Squeezing a few oranges

 Hi all, and welcome to the last day of May! How did this even happen? Where did the month go? I can't explain it either, except that it looks like June is on the horizon and then summer will be in full swing. Before May is completely over with, I thought I should probably post the last of my orange stars and other orange blocks. These oranges haven't been particularly juicy, but they are certainly bright! 

I did not have a lot of orange, but I did manage to squeeze out a few blocks. Let's start with the two 6-inch blocks for this month:

I made these from the very dregs of the orange scraps, and I'm happy with how they turned out. Look at those tiny flying geese on the right! Don't they just make you happy?

Then I have two more 9-inch blocks for the star quilt:

These turned out nicely, too, I think. I was trying to choose stars that used the fabric fairly judiciously, and I think I succeeded.  I had to lay these in the tree because my favorite branch to hang quilty things from got trimmed away so that the grass could actually get some sunlight. Who needs that? I need my quilt display branch!

The block above has several prints, and I'm not sure how it works, but I'm keeping it. Do you all know about the Sewcialites QAL patterns from Fat Quarter Shop? They had a block a week for free, in three different sizes, and this was one of those blocks. You can still get all of the patterns from this year and last year for free from FQS right HERE. Scroll through and choose the ones you want, or download the whole set. There are tons of goodies in there!

 

 

The second orange star is much simpler and definitely a star, but it wanted a solo picture, too. And why not take it with the tomato plants instead of flowers? Can you see that there are already some tiny tomatoes? Very exciting!!

Okay, now I have a problem. I made a third block that I swear looked like a star on paper, but in fabric I am not so sure. Does this look like a star to you?

Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking that I could save it by replacing the center with a solid piece of the fabric instead of the pieced center, but generally I think this is a loss. Maybe I could repurpose some of the parts for a different block, but this is not looking very starry to me.

Oh, well! That's the end of orange for me, and I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. I'm not sure about blue, but I'm happy to change colors.

Hope you are all doing well and heading into June in a good mood. Over the holiday the hubs and I went hiking in the Catoctin Mountains, and we came upon this lovely vista:

That should carry me through the heat that's coming this week! Take care and enjoy the rest of the week, friends!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23

Purple blocks in the rain

Hello everyone, from a very rainy and foggy Baltimore. I could barely see outside this morning. At least it's warm. We had record highs this week, which I can't say I enjoyed, but the sunshine felt great. Everything outside seems on the verge of growing out of control, too. So now it's the weekend, and of course the rain is here to help all those plants.

I had a very busy week, and I didn't get a chance to take pictures of my purple blocks until this morning, but I did finally get a decent shot of my four purple star blocks:

 

 

They're a little washed out from the rain and fog, but they still look pretty good.  I also made the Peace and Plenty blocks earlier this week:

 

 

Do you see those green things on the trees? I think they call those "leaves," and they are busting out everywhere. It's very exciting. Pretty soon I won't be able to see my neighbors any more, which I think all of us will like.

 

 

The star blocks were fun to make, even if a couple of them were a little fussy. I don't have a lot of purple scraps, but I managed to find a couple of combinations to go together pretty well. In the picture above, I've never been able to figure out if the fabric in the block on the right was purple or blue. It changed depending on what I put it with, so it's very nice all by itself in this block. 

These are 9-inch blocks, so some of the pieces in the blocks above were pretty small. I still liked making them, but small pieces take time. I also had a heck of a time with the outer parts of the block on the right. I really should have re-drafted it and made it a different way instead of trying to make those triangles work, but once I was committed I had to figure it out or find a different fabric. That sounded wasteful, and too much work, so I soldiered through it. It turned out okay.

 

It's a terrible picture, but the last purple thing I have to show is where I am with those danged purple 4-patches. I decided to turn them into a quilt border to use as many as possible, and I think it's going to work. I only have eight left over. Hurray! Now I just have to decide how to fill the center!

Everybody have a wonderful weekend, even if it's a bit soggy!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC23.

Sparkly stars

 Hi everyone! Somehow, it was 72 degrees here today. Has someone checked to be sure it's November? I know some people have had snow already, but it looks like we're sticking with rain and above average temperatures for the next little bit. Totally okay with me, except for the leaves that keep falling.

