Another Finish

At the moment, I'm focusing on finishing. I have a stack of pieces that need either only binding, or quilting then binding. (The ones needing quilting are small works.) I'm devoting the next few days - through the holiday - to getting as many of these FINISHED as possible: there are far too many UFO project in this household.  

This is my latest 2015 finish:

The pattern is called "5 & 10". It was a free pattern at one time, but I can no longer find the link for it. Simple stuff, although it really should have been called "5 & 8", because the big block is an 8" square.  The smaller blocks are indeed 5", then sashed. The pattern calls for starting with a layer cake, but I have used my stash whenever I've made one of these. 

(I see a piece of my precious Red Sea fabric below. I have very little left and still treasure it after all these years.)

I didn't have any more of the border fabric (I probably do somewhere), but had enough of this great stripe to use for the binding. I think it worked better with the dash of yellow than if I'd had just the stripe for the binding; the eye doesn't get confused trying to resolve the stripe of the binding with the random squares in the border fabric,

Again I used the magic binding technique. 

It turns out quite well, and with just a tiny pop of contrast.  I have one project where I will use the same fabric as the border for the "piping" so that it will blend into the quilt rather than contrasting.  Can't wait to see how that works! Although I enjoy the hand work part of the bindings, sometimes I need to get things completed, and not all quilts need the handwork; many can use a machine-finished binding.  Have you tried it yet?

Let's see what today brings!  Thanks for stopping by.

2015 counts

Tops: 8 ( I think this needs updating)

Finishes: 12 (4 quilts, 8 other)

A Few More Tops

I spent the weekend grabbing something out of the UFO stack and just barreling through till the top was finished.  Here are the 3 that are ready for quilting. The fourth one is my Scapolator (see some blocks here), and I'm down to the last border.  Progress!

This is the pattern "Red Onion" from Karla Alexander, Stack a New Deck. I thought it would be interesting to slice the targets in with the blocks. I'm pleased with the way it looks; very noisy, yet calming because it's so blue. I named it "Blue Eggs and Spam". It's about 64"x72"

This is about the 6th or 7th one of these I've made. It's a great donation quilt from a free pattern that was found on the Internet. It's big - 72"x 82",  so is perfect for a bed quilt.

This is from one of the older books for using fat quarters. The pattern is "Ashley". Easy peasy. About 50" x 66" - nice lap size.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mug Rugs, a top, and an inside

I think all quilters have scrap baskets, and now maybe more of you have Parts Departments, but do you have a Bits Bin? That's where I toss left-over blocks, remains from strip sets, etc. That's also where I went to play yesterday.

First I finished the "inside" of the 5 &10:

It still needs a border, but the inside is together.

I've also finished the Safari top:

This is another done in the stack & cut method by Karla Alexander. I like the way this came out & will have to get a better pic soon.

Then I jumped into the Bits Bin and cute little mug rugs starting taking shape. They're all about 8"x11" - notebook paper size, just about. (More proof here that black-and-white is this quilter's favorite solution!) Everything came out of the Bits Bin.

I had leftover blocks from a color study, so I used one and part of a left over 7 1/2" strip set for this one.

 I had half-square triangles from YEARS ago (Lynn Provencher, do you remember that quilt?) and remains of strip sets from another quilt, so those bits became the second mug rug. As for the green, a little pop of (surprising) color is good for the soul.

 See the 2 little strips of quarter-square triangle units, below? They were made from remains from making larger pieces using connector corners. They are 1" finished, and were perfect as the focal point for a mug rug. I grabbed a little B&W, and another 7 1/2" strip set, and voila - two more done. 

One really fun thing about these is that they're nice and small and give you (me) a nice size to practice machine quilting. There's never enough practice! And always something new to try. Speaking of that, are you familiar with the Free Motion Project blog? Here's the link. GREAT ideas!

Anytime I see interesting quilting, I'll add it to my Pinterest board. Most of it is on my "quilting" board (link to Pinterest over on the right nav bar, for those that aren't Pinterest junkies yet), but one of these days I'll clean up my boards & "machine quilting" will become it's own board. Till then, I have way too much fun just scrolling through all the luscious pics. So many quilts. So little time.

I'm still thinking about what it means to "live completely". I think part of it includes doing those things I don't want to do. Darn the luck.

So that was yesterday. It's late so I better get started on something to post for today! I don't have to cook - still eating leftovers from the cook-a-thon on Wednesday. That applesauce is STILL delicious!

Thanks for stopping by.

Lots Done!

A good, productive day.

The backing and binding for the poppy quilt are done, so now the quilt is in RFQ status (ready for quilting).

