Fast, fun, and bright

 Hi all! How was your week? I've had yet another doozy of a time. It's pretty obvious that we have some serious family stuff going on, but I keep trying to stitch a few things when I can. And this week one of the administrative people at school became a grandma for the first time, so how could I not stitch her up something really cute? Want to see? Here it is:

Isn't that adorable for a first time grandma? This is a variation of the Quick Strippie from Mary Quilts, a super fast and cute pattern that is suitable for any occasion. I just couldn't cut the fun alphabet print into smaller pieces. I wanted to keep as much of the alphabet together as I could and not cut the pieces too small. It's not the pattern, but I think it works.

I did not think to look at the selvage, and I'm too lazy to go downstairs and dig it out of the trash, but I've had this fun print for a while. Come to think of it, I've had all of my fabric for a while, including the lime green and the last bits of the purple that are also in the quilt.

This quilt is about 40 by 48, the perfect "play on the floor" size.  I used the last of the Hobbs Poly Down batting that I had and quilted it with the serpentine stitch. The Poly Down is really quite nice, very light and not at all like the old poly batting. I think it works pretty well for this type of quilt, too. Easy to wash when someone spits up on it.

The backing is also a fabric that I had for quite a while, from the Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric. I'm so happy to use this up, and it works as a nice backing here. And check out that striped binding! You know how you have a fabric for a while and you just get tired of seeing it in your stash? That's how I felt about these, and now I can forget about them because they are used up and happy in a quilt!

That's about all I've been able to accomplish lately. Things are weird, and my regular machine still isn't back from the repair person. I miss it, even though the backup machine is doing great. Should be finished this next week. I think they had to get a repair part from the moon or something. I hope the shipping isn't too much.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Tomorrow is my birthday and Mother Nature is giving me a tropical rainstorm. Won't that be fun? I hope it comes with pie. Brownies would be nice, too.

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

Jazzing up January

 Hi everyone! How are things going for you? We are experiencing the grays of January. You know what I mean-- sometimes it rains, sometimes it's just cloudy, sometimes it snows, but mostly it's just gray. We did have actual rain and a few spits of snow this week, but nothing stuck to the ground. That's totally okay with me! Sometimes I miss it, but I do not miss shoveling.

What with all the January-ness around, and having spent a bunch of time with a non-favorite color, I decided to pull out something bright and happy this week. I ended up quilting up this fun toddler-size quilt:

Doesn't that just raise your spirits? This is a quilt I made to test Preeti's pattern Arabella's Garden, which you can find right HERE. I had fun making it and even more fun quilting it up. It certainly made me feel happier, and I think it adds to the landscaping outside.

As fun as the front of the quilt is, take a look at the back:

I love this so much. This is a piece of an Eric Carle fabric that I got a long time ago, but I didn't realize the animals would be so big so I didn't use it as planned. It works great as a happy backing for this quilt! I might like it better than the front. It's a close call.

I did a couple of experimental things when quilting this quilt. The first is that I used one of those plastic extension tables that you can buy to fit around your machine bed so that you have a larger sewing surface area. It was a disaster. It was made by my machine's manufacturer and came with the machine, but it just didn't work. It kept moving, and the quilt kept getting snagged on the edge or the end of it. If you look at the picture above, you can see the results of the snagging. I only used the table for half of one stitching line, and I left it in because I didn't feel like ripping and I doubt anyone will notice it.

The other experiemnt was using a poly batting instead of cotton. It worked pretty well! I used Hobbs Poly Down. It has a "hand" like 100% wool and quilted just beautifully, and it makes a really nice texture. Nothing like old poly batting! The only thing I would do next time is zigzag the finished edges before binding because it kept puffing at the edge while I was stitching the binding on. It was a little annoying, but the quilt got bound.

So there was this week's cheerful quilty session, which was much needed since classes also started this week. Along with all the January, I needed the cheerful!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend, and that it is colorful and not gray. If it is gray, I prescribe yellow stars. Almost always makes me cheerful!

