Design Wall Monday--Catching Up

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

I disappeared for awhile, due to computer issues mostly.  I have been sewing and have a finish to share. 

Grandson Hunter's quilt is all finished.  He chose all the fabrics and the yellow thread for quilting, as well as most of the machine specialty stitches I quilted it with.  It is very busy but he loves it. I used Hunter Green sashing and the backing is a Hunter Green flannel, very cozy.  His Mama sent me a pic of him eating breakfast wrapped in his quilt the next morning. XOXOX  I'm working on some Halloween placemats now for Hunter and Cove. 

I also got started on a secret swap project for the upcoming Sewtopia retreat my sister and I attend yearly.  This year it is in Nashville, the first weekend in November, not too long away! I had a bunch of blocks made in a guild class a couple of years ago, which I sewed up into a table runner.  It needs a backing, quilting and binding, but I was pleased with the arrows created in this setting. 

I also finished a Lizzie Kate stitchery, Moon Over Blackbird.  

I changed it by moving the moon and stars some, and turning the pineapple into a pumpkin.. I'm working on a Halloween stitch now, from a set of Lori Holt stitch cards.  I love these small projects for a quick embroidery fix. 

These funny blobs will eventually look like the Cat in the pattern sample, complete with tail!

Slow Sunday Stitching-Moon Over Blackbird

 Slow Sunday Stitching—Kathy's Quilts. 

I’m spending pleasant minutes here and there on a free Lizzie Kate Fall stitch—even though Fall seems a far off place with all the heat/humidity lately. Moon Over Blackbird has been fun to work on  

I like these pre-stretched blanks for quick projects. I’ll put another thread length or two into the project before heading to the sewing room. 

I was at the ironing board last weekend while we were waiting on Hurricane Hilary, it was raining pretty well when the Ojai Earthquake hit. We’re not that far from Ojai so it was very scary—lots of aftershocks. We felt the stronger aftershock a couple of days later—at 4 am—I couldn’t get back to sleep so got up and stitched for a bit. That’s enough major nature events this decade!

Surviving Hilary and an Earthquake, and Quilting

SO, we are being deluged by Hurricane Hilary the now Tropical Storm,  a first for California in over 100 years.. After meeting our son and grandsons at the park and watching our daughter in law play soccer this morning (she's playing goalie), it began to rain as we left, and has been raining ever since, pretty steadily. I spent most of the morning thereafter in the sewing room getting a quilt top sandwiched.  I was still in the sewing room when we had a 5.1 earthquake strike Ojai, 20+ miles away.  It was quite a ride during the quake and for many aftershocks thereafter.  Fortunately there was no significant damage to relate. 

I picked up my Fair entries early in the week an gathered up all the ribbons.  There were judge's comments on the back of each tag, and pretty much each one indicated more quilting was recommended.  I suppose I'll have to use that as my guide to win a blue ribbon again at the Fair! I did get awarded 4 second place, a third, and two honorable mentions.  

Quite a pile to bring home.  I'll cash my $7.00 prize check sometime, as the cashier was long closed by the time I went to the Fairgrounds after work.

Grandson Hunter's quilt saw some action on Saturday while hubby Grant was away. I got all the blocks assembled.  

They are quite busy and it seemed wise to suggest a narrow sashing to Hunter's mommy.  He chose a dark green, from my suggestions.  I'll need to purchase that at the fabric store. 

Sunset last night was amazing.  I caught the sliver moon in another pic. 

Fair Entries and a few Pics

I finished all my entries for the Ventura County Fair and took them down to the Fairgrounds on Thursday after work.  Due to the short time-frame between the X-Games and the Fair opening date, there were still a lot of workers trying to get rides set up, long after 5 pm. Many food trailers and other concessions were waiting, too. The Fair opens on August 2nd.

Here's the DMC Floral Bouquet stitch finished in the hoop with wrapped ribbon.  I found the iridescent blue ribbon at Michael's--it matched the blue flosses perfectly.  I added my initials, but then needed to add another floral spray on the lower left for balance. It didn't take too long to stitch and I think it blends well.  After trimming away the excess Aida to about 1-1/2"and using long stitches in the remainder to gather it up, the back was covered with a piece of white wool felt I hand stitched on.  The pink ribbon also bought at Michael's matched well as a hanging loop.  The Strawberries stitch in the prestretched Aida square got felt on the back too, but no additional hanger. 

