Dual duty

 

I had this quilt top (53" x 55") hanging in the closet since early fall.  It is a variation (as most of my quilts are) of Jen Kingwell's Green Tea and Sweet Beans pattern.  I got tired of working on it over the summer, so set it aside until fall when I added the striped Australian fabric as the border.   All of the appliqued blocks are wool applique which I hope will not run when washed.  I like the quilt's cheerfulness.

During March, I made a block a day of Pat Sloan's quarter log cabin blocks.  Of course, I had to catch up some when we went on vacation for a week, but that was OK.   I used my basket of strings for most of the blocks, and used the plain mottled black for all the centers.  

Strings weren't the best choice as the seams don't match up.  Other people posted photos of quilts they made with fabric they had bought for the project, and they really looked nice.  Nonetheless, my top turned out cheery but not enough to be anything but the back of the Green Beans quilt.  Hence, the name Dual Duty.  

I plan to wash the quilt first and then, perhaps, give it to Bags of Love for foster kids.  Now that it's quilted, I do like a bit more.  I chose most of the strings at random, based on their length.  I ran out of longer pieces, so I used some leftover binding pieces as well.  

My strings have all been sorted by color and put into bags in my string basket.  I plan to see how they work out for my next Dear Jane row.  I have neglected that quilt for months and would like to get back to it.   But it's a very satisfying feeling to have no quilts hanging in the closet, waiting to be quilted.  It won't last - I have several blocks of the month that will no doubt be finished this summer.  

This leaves me with hand sewing the binding down on the Exploding Heart.  That will take a while because I have quite a few meetings and other events this week, and I don't like to overwork my wrists with hand sewing.

Scrappy baby quilt

On Sunday, I finished the other side of the planned reversible baby quilt, sewed some batting pieces together, sandwiched it all, and started quilting.  It's small - 36" x 36" - so it didn't take long to quilt a simple grid.  I chose a simple quilting design because (a) I'm not a great machine quilter and (b) I didn't want to have it look odd on one side or the other.  And it worked out much better than I'd thought.

I quilted from the black and white side, using Froggy masking tape as my guide.   I have been so frustrated with Scotch painter's tape popping up mid-way that I have not used it for a long time.  The green tape actually stays down and I can sew fairly close to it to get a straight-enough line.

This scrappy side used up quite a few black and white strings and scraps, and I even had to cut a few pieces from yardage.  Each block is 4" finished.  After I'd finished this side, I moved on to the duller beige medallion side.   If the baby and his parents want a quieter quilt, I hope this will work well.  It's a little hard to see the design due to the quilting, but I like the way it turned out.  My sister says my nephew's girlfriend seems to favor beige, so I had to give this a try.  It used quite a few beige scraps, too.  

For this quilt, I bought no fabric except a little of the outer border.  I already had some of that but just needed a bit more.  I have the binding sewn to one side and later today I'll sit on the porch to stitch the other side down.  Eventually, this will be winging its way to the Netherlands for a baby boy due in September.

A few UFOs finished!

Today is a warm, sunny, not very humid day.  Perfect, I thought, for picture taking.  I found it is a little too sunny, so please excuse the glare and the wrinkles that last week's humidity caused.  

This year, Aby Dolinger posted a block of the month project called "Favorites."  I always like her patterns because of the very clear directions.  I put my blocks together a little differently, though, combining Aby's blocks with my guild's blocks of the month.  Of course, that meant I had a few too many blocks, so some made a nice back.

I love the background fabric which is from a line called "Pressed Flowers," and has flecks of burgundy, gold, and greenish blue.  I used quite a few scraps and added a few fabrics, too.  The binding is a floral gold with burgundy accents.

This measures 47" x 47" and I quilted it fairly simply in a grid, with a smaller grid in the plain areas.  It will be a nice wall quilt, table topper, or even a quilt for a modern baby.

Those fold lines worry me, so I now have the quilt spread out over the back of our sofa and hope they go away.  If not, I'll use a little steam and then let it hang some more.

Yesterday I finished a quilt I'm calling "Scrappy Town," made of variously sized house blocks.  I found a free pattern on the Fat Quarter Shop's website called "Brick House" and thought I'd use it for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  After making the block a few times, I wasn't totally happy with it, so I decided to add some other sized house blocks here and there.   I think they add variety, and I enjoyed paperpiecing some of the blocks.

The resulting 45" x 45" quilt also uses scraps of muslin and 2" scrappy squares from my vast collection.  I quilted with my walking foot, mostly outlining and  crisscrossing the squares.  I loved making those tiny 3" houses, but I don't think I could endure making a whole quilt out of them.  This is a good solution.

