Design Wall Monday--Scrappy Small Quilts

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

I played with little quilts all weekend! On Saturday my husband was picked up by our son to play golf in Ojai, so I had hours at home to myself.  I started with the the newest mini quilt I showed last time, first choosing a backing fabric from several options. 

A vintage yellow gingham, a small flower red print, and a plaid fat quarter were my top stash options. The HSTs were made from a vintage green print  from stash, and a mini charm pack of Cheeky by Urban Chiks that I probably got at Sewtopia.

It was a close race, but the plaid Denyse Schmidt won out, as it echoed the plaids in the mini. 

After hand stitching closed the stitch-and-turn opening, the faux binding technique  was the next concern--could I quilt around the edge and make my idea of  putting faux binding strips on the backing work? (technique found on the Crafti Staci website, for coasters). 

I was pretty pleased that the stitching mostly stayed where I wanted it, to create the binding look!  A few lines of ditch-stitching down the center and the quilt was finished. 

All done!  

The next mini quilt was also made from leftovers. 

The pinwheels were made from fabrics in the Greenpiece quilt kits from  the Fat Quarter Shop in 2009, I think!  I had saved all the fabric leftovers from the monthly kits and easily cobbled together a backing for the pinwheels.   The Greenpiece quilt top was finally finished in 2021, but still needs  a backing and to be sent out for custom quilting! 

Design Wall Monday--A Finished Top

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

The Greenpiece BOM is a finished top at last.  I sewed the last border sections on with only some difficulty, namely that I trimmed before I should have and had to add an extra piece to the bottom border.  Then I sewed the bottom border on upside down.  Sigh.  Directional print...

So satisfying to see it all together at last. 

I love the way the border picks up so many of the block colors. 

The join I had to make in the bottom corner blends in pretty well from a distance...

...and is just a little more noticeable closer up. 

Lots of leftover fabrics from each month's kits will go into the scrap bins and fat quarter drawers.  I will have to purchase backing but plan to send this out to be professionally quilted.  

Mini has been waiting a long time for the Greenpiece quilt box to be emptied, LOL!

Nearly There on Greenpiece

The well-aged Greenpiece BOM is THIS CLOSE to being a finished top. I got the assembled flange pieces cut to width and length of the quilt center and sewed them on with a scant 1/4" as directed.

The top and bottom flanges overlap the first border.  My sliver trimming of the extra triangles on the pieced first border section shown several posts ago definitely was the right call, as with the addition of the outer border pieces there would have been 5 layers in parts of that seam!  Next I pressed the outer border fabric that has been folded in its protective plastic sleeve all these years.  I never noticed until now that the fabric was designed by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.  So pretty!

This was when she was designing for Moda, she has been with Andover the past few years.

The binding, lengthwise side border, and top and bottom border pieces were all cut, and I made the binding right away.  The border pieces will get assembled and sewn on likely on Saturday, as we have a family dinner tomorrow for Mom's birthday.  My husband plans to stay home as he has not been vaccinated yet and is frequently out in public for work, though he wears a mask and sanitizes constantly--his COVID shot is next week.

I got out of the house for a bit on Tuesday afternoon when I went to donate blood.  Afterwards I drove down to the harbor, intending to get out and walk a bit, but it was very very windy.  I noticed tons of birds flying around near the harbor mouth around what I first thought was a fishing boat.  Upon pulling into a parking lot, I realized it was actually a large sand dredge.  Our harbor is man-made and therefore periodically requires dredging, which can go on for months.

Can you see from this not-very-clear, through-the-windshield photo how much sand was being blown by the wind?  I took a video but the lighting was dull. The birds were being thrown around a lot in the air, there were hundreds to the left and right of this scene.  I didn't stay long in the parking lot, as so much sand was being blown on my car, I didn't want the paint to suffer.  I later got a photo of another driver...

..of our nearly 6 month old grandson Dane taking the wheel :)  So cute!  He's filling out and getting some hair.  I sent some pics of our son as a 6 month old to our son and DIL, as they wanted to compare who he looks more like at that age. 

 

As COVID numbers go down in our county and more and more are vaccinated, in-person grandson visits  may be soon be in our future.  There is talk as well of the county opening the schools again, though the individual districts have the final decision about whether it is practical to open for the remaining 3.5 months of the school year, with most staff in lower tiers to get vaccinated.  Meanwhile, as long as I'm allowed by my employer, I will continue to work from home--and not have to wear an N95 mask and plastic face shield in the office while doing medical scribe duties.  Glad for that option!

Pieced Borders with an Oops

 Next task on the Greenpiece BOM quilt was to add the pieced borders I made a few years back.  When I went to pin on the side border, I noticed a mistake.  

Can you see it?  I did not trim away the bottom layer on the triangle corner when assembling, meaning a lot of bulk when added to the quilt top.  Some very tedious surgery was required on the four long sections of pieced border. 

Besides the triangle center, I sliver trimmed the seam allowance and used a pin to tease the fibers away from one side of the seamline and pull it free. You can see the difference with the triangle trimmed in this pic:

I did have one mishap where I cut through both triangle layers, but since I saved all the kit fabric leftovers, easily found a matching 2.5" maroon square for repair.

