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.

Triangle party

Hi everyone!  First, I have very good news-- we have found a house, and they have accepted our offer.  Yahoo! We will have a place to live in Baltimore.  Our house hasn't sold yet, so right now I'm going back and forth between being really happy about the new house and being really panicky about owning two houses.  Finding a house is a huge relief for us, though, even though we may have to eat pretzels for supper for a few months. 

How should I celebrate finding a house? Well, by sewing something, of course, and to heck with the mess. The problem with pulling things out to stitch isn't having to pull things out and put it all away, but having to be super careful about the threads and the little snippets and the dust caused by the fabrics.  And it *is* annoying to have to put it all away now that I've had an actual sewing room.  But anyway. . .

I decided to finally, finally get started on the Beothuk Star quilt from Sandra at mmmquilts.  Yes, the quilt along ended in June, but I've been a little busy.  Here's as far as I got:

Piles of untrimmed hsts in the mulch!  Hey, I didn't say I got far! I just started with the cutting yesterday.  Thankfully, this is a really easy quilt and I have high hopes that mine will turn out as pretty as some of those I've seen online.

I think these colors are really pretty and they were doing a pretty good job of making me happy.  I bought the kit from Bernie's shop, and it looks like she has just one kit left, so you could hop right over there and get it.  She does have yardage, though, so you could make your own kit.  I was a little nervous about using a patterned background, but it turns out that the fabrics look great together and the print fabric looks good.  I did switch out the lighter pink in the kit for a pink fat quarter from my stash, mostly because I liked my pink a lot and I really want to use it.

That's it for the stitching time I've had so far this week, but I do plan to work on this over the 4th since I can probably leave the mess out there on the table.  I doubt that anyone is going to want a house tour on Independence Day-- but I'm willing to be wrong!

On a completely unrelated topic, I noticed this week that I have peppers and tomatoes!  Have I mentioned that it's been remarkably hot and wet here?  It was something like 92 degrees when I took these pictures.  It's certainly been great for the plants.  This year I got some pre-planted pots from the garden center and I didn't have high hopes, but it looks like I could be making salsa pretty soon!

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe 4th. I'll be taking it easy and sewing, then we'll probably do some food outside and maybe go to the fireworks.  Depends on whether it's raining or not!  Happy Independence Day, and enjoy your celebration of our great country!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social.

Blogger's Quilt Festival--Triangle Surprise

Hi again folks!  This post is my second entry into the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side, a no-pressure virtual quilt show.  It's my first time doing this, so let's see how it goes!  If you're new to the blog, my name is Mari and I'm a college professor who generally has a stray thread stuck to her all the way through every class.  It can't be helped!

I am entering this quilt in the ROYGBIV category:

This is my quilt Triangle Surprise, which was made from a rainbow of scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at soscrappy.

This quilt is made from 6-inch triangle blocks, all set on point, and floating on a black and white background.  See the little triangles for cornerstones?  That's one of my favorite parts of this quilt!  This also could be the first time I completely skipped adding borders and went all modern.  I just never found a border I liked and I didn't want to ruin the floating effect.

Triangle Surprise is backed with a dark gray and quilted with a bright green on both the front and back, in a rope panto. I bound it with a green print, which comes really close to matching the thread used for quilting.  I think it really sets it off!

I finished most of the piecing for this in December, and then it was quilted and off to a new home in March, which is why the pictures I have of it were taken in the snow.  It now lives with my daughter, who loves it almost as much as I loved making it. I understand it lives in her den by the puzzle table.

Thanks for coming by, and I hope you've all enjoyed  Triangle Surprise! I certainly enjoyed making it, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Happy sewing, everyone!