There was very little activity at the Home Arts building, sadly. The volunteer who was helping me said that entries were very thin this year--likely due to the online-entry only requirement this year.  I had spent a lot of time choosing categories for my items and the gal helping me was most thankful and didn't make any changes to my selections.  I had to laugh that after spending extra time to add a label to each of the six quilts I put in, she covered over my name on each one with a piece of blue painter's tape!  😆

Although Picasa is no longer available to add photos too, I do still have access to pics I've downloaded to the computer.  Here's a pic of me with our newest grandson, shortly after he came home from the hospital in June.  His quilt is behind him. Bryce has grown very well since then.  He got his father and grandfather's blue eyes, which makes him different from his brother and older cousins' hazel/brown ones! I took care of him at a local pool outing with big brother and Mama last week.  He was very squirmy and didn't want to sleep  :)

I will have to figure out how to reduce the photo file size or will run out of room very quickly and have to pay for storage!  

Design Wall Monday--Catching Up

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

Well, didn't mean to disappear for so many days!  I've been busy working on projects to enter into our County Fair. Only a couple more days before all entries need to be finalized online. 

I got all the quilting done on this large throw made from long-ago leftovers from another quilt. I abandoned something fancy for the purple/green blocks and kept it simple with a crosshatch. 

Our Nieces crocheted some adorable chickens--and stuffed them, embroidered the mouth and eyes, all while traveling from Riverside County in busy summer weekend traffic while their Dad drove.  I named mine Thimble and she is my new sewing room mascot.  I posed her on the doll quilt just quilted. 

I pulled several repro options before settling on the medium green print--the scale felt right.  I'll hand stitch the binding--it is too tiny to try to machine sew.  Another Fair entry project is nearly done. 

I did simple crosshatching every 2 inches for the quilting.  Sunday I made bias binding and had a heck of a time getting the last join done!  About five tries and ripping later, but finally ready to stitch down by machine, most likely. 

The simple lapped backing has recipes.  I'll end up with "okies and ingerbread" by the time the binding is on, haha. 

On my mind is the end of Picasa, which I have used all these years for the blog.  Google lets you make a copy of your album archive and save it to "Takeout", whatever that is!  Our computer is very old and I don't even know I can save the copy there or if I will have to store it somewhere else.  I only have three days left to solve this issue!  Google Photos is not like Picasa and there will be a learning curve.  If anyone has any helpful hints on this issue, I would be most happy to hear them!

Slow Sunday Stitching--Choosing a new project

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

Having finished the Lori Holt Stitch Card project last week, I poked around the Hoosier cabinet for a new start. I found two options caught my eye the most.... 

A Blackbird Designs small....no recollection of where I got this but I love the bird and the border.  I have never made a little pillow like this but have seen displays of smalls in old dough bowls that are lovely. 

The other choice is a free pattern I downloaded ages ago. It is from 2018...

I like to color! The giant pineapple and fat blackbird, skinny house and big moon--Lizzie Kate designs are so fun. I'll have to check the floss stash for any missing colors. 

Otherwise, the only handwork I'm going to be doing today is burying a hundred or more threads in the current quilting project....

There will be a lot more to bury after I finish the quilting in the big blocks.  Since this pic the binding was attached--there are a few missed spots to close up that job, too.  Half the day is already gone, I better get moving!

Slow Sunday Stitching--Lori Holt Stitch Card Strawberry Finish

Slow Sunday Stitching--Kathy's Quilts blog.--See more sweet hand- stitching there. I have a finish to share. 

The Lori Holt stitch card project has had more attention and I have finished all the stitching I planned to do.  

I combined motifs from a different stitch card to fill up space on the prestretched Aida blank. I think it turned out sweet. A nice green ribbon around the frame should finish it off. 

These stitch cards are so cute.  I used single strawberries and modified the daisy motif from the top left stitch card.  Next I'd like to stitch the teacup, but likely will swap the cup and zigzag border colors, as I like green more than pink. 

Design Wall Monday--Fixing Meadowland

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

A  problem quilt has been hogging space in the sewing room for months--my Christmas print version of Then Came June's Meadowland quilt.  In December I had done some free motion quilting of motifs with freezer paper, and then attempted a candy cane in the rectangles along the edges of the quilt, which bombed.  The quilt was in time out and taking up space since then.  I finally got sick of looking at it and revisited the issues. The main one was that I had a LOT of threads to bury. 