(poppy backing)

I worked on more free-form blue blocks (see them in this post). I finished the ones with the too-drastic curve (yikes!) so now am having a much easier time of it.

This project is from some of the (many) bunches of blocks I made over the last month. It's half-together now so should be a top soon.

I also played around with some wonky star blocks. OK - ONE block

(the blocks on the top are from my Parts Department stash - see Freddie Moran and Gwen Marston's technique). This is just a test block, to see how the process went. I used the remains from trimming strip-sets that are used for the Scrapolator blocks (See Dianne Springer's Scrapolator book - I want to make most of the quilts in that book!!). After I wonkied the star points, I then "made" fabric for the center, still using Scrapolator strip-set remains. (see Victoria Findlay-Wolfe's 15 Minutes of Play technique. She has just returned from Africa, so you may want to spend some time reading through her blog. Great stuff!)

I'll do more of these blocks, but learned some lessons in making the test one (like - don't bring the star point out the top - see the red on the center-right.) I also think I'm going to use black-and-white for the backgrounds. Black and white is an easy fix to design challenges so is looked down on by some, but I think it works great so poo on the color snobs.

I also knitted a bit more on the scarf - a little at a time will get the project done!

About 2 months ago I made a huge pot of bolognese sauce from an Ann Burrell recipe. It's wonderful, but of course way too much, so I froze it into one-serving containers. That was dinner last night: I'd forgotten how delicious it was. A nice glass of Pinot Noir was the perfect accompaniment. Yum!

As I said - lots done! Thanks for stopping by.

Oh yes, the Holiday Season

So much to do that the blog has taken a back seat. Well, here are some pics of what I've been doing.

More blocks

Still more blocks. These are free-form cut, and I've cut the curve way too sharp. It's a challenge getting these to lie flat.

These blocks are now a top.

 Yep. Still more blocks. I get in moods where I want to sew but not think. This is when I'll sew blocks for simple quilts.

Prisma is now a top. Yay!

This is a full top now. More pics soon.

 Same here. I think you'll be surprised at the difference the border made.

 Scrapolator blocks. Such fun!

The blocks on the left are straight from the scrap pile; no thinking. The ones on the right are all brights. Isn't the difference amazing?

 I have 29 of each set done (true scrappy, and brights) I love them!

No wonder I haven't had time to blog! Thanks for stopping by.

What a (great) day!

I slugged most of the day. (Translation: I didn't go for my walk. Full disclosure: I did 10 miles yesterday afternoon - I can skip a day!) I sewed, watched MSNBC all day for post-election analysis, and pretty much enjoyed not having any more angst about the election.

I'm still sewing blocks - any ol' blocks that have been cut and will need to be sewn.  Here's today's batch:

simple blocks for the "5 & 10" pattern

The first of 6 different blocks for the next design-your-own pattern

I'm getting quite a pile of blocks done. One of these days I'll get in the mood to do rows and columns, then Katie bar the door!

We're getting a nice blast of cooler weather. I don't have to totally close the windows yet - but it's definitely cooler. Yay!

Here's to no more political ads for awhile! (klink-clink-klink)

Thanks for stopping by.

OKAY!!!

I got some feedback this weekend that I don't post often enough. Well, you're right! In fact I have not posted the quilt-of-the-week for 2 weeks!! So I promise to do better.

Here are the quilts for the last 2 weeks:

This one really "mushes" in the pic, but not so much "in person". This is one of my go-to quilts when I need something fast. I can put this top together in an afternoon. I've named it "Big Block".

Here's a close-up:

This is another "5 & 10"; also a good quilt for something needed in a hurry.

One reason for my bad case of blog-neglect was the Honeybee Retreat, held last week/weekend. We had a blast!! 83 ladies sewing, learning, eating and laughing. SO MUCH FUN!!!!! I hope you'll consider joining us next year!!

I leave for my extended road trip (4 months!!!!) in 4 weeks. Wow! I'm very excited, and pretty well planned, but still ... the reality of a 4-month road trip is daunting! I need everything in my house!! How will I ever pare down?

Here's a great resource for what size to cut setting triangles. I needed this for a quilt that's on my mind. I love the internet! I can find ANYTHING there!!! And speaking of anything ... here are a couple of "pins" (from Pinterest) that I found interesting.  Which kind of quilter are you?

(Find the original source here)

and

(original source here)

I'm BOTH kinds of quilter .... I think both these ways are totally fun!

I promise (Donna!!) to do better at posting, because I really DO appreciate that you take the time to visit here!!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!!