 

I've got a finished top to show off today. It's my stars top from this year's rainbow scrap challenge, and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. Here she is:

 

 

Well, that is different, isn't it? But quite sparkly! Not at all what I thought I would get at the beginning of this year, but this year itself has not been what I thought it would be. Looking at it hanging up like that, I think it needs a narrow border all around, like 3 inches or so, just to make it look more finished.

These are the stars I made all year, plus one more that I made to finish out a row. The stars are 9 inches finished, and you can get Angela's directions for making them right HERE. Mine are, of course, a little different because I used the white square in the center instead of another scrap. I like the open and lacy look, and it sure makes this layout very sparkly.

You may notice that not all the colors are in this quilt top. That's because I sat down to make some orange and some bright green stars (both great colors for stars, by the way) and it just made me tired, so I thought "what if I didn't?" What if I didn't make more stars and just challenged myself to come up with a new layout that used only what I had?

 

 

I felt energized right away, and then started laying out the stars in a rough pattern. As I made it, I cleaned things up so that it's actually symetrical, with the bottom section a mirror of the top section, with a different row right there in the middle To finish off that middle row, I had to add in another star, but I'm not telling which one it is. I'm just really, really pleased with the way that it turned out, even though it doesn't have any orange stars.

One RSC project down, two more to complete! I have a very good idea about the birds, and I finished off the orange round on the medallion quilt. The final border for that one is paper pieced, so it's taking a little longer, but it's going to be spectacular.

Hope you all have a spectacular weekend, no matter the weather. It's November, though, so it's probably best to hedge your bets and just stay in and sew. With some chocolate on the side, of course!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC22.

 

Clearing out more color

 Hi all! How's it going? Are you just baking in the heat? We had some spectacular storms recently, and it has been quite hot. I think the two have something to do with each other. At least we didn't lose any trees, though there are several down around the neighborhood. The wind got a little scary, but we mostly came through okay.

What's a quilter to do, stuck in the house? I'll bet you can guess. After the success of cleaning out all the dark greens from the scrap bin (HERE), I decided to have a look at some other bins. The blue bin has been a problem for me. I know a lot of people love blue, but for some reason I rarely use it, so there are a ton of scraps in the bin. I was pretty successful using the darker blues (HERE), so now I'm trying to use up the light to medium blues. Check it out:

A hunter's star as a test for a light blue quilt. I'm not sure it works, but it's kind of pretty. A whole quilt might look somewhat like old china or something. I think I need to pay more attention to where the lights and mediums fall in the block so that the edges don't fade away. The beige there is leftover from a backing, and I'd love to use it up as well.

The blue experiment may be successful, so what else can I use up? Can I throw some other color in there? Well, no, but how about a different scrap quilt?

Crossed canoes, using pinks and oranges, plus a couple of yellows thrown in for sparkle. You might not think that the pink and orange would work out, but it completely does! I got the idea for a crossed canoes quilt from Deb, who is doing this block for the rainbow scrap challenge. It looks awesome, and you can see her post HERE. I used Accuquilt dies to cut both the blue and the pink and orange sets of these blocks, and they turned out great and piece together beautifully. Hey, I have the dies, so why not use them?

My plan is to make blocks until I run out of scraps in the right sizes, then cut up everything left into squares for the square boxes. The more scraps used the merrier, but I really have no idea how many I will make of either block. Whatever I get is good, because then they are out of those bins and into something useful. Plus, then I can get some new fabric guilt-free, too!

So, there's some more colors and pieces to play with! Hope you have some, too. This last picture is the gorgeous sunset after our latest storms. Pictures never do sunsets justice, but it was a nice reward after all that upheaval! 

Sharing at Midweek Makers and Oh Scrap!

A challenge in black prints

 Hi everyone! I hope you have been having a good week, though I acknowledge it's been a difficult one here in the US, again. (See the bottom of this post for some somber thoughts.) Once again today, we are in the rain. This week the grass was so long that there are clumps all over the lawn from cutting it. Seriously, it looked like a pasture or something out there. All the better for the flowers, though, right?

