Winter tulips

Hi everyone! How was your week?  Has anyone started baking Christmas cookies? I'm looking for a *good* gluten free sugar cookie recipe, if anyone knows one.  These are my first GF holidays and I'm finding it difficult to find good replacements for old favorites.

It's the time of the year when it's very stressful here at the AQ house.  Lots of things going on and lots and lots of deadlines.  In the sewing room, I've been quilting up a bunch of things and it's felt like all I've done for the last couple of weeks is stitch straight lines.  These quilts will be awesome, but they can get really dull to work on towards the end.  So, what to do to stay creative and sane?  Work on a new-ish project, of course!  Here's what I came up with:

Tulip fields blocks, from Bonnie Hunter's book String Fling! I'm making my blocks bigger than hers, so I had to adjust the cutting and whatnot, but it's the same idea.  I also decided to use scrappy pieces for the tulip petals, too, where Bonnie uses a constant color. 

Never fear, I am not making all of these string blocks now!  That would add more stress. I started with this pile:

I made these blocks as an RSC project in (gulp!) 2015. I tried them out with some gray triangles earlier this year, but that never went anywhere.  Just couldn't find a pattern I liked for them. I'll take those apart and make them into tulips, too. I think these tulip blocks are much more my style and will make a prettier quilt.

That's the update from here! Looking ahead realistically, this project and the black blocks project will probably be all I'll have time to finish off this year.  I'll have some fun quilted finishes, but this will likely be the last start of a project.  Okay, I did pull one more out of the closet and I might work on it some, but only if it's fun. 

Hope you all have a good weekend! Tomorrow it will be December, if you can believe it.  Time to trim the tree, add some presents, and submit some final grades.  Fun!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and soscrappy for RSC18.

Dark blue and wavy too

Hi everyone! Show of hands-- how many people are pretty sure they never want to see a turkey again?  Always lots of leftover turkey, never enough leftover pie.  It's the great Thanksgiving imbalance.  In spite of that, we had a great Thanksgiving and I hope you did, too.  The day after Thanksgiving was a lazy day for us, mainly because it was quite chilly, though I do confess that I went online and purchased a few things. I didn't have to leave the couch, let alone stand in line outside. God bless Tim Berners-Lee.

Today I'm just dropping in to show off my totally quilted and bound Straight Away quilt:

This is one of the projects that I made with my 15-inch Squared Away blocks.  I finished the top a few weeks ago and then used this quilt to try out the serpentine stitch on the new machine.  It worked really well!  I only had a few hiccups, but thankfully they were mostly on the dark blue parts, so they were well hidden.

This is quilted with a dark blue Aurifil thread.  I always worry about using dark thread because I don't usually like dark thread on lighter fabrics, but here it doesn't really bother me. The backing is a dark floral from Alexander Henry so the stitches just blend in.  I bought about 6 yards of the backing for a song a while ago, so I still have enough left to back another quilt.

I quilted the lines about an inch and a half apart, and this is one of the coziest quilts I've ever made.  I'm so happy about that, because this quilt is winging its' way to Bernie for the Mercyful Quilts project.  You can read more about it HERE, but a very short explanation is that the Mercyful quilts go to the palliative care unit at Mercy Medical Center to aid in the care of the dying.  You should definitely go read Bernie's post.  It will touch your heart.

So there we are-- one more completely finished RSC quilt, and for a good cause.  I am happy to send this one off and I hope it brings some comfort to a family.  And I'm already quilting up another quilt with the serpentine stitch, so I should have it under good control by the end of the weekend.  I can't even tell you how thrilled I am about this.  I have two more RSC quilts I want to get into tops before the end of the year and I already feel like we're racing towardthat deadline.  We're staring at the end of 2018, people!

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the weekend!  Freeze the rest of the turkey and go for a pizza.  It will feel great!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC18.

Counting my blessings

Hi everyone! Is your kitchen overwhelmed with pie-making, and perhaps a turkey thawing? I know what you're doing, and it smells fantastic and yummy!

It's Thanksgiving this week in the United States, and when we count our blessings this year, we will be counting one more.  See if you can guess what that blessing will be:

Yes, we are expecting another grandchild! Our daughter will be having a baby girl in January.  Yes, we are over the moon! And, yes, that does make four grandchildren in three years.  The more the merrier, I say! 

