Small comforts

 Hello all! If you are familiar with the Hands to Help challenge over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, you know that this year's challenge is ending. I think this is the first time in a while that I have all the donation quilts finished by the end of the challenge. Yay me! I showed the two smaller quilts that I made for the challenge HERE, and today I have two (slightly) larger quilts that I've also finished:

 

 

The light has been really weird because we've had so much rain lately, and please ignore the fact that the deck floor still needs staining. It rained again before I could get to it! These two quilts are going off to Little Lambs for this year's challenge. Quilting these was super easy and I think they turned out great. 

 

I made the hippo quilt as part of the Stay at Home Round Robin, hosted by Quilting Gail, earlier this year. I straight-line quilted it in four different directions, with lines that are just about equal distance apart. There may be a few bobbles, but no one but me will notice. The happy hippo got a fun, bright, and busy backing, too, which should hide any mistakes:

Quilting your own quilts does make you confront the mistakes you make in piecing, and sometimes you-- or I, really-- make mistakes in the quilting, too. I decided to quilt the hippo center in a cross hatch, and this was a mistake, I think. It's too dense and makes the hippo a little flatter than the rest of the quilt:

I might take out a few lines of quilting there, but I'm afraid to ruin it with the seam ripper. We'll see how it looks when it comes out of the wash. After quilting, this little quilt turned out about 37 by 40, which is perfect for a child.

The second quilt is a double nine-patch that was made last year and just quilted up for donation now.  I quilted this with the walking foot as well, in a cross hatch with a bright green thread that turned out to be perfect for the quilt. It is so soft and cuddly!

Since the animal print on the front is so dark, this little quilt got a bright and happy polka dot backing and a snappy green binding. That makes it pretty green, but I think it works. And who could resist a quilt that includes this adorable sloth?

 

 

This quilt finished off at just about 43 by 43, another perfect size. These two comfort quilts will be off as soon as they come out of the dryer. I never know whether to wash donation quilts, but I took these outside and it was pretty wet, so it seems like the best idea. Who wants to give a child a quilt that might be dirty? Not me!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Looks like it will be sunny and hot here, so it's indoor stuff for us. Hey, restaurants are indoors, aren't they? Maybe time to check those out again!

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

Two babes in the woods

Hi everyone! It's yet another weekend, and it feels like spring on a regular basis now. We've also had some spring storms, so I guess next month there will be an abundance of flowers, right? It just happens that this week we got new gutters with leaf-resistant covers on them, which seems like it's just in time because our trees are just leafing out now. If past springs are any guide, one morning next week I'll get up and all the leaves will have filled in. And then I will do my happy dance, right there in my nightgown.

This week I finished off the quilting on two baby quilts, and I bound them, too! Here are the lovely babes in what passes for woods around my house:

 

 

Okay, some odd shadows, but you can still tell that these are joyful and happy little quilts, right?

 

 

I made these tops a while ago, but, as we all know, they had to age a bit before they got finished. I think I made the bees quilt top last year, using some precut squares that were included in a bunch of scrap fabrics that I got from a destash. I usually dislike precuts, but as I recall, this was a quick top I made for my own mental health. 

 

The bees were quilted in a fast and cuddly crosshatch, fast becoming my favorite quilting finish. It fit the quilt perfectly and was very easy. Hurray for the walking foot! I know I could do more with it, but sometimes it's a choice between "finish simply" or "continue hanging in the closet," and I chose to finish it. I think that was the best choice!

 

The top of the very fun bears quilt was made a long time ago, I think when we lived in Delaware. The blocks were left over from a block of the month quilt from a long time ago, back when I used to do BOMs. Ironically, this past year has reminded me why I used to like those programs-- no thinking or planning, just stitching. With this BOM, I think it was more of a mystery, or at least the layout was, and I remember not liking the final layout, so most of the blocks got repurposed into something else. These four were left over, and eventually became a small quilt top.

 

 

The bears are quilted in an uneven plaid-type grid, with a modified scallop stitch. I'm not super-thrilled with it, because it turned out a lot different than I imagined, but it holds the layers together and will still be cuddly and hold up to a child. And aren't the bears adorable?

 

Both of these quilts are bound for Jack's Basket, which isn't a participant in Sarah's Hands to Help Challenge this year, but I think they'll count anyway. Both of these are just about 36 by 36, which is the size that Jack's Basket requests for their baskets, and I love the whole idea behind the organization, so off they go. I guess I'll have to make another one for one of the Hands to Help organizations, won't I? Gosh, that will be such a trial, won't it? 