The back of the quilt is a yellow blender and the binding is a yellow print that I've had for ages.  I had just enough to go around, thank goodness.  I ended up with three 2.5" squares for my 2.5" square scrap box.

Now I'm pondering what to do with all the multicolored 6" blocks of the month I've made in my online quilt group.   I had them lined up row-by-row fashion, but that seems too dull somehow.  Now I have 9 wonky star blocks auditioning for the center of a medallion quilt.  I could also make a haphazard sort of layout with fillers, again using my trusty 2" or 2.5" squares.  I'll keep shuffling them around for a while before deciding.

Two weeks of heat

 I have been busy trying to stay cool for the last couple of weeks - sewing with the air conditioning on, reading in front of the fan, and running to the library to do various things to help the Friends book sale  this coming weekend.

On the sewing front, I took two quilts to Marie to long arm, and I'll pick them back up on Thursday morning.  Don't know when I'll get them bound as I have plenty of other things in the pipeline.  I made a couple of mug rugs and a table runner.  One of the rugs is for a raffle basket and the other will go with us to Wisconsin along with various table runners for my brother to use as gifts for people who have helped him this past year.  

I turned my attention to a bunch of blocks of the month from Aby Dolinger's "Favorites" along with some Heart of Vermont guild blocks of the month, all done with the same background fabric.  They went together nicely in a 48" x 48" quilt which I quilted on a grid with a smaller grid for the plain pieces.

Next, the multi-sized house blocks I've been making for the rainbow scrap challenge all year called to me, and I set them together with sashing made of scrappy 2" squares.  I'm calling this quilt "Scrappy Town," and I've been quilting it for a day or so.  It is about 45" x 45".  I don't know if I'll give these two little quilts to Bags of Love (for foster kids) or change out some of the quilts I've had on my etsy shop for a while.  I may also change out the quilts at the florist's downtown.

In between, I was busy gobbling up Lessons in Chemistry because the e-book came up on my library waiting list.  It was one of my favorite books so far this year.  Very witty and quirky.  I wanted to finish that before the next book, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, comes up.  My niece Evelyn liked it very much, as did her mother, so I am assured of a good read.  In between, I'm into the next Ruth Galloway mystery, The Locked Room, by Ellie Griffiths.  All good reading for hot afternoons.

I have a pile of quilted things to take outside to photograph, but it's been too hot and humid to go outdoors much.  We keep waiting for the contractor to install our heat pump - guess it will come in the fall in time for heating season.  I had hoped it would come sooner.  Meanwhile, Paul is busy picking blueberries, so I will be in the kitchen later today making my annual pie.  Luckily, I have some salads waiting in the fridge for dinner, so I won't be in the kitchen long.  Hope you're having a great weekend!

Scrappy birds

 

I've seen a lot of quilts with these funny birds over the years and even downloaded a pattern which I have since lost.  Over this past, frigid weekend, I drafted a 10" block and pulled out a few scraps from the box marked "wild patterns."  Combined with 25-patch blocks, it worked into a 36" x 36" baby quilt.

I quilted it mostly on a grid with some outlining of the birds.  This block used some funny parrot fabric along with a Kaffe Fasset scrap.  As you can see, I didn't make the legs as long as some people have because I wanted a uniform size for the blocks.

The pieced back uses a yard of Minnie Mouse fabric that has been hanging around for a while, and the borders were also pieces from deep in my blue tub.  I am out of the striped border fabric now, but next time I go to A Quilters Garden I'll see if there's more.  It works so well with scrappy quilts.

A touch of spring

 

I saw these in the grocery store yesterday and just couldn't resist buying them.  "Field grown in England" (so the tag said), they greeted me this morning and gave me hope!  The thermometer read -0.6 degrees, and today's high will be around 8.  But we aren't having the big coastal snowstorm that may bring 24" to the Boston area and elsewhere.  For that I am thankful, and today I'll spend a little time organizing my tax stuff, balancing my check book, and quilting the scrappy, little bird quilt I made this week.  

I made four 10" pieced bird blocks and set them with 25 patch blocks made of 2.5" scrappy squares.  The back is an odd piece of Minnie Mouse fabric I had hanging around.  I will check with Bags of Love if they take smaller quilts (36" x 36").  Funny how those scraps don't seem to take up less room no matter how many I pull out of the boxes.

Happiness is...

...a new bobbin cover!  After a week on the fritz, my Elna is working now that the seemingly inconsequential part has been replaced.  After vacuuming the inside of my machine in search of a teeny piece of plastic that may have fallen in, I got right to work this morning and didn't come up for air until noon.  I had cut various parts of blocks out, starting with the last two red pineapples, and then moving on to a couple of red houses, both for the rainbow scrappy challenge.

