Design Time

 Good Morning Monday!

Today I will continue working on sewing the Magic Stars blocks together, I have three of five rows half done minus one block that needs some help. So I'll begin my sewing time with seam ripping and trying again on that block. 

Over the weekend with all the blocks completed I began arranging them on the design wall.  But before I did that I pulled out my random quilt notebook and did a little diagram of 5 x 5 one inch squares to help with the layout prior to getting up on the ladder and moving blocks around.

After counting how many blocks I had of each color I did a lay out by color. The only randomness in this quilt took place in the fabric shopping. Each block is half purple, but each one has a different purple fabric. I chose the purple fabrics first then went looking for contrasting fabrics to go with them. That's not too random, but I didn't plan how many of each contrasting color I would use, just looked for the best fabrics I could find to go with the purples I had chosen. I purchased fat quarters for this project and found them over the course of several trips to our LQS. I also used a few fabrics from my stash. That left me with multiples of some colors and a couple of one offs.

Once I had done the layout on paper I started moving blocks around on the design wall. I've not done any such pre-planning before and was glad I did, as it made it much easier and faster to get the blocks arranged on the wall. So this was my first lay-out. I wanted yellow in the center - it's the brightest of the contrast colors and I wanted to draw the eye to the center of the quilt. 

 All three yellows together turned out to be too much. So I grabbed my notebook and colored pencils and went at it again. I moved two of the yellows out to the corners and rearranged everything else too, except the original center block. I brought the greens in closer to the center and connected the oranges into a diamond pattern around the center. Blocks with teal fabrics got moved out to the opposite corners from the yellows and that left me with just the two red blocks and two random color blocks to fit in along the outsides. 

I liked this layout much better, but I had just randomly placed blocks by color and the arrangement of which block of each color went where had to be adjusted. I know there are quilters out there who can do fabulous quilts with seemingly random placements of blocks, I've seen them and admire those who can do such things. I can't. I need balance and symmetry, and the color placement in this layout just didn't cut it.

This time I didn't do a sketch - since that was basic color only. So it was stand back and look, move up and down the ladder, switch blocks out and stand back to look again. I wound up having to replace a block that, though I think it's really pretty by itself, just didn't work anywhere I put it in the quilt. After making a new block to replace it I finished the new arrangement. There are still some blocks that I would rather have different fabrics, but I chose the best I could from what was available at the time. I'm content enough with the layout now that I'm keeping it. The blocks that I'm not so fond of I've got on the outer edges, keeping the ones I think are closest to my original idea in the center. Not all the purples show as purple in the photos. I think they will show better once the top is finished and I can get a picture in the sunshine. 

Here is the block that just didn't work in the quilt, and beside it is a sample block of a smaller version of the same quilt. My friend Dorian of Ridge Top Quilts worked out the dimensions and posted them on her blog. When I saw what she'd done I realized that I had enough fabric left from the fat quarters I had purchased for the original quilt to make a second smaller one. 

 

 

 

 The fabric is all cut for that one and I'm using it as a leader/ender project while I put the large quilt together. Once the larger quilt is done this will become a focus project on it's own. Now that I've spent the time looking over the various pictures I've taken of the larger version I think I will delete the fabrics that I'm unhappy with in the big quilt from this project. Some of the original fabrics have been traded out already, so this little quilt will not be an exact copy of the big one.

I'm linking up with Judy for Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

I'm linking up with Beth for Monday Making at 

Love Laugh Quilt

 I hope your week is fun and productive. Stay safe and well.  

Quilted Garden

Good Morning Friends ~

Today I'm linking up with Rebecca Grace of Cheeky Cognoscenti in her brand new linky party called Long Arm Learning. I quilt on my domestic machine and don't have a long arm machine but anyone who machine quilts is invited to participate. Click the link on my side bar to visit the linky party and read Rebecca Grace's interview with long arm quilter Cheryl Degan.

