Design Wall Monday--Now and Then Finish

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

Several months ago I finished a quilt top for our daughter-in-law's expected nephew.  Said nephew has now arrived healthy and hale and it was time to get the quilt finished to give to her sister and her husband. 

I cropped a portion of the pattern by Victoria Findlay Wolf, redo of an antique quilt she called Now and Then, from APQ magazine July 2019.  I liked it in this pic in dappled afternoon sun, but the details didn't show up that well. 

The doubled nine patch I found so interesting as a design twist VFW made from the antique family quilt.  I used Kona Navy and a white crosshatch for the nine patches.  Choosing different straight line quilting designs took some thinking--and way more time than I thought to execute!

I took out the stitching in the rocket ship octagon three different times and still got the measurements wrong to center it--so it stayed!  The nine patch blocks were all ditch stitched, which left a lot of threads to deal with.  

After burying some threads but having lots of trouble with shredding, I cut most of them off as they had been secured while stitching. Originally I was thinking of using the rust print for binding, but am glad I went with the navy blue. 

A few peepee tepees will be made to accompany the baby quilt, which finished about 36" square. Welcome Ryland!  Hope to get to meet you someday when this pandemic ends. 

Design Wall Monday--9/21/2020

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

My design surface was only shortly occupied by the Now and Then baby quilt plan I showed last post for our DIL's sister, as I was eager to sew it up.  But first we had a very special visitor; grandson Dane came to Mimi and Papa's for the first time at 4 weeks old.  Here he is in Papa's arms.

He's growing well and filling out nicely.  I got to feed him a small bottle and change a diaper :)  His daddy is very proud of his growing boy: 

He's not quite smiling but does respond to voices and likes to sleep with one eye open, per daddy!   Not sure yet if he'll get daddy's blue eyes or mama's brown eyes. It was great fun to have a long visit with the little family, Mama is doing a great job.  Our son's paternity leave is over and he will be returning to work--but they made the most of the four weeks since baby Dane arrived. 

Construction of the Now and Then quilt occupied many happy hours (pattern in July 2019 APQ magazine, designer Victoria Findlay Wolfe).  My version is just a portion of the design.

Nine patch parts completed first, and then laying out all the cut snowball squares. 

I love the doubled nine patch block--so clever.  I was happy with the layout so proceeded to adding all the snowball corners. 

After considering a few different layouts, switching some of the blue and orange blocks, I stayed with the layout that is close to the magazine pattern. 

The top was completed in an afternoon and I like it a lot.  I'm thinking of using the orange print for the backing and binding after quilting this myself.   My sister is making two quilts for the next  babies to be born in the family, twin girls our nephew and his wife are expecting in December.  We still have never met our other grand-nephew born last December, due to the pandemic, but see him often in videos that his dad posts, love that.  

I've sent off one quilt to be done professionally but can't afford that for all the tops waiting in line...unfortunately my sister's longarm has died and unless she can find an old major computer component somewhere in the country, and someone to fix it, her money has been wasted.  Very sad! Sewing room plans for the week therefore should be directed to making quilt sandwiches for some already paired up tops and backs that I can do myself.  I'd like to have a nice pile of completed quilts before the year ends and time suddenly seems to be hurtling faster to the holidays and year end :)

Now and Then--Another Baby Quilt

I just love the satisfaction of sewing up smaller projects-- and if they are for a baby, even better!  Our daughter-in-law's sister is due in a few months with her own first baby, and I asked our DIL Ashley if she thought her sister might like a quilt.  I try never to assume that everyone loves handmade--we all have different tastes--but Ashley thought her sister would like one similar to the first quilt I made our grandson Dane. 

 The snowball blocks were fun to sew and I liked the simple block to block layout.  While perusing some of my APQ magazines, I found a great companion to this quilt.

This is a redo of an antique quilt by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  I loved the combination of the nine patches and snowballs.  Her version is all solid fabrics with the snowball blocks randomly placed, but I wanted to use prints, making the cousins' quilts complementary.  I cropped a portion of the quilt for a baby sized version.

The navy and white is for the nine patches and snowball corners, and the sun/cloud print and yellow speckle for the center, with primarily bright blue for the remaining snowball blocks.  Though I drew it with orange in the corners, I may switch things up when all the blocks are ready to layout.  I prepped all the fabrics and started cutting.  And then....a design opportunity was presented when I mistakenly thought I was using my 6.5" ruler for the squares and I WAS NOT.  Sigh.  Luckily I had only miscut one of the sun/cloud print blocks, but didn't have any more of this fabric (I had made a bunch of peepee teepees with it).  I found a rocket/moon fabric in the fat quarter drawer to use; with the yellow speckle squares, these will be my center snowball blocks.

