Three for September--Narragansett Browns Delivered

Three for September --I worked on a different WIP for three days at a time all month.  

The main WIP I wanted to finish got a label Thursday morning, and yesterday my sister and I showed up at our Uncle Fred's senior living facility to deliver the quilt. We surprised Uncle Fred in a common area, in the middle of a card game with three ladies, one of whom was familiar with our family through her sister (whose son married my best friend Toni. Still following?)

Uncle Fred obliged by letting me drape the quilt over him blanket style.  Never very talkative, he was still quite pleased and enjoyed the feline QC photo I showed him--he has a cat that looks like my Mini.  The ladies were all very complimentary and I appreciated their kind words.

Disclaimer on the next pic: I am lousy at selfies!

A bit blurry, but still wonderful to have gotten this pic. As we were leaving the facility, coincidentally the sister of the card player was coming in and we stopped and chatted with Mrs. Weeks. (Aside to my best friend: How about that, Toni?)

I sent a picture of the finished quilt to Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville, the designer of Narragansett Blues from her book MORE Leaders and Enders, and she posted it on her Facebook page with very nice words about my version.  Lots of folks liked my quilt, which made me very pleased.  

Good news was also received from my nephew and his new bride--they received the package and his wife "loved the placemats, as they matched her kitchen".  Such a sweet thing to hear.  

Tomorrow I will wrap up the Three for September self-challenge.  It has been a good time.

Design Wall Monday--9/24/18

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

Off my design wall is the "Squirrel" mini quilt, another Three for September WIP (I'm working on a different WIP every three days this month).  I got this mini quilted and bound yesterday.  This pattern is Cross My Heart from Kim Brackett's book Scrap-Basket Surprises.  The prints are Prayer Flag by April Cornell.

I used one of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine and a neutral cream thread, to play up the sort of Boho look of the prints.  The design shows up better on the mini dot backing.

I also pieced a Frankenbatt for the larger Cross My Heart runner, and cut and made binding for that one.  There was no sewing today but a bunch of clean up in the sewing room after work, as the housecleaners are coming tomorrow, yay.  

Last night I sewed up some missed spots on the machine binding on Narragansett Browns, and the quilt got a bath today. 

 There was feline QC after the binding was stitched.   Mini made sure to nap-test as well.

Are you guys sick of seeing this one?  Well, hopefully it will be going to its forever home this week when I give it to my uncle.   I'm going to have to just show up to his senior living home as he doesn't answer his phone and didn't respond to my email either!

Design Wall Monday: Twofer Threefer and Longarm Quilting

Design Wall Monday, see the Linkup on Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.  

Three for September: I am pulling out a different WIP to work on every three days this month.

#3 The Jewels in the Curio quilt now has a finished center.

I am not going to claim all my seams are perfectly lined up but they are only a smidge off in some places, not enough to worry about.  I am  happy with the colors and just love these repro prints in the Jewel Box blocks.  The other task for this project was to form a plan for the three borders.  I have examined all the precut pieces and leftover light fabrics I have.  Jo from Jo's Country Junction designed this quilt for Moda Bakeshop with a 4" finished light inner border, a scrappy squares second border, and a third 2"light  border, but used only one background print for her design, where I went scrappy.  So there will be some creative cutting and likely additions from the stash to make up the difference.  I also got a bunch of square in squares done for GO Four It as a Twofer :)

The #4 selection for Three for September is Sunbonnet Sue Goes to the Orient (applique from Quick Quilts magazine 2005).  Poor, poor Sue has been a WIP for soo long.  Here's how she looks today:

Goal is to finish up the lantern embroidery, make a quilt sandwich and do some simple quilting.  I may add a facing rather than binding as I want to keep the focus on the center.  Sue will be a wallhanging at last.  

My sister sent me a message that her longarm Pfaff was finally operational and she had quilted 5 Thomas Fire quilts in the last few days, without the thread breaking every four inches as it had been.  Yesterday I took over the quilt I'm making for our Uncle Fred and we loaded it onto the machine.  This is my version of Bonnie Hunter's Narragansett Blues pattern. 

She purchased this Grand Quilter at a quilt show, it was their demo model so was sold at a discount but still not inexpensive!  Her landlady kindly let her set it up in the craft room of their house.  Here it is with the 10' rails, she has 12'. Kathy guided me through all the steps of loading the quilt and readying the machine.  

We ran into some problems with the bobbin thread that took some time to resolve, there was a dull needle to change, and part of the batting folded inside the quilt, but otherwise it was great fun to do.

The quilting is neither the prettiest or perfect on this scrappy quilt, but it is done! I'll use  the excess cut off backing for a scrappy binding.  This quilt has been more than a  year in the making, starting with the four patches as leader-enders for a good long while last year :)   I started assembling the quilt in March 2018 and finished the top and backing in June.  Hoping to get a photo of Uncle with his quilt in the near future.  I've got several other finished tops that will see some longarm action soon!

Design Wall Monday--June 11, 2018

Same old, same old from this design floor!  But Narragansett Blues (in Browns) is a finished top at last.

Since I simplified the border of Bonnie Hunter's design by using strips, the corners worked out differently, but I'm not too fussed about it in this very busy quilt.

I chose to highlight the dark/light of the patchwork by making the center square a light in the 9 patches that made up the corners of the outer border. I don't think anyone will notice the break in the alternate design...do you?

Keeping up the momentum, I immediately set about constructing a backing.  The top came out 64x88" unfinished and I pulled more brown yardage to cobble together.  

Both of these fabrics have lingered in the stash for too long.  The Thimbleberries print on the right I have had for more than 5 years.  The brown in the background never matched anything I tried to put it with before, and the block print on the left I couldn't make work into something sizable enough to complement the print since I only had a yard of it.  No matter, they joined another bunch of leftovers to make themselves useful!

Scrappy and make-do are the name of the game for this quilt.  My sister has got her long-arm machine working but still is having some tension problems.  I'm hoping to put this big quilt on it and do a simple design.  The binding fabric I also picked out and will get that together soon. 

See more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts. 

DH Grant was on vacation last week and we marked his final morning off  Sunday with breakfast out with our daughters, son-in-law, and grandsons.  

 Hunter (2) tried on Papa's sunglasses.  They matched his Tshirt saying well, I think!

Cove (4) drew a picture of Papa and was concentrating on copying Papa's name on the drawing, as his mama had written.  The next generations headed off to Target and the beach after breakfast and I got a few pics later on Instagram of the beautiful day they were having.  This week should be perfect summer weather--it is the last week of school for our district, many other cities in the County have already had their graduation ceremonies.  The ocean still looks full, despite our severe drought status!