Black and blue and quilted too

 Hello everyone! Well, the grading is over and I am experiencing this odd thing called "relaxation." So far I like it, but it's kind of weird. I still have a couple of meetings before this year is in the archives, but it's mostly done. I have a very full summer schedule, but I did plan for a couple of weeks of doing nothing, so I have a little time before I have to buckle down again.

I decided to start my vacation by tackling some of the many (too many) unquilted tops I have hanging. Some of them will require a long arm quilting reservation, but I've decided to tackle most of them with the walking foot. So, here is the first one:

It may not look like complex quilting, but this is a win in my book! Just about a year ago, I challenged myself to put together the black blocks I had without making any more of them. And I did it. And now I've finally quilted it!

Really, I'm surprised I persevered, because this was a bear to wrangle around. It's about 60 by 75, and that's pretty big for me to work on using just my machine. I quilted it in quadrants radiating out from the center where the four black blocks come together. Honestly, I did it this way because I thought that would be the easiest way to wrestle it through the machine, and it did work out pretty well. I used a pale blue Aurifil thread, which blends well with almost everything.

Instead of usng the straight stitch I used the serpentine stitch and I think it turned out really well. The only problem was the turning to make the radiating lines, but the only one who will worry about that is me. It just wasn't possible to make it flow perfectly, so there are a few wonky transitions. Oh, well. There are also a few places where the quilt dragged enough to make the serpentine lines a little straighter than they should be, but I'm going to give myself a pass on that. Quilts can be heavy!

The backing is a fabric from Fig Tree that I got on clearance a little while ago. I don't usually like the taupes and such, but they make great backings. With this particular one, you can barely see the stitches. There are two very tiny tucks in the backing, but I didn't even worry about them because they're so small. Once the quilt is washed, I don't think even I will be able to see them. The binding looks like a stripe but it's actually a very tiny text print.

Now that it's finally finished, this quilt is bound for Mercyful Quilts, which benefits a palliative care unit. I also have another quilt that I haven't quite finished quilting yet. I need some bigger backings! If you are interested in Mercyful Quilts, our friends Preeti and Bernie are running a free quilt along to benefit the palliative care unit. You can find more information and a lot of different mockups of the quilt right HERE.

So, one quilt down, about a dozen more to go! Good thing I like quilting, right? Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. And if you are wrestling a big quilt on a small machine, my sympathies!

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

Only a year late

 Hi all! Yes, thank you, I am feeling much better now. It took a lot of laying around on the sofa, but that's just the kind of assignment I am well suited for. When I was sick as a kid, I used to lay on the couch and watch soap operas with my grandmother. Have you seen daytime TV lately? It is definitely not those soap operas!

Anyway, once I dragged myself to the shower and started to feel human again, I finished up a quilt top that I started a year ago. We should be very pleased that it only took me a year, right? Take a look:

If you recall, last year I started this for the Hands2Help Challenge. It was supposed to be a quick quilt, and it really was, it just took me a year to get around to it. (You can get the pattern, such as it is, right HERE.) Sarah is back for the challenge this year (hurray Sarah!) so I thought I should probably finish it up to donate this year.

This quilt used up just about every single colorful 2-1/2 inch square that I had saved, and a whole bunch of white squares that I had either already cut from scraps and leftovers or I cut down from hunks and chunks of leftover white on whites. It feels so great to have all of those pieces cleared out and used up in a cheerful quilt.

There is a ton of variety in the squares I used, everything from Christmassy prints to colorful batiks. Just toss it all in! The alternate squares look gray in the pictures, but they're really a print that has some blue and red dots interspersed in there. In person it looks quite good, not gray at all.

This quilt top is just about 50 by 60, and I realized as I finished it that it would be the perfect quilt top to send to Victoria Quilts Canada if I added one more row or a border to each end. I think that's what I'll do, and it will get made into a nice finished quilt much sooner than if I tried to quilt it up. It took a year to finish, why take another year to quilt?

Hope you all have a good weekend. Spring is busting out all over here, and this is what it looks like on our hillside:

 

 Can you GET more springy? It's full of pollen, but I love it!

 

If you haven't been over to Sarah's to find out about this year's Hands2Help, you can find a bunch of information and sign-ups HERE. Go check it out and leave Sarah a nice comment while you're there!

 

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

Positively handsome

 Hi all! Every year I forget just how exhausting it is to get ready for a new academic year. How is this possible? I've done this a lot of times, so I should know by now, but somehow, I always leave things for the last minute. This is what I've been doing all week instead of sewing or literally any other fun stuff. I know you'll all understand when I say that I really need more summer. Come back, summer! We need more rest in the sunshine!

Ah, well. I've been trying to finish up the summer quilts, and today is the day for the beauty shots of this year's Positivity quilt. Here is the handsome fellow himself:

Pretty good looking, huh? I quilted this one in a nice meander in a medium beige thread and it is so, so soft. The very definition of a comfort quilt, really.

The hidden quilt holder in these pictures is Preeti, who came over one afternoon and held the quilt so I didn't have to pin it to a tree. The fabric is from an old line called Woodroses in Winter by Holly Taylor. (I think) Years ago, I fell into that spell that comes over you when you're with friends and you buy fabric you would never buy otherwise, so I had a bunch of it. I've been trying to use it up ever since. I'm happy to finally see it go into a quilt that will bring someone comfort at a hard time. 

The backing for this quilt is a vintage sheet, which is 100% cotton and very soft. It was perfect for this quilt, and it quilted up really nicely. The binding is just more of the red. Unbelievably, I still have about half a yard of the red left over! I think it was the right choice for binding this quilt.