Getting out the Accuquilt 2.5" die for strip cutting is a big time saver, even though it wastes a little bit of fabric.  I'll be marking a lot of squares for all those snowball corners, but am happy to strip piece the 9 patches per the designer's directions. 

The pattern is in issue #158, from June 2019.  Here's a link to the magazine with a photo of the antique and modern remake. Can't wait to get started--I haven't sewn a thing all week!

New Projects Everywhere

Startitis seems to strike on a daily basis these days.  There is no end to leftovers which I try to turn into "real" quilted items!  I showed the start of a small tablerunner the other day, and since the walking foot was still on the machine, decided to get it quilted.  The deep raspberry Dimples fat quarter backing was not quite big enough to make a traditional binding and I decided to make a flanged binding instead.  The scrap drawers produced a suitable length of a green linen string and I got cutting and sewing.  Due to shortage of the raspberry print to allow joining the final seam,  I found a chunk of a close colored print to add.  I got as far as stitching the binding to the back, turning it to the front and affixing binding clips before closing down for the night.

Next morning it was soon finished off by stitching down the flange with green thread.  I was happy with the way it turned out on the front....

...and the back.  The free-motion quilting looks a little like hieroglyphics on this side, haha.  No destination for this one either so it's resting on the bookshelf in the living room for now. 

Another set of those green star point pieces were still left to deal with, so I pulled another leftover small pieced item out of my "small projects" box.  This was a trial for the Dreamweaver quilt, making Disappearing 9 patch blocks as per the original pattern, with larger squares.  I used some pretty fabrics for the mockup so it wouldn't go to waste.  Ultimately I went with plain squares for the Dreamweaver quilt to simplify. 

Fiddling with the green and cream star points pieces, I ended up cutting them down to 3" wide and after sewing them together, sliver trimmed the D9P section to match the length.  The tablemat has not been paired with a backing or binding choice yet but is looking cheerful.

Our next grandson is due in four weeks and although I made him a small playmat a couple of months ago, I wanted to make a regular sized baby quilt and pulled out the Churn Dash blocks from one of Barb's swaps from a few years back; I was in the modern swap of 6" finished blocks of solids with low volume background. Last year I made this quilt for my grand-nephew Elliott from the blue blocks with black/gray and white backgrounds.

Well this is just the top, but shows the secondary pattern formed by the alternate 9 patches; this setting I first saw on Kathy's Quilts blog in traditional fabrics.  Since our nephew Matt and our son Nick were so close growing up, I wanted to make a similar but different modern quilt for Nick's son.  The cousins will be only 8 months apart in age and I hope will be close as well.

Graph paper and pencil are my friends!  I originally had a much grander plan in mind, using Drunkard's Path blocks for the diagonals, but simplified to the the HSTs.  

A suitable low volume print and gray-blue crackle print from stash were cut with Bonnie's Essential Triangle tool from 6.5" strips.  Initially, I laid out the chosen Churn Dash blocks in color groups, and ended up making a couple more blue blocks from stash.  Next morning, though, it seemed too formal and static for a baby's quilt.  After Switcheroo, stitching commenced.

I think it looks much more fun this way.  The colors remind me of sunsets and sea colors, and being the child of two adventurers, our grandson will no doubt see plenty of water and sky as he grows up. Currently, though, he's being bratty by not being turned head down yet...

Design Wall Monday--Churn Dash Baby Quilt Finish

Design Wall Monday with a finish to share.  See more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Blog. 

I finished the quilting a couple of days before the baby shower for my niece by marriage, but got the binding on the night prior to the event.  I decided at a late-night hour to hand stitch the binding down, which I seldom do.  I almost went blind sewing with black thread on black fabric (!) and had to stop and go to bed before the last side was done. 

I finished it up the next morning before we had to leave to help our son-in-law with the boys at soccer--he was tasked with bringing the team banner and the halftime orange slices as well as getting the boys ready and at the field on time.  Mama left for work early as she was going to the baby shower too. 

It was a gorgeous day in Ojai, though hot, and we all sought shade and plenty of liquid refreshment.  The shower at a winery was lovely and elegant, with delicious food, fun games, and plenty of dessert choices.  Three sets of sisters are in this photo--four cousins and two great-aunties of the coming baby :)  So glad all could make it.

The beautiful Mama-to-be with the quilt.  I included a gift for the new daddy to play with until baby is old enough--a toy workbench.  He showed up toward the end of the shower and obligingly took a selfie with us. 

A few more weeks until due date, but I think they very ready to meet Baby E, especially Mama, who has been taken off work to rest due to some early contractions.  

Now I'm in full Sewtopia prep mode for the week, finishing off the challenge project and getting things set aside to bring and pack.  Meanwhile, we watch and wait for more fire news here in SoCalif.  Tis the season...

Lastly, a birthday shout-out to my best friend Toni.  Have a lovely day!

