Blue times two

 Hello everyone, and happy St. Patrick's Day! Is there green beer in your near future? I can't stand the stuff, but it's my brother's birthday, and he's always loved it. When he was a kid, he thought everyone celebrated his birthday with a fun party. I guess that's a reasonable conclusion. This year, though, I'm feeling a little under the weather so I'll just wave to all you revelers from over here on the sofa.

I have nothing green to show today, but I did finish a couple of fun blue things. I have this pile of quilt tops, see, and it really needs to get smaller. It was easy to quilt some straight lines on smaller things, so that's what I did this week. Check it out:

Well, those look fresh and fun, don't they? This all started with the four blocks in the center of the smaller quilt. I had started another quilt with those blocks, but I got bored and put all the cut pieces away. I pulled it out and repurposed many of the cut pieces into these two quilts.

Let's start with the bigger quilt, shall we? It's not very big at about 44 by 56, but it used up a bunch of those blue print and white squares. It may not be very large, but it is quite cuddly!

For the quilting, I just stitched straight lines on each side of the piecing lines in both directions in a pale blue thread with a walking foot. I have really grown to love that thing. It's simple quilting, but I think it really works.

The front of this quilt may be calming, but there's a party on the back! Check out those happy bees. The fabric is actually a bit brighter than it appears in the picture, and it makes a really fun contrast with the blues on the front. 

The smaller quilt is just about 36 by 36, so a table topper size. It got quilted in a cross hatch, and if you look closely you'll see that I made a measuring error with the lines. Not wanting to rip out quilting, I went ahead and repeated the mistake so that it looks intentional. I marked the lines with a Hera marker, which was pretty unsatisfying. I don't know why, but it was hard to see the lines and made me a bit frustrated. Probably operator error there, don't you think?

This little quilt also has a happy backing! It's a bright green with blue swirls and it works really well with the front.

So hurray! Two more finished pieces out of that pile, done with some pretty simple quilting that was easy to do and fairly relaxing. It feels like a victory to get every piece moved out of there and into the finished pile, that's for sure!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Good thing St. Patrick's is a Friday this year, isn't it? I'm going to try to figure out what to do with the last remaining pieces from the original quilt, dozens of blue prints hsts. Any suggestions?

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

Icy and blue and holidays too

 Hello all, and welcome to a very windy and wintry day! I know that a bunch of you are experiencing the same things, including in places where it's not usually so cold. Kind of bracing, isn't it? We had rain but not snow, then the front came through with blue skies and cold temps. It looks lovely, but it is quite chilly!

UPDATE: Posting from Panera! Yesterday, just as I was about to publish this post, we lost power. It's still out and is now 43 degrees in our house! Expected to be back on tomorrow by 3 pm-- Christmas Day. Merry Christmas to us! Everyone stay warm!

Today I have just a simple quilt top finish, and that will wind up the quilts for this year. It's time to get to the merry-making, you know? I tried to take pictures yesterday, but rain, then today it was wind. Ah, well, you'll get the idea:

 

This is the only outdoor picture I could get because of the wind, and you can see how it's pasting the quilt top to the bench. This is the simple buffalo plaid I made to use up the pieces of a a quilt that I had cut but no longer had a real interest in making. I made a table topper with the finished blocks and repurposed everything else.

These plaids are very simple but very satisfying quilts. They're easy and very meditative to create, and always turn out great. I had mine cut in squares from the planned quilt, so it took a little more time, but I know from experience that strip piecing makes it go very fast.

And that pretty much winds up the quilty year for me! It's a nice, soothing way to finish, and I hope to quilt this with some other small ones I have basted over the rest of the holiday. Plus, here's a sneak peek of another repurposed project that may get some love:

So many ideas! And you can see that it was blowing around, too.

All the best from our house to yours, and a happy holiday, no matter what you celebrate. Have some cookies and tea and put your feet up-- the best way to make merry!

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