I'm not currently quilting anything, busy in the piecing process for my Magic Stars quilt so I am sharing one of my past quilts that I'm especially fond of the quilting I did. This quilt was finished in September of 2016. The front of the quilt isn't that special, in fact it's rather incomplete because the pattern called for some applique, mostly around the border and I never got that done. The top was otherwise finished and had been sitting on the shelf for quite a long time. So when I shifted from my sewing corner into Flo's studio I decided to finish the quilt so I could give it away. Sad thing is I don't remember who I gave it to.

I

It's the back of the quilt that I really fell in love with. I used Minky fabric in purple, my favorite color, but it's the cuddly softness of the fabric that I love. Also the solid color allows the quilting to really stand out. I made the template for the large daisy design myself and used purchased templates for the smaller designs to fill up the spaces in between. Those little roses and butterflies don't show up well on the front of the quilt unless you have the quilt in front of you. But they show up nicely on the back. I had heard that Minky fabric was difficult to quilt. I didn't find it so. Well, no more difficult than any other quilting I've done.

Thanks to Rebecca Grace for hosting this linky party!

Stay Well and Enjoy your week!

Morning in the Sewing Room

Good Morning, the sewing room is open. I'm at my sewing desk, feet up, enjoying my first cup of coffee. I often begin my day like this, sitting here looking around at what's going on in the room, enjoying the canyon view from my window, as well as the cool morning breeze. We keep the door closed at night to keep the cats out of the room, a simple preventative of overnight mischief. Suzette often sleeps outside the door and waits for me to open the room for her in the morning. Here she is taking her first morning sniff of the world out there. She has her own blanket there on the table as well as her little cuddle. If I could trust her to just spend the night on her blanket there I would leave the door open.

She has begun her morning nap, happy by the open window. I am still waking up and contemplating the day ahead. (Ignore the clock on the sewing desk - needs  a battery. It's much earlier.) Yesterday my head was somewhat messed up, lots of stress recently, mostly for heartaches and difficulties that friends are enduring just now. Though health issues of my own also enter into the mix. And Covid just makes it all worse. I'm tired of the limits, I want to see my family, blah, blah, blah.

On to my One Monthly Goal for August. I would like to complete the blocks for my Magic Stars quilt, and begin playing with design on the design wall. That will mean obtaining some more fat quarters. I've been thinking of visiting some quilt shops that are a little farther out from home, just to see what they may have to offer that our lqs might not have, though it does have a nice selection of fabrics. My plan for this quilt is for every block to have different fabrics - half purple and half something that contrasts nicely with the purple. So I've pretty much gotten all I can that works from the local shop. I enjoy exploring new shops and haven't done much of that lately. I have found a lovely shop about 90 minutes north of us this year and have been there a few times already. I have family living near by so take a little side trip to the shop after visiting. Only now is not a good time to be visiting family. The virus is expanding quickly in our county and I don't want to risk exposing my family if I've picked it up out on a shopping trip and just don't have symptoms.

I've finally joined the community of mask makers. I ordered the Creative Grids face mask template early this month and after completing my quilt for the Christmas in July Then and Now blog hop got busy and made a couple of masks for Dan and myself. I'm pleased with how they turned out and will be making more for family members. You can check out my Christmas tablecloth quilt I made for the blog hop in my Christmas in July post. It's listed under the 2020 Finishes tab.

So, morning is getting on. I need to get my breakfast and get moving. Porch and patio plants need watering. Then I have to tackle yesterday's mess up. My messed up head resulted in a very messed up stack of backward pieced blocks. Fortunately I discovered my mistake prior to pressing the seams, so it will be a little easier to rip them all out. Sadly they are long, bias seams. This fix will be slow and careful. I also messed up while I was cutting pieces for these blocks and wasted one of my purple selections so I have four blocks to complete instead of five. More fabric needed.

One thing to share that brightened my day yesterday. My niece Sheena sent me this picture of her son Beckett sleeping under the elephant quilt I made for him. Really made my day.

I hope your day is safe, productive and happy!

I'm linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts for OMG 2020. https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2020/08/one-monthly-goal-august-link-up.html

Christmas in July

Hi Friends,

I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy with a single project that I had to wait to post about. I was getting my Christmas tablecloth quilted for the Christmas in July (then and now) blog hop hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt. Today is my day to post. My thanks to Carol for hosting this blog hop, and I hope that you will take some time to visit all the other quilters who are sharing their Christmas creations in this blog hop this week. They are listed below with links to their blogs.

