December UFO

pin basting the layers

I didn't do anything with my December UFO prior to Christmas, but during the past week I buckled down to it. My brain needed to be in a relaxed state where I could focus and make decisions. 

I was quite hesitant to start the quilting but once I started it went very quickly. 

The little stars were outline stitched with an X through the middle.

The bigger red stars was outlined stitched also, and I used the hera marker for the lines through the centre.

The background was quilted with random swirls and loops.

I decorated the tree with red thread and made clam shell shapes to look like garland. I don't it ended up looking like garland, but that's okay :)

This quilt was made from a beautiful kit I purchased in 2017 from Quilter's Nine Patch (which unfortunately closed due to covid, but still has a small online store). The pattern is in Kim Diehl's wonderful book called Simple Christmas Tidings. 

This is my last finished quilt for 2021 and I'm so excited to finish it before midnight! 

Linking up to One Monthly Goal.

Happy New Year!

A Rainbow Scrap Challenge is FINISHED!

It's always so exciting to finish a quilt... but even more so when it's a long term scrappy project that was 8 years in the making! November's UFO began in April 2014 and was inspired by Bonnie Hunter's Maverick Stars pattern. Each month I made a couple of blocks with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

The quilt top was put together at a retreat in September 2019. And then it needed to age sufficiently in the magical UFO closet.  (You have one of those don't you!?!?)

diagonal wavy line quilting

The quilting was inspired by Preeti's serpentine quilting and I quilted horizontal, vertical, and diagonal wavy lines.

I used up some leftover grey scraps for the binding, most of which were trimmings from backings. I love that fabric with the glasses that was in a scrap bag - it looks like the block is supervising the binding process!

And when the quilt was finished, we went on an adventurous outdoor photo shoot. 

Here is the "stars on the wood pile" shot.

Finished size: 48" x 66"

The fall leaves were a carpet, crunching under foot as we searched for good locations for photos.

Here is the "quilt over the rail" shot.

And my favourite photo is "stars on the oak leaf path"!

Proudly linking up to One Monthly Goal and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

November Table Scraps

A scrappy treat bag arrived in the mail earlier in the month and I immediately started sewing the scraps together. I didn't sort them, just started sewing the pieces that were right sides together. Why is it that other people's scraps are WAY more fun than my own?? Once I had the pairs sewn, they just seemed to sew themselves together into 3.5" broken dishes blocks.

I made 12 blocks which were the perfect size for a placemat for November's Table Scraps Challenge. Because of the bias edges on all the blocks, the placemat did not lay completely flat. Some very wonky "stitch in the ditch" (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal) soon fixed that problem, but don't look too closely!

Total # of scrap triangles rescued from the trash = 192! 

In December this placemat will join it's friends (that you can see here) in going to Meals on Wheels.

PS - I love the pumpkin fabric backing that I found, and the binding is one of my favourite Henry Glass fabrics called "Harvest Blessings" - perfect for a November placemat finish!

 

Linking up to the Table Scraps Challenge, and Wendy will link me up to the mini quilts challenge at Constant Quilters.

Scrappy Saturday

My October placemat featuring light green QST blocks is done! This month's placemat creation was quite the interesting journey! It started with little HST blocks that wanted to be sweet little 1 3/8" QST blocks.  Many blog readers voted on a sashing fabric, and the green batik crackle fabric was the fan favourite by far.

The quilting was relaxing - straight lines with the walking foot between the columns, and sometimes (if I remembered) in the ditch also. And I stitching some free motion vines and leaves on the 2 side borders.

Ahhhh... the most relaxing part is hand stitching the binding. Here you can see the lovely green backing fabric, and you can also see the fact that two of the stitching lines are missing. That's okay... it lays flat and I am a recovering perfectionist, so I'm leaving it as it is! 

And here is October's finished project!

Linking up to the Table Scraps Challenge,  the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and Wendy will link me up to the mini quilts challenge at Constant Quilters.

October UFO is Finished!

I am so happy to have finished my Bats and Boos mystery quilt! This is a free pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop and is the perfect table topper for Halloween! I didn't add the outside border as it was already large enough for my table.

I posted about quilting the centre block here.

In the pumpkins I quilted curvy lines, and then made wavy lines around them, which look a bit like tendrils in the pumpkin patch.

I quilted curvy lines inside the bat, but because it's black thread on black fabric, you can't really see that quilting.

This is my favourite block - the cat bat! The wavy lines around the bats look like they are in flight and pushing the air forward around them.

The binding is made from 4 leftover strips of black fabric that were used in making the quilt.

Finished size: 32.5" x 32.5"

I'm so happy with this quilt and offer my thanks to the Fat Quarter Shop for this fun mystery adventure!

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

Monthly Placemat

For this month's Table Scraps Challenge I used up some 1.25" strips that were on the cutting table. I had fun playing with how to cut the strips sets and had no idea what I was going to end up with.

These are the 3.25" blocks I ended up with!

I had them on the design wall for a few days and every time I walked by, I moved the blocks around. This is how they were on sewing day, so that was the final layout. It's a very scientific process!

Then I had some fun with machine quilting using my walking foot and some orange thread. I stitched right down the centre of every strip, and did not do any planning or marking. 

Each line was eyeballed and "good enough" was my mantra.

Some of the lines formed diamond shapes and I was really pleased with how that looked.

This photo shows the pretty orange backing fabric and  the quilting design.
I enjoyed hand stitching the binding in the evening while the sun was setting. Maybe this is going to be a drink coaster and not a placemat!?!

NO... it's a placemat and it will join my collection that I will donate to Meals on Wheels in time for Christmas distribution.

Here's the 2021 collection:

Linking up to the Table Scraps Challenge,  the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday, and Wendy will link me up to the mini quilts challenge at Constant Quilters.

