Something New

 To see what other quilters are up to go to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

I am still working away on projects. I just can't seem to post every week or on Monday. I have put the Buried Treasure project away for now. It will be a good project to take to a sew day or retreat. We have sew days at the local library scheduled for Feb. 3rd and 17th. I'm not sure if we will be able to sew on the 3rd as we are expecting snow. Possibly a lot of snow. The retreat is scheduled for the 23rd through the 25th. Our retreats are day retreats - we bring all our stuff and sew for the day, leave it there overnight and come back the next day, and the next day. It is nice to be able to leave things there where it is locked up safe and sound. 

I have also put the 16-Patch project away for now. I need more scraps in specific colors to continue working on that one. I know I will be gifted more scraps at the sew days and retreat. 

But, never fear, I still have projects to work on. I had set aside 2-1/2" squares for the Spools quilt.

I am keeping track of the colors so there will be equal amounts of each in the quilt. So far I have 110 spool blocks. They finish at 4 inches. I will need a lot more.

I have made repairs to a vintage quilt for my friend.

Here is the top before repairs.

This hole is where the quilt was folded. It affected three squares.

Here it is after repair. Can you tell which block was repaired?

Now can you tell? 

It's the one on the left.

I plan to do simple in-the-ditch hand quilting.

I have loaded the Quilter Exchange Mystery quilt on the frame. 

I'm using a green variegated thread.

This is a view of the back.

I have been working on a counted cross-stitch project.

This is the month of May of A Year of Celebrations from Hands on Design.

I got this mini quilt top done a while ago.

It is Olde Glory from Temecula Quilt Company.

I've started quilting it. 

I had planned to get more done, but this happened.

Husband found him outside the barn in the snow Monday evening. He put him back in the barn, but the next morning he was cold and crying. So he brought him to the house. Some food softened with warm water seemed pretty good!

Then he snuggled in for a nap.

He has perked up a lot and is getting playful. 

He has taken over this chair for naps. Son says his dog is going to be upset because he claims that chair when he is here. The plan had been to get him strong enough to go back out to the barn, but Son thinks he might like for him to come to live at his house. He says his dog gets along well with my SIL's cats when they visit them.

Kitty seems to be settling in so I hope to be able to get more quilting time.

Stay safe and well.

Happy quilting!

Plugging Away

To see what other quilters are up to go to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

I am determined this year to clean up/organize my space better, finish up projects and reduce my scraps and stash. 

I have cleaned out the closet in my sewing room. 

It wasn't bad, but now it is better.

I finished the Mickey Mouse quilt. 

It has been washed and is ready to gift as soon as the baby arrives.

I keep finding bags and small boxes of scraps that I have put away in different places. I think I am finally seeing the very end of those. I have been cutting them into the sizes I use the most. I started piecing some of them into blocks and am working on getting those made into two different quilts. One of them will be a 16-patch. Each block will be one color with light background. I will place them randomly together. I have one row sewn together and have started on the second row.

The other is Buried Treasure.

You can see the pattern photo in this pic. I have one row pieced and all the blocks are now sewn. Like the pattern, I am using a yellow solid for the background and random scraps instead of just blue and green as the pattern calls for.

I made two bowl buddies, a kitchen towel, and a dishcloth for my neighbors.

I have had a small pincushion velcroed to the top of one of my machines. I really like that it is small, but holds enough pins for a project. I find it very handy to have just within reach. And, I don't knock it off the table!

I like it so much that I decided to make one for each of the machines I use regularly.

I was given a miniature tomato pincushion. It is perfect on top of my machine.

They are very easy to make using a medicine bottle lid, a scrap of fabric, a small amount of stuffing,

and a bit of trim. I used a hot glue gun to adhere it all together. A square of stick-on velcro attaches the pincushion to the top of the machine.

I can take the pincushion off easily when I pack the machine in my rolling tote to transport to sewing days. 

That's what I have been up to

Stay safe and well.

Happy quilting!

I'm On A Mission...

...to complete projects and reduce my stash, especially my scraps.

Before I talk about that here are a couple of projects that don't fit in that category.

One of my quilting friends asked me to finish up a couple of knitted ponchos she had started a few years ago. For one I just needed to finish a couple of rows and stitch it together. The other needed completely redone. The yarn is bulky and knit on large needles so it didn't take long to redo it. On the last sew day I passed the completed ponchos to her cousin who lives almost next door to her. However, the recipient has been out of town so I haven't heard from her. I hope she is happy with the work I did.

I didn't think to take a photo of the finished ponchos, but the pattern shows how they went together.

Next, I started work on a baby quilt for my young neighbors who are expecting their first baby at the end of January. They are big - BIG - Disney fans so, of course, I need to make a Mickey Mouse quilt.

It took a few tries before I decided on how to arrange the Friendship Star blocks, which finish at four inches. I tried six-inch blocks but decided that was too big.

The top is finished, but the piece of fabric I have for the back, shown on the right, is just a smidge too small. I have been pondering how to make it bigger. I hope to figure that out and get it quilted this next week. I will bind it with the blue batik used on the front.

Then I saw a cute idea for using Christmas cards. Really, any greeting card would work, but I had been thinking of a way to use Christmas cards. They are just too pretty to throw away.

A YouTube video to make these Pillow Boxes from Sew Very Easy can be found here. There is a template in the links below the video that can be printed. I enlarged the template to 125% to make it bigger. I also used double-sided scrapbooking tape instead of glue. I made these five in less than two hours. I found that a package of Olfa rotary blades would fit if the top part is folded down. I think a gift card would fit nicely, too.

On to finishes and stash busting.

I finished the Disappearing Rail Fence scrappy quilt.

I decided to try, again, to do a machine sewn binding. I used a big zig-zag stitch.

I'm not crazy about how it looks, but it is acceptable. I haven't decided if I will keep this one, pass it on to someone or donate it. Speaking of donating I need sources to donate to. Any suggestions? I am in north-central Illinois and would appreciate the names of specific places.

I have two large shopping bags in my sewing room. They are were FULL to overflowing with fabric scraps.

I generated a lot of these scraps, but my quilt friends have also added to it a lot. Every time we are together some of them hand me baggies full of scraps they have saved for me. Quilters are so generous!

While I do appreciate their donations I have decided that I just will not use them all so I am going through and getting rid of the tiniest ones. And, it's taking much longer than I anticipated.

I'm sorting. 

And pressing.

And, trimming.

I am sorting out the HSTs and pieced units. 

I decided that 2-inch, 2 1/2-inch, and 3 1/2-inch are the sizes I want. After I decided on a pattern I discovered I need 4-inch squares also.

As of today I have this much left in one bag, less than half full. The other bag is empty.

I am getting a lot of this work done during phone conversations with Son.

EDIT: It has taken me a couple of days to write this post. As of this morning, my bag looks like this.

It's empty. Woohoo! But...

I am not quite finished. I still have this pile to finish up. That should happen today, hopefully.

In between all that I am piecing HSTs and squares together.

Then 4-patches.

Then 8-patches.

Then 16-patches and pinwheels.

The pattern is 16 Patch and Pinwheels by Mary Johnson. 

My blocks are smaller since I am using 2-inch squares.

I will work on these long enough to get them to the 8-patch and HSTs stage. Then it will be a good project to take to sew days if we get to continue. We meet at a local library that is also in a school. We have to follow the guidelines the school follows. They only recently were allowed to have groups up to 15, masked. That may change again with the Omicron variant increasing. 

We'll see.

To see what other quilters are up to go to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Stay safe and well.

Happy quilting!