 

So, there we are, two new quilts for two new babies, quilted up and out of the closet. I haven't sealed up the box yet, so there may be one more going in there in the next few weeks. We'll see how it all works out. 

 

Hope you all have a lovely weekend! We are doing something really special this weekend, but I'll have to tell you all about that next week. Trust me, it's fantastic!

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

Small updates on small things

 Hi everyone! I hope you have been having a good week. It has been another busy one here, but today I hit a milestone: I have walked 150 kilometers since January 1. That's 93 miles! There's either something seriously wrong with me or I'm having a lot of stress. It may be both because I really wanted to hit this milestone today so I went out walking in the rain. At least it was warm-ish. Wet, though.

Today I just wanted to say hello to everyone so I just have a couple of small updates. I finished nothing this week, but I did make progress! First, I basted two baby quilts:

 

It was raining, so interior pictures. And an exciting picture it is, isn't it? These are now ready for quilting, and they're just getting straight lines. Maybe a crosshatch. Since these are only 36 inches square I think I can quilt them both up at the same time, one line after the other.  These are both for donations, so I need to finish them up fairly soon.

I also want to make this piece into another baby quilt of the same size, so I've been trying to choose one of these three options as a border. What do you think?

 

 

Yeah, I'm not sure either. I'll keep looking. No matter what, it will be colorful, right?

 

The other thing I've started working on is these fun stars:

 

 

These are made from some really big leftover half-square triangles from a quilt that is on it's way from my longarmer friend. I had to use them up, and I think they'll make some nice "seeds" for a new scrappy quilt. Could it be that I'm starting to snap out of my burnout if I'm starting a new quilt? I guess it's possible!

I realized earlier today, as I was just staring in wonder at the new floor, that I never showed a picture of why this was such a big deal for us. We bought this house with "original floors." Unfortunately for us, the original floors were fieldstone set in concrete. It was not pretty. I'm sure the original architect had great visions, but he didn't have to clean the darned things. Here is the before and after:

 

It was very, very noisy and extremely messy, but the stone is gone and we now have hardwood. We love it and are so much happier with it. And you know what? I can sweep this and it actually comes clean! It's amazing!

That's the update from here! I hope you all had a wonderful week and have a lovely weekend planned. I am planning to paint my husband's office. What can I say, I live dangerously! Here is just one more picture of something that had me squealing:

 

Daffodil sprouts and snowdrops! Spring is on the way!

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday.

Small distractions

 Hi everyone! I hope you're all doing well today. Still hot and rainy here, so, you know, looking to start growing mushrooms on my north side any time now. Unbelievably, this weekend is our one-year anniversary in Baltimore. For some reason, this feels really momentous. Maybe it's the heat. Or the quarantine. Who could have known what the last year would bring? 

This week I needed some distractions from everything that's going on, but I just didn't have the mental energy to work on anything important. Do you ever feel that way? You want to sew, but you don't know what to make; you need to look at and feel some fabric, but it just feels like too much to cut it and think about what to do with it.  That was me all week.

So I dove into the "parts and pieces" bin and also a small stack of precuts, and I came up with these two small pieces:

 

Not a great picture! I told you that it's been raining and the light is all weird. I hope you can see anyway that these are two small tops, one a table topper and the other a baby quilt top bound for donation.

Let's talk about the pretty yellow one first:

 

Should have pressed better, but I was racing the weather. (UPDATED with a better picture. The rare time when indoors is better.) All of the pieces in the center were already made and were leftover from one of my very favorite quilts, from a fabric line called Portugal by April Cornell. See that yellow in the center? I loved that fabric so much. Still do! Most fabrics you fall out of love with because they look dated or you just get sick of them, but this one is enduring, at least to me.

 

I didn't want to think, so I just pushed these hsts through the machine and made six small Broken Dishes blocks, then put them together to make a pile of Broken Dishes. I didn't have any yardage, just the hsts and some crumbs, but I think the yellow and the green work out okay. This will be a table topper for use around the house after I quilt it up.

And if you want to talk about pushing things through the machine, there's this little baby quilt:

 

This quilt is just 36 by 36 and is destined to be a quilt for Jack's Basket. It was made from some charm squares that I got as a part of some fabric that I bought from Busy Hands Quilts when she was de-stashing. I usually dislike precuts--and don't get me wrong, I still do-- but these were super simple to push through the machine, first in pairs, then into rows and then into a big square. Calming as long as I didn't think too much about it, and I really didn't. My only concern was that none of the same fabrics end up next to each other. It only happened once in this top, and even then I didn't care. That never happens!