I finished this quilt top in early January and put it aside with a plan to quilt it in July since I had Abby's quilt to get completed for her birthday in June. I was so glad to find Carol's sign up for the Christmas in July blog hop since it coincided with my plan for quilting my Christmas tablecloth.

I started this quilt back in October of last year but wasn't able to get it done by Christmas due to health issues. I'm very much looking forward to having it on my table for the Christmas season this year.

Finishing this quilt was also my One Monthly Goal for July, even though I didn't get it posted with Elm Street Quilts at the beginning of the month. I did reach my goal and so I am linking up with Patty to share my completed project.

https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2020/07/one-monthly-goal-july-finish-link-up.html

I've made this pattern before and will make again. It's called Afternoon Delight and is designed by Ann Laure for Grizzly Gulch Gallery. The outer border isn't part of the pattern, but I added it to get the size I needed to fit my kitchen table. I have one in fall colors and another top in spring colors is nearly done and waiting for my attention. I have plans and fabric for a fourth one in black and gold that I want to hang on my living room wall. That's a someday project.

                                                                       Here is the finished quilt on my table.

My focus fabric is a holly and poinsettia print. I really like using the fabric print as my quilting pattern. I quilted around the poinsettias, leaves, pine cones, and a little bit of the swirls. My favorite part of the quilting though is the ivy leaves that I used in the triangles shown here and on the inner border. The outer border is done in bells. I'm not as happy with the quilting on the star points shown here, the holly berries and leaves just don't show up very well.

Over all I'm pleased with how the quilt turned out and am enjoying it on my table for today, maybe for this week. Then it will get put away for Christmas.

Thanks again to Carol at Just Let Me Quilt for hosting the blog hop. Here are the other bloggers. I hope you will visit their blogs as well to see what they've done for Christmas in the past or present.

July 27

Creatin' in the Sticks

Just Because Quilts

Words & Stitches

Quilt In A Not-Shell

Ms P Designs USA

 Scrapdash

Selina Quilts

Days Filled With Joy

  

July 28

Life in the Scrapatch

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Karrin’s Crazy World

Vroomans Quilts

Quilted Delights

Songbird Designs

Websterquilt

 Karen's Korner

  

July 29

MooseStashQuilting

Beaquilter

Day Brook Designs

Seams To Be Sew

Little Penguin Quilts

Bumbleberry Stitches

Samelia's Mum

Canyon Rim Quilting - You Are Here! :)

  

July 30

Quiltscapes

Mary Mack Made Mine

DesertSky Quilting

For The Love Of Geese

Quilt Schmilt

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Quilting Gail

  

July 31

Just Let Me Quilt

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Den Syende Himmel

Quilt Fabrication

Sew Many Yarns

Just Sew Quilter

Shirley C.

Kathy's Kwilts and More

A Friday Finish

I pulled my Pinwheel quilt top out of the closet this week to work on while I waited for a chance to get more fat quarters for the Magic Stars quilt and embroidery floss for my Charm Square Heart quilt. It's a smallish wall quilt so I was able to get it finished this week.

I only found two fat quarters for the Magic Stars quilt which made one block. It went together very quickly, so didn't take much time away from working on the Pinwheel quilt. I also found the embroidery floss I needed but I haven't worked on that just yet.

I used a new marking pen on the dark navy squares. Marking dark fabrics has always been a challenge for me. This new pen worked pretty well. It's a Clover white marking pen. I marked it prior to basting the quilt and found when I went to quilt it that the marks were not always visible enough for me to follow. I wound up marking a number of them over again. Next time I'll just wait until I'm ready to quilt before marking with this pen.

I'm glad to have the Pinwheel quilt finished for a couple of reasons. First, those little blue pinwheels were a UFO that hung around for about 18 years. Secondly, I've been wanting a quilt to replace a painting I had hanging in the hallway outside the master bedroom, and this quilt is the perfect size. We hung it up this morning and are very happy with the change.

