Design Wall Monday--UFO update

On my Design Surface are the final two boxes from this month's UFO pick by Patchwork Times.  I pulled the box of 30s fabrics collected and pondered several options from the Scrap Basket books.  It all came down to the length of background fabric I had, plus wanting to use as many fabrics as I could. 

Except for the lower three fabrics, these are fat eighth cuts from a pack I purchased many years ago, probably at a quilt show, and are from a line called Everything but the Kitchen Sink.  I added a few more fabrics along the way, including the vintage red and white print at the bottom. 

 

I chose Summer Breeze from Scrap Basket Surprises by Kim Brackett.  Once again, my AccuQuilt GO cutter came in handy to cut a lot of pieces quickly.  

Here are the pinwheel and pieced block pieces all cut and ready to go.  I cut many more strips for the pieced borders but will wait until the center is done to balance out the colors with all the different fabrics.  This will be fun to work with later this year, all the happy prints and colors.  Only one more day of the month, and one more box to cut for!

Another slow build of fabrics for Beach Cottage, also from Scrap Basket Surprises.  These batiks will be so pretty together, I think.  It was especially hard to find the right light green batiks that did not have other colors.  I'll pair the brown with the light green, and purple with the tan.

Since Judy of Patchwork Times decided to stop Design Wall Monday posts, another Judy has taken this over, and I will be linking up for the first time with this post.  See lots of other great quilting on her Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog HERE.  

Home Improvement

Since I last posted, we have done practically nothing but haul stuff around our house, getting ready for replacement of our 25+ year old carpet.  What a chore!  We started in the home office, removing a wallpaper border from the Southwest decor days. Then we cleaned the walls, prepped for paint and finally got the first coat done at 10:15 pm on Saturday night.  My husband commented, "Why is it always hot weather when we do these things?"  Good question!  It topped 82 degrees over the course of our lifting, pushing, pulling, painting, trimming and cleanup and staggering to bed last Sunday night, ready for the old carpet to disappear.

What a difference a day made!  We were thrilled with the result.  The installer and his worker did a great job of cleaning up daily and moving furniture around.  They were so fast that we had double work one day to empty two more rooms.  Exhausting and resulting in STUFF EVERYWHERE.

 

 Fortunately we had a large living/dining room to stack STUFF.

 Mini helped upstairs when we reassembled the master bedroom.  My sewing room was the last room redone. Our very handy neighbor thankfully trimmed the tile from it's former stairstep design to the plain angle and we are thrilled with the way it looks. The guys finished the stairs yesterday and quarter round trim in the office. 
 

I couldn't wait to get moving things back this morning.

A lot more was done after this shot and I'm hoping I can finally sew something again--it has been about two weeks since I did any sewing.

The plank floor looks great with the new Berber carpet.  We will enjoy this excellent installation and not be embarrassed by our old carpet anymore!

UFO of the Month Progress and Acquisitions

Well, the cutting table didn't stay pristine for long, as the #11 UFO pick of the month on my list is to make progress on four projects in boxes, by cutting all the pieces.  I had hoped for one per week and am running behind a little. 

Jewels in the Curio (Moda Bake Shop pattern) fabrics got laid out yesterday and I did a bunch of cutting with my GO cutter.  These strips were then subcut to pattern directions.  I added many from stash to get a good mix, particularly since the Civil War Homefront jelly roll had NO greens--my fave color.  The last time I used a jelly roll was maybe 8 years ago, I remember it was called Sanctuary.

All the cut pieces were labeled and are back in the box.  It was all I could do NOT to start sewing with all these yummy reproduction fabrics now!  The remaining two boxes are batiks and 30's fabrics, which will both be patterns from Kim Brackett's Scrap Basket Sensations.  The GO cutter will be getting a workout.  I'm really getting a variety of fabrics to play with this month :)

Recent acquisitions from Connecting Threads were these fabrics to make Twilight Hopscotch from Kim Diehl's Simple Comfort lap quilts book.  I've wanted to make this quilt for years.

I don't think I have ever made a two color quilt before and am looking forward to it.  These prints are from the Oh My Darling line.  The "Kitchen Twine" print is the name of neutral, so sweet. 

Also from Connecting Threads were coordinating prints to add to the Sliced Cake project --and more of the main print fabric as I miscut.  All of these were on clearance.

The Macrame line is from Cotton + Steel.  Love it.  My daughters and I recently took a macrame class from a friend of hers who teaches them locally.  It was really a fun mother-daughter night. I used to do a lot of macrame when I was a teen--the last time it was popular!

Our house is being turned upside down as next week we are finally replacing our well worn 26 year old carpeting, long past due to be torn out.  For our office we have chosen a vinyl plank floor which will be much better under the rolling chairs.  My sewing room will also get new carpet, so the cutting table will come down, of course, along with all the furniture.  It is a lot of work and bother but will be so worth it to end the embarrassing carpet.   I plan to do some minor adjustments to my sewing room furniture  arrangement when all is complete.  Hope my arms hold out for all this moving here and there!

Catching Up/Mother's Day

A week disappeared in a flash, what with working three extra shifts and then getting the house ready for 25 guests on Mother's Day.  It certainly left no time for quilting or stitching.  DH Grant and I moved around furniture for what seemed a good hour plus on Sunday morning, followed by the usual mad rush to get four big tables set with chairs and tableware, cook, clean up, and get ourselves ready.  We have hosted a Mother's Day Brunch for over 20 years at our house and I don't see it ending anytime soon.  Here's a few pics of the day: 

A galley style kitchen makes it easy to cram people in there--including my mom, daughter, niece and sister.  Everyone is generous in bringing dishes to share and we all ate til we were stuffed.