Triangle surprise

Hello folks! How are you doing this lovely, cold day? It has been so, so gray here and I am longing for sunshine. I have a finish to show you today that is a bit of a bright spot in the grayness of this winter. The triangle quilt for RSC14 is finally a finished top! And it turned out to be a little bit of a surprise, so I've named it Triangle Surprise:

Notice anything? No borders! I never did find a border that I liked with it, and after auditioning several, I decided to be all modern and go without. Plus, I do love the floating effect of the triangles on this fabric. I did add a 2 inch border of the sashing and setting fabric all around just to make it a little bigger and avoid having all bias edges. The fabric seems to have a striped effect in the pictures, but I didn't notice that in person, so I'm calling that a camera effect.
 

 This quilt turned out to be a beauty, but it gave me some fits along the way. I've done on point settings many times, but this time I seemed to have a problem thinking about it properly. For some reason, nothing wanted to go together correctly.  And those cornerstones kept getting turned strangely, but they were totally worth the work. I love them!
 

Doing a happy dance about this happy, scrappy quilt!

So, we are nearing Christmas, and I'm going to set aside most of my projects for the next week. I may do some on the Odd Fellow's quilt, and I want to make some more Drunkard's Path blocks, just to have something to work on. Otherwise, it will be baking central around here as there are tons of Christmas cookies and breads still to be baked, plus presents to wrap and two small things left to shop for.  And then the family shows up!

I may or may not post something next week, so if I don't get another chance, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas! (Cue the Jose Feliciano song!) And if you celebrate a different holiday (or no holiday!), I wish you a wonderful, happy week as well.

Peace and joy to you and yours!

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Amanda Jean at crazy mom quilts, and also Angela at soscrappy.

Projects in pieces

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my little corner of the Internet. For today's post, I was going to make a list of the things that are stressing me out right now, but the list itself made me panicky. Instead, how about we ignore all of that and look at pretty quilty pictures instead?

I've gotten started on the next row of the winter quilt, which is a row of candy pieces:

I changed mine up a little bit from the pattern. The pattern has them all in the same fabric, while I just grabbed a bunch of bright scraps for mine. I know I want the pieces to alternate "up" and "down" so that it 'waves' across the quilt, but I can't decide if I should still put the spacer pieces in the row or not.  The partial row on top in this picture has the spacers while the bottom one does not. Which do you like better?

I also made some of step 2 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt:

I strip pieced these and it went pretty well. (Tutorial with great pictures is HERE.) These are all that I'm making of this step for now as well. (No stressing out over quilt projects, remember? This is my new rule--for myself, of course! Feel free to bask in as much anxiety as you feel comfortable with.) I suspect these pieces are for a border because they remind me a lot of the border pieces in Lazy Sunday (which I haven't made but hope to one day). I guess we'll find out!

Finally, I did work some on the triangle quilt. I decided to make it one row longer, which means more triangles. I swear these are the last of them:

These better be last of them, because I'm starting to be tired of it, even if it is pretty bright and happy. What was I thinking, making 6-inch blocks? Should have known it would take a ton of them to make a decent-sized quilt. Good thing I was never a math major.

Hope everyone gets some sewing done this week! Those holidays are coming, faster than we think!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Happy sewing!

Deep freeze

Well, friends, what has happened to fall? I would swear it was here just a minute ago. Instead the temperatures are in the single digits--with wind! Good thing I have some quilts laying around here, or we'd all be Popsicles.

In addition to getting my chattering teeth under control, I have been working on the rainbow triangle quilt diligently. Okay, only semi-diligently, but I am making progress:

Indoor picture! Too cold for outside!

Did you ever have a situation where you "forgot" how to do something that you've known how to do forever? That seems to be a theme with this quilt. First, I was working on making some more blocks to fill out the quilt center when I discovered (halfway through a block) that I had used the wrong size triangle paper. So now I have three lovely 4 1/2 inch 9-patches instead of 6 inch ones.

Adorable! And an inch and a half too small.

Then I kind of had a brain freeze about the sashing. For some reason, I kept getting the pieces mixed up and at one point ended up having to make Y-seams to add in the setting triangles. What? I Knew THAT was wrong! I finally went back to the way I almost always do the sashing-- block by block. I hate having to sew on long, skinny strips.