After performing the surgery on all four sections, they were pinned on and matched up like a dream!  I have cut and prepared the fabric for the next step, a flange in a maroon dot.  Perhaps I'll find time tomorrow to cut the four lengths of flange and get them pinned on between telemed patients.  

The final step is cutting/adding the floral outer borders and cutting binding pieces.  Getting so close to a finished top, I can almost taste it :)

Meanwhile, I needed a new embroidery project to keep my hands busy when not at the sewing machine. 

This is a Bucilla kit that includes a little frame along with the fabric and floss, which I probably picked up on sale at Joann's or Michael's store.  I don't remember where I got the horse floss holder, but Efficient Me had already separated all the floss strands and attached the mane when I kitted this up.  Happy to just thread the needle and get going! It was interesting to note the laundering instructions recommended NOT using fine washables-type detergent to clean the needlework, but mild dishwashing liquid.  I'll show progress when I have some more to show--so far I've only added a few rows of the pale yellow flower petals, too boring to share!

Design Wall Monday--Greenpiece Progress!

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

My goal for today was to have the wool applique on Greenpiece complete.  I am happy to say that was accomplished early.

I moved on to the assembly of the borders, after trimming the tree block to 20.5".  Though I miscut the first set of borders, luckily the kit was very generous with fabric. 

The two borders went on with no issues and I moved on to adding the already completed pieced  block/applique block sections to complete the center. 

They went on like a knife through butter and I am so happy with the final image  here.  There are a lot of hours represented in this photo! Two borders and a flange are in progress and then the top will be finished--after all these years since I started getting the kits in 2009.

Design Wall Monday-Greenpiece Applique

 It's Design Wall Monday--see more beautiful work on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I've spent most of my stitching time on the wool applique for the Greenpiece BOM.  My goal is to have all the tree leaves stitched by next Monday's end of month. 

I have just over 20 leaves completely stitched, and a start on the little yellow ginkgo leaf at the base of the tree there. So far I am pretty pleased with how it is going stitching by quadrant.

A closer look at the mostly completed right side of the tree.  I like that applique is portable and I have been stitching in various rooms.  Mini likes it when I stitch in bed...

 ..but not when I move my legs from her dead sleeping weight!  What a look, right?

We've had more weather events, including some actual rain.  Luckily the roofer came to fix the bare spots from the windstorm before heavier rain fell.  Our daughter Erica pulled off the freeway to capture a rare event:

A lot of other folks did the same as she did!  More rain is expected this week--we really need it for our dry, dry state.  In other news, it seems Gov. Newsom will be lifting the stay-at-home orders today, we have heard...my parents have been ready for haircuts for weeks!

Good Progress in the Wind

While the windstorm raged for three days in SoCal, I cut and sewed.  Our power never went out, but our girls both suffered more than 24 hours of lost power.  Both had just done big grocery shopping trips the day before the winds, unfortunately.  They will file claims for that loss with SCE.  I was able to work doing telemedicine, watching the winds and pieces of our 30 year old old roof fly around. A corner of the upper story's roof was completely denuded--even the roofing felt tore off. We had planned to replace the roof this year and that's definitely happening soon. Our BBQ grill cover also took a beating in the wind. 

It looks like it was attacked by weasels or dogs!  Fortunately it is easily replaced and the BBQ didn't flip over or anything.  I watched the storm news while finishing off the wooden stocking cross-stitch.  It turned out cute.

Bindings were also attached to the Perkiomen Valley Block baby quilt (no pic yet) and the Barefoot in the Park Christmas quilt that has been lounging around in the sewing room over two months since the quilter brought it back.

Scrappy backing there on the left, and matching binding to the border fabric.  This is a big quilt, an odd size, 75" wide and extra long at 96 inches.  I'm running out of storage room for finished quilts!

Today in between patients I got the last batch of Greenpiece applique patterns ironed to the wools and cut them out. 

Cut, cut, cut.  I immediately set to laying them out on the tree/grass background.

I used all but a few of the leaves to make the tree nice and full.  Originally I planned to glue baste the leaves but worried they might fall off while I hand embroidered them to the background.

Some large basting stitches with two strands of embroidery thread I think will work better.  The plan is to have all the leaves appliqued by the end of the month.  I think working in quadrants and taking out the basting stitches as I go will be better than moving around to the same color leaves.  I may find my brilliant idea to baste not so smart...we'll see!

Design Wall Monday--More Greenpiece

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

The Greenpiece BOM continues to occupy my sewing room time.  I got the grass and tree appliques made and stitched down to the center block background. 

Photo from the bed of my sewing machine table.   The large pieces were not too difficult to get stitched down.  Are they perfect?

No they are not!  But not too bad for someone who does little machine applique.  Next job was tracing the leaf shapes onto freezer paper and cutting the wool pieces. 

The instructions call for 55-60 leaves to be cut.  I substituted a hand-drawn ginkgo leaf shape for a few of the leaves--it's my favorite tree.  My hand got tired cutting out all these small leaves.  I'll do the rest in another batch.