It's difficult to see the colors in this picture, so I'll put in one below that I took yesterday afternoon out in the sunlight. It was HOT out there, it's a wonder the quilt didn't wilt!

I've always loved a blue and brown, or blue and tan color combination. So I had the other fabrics in the quilt boxed up with the pinwheels for quite a while knowing that I wanted to include them in whatever I came up with to do with the pinwheels. The design on the dark navy squares is a tan print that perfectly matches the tan corner triangles around the pinwheels. I think the white and blue fabric in the center give the quilt a little sparkle.

I hope you have a great weekend. I've got more projects to work on so better get with it. Stay safe and stay well.

I'm linking up with Alycia at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Finished Friday at http://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/2020/06/cowboy-quilt-top-and-finished-friday.html?m=1

Magic Stars and Charm Squares

I have two current projects on the design wall today, both of which are at a standstill for the moment because I need fabric for one and embroidery thread for the other. So I'm about to pull out another project that is simply waiting to be layered and basted so I can start quilting. I will shop for the other projects this afternoon when I go to town for a dental appointment.

I will be shopping for fat quarters for the Magic Stars quilt pictured here. Each star begins with four ten inch squares, two of each contrasting fabric. I'm picking up two fat quarters that will look good together for each block I add, just from what my LQS has on hand while I'm there. I want each block to be unique, but plan for one of the fat quarters for each pair to be a purple fabric. Cutting two ten inch squares from each fat quarter leaves a fair amount of fabric left over for my stash, she said with a smile.

The blocks lend themselves to some drama if the fabrics have enough contrast. The red one in the top left corner doesn't have much and may have to be replaced. The blocks are simple and quick to make and will measure 17.25" finished. This won't be my final layout. It's nice to have a design wall large enough to really play with design options for a large quilt. If you are interested in more information on these blocks Joy from The Joyful Quilter has posted a tutorial for making these blocks on her blog and includes some different design options. You can find her tutorial here: https://thejoyfulquilter.blogspot.com/2020/03/magic-star-tutorial-with-tiffany.html

I will also be shopping for some deep pink embroidery thread for my Charm Squares Heart quilt pictured here. Again, there is a contrast problem with this quilt. The yellow heart doesn't stand out enough on the pale pink background fabric I used. So I'll blanket stitch around the edge of the heart with the pink thread so it will be more visible.

I read this morning on Julie's blog, at https://quiltdivajulie.blogspot.com that Creative Grids has come up with a template for making a mask, and they give a little video tutorial on how to use it and get the mask sewn. So I will also be looking to see if our LQS has those on hand, and some elastic if they do. If you follow the link to Julie's blog she has posted a link to Creative Grids where you can check out the new mask template.

One other thing I'll be looking for at my LQS today is more of the green fabric I used in the Magic Stars quilt (block in the top right corner). I wasn't at all sure about it when I purchased the fat quarter, but it works beautifully with the fabric from my stash. I've fallen in love with it and have another plan for it, a different quilt altogether. But I won't be talking about that for a while.

Okay, I guess that's it for today. I want to get busy layering that quilt.

I hope you have a lovely day. Stay safe and stay well.

I'm linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday at https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com

Follow the link to see what other quilters are up to today.

Have a great week!

Slow Sunday

Happy Fathers Day.

I have done some slow stitching this week, but in honor of Father's Day I want to share the quilt I made for my Dad for his 75th birthday. Well, the top was done by his 75th, it took me another year to get it hand quilted. He is now 91, so it's been a few years. I took this picture the day I delivered it to him and my nieces Hannah and Abby were with him. Lots of things have changed since then, those girls have grown up! I did get to talk to my Dad on the phone today but it was hard not to be able to go spend time with him. The Covid virus has been so disruptive, and worse than disruptive for so many.

The quilt is a paper pieced kaleidoscope in blue and white. The pattern came from Paper Piecing with Alex Anderson. Her pattern was for 4" blocks but my husband Dan enlarged the pattern to 6" for me. As with most of my quilts I didn't start this one with a specific plan, except for the colors. I gathered fabrics along the way, from local quilt shops and shops we visited while we were on vacation. Finding fabrics was a challenge, I wound up with quite a few medium tone prints that just didn't work in the quilt because there wasn't enough contrast. It was a bit of a stash builder that way.