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

Masala baby

 (There is a giveaway at the bottom of this post for those who are interested!) 

Hi everyone! Odd to hear from me on a Monday, I know, but my friend Preeti has a new pattern that I tested for her, and it's my pleasure to share it with you today. The pattern is called Masala Box, and it makes a very fast and easy quilt that turns out to be striking no matter what colors you make it in. I made the baby size, because I knew it would be a donation quilt, and had a good time creating it. Take a look:

 

I told you it was striking! It's kind of modern and kind of traditional, with no difficult piecing. I like to think it looks vaguely Caribbean in my colors, with some bright colors of the ocean, sky and sun. This bright little baby quilt measures about 40 by 40. For this size, you need less than a yard of the background and some colorful scraps, so it's a very economical quilt to make as well. You could easily dig every bit out of your scraps if you had some bigger pieces.

 

I backed this fun little quilt with a bright green polka dot, then quilted it with bright green thread using my walking foot. It's bound by machine with a bright turquoise solid. I goofed around and half watched a movie while I made this, and it still only took me an afternoon, with quilting the next afternoon. Not bad for a whole little quilt.

I made my quilt with individual squares, which cleaned out a lot of them, but the pattern is strip pieced, so it's much easier than the one I made. As I said above, the quilt looks great in almost any colors, and I bet it would look terrific with a really wild background print and solid squares, or in all neutrals. The centers could also be used for embroidery or thread painting, or you could have people write messages there, for a wedding, graduation, or quinceanera quilt. (Why can't I get a tilde so that's spelled correctly? Anyone know how to insert those letters on Blogger?)

You can purchase the pattern in Preeti's Etsy shop and start making your quilt right away, but here's your chance to win a pattern, with no effort other than leaving me a comment! Leave a comment below, and just for fun, let me know what color combo you think would look good in this pattern. What colors would you make it in, or for what occasion? I will use the random number generator thingy to choose a random winner the morning of  Saturday, October 16th. 

 

The giveaway is now closed! Congratulations to Connie, and thanks to all!

Hope you all have a good week, with lots of sewing time and some other kinds of relaxation. I'll be teaching all week, and finishing the border on another quilt. Come back Friday for another exciting episode!

Some brightness in the gray

 Hi everyone! I sincerely hope that all of you are warm and have running water. I know that a lot of the country is quite cold right now, and many of you in Texas are in real crisis. Know that I feel for you, truly. I went to college in Ft. Worth, and I can only imagine the situation. We have been really cold for Maryland, but thankfully we are all good here. I hope things are getting better where you are, too.

On to something happier and much, much lighter-- I finished another quilt. Yay me! Here she is:

 

Yep, we have our share of ice and snow right now, too. This is a baby-sized quilt that finished about 41 by 42. The top was made in 2019 from blocks that I made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in -gulp!- 2018.  We all know I'm slow on these things, right? But they really do get finished eventually!

 

 I don't know why I waited so long, because this was so darned simple to finish. I straight-line quilted a cross hatch with a walking foot across the blocks in both directions. It was easy, and I like the way the grid is opposite the blocks. And it makes squares like the fabric in the setting triangles, too!

The backing is a fun daisy print on turquoise, so I had to finish it with a bright yellow binding. I almost never use a backing that dark, but it just seemed right for this quilt, and I love how it turned out.

 

When I made these blocks (way back when, sheesh!) I called them hollow 9-patches, and I would make them again in a heartbeat. They are so cute, and all scraps, and they turned into a great quilt for a tiny person. I'm calling this quilt Bright Hollows, but very soon a tiny human will be calling it her own.

 

This quilt is going to a new little girl whose parents have been waiting and trying for her for a very long time. She isn't ours, but she is the granddaughter of good friends, and I know she will be loved and wrapped up in this quilt right after it gets there. I can already picture grandma having a tea party on this quilt, and. . .hold on, there's something in my eye. . .

As I said at the beginning, I hope that all of you are staying warm and dry, and surviving both the cold and the pandemic really well. Hang in there, and know that we're all thinking of you. 