Did you ever have a project where you made a few blocks and thought you would really like the finished quilt, but you just didn't have the motivation to make the rest of the blocks? That's pretty much how I felt about the black blocks that I had been working on off and on for a couple of years. I loved them but didn't want to make any more of them. Before we go any further with this story, let me show you what they turned into:

 

Not what I had in mind at the beginning! I was looking through the project boxes to put away the pink and green star blocks, and I pulled the black blocks box (say that three times fast!) out of the stack. "I have to make some more of those blocks," I said to myself (with a dramatic sigh.) Then I thought, "but what if I didn't?"

What if I didn't make more blocks? What could I do with just the ten blocks that I had? The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I could have a personal challenge to use those ten blocks and make them into a quilt. I told myself I could make some easy alternate blocks and any kind of borders that I wanted, but no more black blocks.

Pull out the paper and start planning! Once I decided on the alternate blocks, it all came together pretty easily. The really fun part was choosing colors to go with the black blocks. I chose the light grayish blue and the very pale yellow, and I think they both worked. They're hard to see in the pictures but are charming in person. I almost went with a red, but I'm so glad that I didn't. 

 

 

I made the blocks for this quilt a couple of years ago from various black prints, and used a random half yard for the alternate blocks. The border is a very old print from Marti Michell and Maywood Studio. It's super pretty, but I am glad to use it up after all this time. There's about an 8-inch square left, which makes me seriously happy.

I think my experiment worked, though it's a bit bigger than intended. It's about 60 by 75, which would be great for a dorm, wouldn't it? Not bad for starting with ten blocks. Plus, I was left with an empty project box, which I quickly filled with some scraps so that another project doesn't jump in there when I'm not looking.

 

Hope you all have a great weekend. This weekend I'm planning to plant flowers while I pray for the children murdered in Uvalde, Texas. There's a lot that I could say, but nothing that really adds to any solutions. I find myself thinking a lot about my students who just graduated-- strong, brave, smart young people, many of whom are headed for their first teaching positions. Will they someday be forced to step over the bodies of their students and walk past the bodies of their peers? Or will they sacrifice themselves to save the children in their classes? How many of them will continue teaching in the face of preparing for violence every day? Every one of them would stand in front of a gunman without question, though they should never have to. But this is the country we live in right now. That's really all the words I have, because it's all been said before.

I could go on, but instead I'll just wish you peace and a restful weekend.

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

Pink and green lace

Hi everyone, and welcome to summer. It may not officially be summer, but it's supposed to be 97* today, so I think that counts. I seriously hope no one gets too hot and passes out at baccalaureate tonight. I doubt that the AC in the chapel will keep up. Do you think that I can smuggle in some ice packs under my robe?

Well, thank goodness the sewing room is cooler, and I got to stitch a few things up this week. I'm catching up on the RSC projects, and I made the pink and green stars this week:

 

It has been so wet and rainy that I tried to take pictures earlier in the day, but they got washed out from the sun, and by the time I went back out it was very still and cloudy. This is why the colors of those leaves are so bright. But aren't they pretty with those star blocks?

I swear these were not dragging on the ground! It's an illusion.

These stitch up pretty fast, but I have discovered that I need to be really careful about seam allowances. I cut these with the Accuquilt and there is no wiggle room at all there. Believe me when I tell you that you need wiggle room for those triangles. I'm thinking seriously about making the next size up and trimming them down. Thoughts?

Above is a closer look at the green stars. I tried to go for darker green, but they weren't very twinkly, you know? I kind of prefer the black ones, if I'm honest, and I'm really glad that I'm using all yellows for the stars. It's a nice constant.

There's a lot of green in this post so far, what with all the grass and trees and such. How about a closer look at the pink stars? Here we go:

They are so festive! Pink and yellow might be my favorite colors, and I love them together. Okay, back to the greens:

For those of you who were wondering what I was doing with all those green triangles I was cutting earlier this week, these are the blocks I'm making. They're huge! They're 16 inches finished. I want to use up all those dark and medium greens I have, plus I thought I would throw in a few of those leftover dark blues just for variety. When I'm done with this quilt (which is astoundingly easy), I think I'll just turn all the rest of those scraps into squares and then. . .I don't know. You tell me.