The house blocks will vary from month to month, in both size and type.  The paper pieced one finishes at 3.5" and came from an old book by Carol Doak.  The bigger block is 10" x 12" and came from A Scrapbook of Quilts by Carrie Nelson and Joanne Figueroa.  I'll be making some other house blocks each month until I feel like stopping.  Then I'll add some filler blocks, too.  I hope this prevents me from getting bored, as I often do when working on blocks of the month.

Next, I turned my attention to some of the many old hankies and a little embroidered tablecloth I have accumulated over the years.  I cut them to fit 6" hexagons which I then surrounded, log cabin style, with pinks and beige fabrics.   I have a little handwork to do and then I'll put these 8" blocks aside for now.  I'd like to use them eventually with the star block I made last year.  I'll think about how to set them and perhaps a few more blocks together before going forward.

Tomorrow, I'll get started on the serial mystery quilt that started in Quiltmaker, incorporating various Bonnie Hunter Addicted to Scraps blocks.  The editors are making theirs in red and white scraps, but I'm using a leftover "Jane Austen at Home" layer cake and cream scraps.   This will be an every-other-month project, beginning with four styles of blocks in various quantities. 

Down to the wire

With year's end approaching, I did finish two more quilts in the last few days - Harriet's Journey and the scrappy big block sampler.  Both turned out great.  Harriet's Journey was long arm quilted by my friend Marie in a floral pattern, and I quilted the other sampler myself in sections using my trusty Elna.  Both bindings were sewn by machine.  

Unfortunately, it's been too gloomy to take pictures.  We've had the living room lights on for days.  And there is no sun in the forecast!  It's been warmer here lately which usually is a sign that it's going to snow.  Luckily, we haven't had a whole lot, but the weekend sounds a bit promising (or ominous, depending on your point of view).   If the sun ever comes out, I'll get Paul to hold the quilts while I stand in the snow to take some pictures.

Meanwhile, what to do next?  I made some miscellaneous blocks the other day but think I'll start working on the Bonnie Hunter Unity quilt which I'm doing as a quilt along with my friend Joanne.

This is Laurie's quilt in greens, blue and yellow.  It inspired us to organize the quilt along with other guild members.  We'll do a section every month.

The original is red, dark blue and aqua.  I have chosen bright yellow, navy, and light blue with scrappy background fabrics.  I'm anxious to start because the center looks intimidating with all those chevrons.  The last time I made a quilt using chevrons - for another Hunter mystery - I made them too small and had to make 100 more to fit!  I will try not to repeat that mistake again.

I'll be making a special, Indonesian dinner for New Year's Eve, and hope to Zoom with Mom and sister Jenny over the weekend.  Best wishes for a very happy New Year!  

Creepy Santa

 

I've had this Santa since I was five or six.  When new, it had a light inside, but that is long gone.  We get him out every year despite his rather creepy appearance.  Sometimes he sits on a shelf; sometimes on the mantle; sometimes on the back of the toilet; and now it resides at the top of our Christmas "tree." 

A few years ago, Chris made a "tree" to hold the Christmas village we've had since he was a baby.  My parents sent the first two houses and then sent one or two every year for a while.  We had outgrown the small table and then the window seat that we had it on, and I was tired of putting up the conventional tree.  This new set up works well for us.   We can still put presents underneath, it has lights to brighten our evenings, there are no needles to drop, and I could actually buy a few more houses on eBay.  A total win!

Chris brought it up from the basement on Wednesday, and we set up the houses.  He used to scatter small Star Wars figures throughout, but this year only Yoda is visible (I haven't found him yet).

 This picture is rather dark because the village is set up in front of our double glass doors.  I have a few plants on a table behind it, including an orchid that, miraculously, keeps blooming.  We enjoy having more light in the late afternoon and early evening these days.  Paul reminded me that the days won't start getting longer again until after the 21st.  It sometimes gets dark enough to turn on the living room lights at 3 pm these days, yet there is a nice reflection from the snow on sunny days.

I finished sending out Christmas letters yesterday, have wrapped everything that needs it, and am cleaning the oven today in preparation for a bake-a-thon.  Actually, I don't bake a lot for Christmas, but I do like a few sweets and a lot of Chex Mix.  Much of it goes out the door, though.

Today I'll finish putting the 16" blocks together in strips for quilting and hope to start quilting the first section.  While I'm quilting, I'll think about whether it needs a border and what one might look like.  Right now, with 1.5" sashing and borders, it will measure 71", getting close to twin size.