Design Wall Monday--10/21/19

Another week to see more Design Wall lovelies--check them out on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts. 

I spent more time with the baby quilt for my grand-nephew and got the top finished Thursday night. 

The Churn Dash blocks were from Barb's (Fun With Barb blog) swap in 2018.  I shopped my bulging stash yet could not come up with a suitable backing or binding, so off to Superbuzzy I went on Saturday.  Several Guild members were there to visit with and I showed off my design. I chose a black with white print that I will use for the backing and the binding.  The quilt sandwich has been made and I'll do simple quilting on this 38" square quilt.  It needs to be finished by Friday!  

I also got started on the Michael Miller challenge for Sewtopia Seattle, which is coming up fast in early November.  The fabrics were so pretty.  I chose a pattern from APQ magazine that I have wanted to make for some time. The basket handles will be fused and topstitched down.

I've since sewn all the pieces together and added the plain borders.  I did make one change to the bottom row of the basket, mostly because of the print's repeat--I cut it one inch deeper than the matching section so I didn't lose the flowers.  I plan to add ties to the quilt to make a sewing machine cover.  We also have the option at Sewtopia to do a Secret Swap and I joined in, so will need to gather some fun stuff for my person, and a special gift to finish up with.  

My little cross-stitch project started in Cambria is almost but not quite finished.  I'm not entirely happy with my latest additions. 

This was a free download from Lizzy Kate, I reversed the cup colors and added more white detail.  I see an oops on the cup handle where I need to add one.more.stitch where it touches the cup. And don't you think another cookie is in order?  Two cookies is never enough :)  Also I added the border but am considering extending it down both sides to perhaps make my initials and date a little less loud.  

And because there is not already too much going on in the sewing room, I started a new project!  In my defense, we have an upcoming Guild Sew-in of baby quilts and I got a bug to make up a kit ahead of time.   This is a charity quilt design by Jo Kramer and her daughter, free on APQ website, called Make the Connection.  The pattern includes four different sizes. While their design used 5" charm squares, I pulled out the mini charm packs that seem to sprout from nowhere. It was not hard to choose 100 charms.

These 2.5" squares sure differ in size with each manufacturer, with Moda's being the smallest.  I therefore had to do sliver trimming but it went quick and made pretty confetti.  I sewed sets of four  2.5" squares together and cut all the background pieces for the 25 blocks I'll be making for a 44" square quilt. It will be nice to just sit and sew blocks :)

More Pieces and Parts to Ponder

Oh, the trouble that follows when I attempt to clean up the cutting table and put things away!  I came across a baggie of Churn Dash blocks from Barb's swap and remembered an idea I saved for an alternate block.  I have another grandnephew due later this year and thought it would make a good baby quilt.  

The curves that appear with the alternate nine patch block really attracted me.  I pulled a modern white and gray print and solid black and cut the needed squares. 

Lots of different blues with low volume backgrounds.

Not the greatest layout attempt on the nine patches--but enough to show the goal.  These blocks will make good leader-enders as I sew together  some of the 520 3.5" squares the newlyweds helped me layout last weekend.  I failed to get a photo of the layout before we stacked up and labeled the rows.

The Churn Dash theme continued when I got the last three seams sewn for my dad's Chunky Churn Dash quilt--the pic is the before shot...it went together easily and I'm very happy with it.

 Dad was too!  Here's a pic of us working on a jigsaw puzzle last week of a harbor scene painting by Claude Monet.

Very serious work!  My engineer dad sorts all the pieces into groups by type, "one pin", "four pin", "no pin", etc.  Once he shared his secret with me, it made picking out the right piece a lot quicker!  Mom's art studio always has a table set up for puzzles.

Pondering if I want to add borders to Chunky Churndash  or not--a mockup will be necessary for final options. Again, this is a free pattern by Bonnie Hunter on her Quiltville website...which leads to another free Bonnie pattern, My Blue Heaven.  I took Bonnie's class last year with the Camarillo Quilt Guild and called my version My Lupine Heaven, using two colors instead of one. In class I only completed one star block and one puss in the corner block, but cut many pieces.  Here and there I've cut and sewn pieces and parts to use as leader-enders, and finally got to a point where I had enough to construct a bunch of blocks.  The star blocks have 24 pieces each, which makes for a lot of sewing!

Oh my, that is a busy bunch of blocks.  I'm not exactly happy with these, some seem very muddy and the star doesn't really stand out.  Sigh.   My plan calls for a 6x8 layout so there is still a lot of sewing to do.  Perhaps choosing more light backgrounds with fewer prints will help the star blocks.  The neverending scraps will feed the kitty forever, it seems :)

June Gloom and Sewing Room

Typically in Southern California, low clouds and fog hug the coast in the morning and burn off in the early afternoon.  No so for the past week or so--it has been socked in all day, living up to the June Gloom title.  While that means we don't need to get out our room air conditioning unit yet, it makes for long days with no sun!  It has been easy to stay in the sewing room with this weather. 