I think that somehow I started putting the sashing on the wrong sides of the blocks so that they wouldn't fit easily with the others and that messed everything else up. I have it straightened out now, though!

So, now I'm looking at possible border fabrics. These are my current choices:

Hmmm. I don't think I like any of them with the sashing. Any of them would have worked with a white sashing, but the black and white has me thrown. The stripes are definitely out, but they might make a nice binding. If I had enough of the black and white fabric I would just use that and be "modern," but I'm almost out. I may have to use a black, but I'm afraid that would be too heavy. I guess the ending will be a surprise--even to me!

I also did a bunch of cutting for a new quilt. Check it out:

I think you can guess what this will be! (The file name for this picture is "frozen parts." Ha! It certainly fits today!) I'm almost done with the pink and green Drunkard's Path (come back Friday to see) and want to start a new one. They are addictive!

That's it from here in the frozen north. Everybody stay warm! Happy sewing!

Linking to Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social, and also the awesome Angela at soscrappy for RSC14.

(Bonus blogging tip: when scheduling a post, make sure you click "am" and not "pm" for the time! Sorry to be late!)

Projects in progress

Hello all!

A LOT has been happening in my sewing room so far this week. There are three projects that are racing toward the finish line very fast. Wonder which one will get there first?

First up is the aqua and orange quilt. I finished the center and then decided to put some orange flying geese as a border.

Wow, is that ever bad.  I really, really don't like it. The scale is all wrong, and the seams hit funny. As soon as I realized from the picture how very bad it looked, I took it off. Time to try something else. I think a thin border and then some smaller flying geese that won't have to match up to the existing seams. And a different orange. Definitely a different orange.

Then I have the red and white Dancing Nines quilt, which is coming along nicely.

Look, I'm making 4 patches from the leftover pieces! It may not make an exciting picture, but I am seriously excited about this. I started with 68 and need a bunch more. The extra pieces have to be taken apart to make them the right size, so there are threads everywhere. And I may need to buy a new seam ripper, one that will actually cut thread. How much ripping do you have to do to dull a seam ripper?

And, believe it or not, the third project is this one:

Okay, weird size picture, but this is two rows of the much-postponed Celtic Solstice project. I am FINALLY putting it together. I don't know if it feels good yet or not; mostly I just feel relieved. I have had to bargain with myself to work on it, as in "you can't sew on the Dancing Nines until you sew two CS blocks together." Hey, whatever works, right? The next hurdle is figuring out a border, but I can see the end of the tunnel. And I'm pretty sure that it's not an oncoming train.

That's it for now, except for this:

That's a basket of small scraps to be cut into 1 1/2 and 2 inch squares. It'll be relaxing, right?

Hope your sewing is also going well! Linking to Linky Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Come on over and join us!

Fun with triangles

Hello all, and welcome to another summer weekend! I am trying to treasure every remaining one, because they are just flying by. Soon enough we'll be talking about the dreaded winter weather, so best to enjoy it while we can!

What did you accomplish this week? The first things I finished were these two triangle blocks for RSC14:

And that's the end of my bright green scraps! Sad, I know. But I'm going to trade with a friend to get some more, so I'll have some soon. She wants some beiges and tans, which I have plenty of, so we both win. And August has 5 Saturdays, so I have some time, too.

I also finished the aqua triangle quilt center:

I like it, but here's my problem: I don't know where to go next with it. It's not that often I get stuck, but here I guess I was so pleased with the quilt center layout that I didn't think about the rest of the quilt. I thought of a couple options, and so far the best idea I have is a narrow orange border with another border of triangles. This would use up all of the triangles but one and make the quilt a little bigger. After this, I'm stumped. I know I need borders, but don't know what those would look like. Plain straight borders just don't seem right to me. Maybe some small pinwheels in other colors? I don't know. If you have an idea, let me know!