This pic is before I had blotted away most of the blue marking pen.  

It took quite a lot of time to get all those thread tails buried! After inspecting the quilt post a rinse and dry, I opted to leave the corners and side rectangles unquilted. 

If I change my mind, something can always be added.  I have a few missed spots catching  the binding to mend too. The project box turned out to have extra block pieces I didn't remember were there.

The corner squares were neutral in the quilt pattern (I changed them to one big square for my quilt construction row style), but for this single block I cut squares of leftover We Whisk You a Merry Christmas prints.  Such a fun fabric line.  I won the stack of fat quarters at Sewtopia a few years ago. 

There are also a lot of leftovers from the other fat quarters in this line to play with later.  Glad to have another Christmas quilt to enjoy next season. 

Design Wall Monday--Baby Girl Quilt Finish

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

I meant to link up this morning and ran out of time, then forgot all about it when I came home for lunch, but I have a finish to share. 

Binding now completed. Boy, it seemed to take half the afternoon to go all the way around this small quilt made for my nephew and his wife's first baby--and my brother and his wife's first grandchild.

A wide solid turquoise strip brought it up to size.  I used a leftover light block made from the Meadowbloom jelly roll as a label. 

I'll put the baby's name there, once she arrives and I know what it is! Glad to have this ready to mail, along with some baby clothes.

Slow Sunday Stitching--Another Baby Quilt

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

After I finished the teal border on the Lori Holt Stitch card project,  I decided to add a few tiny strawberries in the corners.  I showed the first on a prior post, but ran into counting issues and it has been in time out the past week.  I think I will just go ahead and leave it be, add the last strawberry and see!

Other hand stitching today is quilt binding on a baby girl quilt made from 2.5" strips.  The blocks finish at 6".  My arms got quite a workout turning this quilt  1000 times to ditch stitch all the shapes. 

I had matching backing from the Meadowbloom line; I previously made quilts for another relative's granddaughters.

For the binding, I saved the light print strips that matched the background. 

All ready to stitch down on the back.  The sun is coming out so perhaps I will enjoy stitching on the patio. 

A Finish and Lost Things

Our next grandson's quilt is ready to go--I got all the quilting done by walking foot, and chose a solid blue from stash for the binding. 

I had a few binding clips loose in my sewing desk, but needed more.  The plastic box of red binding clips was not in its usual desk drawer.  A 20 minute "I just saw them" search then ensued--I looked through every drawer and bin at the messy sewing desk, and then all over the messy cutting table. 

Believe it or not, the binding clips were mere inches from the sewing machine in the photo above...

...under a pile of leader-ender blocks! Mystery solved, I set to hand stitching the binding down. 

The quilt is fairly small, though it seemed to take awhile stitching the binding by hand. 

The binding fabric shade was very close to the solid strip on the backing, a hair of difference.  I love the orange print, there is not much left to put in the scrap box.  As our son and daughter-in-law have not quite settled on his name, I'll make the quilt label after baby arrives. 

In other quilt news, my niece Emma sent a pic of herself wrapped in the Bookshelf quilt.  She was so happy to have it at last :)

There are a lot of tops that need quilting and I'll be constructing backings for them.  Also I poked around the project boxes in the Hoosier cabinet and oh, my, there are a lot of them!  Another "Empty the Hoosier Cabinet" self-challenge should occupy June, for the times when I am not holding our new grandson!

Slow Sunday Stitching--Strawberry

 Slow Sunday Stitching-- Joining up with Kathy's Quilts today with the project of the moment. 

Lori Holt Stitch Cards design.  She stitched her sample on a darker material than what I had on hand, this white Aida pre-stretched canvas. I added a few stitches with a single strand of green to make the strawberry flower stand out more.  Once I finished the teal blue border, I decided to add other motifs to the corners, from another card in the pack. 

The tiny strawberries are cute and fast to stitch.  I may also choose to add the flower and stem, from that same card, along the sides of the border.  Soon I'll need another project to stitch. 

We had a visit from our youngest grandson and our son this morning; Daddy was giving his very pregnant wife a break and they rode over on their bikes. 

Dane enjoyed a cinnamon roll, got his favorite toys out of the toybox, and talked up a storm, as usual. 

Staycation Sewing Progress and Plans

Staycation continues! I have been able to spend a lot of time in the sewing room.  First priority was the next grandson's quilt.  I went with a simple design and used stash fabrics.  The sashing was cut from the bolt of Kona Bone I bought from JoAnn's some months ago. It is great to have on hand. 

