are fun books, some are for work, but some are for reading on the sofa on a rainy January day.

For the last couple of years, Quilting Gail and some friends have run a fun project called the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR). The idea is a lot like round robins, except you work on your own quilt and don't mail it anywhere. There are different borders to work on each week, and it does require some creativity to interpret the border for that week. I'm not explaining it well, but you get the idea! I wasn't sure I was going to participate this year, but it's fun and interesting, so I am jumping in. Here is my center block:

Wow, it's a big one! It's about 20 inches square, I think. For the last couple of years I've started with a printed block and the quilts turned out great. (Check them out HERE and HERE.) I have had this panel for a long time and it's time to get it used up. This was part of a kit that I never made, though the fabric was quite pretty. I'm going to use this lovely pile of scraps, which coordinate pretty well:

Not my usual colors! But I have the fabric, so I might as well use it, right? The other two quilts were donations, so I hope this one becomes a larger-size donation quilt. There is a big donation event coming up later in the spring, if I remember right.

The other thing I'm working on is is getting that blue bin emptied. This is where my pieces are right now:

I'm almost to the end of that bin! Hurray! Hope you're all having a wonderful week, and getting some stitches in. Classes start pretty soon, so I better go and get my stuff ready! 

Sharing at Quilting Gail for the SAHRR.

Dinosaurs on parade

 Hi everyone! How was your week? We are on spring break this week, and I had plans to get a lot done. Spoiler alert-- I did not get a lot of things done. I did do some grading, and I cleaned a bunch of things, but that doesn't really feel like progress, you know? 

 

Here's one thing I did get done-- I finished up and bound my little quilt for the Stay at Home Round Robin, run by Quilting Gail and other quilty friends. Amazingly, I kept up this year and even finished on time! Here are the dinosaurs:

Colors always look so vibrant in the rain, don't they? I am so pleased with this little quilt, which finished at 40 by 48. I had a lot of fun with this. Look at those dinosaurs! How can anyone be unhappy working on those cuties? As a bonus, I used up that panel, and I also used up a bunch of star fabrics that were quite old but still very cute. 

 

 

There were several rounds on this quilt, and my favorite was probably the stars, which look like pinwheel spinners if you're of a certain mind. These really set the quilt apart, I think, and I love how cheerful they are.

 

 

Of course, my very favorite part is this little blue dinosaur. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to him when I donate this quilt.

 

I quilted this in a panto pattern called Seamless, which is very simple and went very fast, and was very fun to quilt. It's a lot of swoops and swirls, and it's good practice, too. I used a pale yellow thread, which blended pretty well with everything.

The backing is actually an Easter print, though you couldn't really tell. I had to look really close to see that those are Easter eggs, not polka dots. It's really colorful, though, and I got it on clearance for $4 a yard, plus it was perfect for this backing. And check out that snappy bright pink binding! I just love it.

 

 

This quilt is bound for donation through Hands 2 Help. I think some child will really love it, and it's cheerful and friendly, too. It might be tough to put this one in the box to send off, but better in a child's hands than in a project box, waiting for nothing, right? It's definitely time for this to be loved.

Hope you all have had a lovely and productive week, and have an even better weekend. I think some tea and cookies and relaxing would be great, don't you?

Sharing at Quilting Gail for the SAHRR parade, along with Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, and the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique.

Finished fooling around

 Hello all, and a very damp happy weekend! It feels strange to say that with all that is going on in the world right now, but I'm still glad to have made it through the week. This was a much better week, except for the epic fail that appears later in this post, and I did get some stitching done. Which reminds me-- the first of the easy tutorials for a Hands2Help is coming up this Sunday. Be sure to tune in!

For this week, I finished up the top for the Stay at Home Round Robin. Yay me! I actually pretty much kept up this year. It was a fun project and I started with a fun panel. Here's how I ended up:

 

 

This has been one difficult top to photograph, but at least I got a couple shots! Yester day it rained, and this morning we had sleet and freezing rain:

 

I tried to get a few shots this morning, but the top got wet and soggy. Thankfully, when I got home it was quite sunny, but also quite windy:

 I love how this top turned out. It's cheerful and happy, and it's sure to be comforting for a child. And how do you not love those dinosaurs? I did all of the rounds this year except applique. Honestly, the fabrics were so busy that I couldn't find a place for applique, and I didn't want to add it just to add it. 

 

 

I did make the last round, though. Chris chose Shoo Fly blocks, and you can see that the tiny blocks in the corners of the last border are mini Shoo Fly blocks. These are 3 inch finished blocks, and I think they're adorable. I also love the different colors of the final border. You know I did that because of the fabric that I had (which is used up!), but I still love how it looks.

So that was my happy finish for this week. Here is the epic fail:

 

At least this is not my fail, but a machine fail! I had an appointment to longarm, and as you can see, I got partway through the quilt and then the tension failed. No, I didn't notice until I rolled the quilt! 

 

Friends, I cried. 

 

 

I wasted three hours, and now I have to pick out all that quilting and go back and do it again. And I couldn't do my second quilt, either, because someone else was using the other machine. It was not a good drive home.

I couldn't look at the quilt for a couple of days, but I started on the ripping last night. There's nothing else to be done, unless I wanted to throw out the quilt. And who wants that? I know it will be lovely once I'm finished, right? Good thing fabric is so fun to play with, or I'd give up!

 

Ah, well. Hope you all are staying safe, warm, and dry, and are not in any kind of a war zone. It's a crazy world we live in right now, isn't it? Enjoy the weekend any way you can, and be sure to come back on Sunday for a much more successful project!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique, and the SAHRR linkup, too.