I like how the twisty blocks turned out, with the secondary pattern, and I am really happy with how the panel pieces worked, too. I was afraid it would look weird, but now I think they really enhance the whole quilt.

 

Some of you may be wondering about the red and whether it would bleed. I actually washed it before I stitched it at all, and then I washed the quilt before I sent it off. It had dragged on the ground, after all. Miracle of miracles, there was no bleeding in the finished quilt! 

 

So it's off to Mercyful Quilts for this quilt, with a prayer for the eventual recipient. I hope someone finds this very red and very soft quilt very cozy and comforting. 

Hope you all have a great weekend. I'm going to try to work on some rainbow scrap challenge projects this weekend and rest my brain a bit. My niece is also stopping by on her way home from vacation, so that will be fun too. I'm thinking there will be ice cream, which is always good, isn't it? And I've finished up more of the summer quilts, too, so more fun finishes are coming!

Sharing at Finished or not Friday, the Patchwork and Quilts linkup at Quilting Patchwork Applique, and the Positivity linkup at Needle and Foot.

Cheerful checkerboard

 Hi everyone, and a happy Friday to you. It is currently raining here, but that's a good thing, because it's bringing in cooler temperatures. Plus it's good for all the flowers I planted this week, so. . .hurray for the rain? After all the wet we've had so far this year, it feels weird to say that!

 

I'm finishing up a paper and getting ready for a conference, plus my niece is coming to visit this weekend, so I haven't done a lot of sewing. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. My little bits did add up to something cute, though, and it has a story, too. Here she is:

 

 

Hey, it's small, but it's cute! I actually think it looks quite cheerful, and who couldn't use a little cheering right now? This is a simple checkerboard made with bright green squares and blocks made of selvages. I can take credit for assembling this cutie, but the selvage blocks were made by Cathy at Crazy by Design.

As sometimes happens when a project doesn't turn out, Cathy offered the blocks above for adoption some time ago. I took them and planned to separate them into 4-patches and make a bigger quilt. You know what happened, right? Yeah, I never made the planned quilt. Preeti found the blocks in my sewing room when she was over and put them up on the design wall. This pretty much forced me to do something with them, you know?

I ended up taking the blocks completely apart, and then looked for a fabric to tie them all together. The selvages are a lot of different colors, but I think the green kind of unites them. And it certainly looks cheerful, doesn't it? The quilting is just a simple crosshatch through all the blocks, done with the walking foot. You can't see it really well in the pictures, but the quilting does go through the selvage blocks, too.

I didn't make the selvage blocks, but I do like them. I've never saved selvages, but I get the appeal. They are colorful and have a lot of fun designs, and when you stitch them together like this, you get fun stripes. I didn't have any more of the green for the backing, but I did find this piece of Daysail from Bonnie and Camille. It's a cheery color, too, and it was perfect for this quilt. The binding is a turquoise piece that was just big enough. I think they all work!

 

 

This little quilt ended up at just about 40 by 52, and it will be a donation quilt. I think there's some kind of program for that finishing up pretty soon, so I'd better get on it! Thanks so much to Cathy for sending the selvage blocks off to me. They were fun, and I think they turned out okay!

Hope everyone has a fun, relaxing weekend! It's summer now, so it's totally acceptable to sit around with your feet up and a nice cool drink. What's in the drink is up to you!

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

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.

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.

Going around again

 Hi everyone! Is it cold where you are? I'm sorry to tell you that our snow is gone, but we have somehow entered the deep freeze. It was 19 degrees when I got up this morning, but very sunny. It was lovely. I waited until noon to go walking, but my neighbors still stared at me. Maybe I should get a dog so it looks like I have an excuse to be outside. Do you think that would make up for the dog allergy?

Many of you may have heard about the Stay at Home Round Robin, a fun quilt along of sorts, hosted by Gail of Quilting Gail. You can read all about it right HERE. Last year, I made a cute child's quilt that I donated to the Little Lambs Foundation through Sarah's Hands to Help Challenge. I decided to jump in again and make another child's donation quilt.

Since it worked so well last year, I'm starting this year with another panel block:

That is a nice, bright block that will make a great child's quilt, don't you think? This is a panel that had been in my stash forever and ever. Check it out:

This means I moved this panel several times, including across the country! I think it's past time to make good use of it. The block measures 18 1/2 inches square right now, which means that a couple of my rounds are going to have to be small. I think I can deal with that. A while ago I got these star fabrics from one of Wanda's pop-up shops:

I think those pieces will be really nice with the panel and make a happy quilt. Unless I have some pieces already made from other things, which might get used here too. We'll see!

There are some other things happening in the sewing room, too. This week I'm working hard on getting the black blocks finished up and assembled into a top:

Yep, it's a mess. But-- it turns out that "past me" was being considerate of "future me" and cut and labelled the pieces for several more blocks. This made it easy to just sit and stitch some blocks together, which was super nice. "Current me" is hoping to get this top together really soon, so I can have yet another empty project box. What will I do with those empty boxes?

I'm also working on the neutral Gridlock quilt, which is in pieces on the design wall, and finishing up another top which is has been hanging out on the design wall way too long. It confuses my brain, though, so I've been putting it together quite slowly. 

Hope all of your projects are going well, they are not confusing at all to you, and that you're enjoying whatever your weather is right now. It's just good to see the sunshine, you know? Enjoy it!

Sharing at the SAHRR linkup and Midweek Makers.