I think I have finally made enough of the Chunky Churndash blocks to move on to the alternate hourglass block.  For that I will have to confer with my Dad about what colors to use. The dark red print I bought during the Coastal Quilt Run may appeal to him.  One thing I noticed about Bonnie's free pattern (available at Quiltville.com) is that no yardage measurements were given for the alternate blocks or the borders!  I'm sure I can figure it out but it would have been nice to have a starting point--my version will have more blocks and less border.  I will use her Essential Triangle tool to cut the quarter-square triangles from strips instead of the usual  big squares cut twice in an X.  

Some slow stitching has also been happening on the Blackwork embroidery I am making for my sister. 

 The first of four panels is now complete.  Once all are stitched, I will set them into a small quilt per the pattern.

My version will be much scrappier, though, as the Civil War prints drawer is absolutely jammed full.

I took a couple of days off to join my husband on his vacation week.  We had a late breakfast invitation today from daughter Elaine and grandson Hunter, and afterwards we did a bit of shopping and then drove up into the hills above downtown.  

This whole area was burned in the Thomas Fire in December 2017 and the cross was damaged. A lot of work has gone into re-landscaping and reviving the area, which is called Grant Park.

Lots of new plantings with an emphasis on native plants.  None of this was here when Grant and I were married at the cross decades ago.

 I captured some folks getting their group photo in my attempt to photograph our pier and coastline looking to the southwest. 

Though it was overcast we were still able to see our Channel Islands off the coast.  The big gray paved area on the far left is our Fairgrounds parking area.  The Fair begins at the end of next month, which means there will need to be a lot more time in the sewing room if I want to enter anything!  I told my sister I have 8 quilt tops in the closet...

Design Wall Monday: Blocks Everywhere

Design Wall Monday: See more blogs on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.  

Sewing time was sketchy this past week but I did get a few things done. The block for the pizza box swap for guild was finished on time but I ended up not going to the meeting on Monday and then received two more pizza boxes the next day, so now I have a stack of three.  The next recipient will likely not be pleased to receive three at once--perhaps I'll parcel them out over the month, lol. 

Sarah's box included a thick card catalog of block designs and I chose this 12" windmill block.  There were no instructions other than the size of pieces to cut for one's desired block size, but it went together easily--without any chopped off points, too, yay.

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More Chunky Churn Dash blocks for my Dad's quilt were added to the piles.  I now have over 40 made and need at least 60.

Stripes and dots and tiny prints--I'm having a ball playing in the scraps.  I'll need to figure yardage for the alternate block and any borders. 

There were some test  blocks made for the newlywed's quilt, Dreamweaver, as well.  Since I am enlarging the quilt to throw size I do not want to cut 1000 2.5" blocks for the background, which is made up of Disappearing 9 patch blocks.  

On the right is the DP9 made from the pattern specification of 2.5" squares that finishes at 6"; the left block is from 5" squares, finishing at 12", and the middle block from 3.5" squares, finishing at 9".  I'm happy with the middle block's size as it is not too large in proportion to the appliqued dreamcatcher that will come later. Tester pieces came from stash and not the grouping that will be used in their quilt.  

Some more Log Cabin Loonie blocks are moving along.  I'm about halfway done with the 80 I want for my layout.  

I'm using 1.5" strips precut to sizes for each round.  My blocks will finish at 7.5", an odd size, but it won't matter--the quilt will end up whatever size it ends up!

Cheddar & Cinnamon Quilted

Over a month ago I got back the second of two quilts from the UFO Challenge 2017 that were sent out for long-arm quilting, but haven't yet shared the wonderful work a fellow guild member accomplished for me. 

I've been calling this Cheddar and Cinnamon (pattern from Thimbleberries called Nine Patch Criss Cross).  Isn't it funny how many quilts seem to be named after food?  I asked my quilter to try to emphasize the star points surrounding the nine patches.  

Someone's fluffy-kitty self covered a lot of my close up, but you get the idea!  I liked also how she quilted the centers of the square-in-square blocks to minimize the background fabric's print.

I requested feathers in the outer border.  Wool batting was used and will feel wonderful on cool nights while watching TV on the couch. 

Cornerstone details.  The binding is the cheddar print, and all ready to be stitched on, followed by a label.  I'll enjoy this quilt for fall decorating, too.  So happy to have this top quilted at last--the nine patches were swapped years ago (7!) hosted by my blog friend Julie.  She's a scrap quilt queen and always working on some charming hand applique as well.  I'll do the binding this weekend and call this quilt finished!