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 :)

Pismo Getaway

We were happy to have a recent weekend getaway to visit friends--I took a day off work and we headed up the coast to Pismo Beach on Friday.  It was cloudy and cool and the drive easy. Toni and Dan have a house high up on the hill with wonderful views. We had wood fired pizzas in their amazing hillside pavilion--built since the last time we visited. 

 

Their hilly lot has an unobstructed view to the ocean and the freeway is far enough away to be mostly hidden. 

It was a wonderful way to spend the first evening catching up by the fire table and under the heaters. 

Their rescue Golden rested on her fake lawn--Callie is still pretty young and ready to get into mischief :)

We went to Avila Beach for a late lunch one day.  The ocean was very calm with hardly any surf all the way from home.  All the tourists didn't seem to mind. 

The pier was closed some time ago for safety reasons but there were lot of folks enjoying the many shops/restaurants along the boardwalk.  

Toni wanted my help sorting out sewing machines she had from her mother and aunt after they both passed about 10 years ago.  While she was getting them all out and set up, I sewed down the binding on a tablerunner I made her--she didn't know it was for her until I finished it :)

Toni and Dan have a lot of grey tones in their decor and I wanted to match that.  How did I do?

These were leftover Chunky Churndash blocks, hourglass block and sashing from my Dad's quilt. It is a Betsy Chutchian fabric called Eliza's Indigo. Wish I had more of this!

Backing from a fat quarter and more scraps. Very simple quilting. We sorted through Toni's machines and she made decisions on what to move on.  One machine we could not get the bobbin case to stay in; the other was a late 70's fancy Bernina with embroidery menus that she will keep.

Another sunset enjoyed from the pavilion...The colored bands from the deep fog bank above the ocean and a huge upper cloudbank were so unusual.  The drive home on Sunday was an easy couple of hours.  I forgot a bag of shoes so Toni mailed them to me!  We look forward to visiting again. 

Slow Stitching Sunday

It has been some time since I joined Slow Stitching Sunday, though I generally do have some handwork going most of the time.  I have continued embroidery on the wool applique blocks from the well-aged Fat Quarter Quilt Shop Greenpiece BOM kit my husband bought me so many years ago.  This week I finished prepping the last four applique blocks, which made me very happy.  I used freezer paper for tracing and cutting the patterns, which worked very well.

 

I got the stem and small bud stitched down this week, and am working on the large flower center.  This one was finished today, the tiny berries and stems: 

 

Binding on this pillow cover also got finished.

This is a block from the Fall Dash Quilt by Sherri McConnell.  I made two pillow covers from the pattern in American Patchwork and Quilting magazine October 2019.  I love churn dash blocks of any kind!  All fabrics were from stash. 

See more Slow Stitchers' work on Kathy's Quilts' blog. Happy Sunday!

November Downs and Ups

Well, I didn't mean to take so many days off blogging--things were just getting me down.  This year has just had so many stressful events and changes both at home and the nation--on top of COVID-19 rising--that it has been hard to keep up with positive thinking.  The time change isn't helping at all either.  Combine that with another twist in my work schedule and my mood just crashed.  I haven't touched my sewing machine in a week, can't get motivated to get out of bed until the last minute before work, and have been staying up much too late staring at the TV.

There have been some light moments, though, seeing our grandsons, having much needed rain, and yesterday I was decorating for Fall, including the new Gobble turkey pillow. I did finish the pumpkin pillow cover shown in my last post for daughter Erica, and delivered it to her at work. 

The red chair in her office made a great backdrop.  The pillow cover is about 13-14" and has a split back with a bound edge--Erica picked the caramel print scrap for binding. 

It looked good on the gold couch in the office space too!  I looked back on my blog and this block was designed by Sherri McConnell, for the Fall Dash Quilt featured in APQ magazine's October 2019 issue--it was on the cover. I haven't finished off the other pumpkin pillow cover I quilted as yet. 

A guild member had an open spot on her her longarm quilting calendar, and I spent far too much time constructing a Frankenback for a Christmas quilt top. 

It took me two days to remeasure and recut and remeasure and add more stash fabric, but finally it was large enough for the 75x90+ top and I handed it off with batting.  Although I told her to just do an allover pattern, she emailed me that she "couldn't resist" doing some Poinsettias in the open white squares and the four patches.  She brought it back today and it looks gorgeous. 

The pattern is Barefoot in the Park, though I left off the appliqued circles in the white patches from Stephanie's (Loft Quilting) pattern, and changed the borders to use up all the 5" charm squares.

Georganna quilted with red thread in the colored four patches and borders, and white thread in the white background squares. I love it! I am going to bind the quilt in red, possibly the same stripe as the border, if there is enough leftover fabric.  My poinsettia plant is just turning red at the tips of the branches.  My mom called me yesterday to say that the gardeners who "mow and blow" at their house had CUT DOWN her poinsettia plant without checking with them--just when it is about to change color with the colder weather!  