Hanging out by the waffle bar are youngest daughter, my brother, son, and nephew making a face.  Later I gathered my siblings and mom for a photo.

We're missing one brother from this group, but it was great to be together.  Grant and DD Erica had High Tea with his 98 year old mother at her senior living place the day before. 

Isn't this a sweet pic?  They had a lovely visit and Grandma was happy. 

And look what finally happened with all that moving and cleaning:

My cutting table was cleared at last!

Doll Quilt Swap 2017

Lori of Humble Quilts has held a doll quilt swap for several years and I have luckily been participating yearly.  My swap partner, Karen, received her quilt and as she does not have a blog, Lori asked me to make a post of the quilt I made for her to include in the Swap Linky Party.   

 

Here is the finished top.  I machine stitched in the ditch along the vertical rows and then made the crosshatch in the side borders, almost by accident!  The above picture was taken before I started hand quilting in the triangles very close to the outside edges.

 

I planned the label as a part of the construction and was glad it actually worked out with the quilting not disrupting it too much.  My swap partner, Karen, was on a trip when I mailed the quilt to her and kindly posted on Facebook when she opened the package on her return, and liked it!

Go HERE to see all the doll quilts that were swapped this year, they are truly wonderful.

Design Wall Monday--5/8/17

On my design surface today is the Patchwork Times UFO Challenge pick for May, #11.  I am cutting pieces from four different project boxes for this UFO, one per week this month.  Box #1 is done!

Here are all the fabrics for the top of the quilt.  The pattern is a Darlene Zimmerman design that came in an advertisement from APQ mag.  Very simple strips and squares for a small lap quilt.  Backing will be constructed from the leftover fat quarters and yardage.  I'll look forward to pulling this out to sew later in the year. 

The next box I chose was Jewels in the Curio.  This is a Moda Bakeshop pattern by Jo Kramer  of Jo's Country Junction blog.  She and her daughter have designed a lot of patterns for scrappy quilts and are devoted Bonnie Hunter fans. 

My parents bought me the Civil War Homefront jelly roll years ago and I have petted and cherished it but now it needs to be in a quilt.  Charm squares and strips from stash will add variety.  I plan to make this quilt the pattern's size, but my neutral will be scrappy. 

Here are a few pulled so far.  I have another one yard piece to add and will probably throw in a few more as I cut, depending on how far these go.  I will use my Accuquilt GO cutter for the 2.5" strips called for.  The pattern's  block is Jewel Box and I made a quilt a few years ago that I gave to my then boss when he closed his practice.  I love the barn raising setting; mine was offset for my boss.  His daughter claimed it almost immediately, he told me :) One of the pictures I posted early in the layout design process for that quilt has been pinned hundreds of times on Pinterest, but it wasn't the barn raising one!  I'll look forward to stitching this up later in the year. 

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Cutting and Stitching

Judy of Patchwork Times chose #11 for the UFO Challenge project of the month.  On my list that is Projects in Boxes, collected fabrics and patterns that have languished unfinished in boxes for years.  I chose four boxes and my plan is to work on one a week, prepping and cutting all the fabrics for blocks and sashing, etc, for future piecing.  This week's box is full of Aussie fabrics I bought on my wonderful vacation in 2009 visiting my friend Sue in Port Douglas, Queensland, "where the rainforest meets the reef", to attend her wedding at their home. 

These were precut 6" squares purchased at a patchwork shop in Cairns.  We visited a couple of shops there and I bought fat quarters and some 1/3 yard cuts (or whatever the metric equivalent is!).

Love this one with native Australian fauna and Uluru rock.  The pattern I'm using has 4" squares with 2" sashing and cornerstones so I'll have a great deal of cutting to do.  When I was removing this box from my Hoosier cabinet, a stitchery kit was on top of the box which I don't think I've shown before. 

Designer Lolita Newman of Stitchin by the River was vending at the Camarillo Quilt Guild show last fall and my sister and I were taken by her simple stitcheries that were very evocative, depicting Black history such as slave quarters, Black Civil War soldiers, and other memorable scenes that she researches and sketches. Not being a stitcher, my sister  Kathy bought me this pattern to stitch for her, and I purchased the muslin at the Road to California show (being too lazy to make my own tea dyed muslin!).  I'll look forward to tracing and stitching the Slave Quarters design and making a mini quilt.  My photo is poor but here is a link to her Etsy shop.

I'm off to press and cut...
 

Design Wall Monday--UFO #5 update

On this Design Wall Monday, I thought I might actually have a finished quilt to show by end of April, but alas, I do not.  I'm going to blame that on Squirrels that easily distracted me from the basting and quilting portion of the month's UFO pick by Patchwork Times.  On my list #5 is the Medallion Star Rescue quilt, a relic from the early 1990s that got passed on to me a few years ago.    I chopped off parts and added pieced borders to bring it back to life.

Finally basted on Saturday, and started quilting Sunday.  No way it was getting finished by deadline, but still I'm pleased that it is no longer stuck in a box.

The center star is all quilted.  There is a bit of tenting at the very middle which may require some extra stitching to tame, but there is plenty of quilting left to do.  I also cut binding and will have to be clever with adding more fabric to make it around this lap quilt. 

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.