So there we are! Just to end with a pretty pink something, I saw these out on my walk this week, very early in the morning:

I'm not sure what they are, but they are very pretty! They might be flowering pears? Don't know! 

Everyone have a wonderful weekend! Stay inside and stitch, though I understand there are some people in the US who are really cold while we're really hot. Anyone remember when the weather wasn't truly weird?

 

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC22.

Falling stars in spring

 Hi everyone! Somehow, it's now March. You know what that means, right? Spring officially begins in 16 days, on the 20th! Yahoo! Bring on the flowers and the warm weather. I am so ready, and I'll bet you are, too. I'll start looking for flower shoots on my next walk. I will be incredibly happy to find some, that's for sure.

Today's quilt has a backstory, of course. I made this in 2018 from a jelly roll using THIS block from the Squared Away project. I finished the top in the fall of 2018 and I even had it packed up to send to the quilter. Why didn't I send it? I have no idea. I really don't know what happened there. I only know that I found the top in a box and it's been hanging waiting for its turn to be quilted. Here it is, all finished up:

 

Has this poor neglected quilt been sitting in a pile waiting to get bound for several weeks? Maybe. But here it is, finally all finished. And much, much happier than in the box, that's for sure.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that this got a new border. Yeah, about that. Sometimes when you're not paying attention, accidents happen. Thankfully, I have a closet full of fabric, and it was easy enough to fix. Truth be told, I liked the first one better, but this works, too. 

I am definitely getting better at longarming. This was quilted using a pattern called flower meander, which was more involved than I thought and used quite a lot of swoops and swirls. It was a workout, but I think it turned out really well. 

 

And look at that backing! It's so wild, but it goes so well on the back of this quilt. Bright and cheery on both sides. I was going to make a yellow binding, but then I decided to use this binding that was already made and echoed a color on the quilt and in the border. Hey, there's a lot going on here right now. Saving a few minutes here and there can really add up.

That's the story of this quilt that has been neglected several times but finally got finished. I am so, so happy to have it done, out of the box and out of the pile of quilts that need binding. Are there other quilts in that pile? Maybe. The sewing room is such a mess right now, who can really tell?

Everyone have a good weekend! Just keep repeating "16 days until spring, 16 days until spring. . ." And to prove it, take a look at the tops of the trees here. I think those are buds!

Happy weekend!

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

Time for some stars

 Hi everyone, and happy last weekend of January! Didn't we just start January? Holy cow, I just don't know where the time goes. All I know is that it is never long enough when I'm trying to sleep, or when I'm trying to work on something really important with a deadline. Maybe the deadlines are why I can't sleep. What do you think?

So many questions! How about a pretty little finished quilt to break it up a bit? It was pretty cold this week, but we had more than one clear day so I took this bright little quilt outside and took some pictures:

 

 

Okay, that's cheerful and it isn't asking any questions! This is the completely finished Beothuk Star quilt, by Sandra of mmmquilts. I made the top in 2019, which I absolutely have to mention was now three whole years ago. It was the last little quilt top that I finished at our house in Delaware before we moved to Baltimore. It got packed away immediately and came out of the box here in Baltimore when I was looking for UFOs to repurpose and projects to be finished with. 

 

As you can see, it is much nicer all quilted up than it was in the box! I quilted this myself at the last quilting appointment I had, and then it hung around here for a little bit while I tried to figure out what color to bind it with. I couldn't decide, and then I actually looked at the scraps and found that I only had enough of the turquoise. I guess that decided things!

I bound this by machine, which is now my first choice for binding. Yes, I am surprised, because I never thought this would happen. I've had enough practice now that it is much easier than it was at the beginning, and I have to tell you-- it is so much faster! The key to success (for me) is to press the binding well after stitching it to the back. It makes a huge difference in how easy it is to flip it to the front and stitch it down.