I'll finish off with a little baby spam of Dane...now 11 weeks old.  He was honed in on Papa's shirt pattern but did look up once in a while!  Proud Mama looks on.

He's very active, pushing up on his elbows during tummy time and even rolling to his back.  Dada is very pleased.

He looks pretty cute in the beanie he wore during our walk in the neighborhood before it started to rain again.  Ashley and Nick are doing a wonderful job as new parents--so happy for them, and glad we are able to visit with our masks on.  Looking forward to the day kisses are allowed again!

Design Wall Monday--Labor Day 2020

Happy Labor Day to all!    Design Wall Monday is here again.  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog.  

I selected 6 alternate blocks for my Log Cabin Loonies quilt from these modern churn dashes with low volume backgrounds, swapped several years ago through Barb's blog.  I made the dark purple one on the lower left.

Happy to have a cooler day today here in SoCal--it was 100 degrees in our area yesterday, and 88 degrees downstairs in our non-airconditioned house when I was cutting and sewing these sashings.  Unfortunately, due to MATH, the sashing had to be recut as I didn't account for two seam allowances and were too narrow.  My revised plan for the Log Cabin Loonies blocks shown last post is to add an additional row of Log Cabin blocks all the way around and call it done. That will make an 8x11 layout finish at 60x82", a nice sized throw.  I likely will not add any borders but can decide that later.  

That's better!  The top will get put together in the next month I hope.  I also spent a lot of time cutting and mixing/matching pieces for Easy Breezy leader-ender blocks.  These are so fun to sew, and triangle free (Bonnie Hunter, Quiltville).

Our son and daughter-in-law brought their 2 week old son to meet his cousins and aunties over the weekend.  

I think they were impressed with how little newborns are! Auntie Erica got first dibs.

The boys' mama, our other daughter Elaine, also got an Auntie cuddle in with Dane.  We'll make another trip up to visit the new family again soon.  Meanwhile, photos and videos give us updates on his growing and changing!

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...

Stitching While Quarantined

This is a different kind of staying at home than we've ever experienced--surely that is true for most people!  We've been told to stay home during times of fire, earthquake, flood, and windstorms, but nothing compares to the novel coronavirus for disrupting all our lives.  Stitching keeps me busy and sewing masks has taken priority.  I've made 17 masks so far--16 for our Guild drive for local hospitals, and the latest for my husband at his request.  This is the pattern we have been advised to use: https://www.instructables.com/id/AB-Mask-for-a-Nurse-by-a-Nurse/

A guild member has made a few suggestions for this pattern, including trimming the paper pattern down a 1/4 inch all around before cutting the pieces, since trimming is called for later in the pattern and is an extra step.  My sister has been using a double fold binding for hers.  I continue the single fold as per the pattern, but add extra stitching at the corners of the mask where there will be lots of tension when tied.  

I used quilting cottons for the first batch, then got out the batiks box to make the next set--a suggestion I read due to higher thread count in these fabrics.  I also made the inner layer a light color to help distinguish right from wrong side.  Some guild members have also included an arrow to indicate the top (nose) edge.  Lots of fabric mixing and matching here--gotta keep it interesting!  Our guild has now turned in 150 masks that went to our County hospitals. They are aiming for 3000 so we will keep sewing.  I had to call in an order to Superbuzzy for more Aurifil thread--I'm always happy to support local quilt shops.  Our other local shop is also doing door pickup of supplies. 

In between mask pieces I finished the Tea Time charm pack top--trying to work on my March self-challenge to clear out the Hoosier cabinet. I added borders and ordered backing from Superbuzzy which I picked up along with the thread.  This will be a little quilt for our grandson arriving sometime in August.

I had the hardest time with the getting the right border measurements, since I was making it up as I went.  There was not enough of the solid blue to have just the gray cornerstones, but luckily I had the acid green print that coordinated well with the charm squares.  The bottom right corner was pulling and after I took the picture it was fixed.  I'm so pleased with the bright colors and look forward to quilting it soon. 

After picking up my quilting supplies on Friday I drove down to the beach. It was very windy and dark clouds were moving in from the north.  

The Channel Islands were visible with the sea being very choppy with lots of spray.  It began to sprinkle as I drove home through the foothills.  I stopped by daughter Elaine's to pick up some mending, and she reported a friend in Ojai said it was hailing.  Rain is rare here, and rainbows even more rare, and we got both. 

You can't really see it in the photo, but there was a faint double rainbow.  Love that!

A little more non-mask related sewing was dedicated to a companion pillow I'm making for my dad to match his Chunky Churndash qult.  The idea was born of extra HSTs that made up an Oklahoma Twister block, and yet another kind of Churndash I designed.  It measures about 21 inches square here and I may add another narrow plain border to preserve the corner design before choosing the pillow form size.  