 

Unbelievably, this used up all but one of the charm squares! This is great, because who knew what else I would have done with them? Sadly, I don't know the name of the fabric line, but it's a bit old, and it has these great bees on a grayish-blue background. Since I had the yellow out from the table topper, I used that for the inner border, and a pale blue for the outer border. Overall I think it's a soft little quilt for a tiny person, and I'm happy with how it turned out (even if the pictures make it look really bad. It needs pressing, I know.)

Those were my "big" stress-busting finishes for this week! Sometimes the fabric stress busting works, sometimes it doesn't. This time it did make me feel a bit better. And so did this:

 

We haven't had a deer with antlers before, and I don't know where he came from. The part that you can't see is that in the grass behind him is a red fox, which never came into the clearing but could be seen now and then just the same. Maybe I really *am* a Disney princess. . .  

Have a good weekend everyone!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.

Love and good will

Hi all. I've been trying to write this post all day, and I do have something quilty to talk about today, but it feels a little silly to talk about quilts and other hobbies right now, doesn't it? Every day I wake up and I'm not sure what country I'm in. I thought that the pandemic was a very challenging time, and what is happening in our country right now just leaves me at a complete loss for words. I am heartbroken, and angry, and fearful all at once, and like many of you I don't know where we go from here.

I said I had something quilty (and pretty happy) to show today, so let's talk about that first, and those of you who don't want to read my other thoughts can just skip them.  Here is my mostly finished project:

These are two little quilts that are going to Jack's Basket through Sarah's Hands to Help quilt drive. This is an awesome organization, and they ask for smaller quilts, so these are just 36 by 36. They look a little wrinkled, but I promise that they are very cozy, and I took these pictures in the evening, so the shadows make them look worse. They're really very cute in person.

These are quilted but not yet bound, and they might look a little flat to some of you. I used flannel inside instead of batting, and put flannel on the back. I really like how that turned out, and I might do that for all my baby quilts from now on. They are lighter and fold up a little smaller, and they will probably fit into the baskets a bit better.  I also used the wavy stitch on a quilt for the first time, and I love how it turned out.

I have to admit that the end of the challenge snuck up on me, so for the rest of the week I'm planning to power quilt through my donations. Cross your fingers, though, because I also have a paper to finish by the 12th. What's a little pressure at this point?

And on to the non-happy part of the post:

Talking about those happy little quilts has lightened my mood a little, but after a few minutes the reality of it all comes back. I've tried to keep politics out of this blog, mainly because I want it to be a fun and happy refuge from the craziness of the rest of the world. It would be wrong, though to ignore what's going on right now. There are armed soldiers in the streets of the capitol of this nation, protests in the most beautiful cities in this country, too many men and women arrested, too many dead for no reason, an ongoing pandemic that has claimed more than 105,000 lives, millions are unemployed, and oh, yeah-- there are still children locked up at our border because their parents wanted a better life for them. And the Secretary of Defense calls the cities and neighborhoods where most Americans live "the battlespace."

For one of the very few times in my life, I feel fairly useless here. I'm a white woman in my late 50s. Protesting and marching are not for me. I've written checks and clicked "donate" buttons, and I voted today, but it feels like such a small effort. I wish we had a leader, a real leader, not the hollow man in the White House and the sycophants who serve him, to help lead us out of this space that we're in. I wish I knew a way to wrap George Floyd's family in love and comfort, and the families of so many others, too-- Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Ahmaud Aubrey, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor. . .and on and on and on. I wish I knew better ways to let my black brothers and sisters know that their pain is felt by Americans of all races, and we are not indifferent to their suffering.

Sigh. I know all is not useless, as this country is better than it was when I was a child, and even better than when I was a young woman. It just feels very hard right now. Perhaps we are witnessing the birth of an even better country. Can it be? Can we make it so? Can we piece together something better out of the crises we face today? I pray that we are strong enough to do so, I really do, and I cry because of all the time and lives we have already lost.

All my love and good will to all of you today, quilty friends, with my wishes for a better tomorrow for ALL of us, together. The moral universe bends, and let it bend toward justice, please Lord.

Thanks for listening to my rambling,
Mari

Challenging times

Hello all. How are you doing with our new reality? I'm just sitting here, writing this while refreshing my grocery order in hopes of getting a pickup time slot. Good times.