 

 

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

Colorful summer finish

Hello everyone, and welcome to another summer weekend! Summer has certainly gotten away from me. It's no different from the rest of this year, really, just warmer. 2020 gets zero stars and a big thumbs down from me so far. How about you?

For today's quilty update, please join me in my happy dance, because I finished the quilt top I've been working on:

Yahoo! I am so happy to have this finished. If you recall, I pulled this long-term UFO out of the closet a few weeks ago and have been working on it ever since. Slowly, I admit, but working on it just the same!

I started this quilt in 2015 or so, when I made most of the blocks. This was a BOM from the Quilt Connection, but I bought the whole kit at once at a rummage sale for a ridiculous price, something like $50. I remember asking if everything was there, and the woman told me yes, but she just didn't feel like making something with so many pieces. I think we both felt that we got the best end of that deal.

The pattern is called Kaleidoscope of Kolor by Thea Jirak.  I looked for a copy of the pattern online, but didn't find any for sale. Not a surprise, since the kit was marked 2008. There was a *ton* of fabric in the kit, and all of it is Shadow Play by Maywood Studios. It really is a lovely fabric line, and they worked together so well in this quilt top. I had my doubts about "random" color placement, but it seems to have worked out!

The pattern instructions were quite odd in some places, but I managed to work around most of them. And I want major points, because this quilt was made on different machines at different times and the blocks and whatnot still fit together just great. The one thing that I've not done that was in the pattern was the 10-inch borders. Yes, 10 inches! I put a much narrower border around the quilt, mostly just to keep all those seams from popping open. There were also appliques in the pattern, and I made some of them, but I don't think they add to the quilt, and I've left them off. Maybe I'll put them in something else.

Unbelievably, this quilt top has a backing and is in a box ready to go off to a longarmer! I am keeping this one for myself and putting it on the bed in my guest room. Not that there will be any guests for a while, but I will enjoy looking at it every time I walk by the room, and isn't that reason enough to keep it?

Hope you are all doing well and staying sane in the midst of the really weird time we're living through. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

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

Dashing through the crisis

Hello all! How are you all doing? Show of hands-- who has resorted to cutting their own hair? Who has thought about it? Yes, me too. I need to get this hair out of my eyes really soon. Although I'm out of contact lenses, so I'm not sure I'd be able to see anything anyway.

THANK YOU all so much for your supportive and kind comments on my last post. I especially want to thank those of you who are no-reply and I couldn't thank personally. I really, really appreciate all your kindness. I'm doing a little better now. It helps just to know you're not alone, you know? Plus, one of my committees had its last meeting (over Zoom, ugh) and another one is finished this week, so that helps a lot. Plus the semester will be over in just three weeks, and I'm starting to see the light at the end of that tunnel. I'm pretty sure it's not a train, too!

Some of you suggested just stitching anything mindless, and I've finally come to the realization that that is the best possible advice. It's like my classes-- I had to throw out what I had planned and make a new plan.  My new plan involved those bright batiks I showed last time, an easy, easy block, and a few hours of fairly mindless stitching. This is what that looks like so far:

Yahoo, some fun churn dashes! True fact: I am not fond of churn dashes, but I love how they look on point. I went back and forth between churn dash and shoo fly, because they look really similar to me when they're on point. So I guess that will be the layout, don't you think? That green one reminds me so much of  a watermelon rind that my mouth is watering. Gosh, I hope we get to have watermelon this year.

So far I've made about a dozen of these babies:

I feel like I can get maybe 8 out of each fat quarter, which would make a decent-sized quilt top. I didn't measure or calculate, but these are 6-inch blocks. Right now I'm just happy that they're actually turning out to be cute blocks in happy colors. It's literally the most I can do right now.

For just a bit more mindless sewing, I'm planning something using this box of fun squares:

along with these blocks:

Yep, that was an RSC project, but I need the mindless sewing more than an RSC project.  We'll see what happens.