Here it is on my bed all basted and ready to quilt. I quilted it on my Q Snap frame, doing simple stitch in the ditch, but gave up on the hand stitching when I finally got out to the border and did piano key stitching on my machine to finish it. I'm sorry I can't find a picture of it all finished. I know I had one, and spent a good part of the morning looking for it but can't find it. Well that was a long time ago and I've not hand quilted much since then. I have begun quilting a queen size log cabin quilt but it's in my closet now waiting for me to get it back on the frame and get on with it, but it's for me so it can wait.

I did a little applique this week. I'm not very good at hand turn applique and not much practiced at any other form of applique, so don't do much of it. I'd much rather piece, but sometimes applique is the way to go. I appliqued this yellow heart to that pale pink background fabric but there isn't enough contrast and I will be blanket stitching around the edges of the heart with a deep pink embroidery thread. That was the hand stitching I had in mind for today, but when I went to my thread stash last night to find some thread I found I didn't have enough of any one thread in the right tone to help the heart stand out from the background. So that will have to wait too, at least until I can get my hands on some more thread. It's not a high priority piece right now so that's okay. I do have other things that I could be hand stitching today and maybe that's what I'll do this evening. There is a story for this little quilt too, so if I haven't worn you out writing about the quilt for my Dad you can read about this quilt in yesterday's post In the Pink.

I'm linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching at https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/

Follow the link on over there and you can see lots of great projects that others are working on too.

Be safe and stay well. Thanks for reading!

In the Pink

Pink is the RSC color for the month of June and I've had so many other projects to work on that I've failed to get to my pink scraps, of which I have many. I do have a plan for them however, but don't know if I will even begin to get to that this month. All I've done using pink scraps this month is to add a few pieces to my Charm Square Heart Quilt.

I began this project about 5 years ago and only had a little of it done when we put our property on the market and I had to completely clear out the studio to have Flo's house staged for showing. It got boxed up with everything else and dragged off to storage. It was stored in the same project box as the ladybug quilt which I had also barely started at the time. I didn't realize what the pieces were for, or that I had a plan for them when I saw them in the box and when the ladybug quilt was done I just stored the box away with all the pieces in it.

Then I ran across this photo while looking for something else in my picture library and it jogged my memory about what all the pieces I found in the project box were for. So once I was done with Abby's quilt and hadn't yet begun Dan's quilt I pulled this out and began making a new plan for it. Sorry the photo isn't very good, must have been taken at night when I was in a hurry. Maybe you can see some big changes have happened to the quilt. I had that yellow heart on a darker pink, but didn't have enough of it to make it work. Sadly the yellow heart doesn't show up very well on the much lighter pink that I had available when this came back out. So though the top is sewn together, I'm not done. I see from this photo that I have fabric for a border, I will have to do some measuring to see if I have enough of it to use on the quilt now that I've enlarged it. There is also the issue of making the yellow heart stand out a little better. A yellow heart on a pink background might seem to be a little backwards too, but there is a reason.

Many, many years ago I started another quilt using this heart motif. It was intended as a baby quilt for my nephew's daughter Sadie. The project got away from me and took on a life of it's own. Has that ever happened to you? I wasn't using a pattern, just making it up as I went along, but I had a specific thing I wanted to accomplish and, well it just kept growing and growing. It was really quite out of control. And as you might expect, all the while Sadie kept growing and growing too. Oh dear, she wasn't going to get her baby quilt. Which was sad because the colors I had chosen for the quilt were the colors of her room. This picture was taken in my room once the quilt was finally finished.

What had started out as a quilt with one pink scrappy heart became big enough for my queen size bed. I said it got away from me. Sadie finally got her "baby" quilt a few years ago when she was in high school. She graduated in May. Congratulations Sadie!