I also made a few more of the Dancing Nines blocks:

Can you tell that these were made from extra parts? I like how this quilt is progressing. I decided to make 35 more 9 patches so that I can have it set 5 blocks by 6 before borders are added. I have enough other pieces to make these and have some left over to make more of the 4 patches for one of the borders. I could almost cry when I think about using it all up and having a quilt top done from this fabric after 16 years.

That's it for me this week! Hope you all got some sewing done too.  Our son and daughter-in-law are moving to a new house this weekend, so you can guess what we'll be doing.

Linking to Sarah, Amanda Jean, and the awesome Angela. Pop on over for more quilty inspiration!

Also, if you followed the story of Pelly the pelican over at Connie's blog (Freemotion by the River), you want to read her post with the latest chapter. If you haven't read the saga, go back and do so. It will warm your heart!

Crunch time

Nobody panic, but it's the end of July. Soon it will be August, and you know what that means, don't you? That's right--school. So it's time to buckle down and get all my summer projects done. (I say that like it will really happen. A woman can dream, can't she?)

Seriously, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and need to get some of these projects done so I can feel like I've actually accomplished something. I do this to myself all the time. I may need help.

First up is the blue fields and furrows quilt. If you recall, this came from Vicki Welsh's HSTeria quilt challenge. I really had no intention to start a new quilt, but all these HSTs were already made, so it should have gone fast, right? And it has gone reasonably quickly. I've finished the center:

I like the center, and I think the darker stop border is good. I think I have enough of that for a binding too. I have a ton of blue squares left, so I'm thinking of an inner border of blue and white squares.

 Maybe I'll cut them into rectangles.

Hmmm. I think I like the rectangles. Or maybe smaller squares. We'll see how it works out. Anyone with an opinion, please let me know. Since this started out as another quilt, I also have border fabric all cut and ready to add. Maybe this can get finished this week. While I didn't plan to make this quilt, I am grateful to have had an excuse to use those HSTs and get one more project out of the closet.

Aaah! Those are the only pictures I really have! The red and white dancing nines continues to grow, and the other triangle quilt center is almost finished. I'm also working on a top-secret project which is a gift for a friend, and I made a lot of progress on that, but I can't show it here until it's gifted. There will be pictures once it's sent off, I promise!

Hope everyone else is getting more sewing done.  Too bad life keeps interfering with quilting, isn't it?

Linking with Vicki's last HST linkup, Linky Tuesday, and Let's Bee Social. I always love seeing what everyone else is doing, so go on over and check out some new ideas!

Bits and pieces

Wow, where has the day gone? Don't know, but it's 88 degrees and I'm blaming the heat for the time getting away from me.

There is a lot going on in the sewing room here, but little of it is fit for pictures. Everything is in pieces, some of them on the floor, and other things are in piles. The only thing that is really done are a few more blocks for the Loyal Union Sampler:

These were hard to photograph! I like them, though. Only one more block and I'm done with the February blocks. At this rate, this quilt will be done sometime in the next two years or so. They're only 6 inch blocks, so the pieces are small and some of them are very fiddly (if you know what I mean).

I'm also working on the triangle quilts. The center of the fields and furrows is done and now I have to work out some borders. Thankfully, there's a lot of fabric left for that. Then there is this one:

I keep calling this 'exploding triangles,' so the first thing to do is come up with a better name. I like the orange cornerstones with the aqua triangles, and I need to add another color, but I'm not sure what to add. I was thinking of lime green, or maybe yellow. I better decide soon, because I want to be done with this.

The other thing I'm working on (when I get bored with the triangles) is adding the sashing to the Dancing Nines blocks. They go quickly, so I already have a nice stack.

I'm already trying to figure out borders for this one too. I think there is a print with larger cherries, so I'm planning to look for that.

That's what's happening here! Lots of mess, and lots of progress, but not a lot that can be photographed  easily.

Finally, the red daylily has bloomed at last!

It's a good month late. I think even the plants are confused by our weird weather.

Happy sewing to everyone this week! Linking up with Linky Tuesday and Fabric Tuesday. Go check them out!