Stay well and don't touch your face!  I may make myself a mask to keep from doing just that :)

Design Wall Monday--Quarantining and Sewing

It's a Covid-19 Quarantine Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

So, I have been sewing a lot these past days.  I was still working up until Thursday, when our County Public Health Department decreed a shelter in place order in addition to the one the Governor had imposed several days before.  The medical group where I work has two doctors with Master's degrees in Public Health--they are both women--as well as a number of other very smart and adaptable doctors and staff.  Telemedicine technology for our group was virtually invented overnight by one doctor and her husband.  I scribed with my doc for three days while he "saw" patients before the Public Health edict and most everyone but me got sent home with laptops. 

I took this pic on a break before being released to home.  A bit of snow on our TopaTopa Mountains, framed by orange and California Oak trees.

Since being called off work, I had plenty of time to add binding to the Chunky Churndash quilt that I got back superfast from Quilting by David.  Love the swirl pattern I chose, which they scaled wonderfully.  After briefly considering a scrappy binding from the leftovers drawer, I abandoned that idea for this perfect 1/2 yard dark navy print from stash.   

So satisfying to see it all finished.  There was a near disaster when I washed the quilt and forgot to change it to cold water setting--the binding had not been washed and bled with the warm water cycle.  After several more rounds of cold water soaks and washing with color catchers, most of the excess dye came out.  Some of the light fabrics in the blocks turned blue, but being so scrappy, that didn't matter a bit.  I sure didn't mention it to my Dad when I brought it over!

 I stood by the door to take photos, admonishing my parents not to get close!  Dad was very pleased with the quilt.  My artist Mom (one of her paintings is above the mantel) kept exclaiming about all the colors.  She took the quilt and spread it out on the floor to get up close and personal ...

Silly woman!  I received many dozen thanks and much praise from both of them, and a photo the next day of Dad napping on his couch with the quilt. Sweet.  I still have to finish a companion pillow but didn't want to delay delivery of the quilt since several other things have jumped ahead of it.

Not that I don't have a couple dozen UFOs I could work on, but I couldn't resist the Mystery Quiltalong by Laundry Basket Quilts.    She is working from one of her fabric bundles, but mine is all scrappy--with tans for the blues, and red for the pinks she is using, and lots of different light fabrics from stash.  Most of the fabrics are from a long hoarded fat quarter stack of a Minnick & Simpson line called Crazy for Red.

Love the primitive redwork print, and all the yummy creams and tans with the red prints.  I'm also pulling from the fat quarter drawers and scrap bins for variety.  I am caught up to the third block and looking forward to the next.

The blocks are in position but will be in the corners.  Total blocks in the quilt is 100!  Not sure how many days the quiltalong will last, but I plan to make at least a block or two of each release.

Lastly, our guild has learned of the need for protective masks that can be cleaned and reused and we are making as many as we can for the County hospital.  I have volunteered 10, with one finished and  several already cut out and marked.

Here I've made the pleats and am stitching them down. The pattern was made by a nurse and they requested ties rather than elastic as these will be cleansed in an Autoclave and need to withstand high heat.

The color is dreadful in this nighttime pic, but for a first attempt, I was pleased with the binding and pleats.  I'm sure the next 9 will be faster!  It looks like I'll have plenty of stitching time for the near future.  Glad I can do something useful in this awful time.  We have had 30 cases but only one death in our County so far.  Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, everyone!

Design Wall Monday, 1/20/20

Several things on/off my design wall to share.  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog.  

In the interest of keeping quilts moving along in the process, I worked on quite a few different projects in the last week.  

Make the Connection baby/lap quilt got borders added.  This is destined for guild donation. I'll cobble a back together and probably quilt this myself.  The pattern is free on APQ website, designed by Jo Kramer and her daughter for charity makes.

Binding was attached to the Sliced Cake quilt (Canoe Ridge Creations blog).   I did finish the binding but don't have pic of that.  No one specific that this one is destined for as yet. 

I finally decided on borders for the Chunky Churndash for my dad (free pattern on Quiltville.com).  Bonnie's design had three borders and corner stones and I just didn't want to do that, so added only a 3" cut border.  The top is now 72x84, which is pretty big for a couch quilt!  I'll be ordering a wide backing for it, undecided if I want to quilt it myself on my home machine or not...will likely send this out as my sister's longarm is not working.

Here you can see the gray is not a solid but a small brown print on the slate gray; this is a print from Betsy Chutchian's line called Eliza's  Indigo.  Darn those stray threads.  I had such fun making all the chunky churndash blocks.  I'm sure I'll make more in the future. 

I made a bunch of 3" HSTs from the leftovers of the hourglass blocks and decided to make a companion pillow for the quilt.  I have always liked the Oklahoma Twister pattern and quickly cut some light squares and laid it out.

I'm going to add some borders and additional HSTs to fashion another sort of Churn Dash.  Hope it works like my sketched idea.

Also finished were the last four green star blocks for my version of Bonnie Hunter's My Blue Heaven quilt--another free pattern on her site.  I'll be laying those out this week sometime, hopefully.  Good to be making progress on multiple quilts--there are a lot more waiting for attention too!