Plenty of allergies are building up here, but no nasty viruses yet, thank goodness. I am truly not doing too well with this whole thing, and I'm trying to be upbeat and optimistic, but folks, I'm struggling. I know some of you are, too. It's a very challenging time for everyone, and trying to keep it all together is getting to me. Even stitching isn't helping. I'm having a hard time staying focused.   If you are feeling scared, lost, anxious, or stressed, you are not alone! There's a lot of us in this big club that we never signed up for.

Anyway, not a lot of stitching time around here lately, but I've been trying to get to the sewing room once in a while.  I have a lot of students who are in our RN to BSN program, which means that they are already nurses and they're trying to get a full bachelor's degree in nursing to get better pay and promotions, and some of them are graduating, too. They are working absolutely crazy hours, and I'm trying to be there for them at odd hours so that they can finish and graduate. I'm astounded by them, truly.

ANYWAY--

I made some of these little things:

These are kid-sized masks for my grandkids. The whole mask and other PPE thing makes me incredibly angry, but it was fun to make these and think I'm helping keep the kiddos safe. I cut these 5 inches by 7 inches for the 4 year old and 4 by 6 for the littler kids. Thank goodness I seldom throw things away because I was able to find just a couple feet of elastic. I can't really tell you the last time I used elastic, but I was happy to have it.

The only other things I've been doing is sorting some fabrics and scraps and organizing, plus I did order some happy fabrics to cheer me up:

These are some bright batiks and I already have a plan for them.  These came from the Old Country Store, which has a lot of cool stuff and is still doing mail order.  One of my committees has its last "meeting" this week, so I have high hopes of grabbing a few minutes to stitch something happy. (By the way, I dislike even talking on the phone, and now I have to have meetings on camera. It's maddening!)

I also got this panel, which is called Best Friends Forever:

This is a super cute panel with four little dolls, and even a couple of little pets for them, too. 

These should be fun to stitch, don't you think?

Sorry for the downer of a post, friends! It's a strange time, and we can't pretend it isn't.  I hope you're all doing okay and at least getting a pickup time for your groceries.  No luck for me yet! Once I finish this I'm going looking for some blue-green batiks, because I must make a quilt for my bedroom sooner or later, and is there a better time to be shopping online?

Hang in there, stay well, and be safe, friends.  I'll try to do the same! And if you have something optimistic or encouraging to say, now is the time I'd like to hear it!

Sharing with whoever is still stitching!

Little pink finish

Hi all, and welcome to what is officially the last weekend of summer. It's true-- Monday is the first day of autumn, so this is the last gasp of summer. Around here it's hanging on quite well, thanks, since it's supposed to be 85 on Monday, but it will still be officially done. Usually I don't mind, but this time I feel like I've missed the whole summer, what with the move and all.  As long as that doesn't mean a longer winter, it should be okay!

Today I want to show off the first finish in my new sewing room.  It's not very big, and it took a long time to get here, but it's done just the same:

Ta-da! Yes, this is a little baby-sized charity quilt that I started waaaay back when, for Sarah's Hands to Help challenge.  It finally got finished quilting and a binding and is all ready to be sent off to Jack's Basket.  And take a look at the tree above-- we had a twin trunk tree in front of our house in Delaware and we have one here in Baltimore too! It was a sign that we should definitely buy this house.

This little bitty quilt is just 36 by 36, which is the size requested by Jack's Basket.  That made it super-easy to make and super easy to quilt up.  I used somewhat wavy/ somewhat straight lines with the walking foot to quilt this.  Somehow whenever other people do this it looks great (especially Lorna!) but when I do I'm not happy with it.  Maybe the lines need to be closer together? I don't know. Guess I'll just have to keep trying until I really get the hang of it.

The binding for this little beauty came from my semi-magic basket of bindings.  When I cut the long pieces off the sides of a finished quilt, I turn those into bindings and then keep them in the basket with the length marked. I had a great piece of binding just for this quilt. It's a little wide on the front, but I don't mind that. I'm just happy that I didn't have to make a binding and got this finished up quick!

So that's one down, and the first one finished here in Baltimore. Yay! When Preeti came over a couple of weeks ago, she looked in the sewing room closet and said, "you have a lot of quilting to do!" Take a look and tell me if she was right:

Yeah, those are all tops waiting to be quilted up, so I think my task for this weekend will be a lot of basting. Some of those are a couple of years old, and they're not keeping anyone warm hanging up there. Now that summer is officially over, the season that must not be named can't be far behind, and we'll be needing that warmth!