The bottom looks wonky in this pic but really isn't in person. 

Final white border all around.  The pattern I found online used 1" sashing, which I thought was too narrow, so I cut mine at 1.5"--that also made the quilt longer and wider.  The prints were cut 8x16 and 8x8 square, the long vertical strip was also 8", so it is not a big quilt. My Husqvarna sewing machine needed a service, however, so my older model Husqvarna is standing in; it does not have the main features I love on the newer model, the automatic presser foot lifter and the thread cutter. I took the 40 minute drive to the repair shop, and was sorry to see the Quilty Pleasures shop in the same center  that I expected to also visit had closed. Instead, I wandered around a vintage resale shop that had lots of fun old stuff to admire. I came home with a Fiestaware platter to add to my dinnerware, in a dark rusty color I didn't have. 

A rare opportunity to make a baby girl quilt for a grand-niece had me pulling sweet prints and patterns from my precut scraps and fat quarter drawers. 

The pattern I am using is "Picnic", from Kim Brackett's book, Scrap Basktet Sensations; it's the cover quilt.  Most of the quilts use 2.5" strips and squares.  I used my GO cutter to cut the neutral strips and squares for a 6x6 block quilt; the blocks are 6" square finished. I'm assembly-line stitching them as quickly as possible, as baby is due in the next few weeks. 

I made one for myself about 10 years ago. See it Here.  

The trimmings I am sewing up into cute mini hourglass blocks. 

What a sweet doll quilt these would make--there are lots more made than these few that were on the ironing board:)

Staycation Sewing--A Finish and A New Start

I'm currently enjoying the second day of a staycation--my doctor boss is out of the office on a real vacation, and I took the opportunity to use saved PTO of my own.  

The long-term project of the bookshelf quilt has reached an end at last!  Yesterday I finally quit dragging my feet on stippling the black background of the bookshelves--and, as one usually finds when avoiding a task, it didn't take very long at all to do!  The quilt has had a bath and lacks only a label to be gifted to my niece, Emma. 

I am happy with the solid black binding and ended up not putting any stitching in the outer quilt borders--I wanted to keep the illusion of a wallpapered backdrop.

Stippling the black background was definitely better than leaving it unquilted--it lets the books and objects stand out more. Finished size is about 5 feet each direction, a nice lap quilt or wall quilt. Most of the ideas for this bookshelf came from the Fabric at Work guidelines I found online.  Pinterest and Instagram also had lots of inspiration input. 

Next task on this staycation is to get a couple of quilts sent out for quilting--and my sewing machine in for a maintenance service!

I've also started a new cross-stitch project. I bought some Stitch Cards at Superbuzzy not long ago; these are Lori Holt designs and are so sweet. 

I had one of these prestretched Aida blanks, so was able to get right to stitching. 

The gingham strawberry is all done now.  I did not have the teal floss color for the border--nor anything that would be close enough, so will just carry on with the leaves, flower and stem until I pick that up. I want to stitch all of these designs!

The new task is to get our next grandson's quilt made--he will be here in a few weeks.  I also have a great-niece due very soon and the rare opportunity to make a girl baby quilt is a nice change!

Bookshelf Quilt Nearly There

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

The long journey of the Bookshelf Quilt for my niece Emma is getting pretty darn close to a end. I have finished quilting all the bookshelf items and am now working on the bottom drawers.    

The above photo was from 5/4/2023 when I had two sections of books to finish...

The above pic was taken 5/6/2023 when I completed stitching around all the shelf section books/items. That was a lot of arm exercise!

And here is Sunday's work; I made the hexagon pulls and quilted some details on the first drawer front, then appliqued the pulls with a narrow zig-zag.  Simple outlining to finish that drawer off.  After I finish the second drawer the same way, my plan is to trim the quilt and attach a black binding (still to be made!), before adding some stippling to the black background portions of the shelves.  I don't want them to get puffy when the quilt is washed.  There is a lot of lint on the quilt from the batting, so I will need to remove that with the lint roller before stippling the black. The outer border will need some  quilting too. Can't forget also some additional SITD on the crown of the bookshelf. It sounds like a lot left to do, but there is so much more behind me!  My niece has been patiently waiting a couple of years for her quilt to be finished. I'm hoping to send it to AZ with my brother his next trip out here.