Mini Table Scraps

Aqua is the August colour at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I have really enjoyed working with this colour. 

First I made a little mug mat that I posted about yesterday, and then I found a bag of little aqua HSTs that were already squared to the perfect 1.25" size. That's my favourite little size to manage easily. 

Because it has been really hot and humid here, I didn't want to turn on the iron, so I used my seam roller instead. It is a tool the works quite well to flatten the seams as you build a block. Each block has 13 pieces and measures 2 3/8" in the finished mini quilt.

I was able to make 12 friendship star blocks from the scraps and that was just enough (with sashing) to become a placemat. Of course, there is one bad apple in every bunch that needs to be set straight! 

The quilting was a simple stitch in the ditch using the walking foot. Isn't the happy flower fabric lovely for the cornerstones and border? 

This is the fabric used for the backing of the placemat. 

Isn't the selvage on this Henry Glass fabric just too adorable?!?  The "little old lady who lived in a shoe" comes immediately to my mind and this is a whole neighbourhood of shoes to live in!

Here is my aqua placemat, which looks bluer in this photo than it is in real life. Finished size is 15" x 11.5" 

Linking up to the Table Scraps Challenge on Friday, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday, and Wendy will link me up to the mini quilts challenge at Constant Quilters.

August UFO Finished

My scrappy version of the Grassy Creek mystery is finished!

There was only one  incident while machine quilting this project. The edge of the quilt had flipped over underneath and I did not notice. Right where the green arrow points is a safety pin that was tucked underneath part of the area I was quilting, and I almost stitched right over it! YIKES! That could have been a quilter's worst nightmare and would have at least broke a needle, and at worst, damaged the timing on my machine. But magically I quilted right beside the pin and was able to easily unstitch the mess. Crisis narrowly averted!

I machine quilted hearts around the outside of the quilt since the blocks seemed to form a heart. I am very happy with how these designs turned out. The hardest part was getting the sides of these organic heart designs to look somewhat symmetrical without any pre-marking.

Here is the finished quilt hanging on the clothesline. Every block has different green, red, orange and grey scraps. There is one piecing mistake which I meant to fix and then forgot to do it. I only remembered as I was hand stitching the binding and noticed it again. Oh well... it's done now and it's a mistake I'll just have to accept.

I realized when I was machine quilting this project that this is the perfect size for me to easily quilt on my 25 year old domestic sewing machine (Brother 1500).

Finished size: 54" x 69"

Here is a photo of the grey backing. Hopefully you can see some of the quilting designs. 

I am so delighted that I finished this mystery within a year, and I am looking forward to the next Quiltville mystery adventure which starts in November.

July Table Scraps

Blue is the July colour of for the RSC sewers, and lucky me, I received a bag of scrap triangles in the mail this month. These were from Cozy Quilter Gail and they just happened to have lots of blue (and also white and green) which was perfect to make my July placemat!

I started sewing the triangles together not knowing what I was going to make. The HSTs became flying geese and you can see the layout that was starting to emerge. You can also see the Easy Breezy leader-ender block on the sewing table waiting to be finished.

I trimmed the HSTs down to 1.75". 

Yes... every single one. When you are sewing projects with smaller pieces, it really helps to trim off even these tiny slivers to make uniform blocks that will fit together perfectly.

As I was sewing and trimming these triangles I saw a zigzag quilt that Gail posted on her blog and decided it would be fun to sew her scraps into a design that she had just made - that's double the  inspiration from Gail for this project!

I tried to use as many triangles from the bag as possible, and this placemat ended up using 234 triangles. I picked out these 4 thread colours for the machine quilting.

The quilting design is a vertical zigzag using the free motion foot. I have practised many hours to be able to quilt a straight line with this foot. It is easier to get a straight line using a walking foot, but that means you have to twist and turn the entire project at every seam. The free motion foot is quick and efficient for this design as long as you can stitch a straight line.

Here is my July placemat made of 117 HST blocks that measure 1.25".

Linking up to the Table Scraps Challenge on Friday, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturday, and Wendy will link me up to the mini quilts challenge at Constant Quilters.

June Mini Table Scraps

Each month in 2021 I am creating a project that combines 3 challenges. I make a placemat for Joy's Table Scraps, using some mini blocks for Wendy's mini link up, with the colour of the month from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, which is purple for June. A Challenge Trifecta!

I started this month with a bag of HSTs that a friend shared with me. I think these were from Jackie since it looks like her handwriting. I pulled out the purple ones and added some brighter HSTs from another bag of scraps. The HST blocks turned out to finish at 1.25", and there are 52 of them in this project.

These are the 13 pinwheel blocks I ended up with and this photo shows playtime on the design wall trying to figure out what layout the quilt wanted and what fabrics to use. The dark purple got voted off the island all together! 

I decided that an on point layout was fun with these pinwheels and added white sashing.

Somehow I miscalculated the math (so what else is new?!) and you can see the edges aren't aligned. 

That's okay with me. The trimming chopped off some of the white points, but I thought it still looked okay. I added two strips on the sides to make it rectangular. Then I bin basted and got to work machine quilting with white thread on the top and purple in the bobbin.

The backing fabric is a black and white stripe FQ that I hand dyed many years ago. It was the perfect backing for this little quilt, and my granddog Max was happy to be my quilt model.

As you can see I quilted some diamonds in the side fabric strips. But once it was finished, I was unhappy with the white blobs in the side fabric strips.

So I got out my Setacolor paints and had a bit of painting fun. I covered the white blobs with a bit of purple paint.

That's a little better!

I'll be linking up to Table Scraps, RSC party, June's Favorite Finish, and the Constant Quilter mini quilts list.