Halfway to the rainbow

Nobody freak out or anything, but the 4th of July is Friday. THIS Friday.

Yikes! How did that happen? This means we are halfway through 2014. Double yikes!

It also means that we are halfway through the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for this year, and Angela is hosting a linkup so that everyone can show off their progress so far. (Thanks Angela!) So, here are the "family portraits" of my RSC14 blocks so far:

First up are the triangle blocks. These are simple 9-patch half-square triangles that I plan to set on point. I've been using the brighter/more whimsical scraps for these blocks. They finish at 6 inches square, so 36 of them (3 in each color) should make a happy quilt. These are fast and easy and use up some of the weird strips I have saved. The two in the middle of the bottom row look very light in the picture, but are okay in real life. Every quilt needs variety, right?

Since I'm using triangle paper to make these, I end up with ten HSTs in each color, which means I have one of each left over. I'm thinking of adding some "mixed" blocks to the quilt also, using these triangles.  I would have enough for four multicolor blocks. I could also use them as cornerstones or something in the border. What do you think?

Face it, we need a new fence.

This is my other RSC14 project, 12 inch Odd Fellow's Chain blocks. These are a traditional pattern with lots of pieces and are simple enough, but time consuming.  I've been using the more "sober" colors for these blocks, with one light (ish) and one dark (ish) in each color. Sometimes it doesn't really work out that way, but I like them all together anyway. My plan for these is to make the monthly blocks and then make one more in either mixed colors, a multicolored print, or reversed values (right now I'm thinking of a black and white block). This would give me 25 blocks to set 5 by 5  for a very nice-sized quilt. I think it's sparkling so far.

Those are my projects! I think they look great so far, and can't wait to see everyone else's.

Happy sewing everyone, and Happy Independence Day! Have a safe and happy holiday weekend. And a happy weekend to non-Americans as well!

Linking to the awesome Angela at So Scrappy, of course!

Block week

I love summer, don't you? There is so much to DO and see, and it's so good to be outside. Couple the great weather with travel to a professional conference, and for me that means not a lot of time in the sewing room this week.  Since I knew that I'd be travelling (and I still had to finish my paper!) I just concentrated on getting some blocks finished this week.

First, there are these Odd Fellow's blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge:

These are not yellow, which is June's color, but I am behind. Sigh. These are great blocks, but they are not quick, I'll tell you. Each of these takes me at least an hour and a half. Lots of pieces! I wish I had a couple of good tips for them, but the only thing I can think of is to use a point trimmer on the white triangles so that they fit correctly. (THIS is the one I use.)

Next up are a couple of extra small triangle blocks, also for RSC14. These ARE quick. I realized that I need three of each color for the triangle quilt, and I only had two of these. So here are an extra blue and an extra purple:

The purple has sparkly metallic dots. Who can argue with sparkly?

I also made one lonely yellow triangle block:

Turns out I don't have a lot of yellow scraps, which is weird because I love yellow and use it all the time. I didn't know it was so hard to photograph, though. Could not get a decent picture except in the deep shade.

The last blocks I made this week were a part of the Loyal Union Sampler quilt-along that I'm doing with my local quilt shop, Patched Works. They are going through 10 blocks a month to get all 121 finished in one year. It's now June, and I'm on. . .February. Sighhh. But it's not a race, right?

All of the blocks in this quilt-along are cute, and I've seen them in so many different fabrics and they all look great and like different quilts all together. Mine are made from a fabric line called Dogwood Trail by Moda fabrics. Most of these are paper pieced, a technique I love. If you did the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler, these are much, much easier.

That was my quilting week! Hope you got some stuff done too. I am at a professional conference, so I expect to have a great time and learn a lot this weekend. If I remember and have some time, I will link up with Crazy Mom Quilts and Scrap Happy Saturday.

If you have some time, jump over and check out this post at Freshly Pieced, where Lee gets to write about our terrific state of Wisconsin for the AMB Blog Tour.

Have a great weekend, everyone!