Since this tiny girl will be making her big debut in the coldest part of the year, I've made her some nice warm blankets to snuggle into.  These are always fun to make, and super easy to boot.  And just look at the really cute flannels I found!  Our daughter and her husband don't want a lot of pink, but thankfully there are some really cute flannels that are much more unisex than what they're selling in stores these days. 

I made four of the single-layer blankets and a double-sided one.  I make these without any measuring.  To do this, I just remove the selvages and square up one end.  Then I fold the squared-off end diagonally to meet one of the edges where the selvages were.

Trim and then hem and you've got a good-sized baby blanket!  This gives you a blanket that is about 40 inches square, depending on the original width of the flannel.  Mine were just over 40 inches.  The peas and carrots, the green, and the little sprigs are Lil' Sprouts Flannel Too, which is a very nice heavyweight flannel that turned out really soft and made great blankets.  The super cute fishbowls are a Michael Miller flannel from Bernie's shop, and it also washed beautifully and made a great little blanket. 

Since they now tell parents not to put coats on babies so that the car seat straps fit nice and snug, I also made a double-sided blanket that is quite a bit heavier and can be used over the car seat carrier when she has to go somewhere.  Double-sided ones are also nice to have for other uses, too. To make the double -sided one, I cut one of the flannels using the same method as above, then pinned, pinned, pinned it to the uncut other layer, right sides together. 

Stitch first, leaving an opening for turning, then trim the second layer away. Turn and stitch about 1/4 inch from the edges all around, which will also stitch the opening closed.  Voila--a double-sided blanket with no measuring!  The pennants flannel for this blanket came from Bernie's shop, too, and the apricot is the Lil' Sprouts.  To be honest, I really wanted a pink for the back, but I didn't want to risk the wrath of the mom to be.  I think the apricot cuts the pinkness of the pennants enough, don't you?

So that is our happy, happy news for this Thanksgiving.  One more especially happy blessing among the many, many others we count.  I hope you and your families are all counting many blessings as well this Thanksgiving.  Everybody travel safe over the river and through the woods, and shop safe on Friday, too!

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

A Mercyful quilt

Hi all! Did everyone get all their leaves raked up before the snow fell? Ha, me neither! I did manage not to slide off the unplowed roads, but that's another story altogether.  We got about 4-1/2 inches of snow, and it's raining as I write this.  I spent part of this afternoon watching cars trying to get up the hill near our house, and there were some near misses there. I could do with less of this kind of excitement, really.

Today I want to show this quilt, which I forgot I needed to take pictures of until I got home, so:

Yep, I had to take the photos in the snow, which is why there will be so few of them.  It was not actively raining at that point, but it was close. 

I did not make a single one of these blocks.  They are from a swap I did with some friends from an online group years ago.  The ones I made, of course, ended up in their quilts.  I finished the top in 2016 and just quilted it up in the last couple of weeks.  Yes, I am hanging my head in shame.  I meant to do the binding all by machine, but I forgot and stitched it to the front instead of the back, so it's got a hand binding instead.

Hmm, I seem to have missed a couple lines!

I quilted this up with the walking foot, just straight stitching along all of the block lines in a variegated gray, which was the only gray thread I had.  It actually turned out really well.  After I took this picture, I went back and did a small cross hatch in the setting triangles, too, but I'm just too lazy to go take another picture.

This quilt is folded up and in a box and ready to go off to my friend Bernie at Needle and Foot, who is collecting quilts for the palliative care unit at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento.  You can read all about the program and the quilts HERE and HERE.  I know from personal experience what a difference a program like this makes to the family, and I have nothing but respect for people who do this work.  I'm glad that this quilt will go off to help a family and I hope they get some comfort from it.  Many hospitals have programs like this, so if you're moved to contribute, you could check with your local hospital or send a quilt off to Bernie, who will be sure it's put to good use. 

Indoor picture!

On a much more cheerful note, I hope everyone has a good weekend with no snow.  California friends, I would send you a bunch of rain and snow if I could, but know that I'm praying for downpours to end the fires there.  Everybody stay safe!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and TGIFF.