Again, thanks for the support, everyone. It meant so much to me and got me through a hard week.  I hope you're all staying healthy, and that you're making it through the quarantine okay. And if your hair is screaming "everyone stay six feet away," you are definitely not alone. Good thing I won't use my fabric scissors for anything else, isn't it?

A twice stitched basket

Hi everyone, and happy Saturday! It's pouring rain right now, but I don't even care because the week is over.  That was a rough one for sure. But now it's over, and on we go.

I did spend a little stitching time this week working with some of the many, many bright green scraps that I have. I love this color and I have lots of bits of it. Here is what I made, but there's a story along with it:

A nice happy green scrap basket! I decided a little while ago that I should make some of these and stop using the plastic bins. I need the room for all my larger chunks, and then I can find some use for the other bins.  Lots of people have made these fun scrap baskets, and I used the tutorial from Fiona found HERE, except that I didn't do it quilt-as-you-go. I just made a slab and quilted it and then trimmed it up.

Except. . .

Stress has weird effects on your brain! Once I got it all trimmed up and ready, I could not for the life of me figure out how to stitch it so that it would be square and basket-like.  I read and read that tutorial and couldn't figure it out.  I stitched it a few different ways and just blew it. It was not basket-like at all. I finally gave up and ended up with this:

I was okay with that, and it was going to work okay in the kitchen, but then literally yesterday I figured out what I did wrong. So I ripped off the binding, pulled out the stitches again, folded it and stitched it the way it should be. I almost cried when it turned out square. I didn't even mind having to redo the binding.

And that's the story! It took me days to get there, but I'm happy to have this little basket. It holds all the pieces just great and there's even room for more. Every bit of this little basket is scrap, including the batting and the binding. I save the ends of binding in a jar, and these came from the jar. I won't have every color, but I'm hoping the jar will be mostly empty by the time we get to the end of this year.

For those of you who are keeping count, this is my 500th post! To celebrate, here is my new favorite winter picture, which I took outside our house on a cold, clear day last week:

Enjoy the weekend, and happy stitching!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC20.

Dancing Stars

Hi everyone!  Here we are at another Friday, three-fourths of the way through February.  Holy cow! I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, the year is already going so fast and 2019 needs to slow it down a bit. On the other, every day brings spring a lot closer, and I'm so ready!  It snowed *and* rained this week, and for a little while, it was doing both at the same time.  It was a very gray week, then when I went to take quilt pictures, the sun came out and everything looked pretty cheerful again.

I'm no weather person, but I think the sun came out just for the fun, colorful finish I have to show today. Here she is:

I call this quilt top Dancing Stars, because the blocks are dancing all across it.  I love how they're dancing and floating at the same time.  The sashing is the dots fabric that I had originally chosen, then changed my mind about.  Then I changed my mind again because the dots were busy enough to blend together and make it seem that the blocks were floating.  If you look very carefully, you can see the seams, but they all seem to melt together unless you're really inspecting it.

I made these blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year, and all of the fabrics except the sashing are legitimately scraps.  The blocks finish at 12 inches and were fairly fun to make.  When I've seen other quilts made like this, the stars are usually white, but I decided to have multicolor stars instead. I'm not sure about it now, but it certainly did add a lot of color.

A twisted sashing is the key to making the stars dance.  First I added sashing all around the block, then trimmed the sashing on a diagonal, like so:

Okay, I enhanced that line a bit so that we can actually see it. To get the angle I wanted, I started with two-inch sashing all around, then trimmed, tapering from 1/2 inch to 1-3/4 inches.  You can control the degree of tilt by the angle that you cut, and I've seen pictures of some quilts with multiple twisted sashings.  I added a very narrow border all around the quilt, mainly so that I could add the binding after quilting without worrying about losing points.

This quilt is going to a friend, and I have a colorful backing all ready for it.  What I don't have is batting! Somehow I have run out of large pieces of batting, and I don't have enough smaller pieces to stitch together.  I guess I have some shopping to do.  Isn't that tragic?

Hope everyone has a lovely, colorful weekend.  I am banishing the gray and have very colorful plans for my own weekend.  There may be balloons, and I'm pretty sure there will be birthday cake.  We'll see!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, Oh Scrap! and soscrappy for RSC19.