I hope you have a great weekend! Enjoy the last few minutes of summer, because it won't be back for quite some time!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and TGIFF.

Friends in the forest

I don't know if you all have noticed, but it is almost mid-August.  How did this happen?!  I am looking forward to the end of summer, but I didn't know it was coming so soon!  Yikes!

This weekend, the hubs and I are off on our last trip of the summer, a visit to our son, daughter-in-law, and sweet grandson.  I cannot wait to hug that baby, but that reminds me that I never did show off the quilt I finished for him:

This is Forest Friends, another pattern by Lorna McMahon.  Since our son and daughter-in-law love the outdoors, especially camping, this is a perfect quilt to get their little boy started learning some animals.

The badger does have eyes, they just blend in!

This pattern is not paper-pieced, but it did use some very small pieces.  It was not difficult, just a little putzy.  And the results are absolutely great.  I quilted this up myself using just some basic wavy lines in an antique gold thread from Connecting Threads.  It has a very cute blue flannel on the back:

I'm not sure how well those wavy lines work.  When other people do them they turn out great, but my own I'm not too sure of.  Also, the flannel was very bulky--but totally worth it because it's so cozy!--and that made it hard to make the lines close together.  Not sure about using flannel on the back again.  I do really like the dark green binding, which makes a nice frame.

You can buy this pattern in Lorna's pattern store , and the pattern includes a couple of sizes and some alternate blocks (including a Canadian beaver!), plus some ideas for using the blocks in different ways.  I already plan to make myself one of the love birds blocks for a small wall hanging.  (For the new house!)

Everyone have a wonderful weekend.  Here's hoping you don't melt!  I recommend popsicles, AC, and maybe ice cream.

Sharing at  Finish it up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict and TGIFF at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.

A bear paws through the woods

Hi all, and happy Friday!  Guess what?  We finally found a house and have an accepted offer!  I am so excited.  Here's the best part--we walked into one room and my husband said "This would make a great sewing room." Best husband ever! Is he a keeper or what?  The really great part is that he was totally right--it will make a great sewing room!

In between looking at houses and negotiating the offer, I did do a little sewing.  For this week's finish, I have this to show off:

Isn't this darling?  This is the Bear's Paw pattern, which I tested for Lorna over at Sew Fresh Quilts. Lorna has the cutest patterns and I can tell you that they are terrific.  They always turn out so nicely.  And they are all pieced using regular-sized pieces--they are not paper pieced!

We all know that I have trouble making a quilt exactly as the pattern shows, so I made a few different choices for my quilt.  (And of course I had to make it as difficult for myself as possible instead of following the pattern exactly.)  Lorna shows the quilt with all the Bear's Paw blocks in the same color, which looks terrific in her quilt.  I had a stack of 10-inch squares in solids, so I made the Bear's Paw blocks using those squares.  You can cut one of the Bear's Paw blocks from a 10-inch square and have some nice-sized scraps left over.

The other thing I changed was the color of the bear.  My daughter-in-law loves black bears so I made this bear black as well.  I think he turned out pretty well. Pretty sure it will show every little bit of dirt, but don't bears collect stuff in their fur anyway?  I have this piece with some fun owls for a backing:

I have a couple of tips for success with this pattern.  First, read the entire pattern before you start.  I get the patterns as a download, but then I always print them out and write all over them.  I also cross out as I go, because otherwise I get confused, and that's never pretty.

My second tip is to label all the pieces as you cut them:

It's just so much easier when everything is labelled and I don't have to guess.  My last tip is to sort the pieces by block after they're cut, which means you can grab one stack and sew without having to fuss with finding the pieces.

Lorna plans to offer this pattern as a quilt-along later this year, but you can totally buy the pattern in her pattern store and make your own before then.  She has a lot of other really fun patterns, too, so you should totally go and check it out!

Thanks to Lorna for another great pattern!  This little quilt is becoming a part of my Grandma stash, which is a bunch of quilts that I have for tiny humans when they come to my house. Who doesn't need some of those around all the time?

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  We will be sorting and putting things in boxes, at least until the thunderstorm knocks out the power again.  Seriously, is the power grid made of paper mache? It has gone out a lot these last few weeks.

Happy sewing!

Sharing atConfessions of a Fabric Addict and Let's Bee Social.