The wool colors are so yummy.  I saved the scraps of wool from cutting out this batch of leaves, adding to the baggies of previously saved scraps from the completed blocks. I hope to be stitching these onto the tree later this week between telemed  work. 

Mail this week included a couple of big boxes that contained a Christmas Bonus gift I ordered from Arrow Cabinets.  I love putting furniture together, especially an easy job like this was, inserting the chair base wheels and attaching the seat back to the chair seat.

They were having a great sale, but all the fun patterns were sold out, so I settled for this neutral.  It really is a better choice for my chaotic open sewing room!  the seat opens to reveal storage.  I liked the secretarial base shape better than the regular chair legs on some of the other options.  

 

I'm setting up a new Bullet Journal and reassessing my WIPS and UFOs, of which there are many...but I couldn't resist buying a new pattern and pulling fat quarters...

There's another baby quilt to make for a daughter's friend--how could I not?  And all from stash, so it's practically free.  Rationalization is a sign of a creative mind, isn't it?

Greenpiece Progress

Today was an All Sew Day, with the pleasure of assembling the last blocks for this well-aged Greenpiece BOM from the Fat Quarter Shop.  Looking back to 2011, December seems to be the theme with this UFO!

I laid out the blocks according to the finished image and placed my marked squares, taking them by rows to the sewing machine.  

All the pieced blocks have opposite layouts and are cleverly placed in opposing sets in the sections.  The same block in four colorways anchors the corners of the medallion center opening.  Such delicious colors.  Since this pic I added the corner squares to the last three wool applique blocks in the bottom row, and assembled the remaining sections.  A lot of leader-ender blocks got finished during this job. 

Feline QC was present for this stage.  Lots of scrappy variety in these Easy-Breezy blocks (Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville free pattern). 

The final section to finish the center is a tree trunk with grass appliqued on to a background, and more wool applique for the leaves. 

Fortunately I had left the fabric in its labeled month package kit.  I'll need to check if I have a large enough piece of fusible web to use for the tree and grass appliques.  The background fabric is the same cream as in all the wool applique blocks, but is reading very blue in this pic. The fabric on the left is two borders for the center section.

Blessings fabric for the grass...all fabrics are Moda. Perhaps by the end of January I'll have a finished top-there are two outer borders to add as well.  I'm starting to think about the quilting--I'll be sending this out for custom work.  I'll check with my fellow guild members for slots in their calendar. Backing will also need to be purchased.  

Tomorrow we will finish out 2020, saying good riddance for most of it!  Our newest grandson is, of course, one of the bright spots of the year!  I am going to reset my UFO list and consider another self-challenge in the new year.  Lots of quilt tops need finishing and there always new quilts being added to the list :)

Design Wall Monday--Christmas, and After Christmas Sewing

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

Hoping all who celebrate enjoyed their abbreviated holiday traditions.  We had a socially distanced Christmas backyard BBQ in SoCal style, completed with a driftwood tree. 

 Hunter was checking out the packages while brother Cove looked on. 

Dane in his mama's arms, keeping cozy in the carrier.  

Grant bought an Elf hat and cracked up his daughters wearing it.  Someone has a pic of me in this family grouping of our kids, but  I haven't seen it yet :) 

Grandson #1 holding Grandson #3.  So cute!  It was quite windy intermittently outside, but we managed to enjoy all the dining and gift opening activities.  Later I socially-distance visited with my Mom and Dad, who were dining with my brother and sister.  We missed the usual large crowd but there is hope for next year!

My post-Christmas sewing room tasks included making pajama pants for the older grandsons, who are outgrowing last year's pair.  Hunter (age 4) called the plaid pajamas "square pants"--so ever after that is what they are!

This is a very cush woven plaid flannel and should keep him warm this winter.  I then turned to the design opportunity I had created for myself with Cove's Minecraft print pants during cutting last night: 

This was the Minecraft fabric I paid an exorbitant amount to have shipped from an out-of-state Etsy seller, having failed to find any through local or online retailers. Naturally there was not enough to recut the Back pieces. Sigh. Daughter Elaine opted for a strip of the same fabric to fix the error, which worked out okay.  The boys were excited to get their long-awaited replacements and put them on right away--Papa took pics but I don't have them yet. 

I have taken vacation this week--only working 1/2 day on Christmas Eve--and have several priority quilting projects to work on.  Number 1 is the Greenpiece BOM and I got to work on that after delivering the Square Pants. All the wool applique blocks' corner triangles needed to be added.  I marked a bunch of already cut squares and set to work. 

After finishing a few sets of corner triangles, it occurred to me that I should layout the blocks to prevent duplicate fabrics meeting in the corners. All the pieced blocks for this Fat Quarter Shop BOM I had finished years ago. Look how pretty they are with the wool blocks!

I'm so happy to be nearing an assembly portion.  There is a large appliqued medallion center that needs to be made before the top can be finished, but I can sew these completed blocks together in the meantime.  That will be tomorrow's task. Hooray!  I love piecing and got a bunch of leader-ender pieces ready too. Though Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville has just quilted her top made from Easy-Breezy blocks, I am still sewing mine.  Looking forward to lots of piecing!