Just for fun

Hi everyone!  How's your week going?  Mine is insane.  It's time to face the facts--it's not possible to continue with the regularly-scheduled quilty projects and work *and* move at the same time.  It just is beyond the limits of normal humans.  I don't claim to be all that normal, but I did pack up most of my fabric and other sewing things this past weekend.  I had 5 boxes, which seems like a lot to me, since this is such a tiny condo.  I may have a fabric problem.


You know I just had to leave some fabric out to play with.  You know, for stress relief purposes. There's plenty of that around here right now!  So here's what I was playing with earlier:

This is a test block for a quilt I drew up for this thing that's going on on Instagram called 30 days of quilt design.  The idea is that you draw out some thing to do with quilty design for 30 days between now and the end of October.  There are prizes, too, but the exercise is what I'm really interested in.  Rachel at Stitched in Color is running this, and her post about it is HERE.  Go read it for more!

A long way of saying that this is my sketch for this quilt:

Just hsts and squares kind of mixed together.  I called this quilt design "Kissy, kissy" because all of the pieces "kiss" in the center of the block.  The colorful parts here are 8 inches square, so the larger block up at the top of the post is 16 inches square.  A few of those would make a fast quilt!

Alternate layout for the individual blocks.

These were fast, easy, and fun!  And relaxing!  Everything I want sewing to be.  I don't have a pattern or anything, but the hsts are 4-1/2 inches and finish at 4 inches, and the square sections are made up of 2-1/2 inch colorful squares, 2-1/2 inch white squares, and 2-1/2 by 4-1/2 strips.  You can make 2 blocks from 3 charm squares, if you have any matching ones,  Or non-matching!  You could make everything smaller or bigger, too, depending on how fast you'd want that quilt to come together.

Another alternate layout!

 As I said, I was just playing around.  It was relaxing.  I have some more fabric out, but realistically I probably won't get much done this week.  There are more boxes to fill and a husband to keep fed--oh, and students!  Let's not forget them!

One last thing for this post--Bernie at Needle and Foot nominated this little blog for a One Lovely Blog award!  I'll say more about this later, but many, many thanks to Bernie, who has a lovely blog that you should definitely go visit!


Everybody have a great week!  I have a post planned next week for the Intricate Stitches quilt, plus a nice finish post for the week we actually move, so I'll still be around.  And you know that I'll be reading your posts obsessively and living vicariously through you, so be sure to pet some fabric for me!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Finished or Not Friday.

Bright spots

Hi all! Well, this week I looked at the calendar and realized that it's the middle of November.  How in the world did that happen?  Seriously, isn't it still September? 

This week I actually finished two small projects.  Yay me!  Here is the first one, a green crumb star for my RSC 15 project:

I don't have a ton of lime green, so I was going to mix the light greens and limes.  Don't do it!  You wouldn't believe how bad the light greens look next to the brighter greens.  They really look gray.  The crumb block is the last one I need for this year's Framed project.  Yay!  I do need to go purchase a small bit of lime for the frame in order to finish off that quilt.  Gosh, shopping for fabric.  Doesn't that sound awful?

Don't know why it looks a little gray on the tree, except that it was raining when I took the picture.  This photo shows the colors a lot better:

I tried for this crumb block to be somewhat "log cabiny" and I think it worked out.
 
Since I wasn't thinking when we were packing things up in a big hurry, all of our coasters are in storage. What was I thinking?  We still have furniture to protect! So, I also made up these coasters from a treasured Mary Engelbreit scrap:

I really did not plot out the storage thing very well.  There are so many small things that I wish I had, but they're all in boxes.  But at least these little things will be a spot of brightness in the living room at the condo.  That fabric makes me happy every time I look at it.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.  We are going to my best friend's wedding.  She is my age and has never been married, and we are all so happy that she has finally found someone to share her life with.  It will be like a reunion for us, so it should be a lot of fun!

Happy sewing!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  soscrappy, and Finish it up Friday.