Well, back to the current project. The rather large pink hearts on Sadie's quilt are appliqued onto a sweet yellow background. I went in and cut away the majority of the yellow from behind the hearts so I was only dealing with one layer of fabric except for the seams where they were sewn down. Thus I have four somewhat smaller yellow hearts leftover. Sadie's quilt also holds the solution to the problem of a yellow heart that doesn't stand out very well from it's pale pink background. I blanket stitched around each of those scrappy hearts with a deep pink embroidery thread. That's what I plan to do with this quilt as well. So I will have some Slow Sunday Stitching to do and will link this post up with Kathy's Quilts tomorrow.

This is Suzette trying to get me to keep Sadie's quilt. It was tempting because I was quite embarrassed that it had taken me so very long and she just wasn't a little girl any more. I gave it to her at a baby shower we both attended, though not inside where the mom to be was opening gifts. I took her out to my car and gave it to her. She was quite surprised, and a little delighted, I think. I hope she is taking it off to college with her.

I'm linking up with SoScrappy for the RSC2020 challenge at http://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Monthly Goals for May and June

I've been concentrating on getting Abby's quilt finished so haven't made any posts in a couple of weeks. Some things about the marking process didn't work out well and really slowed me down. I had hoped to have it finished by the end of the month since finishing it was my one monthly goal for May. I missed it by about a week. I finished it on Friday but was too tired to make a post at the time. Saturday I drove up to Abby's place to give it to her, just in time for her birthday. I don't think I've ever completed a project on time before, especially a few days early.

I hadn't seen Abby since January so was very glad that I could deliver it in person and share in her excitement as she opened her gift and realized it was the quilt we had started together when she was 10 or 11 years old. It grew significantly since that early beginning, but she had chosen the fabrics she wanted from my stash so I knew her desired colors and was able to add fabrics that stayed within that scheme.

I miss seeing it on my design wall but I have other projects waiting for my attention so my design wall will soon be full again. Today I finished a crib size Ladybug quilt top. It's been hanging around on my design wall waiting for me to finish Abby's quilt. Yesterday I sewed the four patch units together and then sewed the rows together. Today I finished sewing together the blocks for the border and got the borders sewn on.  I don't have anyone in mind to gift this to. I had originally planned on making it for my great niece Blaire, but her Mom had other ideas about the colors and fabrics she wanted for the quilt.

That was five years ago, I was working in Flo's studio at the time and was reveling in having so much space to work in. I completed several quilts that year, this one for Blaire included. I have no idea now how I got those prairie points onto the outer edge of the quilt. As you can see, it's very different from the idea I had in mind for her quilt. But I think it turned out to be a very sweet quilt.

Choosing one goal for the month is hard when I have so many projects in mind and quite a number of them in various stages of completion, like the Ladybug quilt. There is the boot quilt, which I want to have ready for Christmas. I found the perfect fabrics (shown here) for the background, sashing, and cornerstone blocks for that quilt this week. I'm pretty excited about it, it's going to be a fun quilt to make. And I have quilt tops done for two tablecloths, my Christmas tablecloth that I had hoped to be my One Monthly Goal for July, and my Spring tablecloth, that I had thought of quilting this month. But all this will have to wait.

My one monthly goal for June is to begin a quilt for my husband that I promised to make for him long ago. Not just begin the quilt but get as much done as possible on it in the coming weeks. I want to have the blocks cut and at least begin sewing them together this month. If they are simple enough, then I'd like to have all the blocks made by the end of the month. Here are the fabrics I got for Dan's quilt, they've been sitting in this project box for far too long. Purple is his favorite color, I added the teal. My original idea for the quilt was a two block pattern but I decided I didn't really like that pattern so I will be using the Magic Stars pattern that Joy from The Joyful Quilter posted on her blog in March. Joy also posted a tutorial for how to make the blocks. They look great and not too difficult, and I hope will work well for a two color quilt.  You can find pictures of the blocks and the tutorial here:  https://thejoyfulquilter.blogspot.com/2020/03/magic-star-tutorial-with-tiffany.html 

I'm linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal at https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2020/06/one-monthly-goal-june-link-up.html

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts at https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com

I'm linking up with Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt at https://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com

I hope you have a lovely week. Stay safe and well.