The quilting pattern here is Daisy Swirl by Clothwerx and is the most complex pattern that I've quilted yet. It turned out great, so I am feeling much more confident about the whole longarming thing. I wish I could afford a machine of my own, because it would be really nice to load the machine one afternoon then actually do the quilting the next day, but even used ones are pretty much beyond me, so I'll be making another rental appointment soon.

So there's another happy quilt finish! This week I also finished piecing the Gridlock quilt top, but I'm planning to have it jump the line and get quilted next, so it can have some beauty shots then. I also may have started a new quilt, but that will have to wait, too!

Everyone have a great weekend! We're apparently going to have some snow, wind, and other weather, and maybe a *lot* of snow (they can't decide), so it looks like a good time to hole up and sort scraps. Maybe I'll even vacuum, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that! 

 

(Also, for anyone concerned about the brown bat we have here at the house, he's still hanging out under the eaves and seems to be just fine. It hasn't been warm enough for him to move, but he looks just the same!)

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

A quilt to end the summer

 Hi everyone! Well, we made it through the first week of school and here we are, suddenly a few days into September. 2021 is now in its last quarter. Yikes! And right on schedule, we had a huge storm and the temperatures and humidity dropped lower than they have been in ages. It feels great out there today. Plus, I'm happy to report really good compliance on mask-wearing and distancing from my students so far. Hurray!

I have a finished quilt to show today, and it's a quilt from earlier this summer. I saved it just for the end of summer, because I knew this would be a very hectic week, and because this particular quilt makes a great wrap-up to the season. Here she is:

 

 

Earlier this summer, my sweet niece Annie got married! I can hardly believe it, as I still think of her as about five years old. They had postponed the wedding twice because of Covid, and they were finally able to pull it off. Thank goodness they did, because they managed to squeeze it in before the Delta variant surged, though nobody knew that then, so a lot of us were able to go and dance at their wedding, including my parents.

 

 So, since my niece was getting married in a vineyard (in an area along Lake Erie which is full of vineyards and mostly grows Concord grapes), I decided not to take any pictures here at home, but wait and take pictures of the quilt in the vineyard. Those would be great pictures, right? Very pastoral and beautiful. 

 

 

Uh, no. You guys, grape vines are waaay taller than they look from the road. And they're attached to weird wire fences that did not look like anything that I wanted to put a wedding quilt on, plus it turned out to be quite windy. Plus, they have actual grapes growing on them, which can get crushed and get all over the quilt. So we have some odd pictures, but they still work, right? Here's the best one with the grapevines:

 

 

Yep, I had someone hold it, and it still blew all around. Ah, well. It was an idea, but not a great idea. At least you can see that they had a beautiful, though breezy, day! The rest of the pictures are also from various spots around the vineyard property, which was quite lovely.

 

I made this quilt as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at soscrappy. I made the blocks in 2018 and finished the top in 2019. All of the fabrics except the backing and sashing are scraps. I had promised it to a friend, but a while ago she graciously relinquished her claim, since she has plenty of quilts. When I got the news about Annie's (original) wedding date, I knew it would be perfect for her, and I sent it off to my friend Diane to be longarmed. As a bonus, the quilting panto is actually called meandering stars!

Needless to say, Annie and her new hubby were thrilled with their gift and started using it immediately, which is what we all want for gifted quilts, right? I don't know him very well, but the bright colors and happy layout certainly fit my niece. And we all know that's who has to be pleased, right? 

 

With a happy quilt for a happy bride and groom, that wraps up the summer! I can hardly believe we're at the end. Overall, it was a good time for me and let me reset my overworked brain. I still got a lot done, and I'm happy with how we're heading into fall. And I'm almost looking forward to some much cooler temperatures, though we all know what that leads to, right? (Hint: it starts with "s" and makes a very slippery mess!)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Labor Day weekend. I plan to relax and maybe hang some new curtains, and the hubs and I may go for a small picnic. I might even sneak in a few stitches here and there. I didn't post any wedding pictures here, mainly because they're full of people I don't know who might not like their pictures posted, but I do want to end with a picture of the bride's beautiful flowers, which were made by my cousin and were definitely not scraps. Enjoy the weekend!

 

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, soscrappy for the RSC, and Oh, Scrap!