Design Wall Monday--Bookshelf Quilt

 Design Wall Monday--see more great design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I gave myself a month-end deadline with the Bookshelf Quilt for my niece, Emma, that has been hogging the design wall for months. Real life interruptions will likely push back a finish, but progress is being made after a long hiatus. 

Sandwiched books between the brass trimmed bookends--and another grouping of three books are stitched together now.  Directions are from the Fabric at Work Bookshelf Quilt Pattern.  

I also made a start on another grouping.

I added the toile black and white strip to one book spine.  Lots more decisions to make, but I am having fun playing in the scrap drawers, as usual!  Next task is to make some horizontal book stacks to support some feline friends.

I did buttonhole stitch down the tails but don't have a photo of that.  These cats are about 7 inches tall and need probably both more black background at the top as well as some book spines under them. 

There are then a couple of embroidery pieces that need enlarging/framing for the bookshelves.  Good to be working on this again.

Slow Sunday Stitching--A Floral Finish in Sight

Slow Sunday Stitching--see more handstitching lovelies on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

I am pleased to report all the main cross stitching is finished on the DMC kit I have been working on/off for what seems like months.  From the kit, you can see there is a lot of outline stitching and surface embellishment to do as well.

Here's where it was 1/15/2023:

And as of today: 

There was a break of a couple of hours before this pic, when I was ONE strand short of finishing the blue blobs at the top of design.  It is that brighter aqua, an unusual shade, and there was nothing in the several boxes and bags of my floss stash that was even close.  I tried substituting another shade, but it looked odd--so off to Michael's I went. 

We've been having a lot of storms in SoCalif so I brought my umbrella.  Coming out of the store, the cloudy sky was spectacularly dark to the northwest.

Opposite view brought a piece of a rainbow. 

I followed the rainbow all the way home. 

Design Wall Monday--Chocolate and Cheddar

 Design Wall Monday--see more great projects on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I have a finished quilt top to share--I'm now calling this Chocolate and Cheddar.  I had a lot of fun making up this quilt along the way, starting with a pile of  precut 3.5" scrap squares.  Everything came from stash, and I continued the 3.5" measurement for all the additional rounds. I ended up making a total of four blue background stars to use for each corner.  The top measures 45" square, a good size for a wall quilt, and I am stopping here. 

A backing will be cobbled together from stash--I sure have plenty of fabric to choose from.  This scrappy foray  was a good distraction from recent real life concerns. 

My sister was the victim of a very bad rollover car accident on the freeway last month and suffered a neck, sternum, and clavicle fracture, but fortunately no brain injury. She was in the ICU for four days and has been in a hard cervical collar since the accident. She worked very hard in physical rehab at a local hospital and is doing very well, but has limitations.  She is staying with us temporarily until she is cleared to remove the collar by a specialist and can cope on her own. I took her to the harbor mouth today for some outdoor change of scenery.

It was a pretty calm day and lots of folks were enjoying the sun and sand. There was even a seal swimming in the harbor, but I didn't get a very good picture. Kathy motored about slowly but was glad to be out of the house for a bit.

Lots of beach visitors on the South Jetty side, too.  

Now I really must get back to the Bookshelf Quilt top I planned to work on this month!

Design Wall Monday--Borders for Scrappy Squares Quilt

 Design Wall Monday--see more great projects on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

The latest squirrel project made of scrappy 3.5" squares had made it to about 35" square, but that isn't really big enough to be a useful quilt, to me..  

In my yardage bins I found a number of strips that were border cuttoffs from the Go Four It quilt top I put together last year. 

I wasn't too happy with the joins for these borders, but overall the quilt is so large and busy, I wasn't too fussed about it. For this smaller, quilt, however, I took more care with the joining. 

One of these strips has a pattern-matched seam.  It only took three tries to get it perfect :)

Originally I thought I would do a narrow border, but this brown print looked better cut wider, 3.5", same as the block size. 

I haven't decided how many little stars/churn dash blocks I will make, perhaps not the whole length of the top. I may end up with partial borders or cornerstones in this cheddar fabric.  Not very much of this is left either, but using up stash is certainly a necessity, as storage is at MAX !

Mini Blocks and Scenery

Winter in SoCal is mild, but it has been on the cold side, for us, with 60 degree days and lows in the 40s at night.  It's always a great time to sew, but feels even more appropriate to be making quilts. I've been making star blocks to add to the 3.5" scrappy squares quilt top.

These are 3.5" finished--I haven't worked on such tiny pieces in awhile, and they can be very fussy to get straight.  The bottom right one had a little nip and tuck surgery after this pic as the center cheddar sure didn't look square.  

The smallest Bloc-Loc tool is very helpful for the sliver trimming the little HSTs. Mostly I used 1.75" strips to make the pieces and trimmed them to 1.5". Churn Dash and Friendship stars have the same pieces so I am making some of both.  I will be adding a narrow stop border to the quilt top--maybe in cheddar, but more likely brown--and then will decide how many stars to use as an accent.

Speaking of accent, we had some snow on our Topa Topa mountains recently.  It didn't last long, but sure was pretty. 

Sure looked pretty!

I love winter sunsets too :)

Mats and Scrappy Piecing

 I've continued to work on the mats I showed last time.  I'm having a great time playing with these scrappy smalls. 

This skinny mini I ditch quilted and gave to my manicurist friend along with the larger mat I cut it from. Stacy liked them both :)

I was able to use batting cuttoffs for all the mats, though I did have to piece some together to bring them up to size.

 I found that using  slightly oversized backing and batting worked best for me in stitching  the layers.  The 1/4" seam didn't try to curl or jam at the corners and the excess was easily trimmed with scissors before turning the sandwich right-side out. 

There was more design work on the scrappy churn dash and cross block top.  More 3.5" squares were sewn up and added all around. 

I'm liking the shapes and colors of this scrappy squirrel. The top measures about 33 inches square at this point.  I'm still thinking about making small star blocks, perhaps just for the corners, and considering a stop border between the patchwork and stars.  I cruised Pinterest for some border ideas, which was fun. A  stop at JoAnn's Fabric resulted in some bargain remnant  white background pieces. I was there primarily to pick up some easy-threading needles, but couldn't pass up the 50% off  yardage price. One piece was an entire yard, whoop whoop!

Getting back to the bookshelf quilt for my niece, which has been on the design wall for months, is February's goal. Since it is a short month, design decision-making needs to be ramped up. I've been stalled for too long!