Final Pick for Three for March, and Lantern update

Sliced Cake is the tenth and final pick for my month-long challenge, and was inspired by a fabric I couldn't resist.

The macrame print was so cute. It's a little washed out in this pic, better in the next pic.  It is a Cotton + Steel print.  I last worked on this project in 2017, so it is only toddler aged :)

I saw the Sliced Cake Quilt tutorial on Canoe Ridge Creations' Facebook page using 10" squares, however I'm only making 4 rows of 17 strips.  I bought most of the coordinates from the clearance section on Connecting Threads--more came from stash.  This morning I laid out all the pieces and played switcheroo. 

Bright and fun colors and prints to play with.  There were a couple more switches after this pic.  I got right to sewing the rows before work.

Two rows complete, two to go! I will use the macrame print as borders to make the quilt a bit bigger, child size.   Meanwhile, pick #9 is now a finished pillow cover. 

In laying out the pieces after making the yellow print drunkard's path block, I remembered why this project stalled--the leftover DP blocks were all different sizes.  But since there were only four of them to trim, it went quickly and I sewed the pillow front together pretty easily. Originally I thought about finishing the pillow with a binding, but decided it would cover up too much of the rounded corner effect, so made a regular split back and stitched and turned the cover. 

This made an 18" pillow cover, a good size for a chair or couch.

The split back has >1" hemmed edges and overlaps on the sides by 3".  I'm glad to have the Lantern into a finished item and out of UFO jail.  Jen Carlton Bailly has many more DP-based patterns and lots of tips and tricks for easy construction on her website, bettycrockerass.com. 

Back to piecing and pressing...:)

Three for March Update and Pick #3

As predicted, given the events of the week including a visitor, family birthday dinner out, and an after work hair appointment, I did not get much done on the Greenpiece project's three days. However, the project box has been returned to the sewing room and blocks needing embroidery are close at hand.  I will work on them when I am not at the sewing machine.  This morning I pulled another slip of paper out of the jar and it is #6, the Sanctuary panel.  I purchased this panel in 2007 at Jackman Fabrics in St. Louis, Missouri while visiting my sister when she lived there.

This is the from the Sanctuary line by 3 Sisters for Moda that I fell in love with in 2007.  Years ago I had cut out some appliques based on a quilt from APQ magazine February 2006 by the Piece O'Cake gals, Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins.

 Linda Jenkins likes to hand applique.

This not the final layout, but I was sure I had made an equal number of the three flower designs and was missing one.  It took some digging through the old brain files to recall that I used one on another quilt.  I bought my very first jelly roll of this line, which I made into a quilt for Cousin Florence for her retirement from nursing in 2007, but didn't end up using the appliques on the front of the quilt. This was pre-blog, so I shared it later when we went to Cincinnati in 2011 to see the International Quilt Festival being held there for the first time. 

A very simple strippie quilt that I quilted myself with wavy lines.  Turns out that Florence favors blue more than yellow, purple, pink, and green, but she appreciated it all the same :) 

I simply used a tiny zig zag for the applique and think I will repeat the same stitch for the panel appliques.  I have leftover binding and jelly roll strips to use to finish it once quilted.  This quilt is destined for a sweet little girl.  First decision will be placement on the panel, then I'll get to stitching the appliques.

Design Wall Monday

Several things going on in the sewing room this week.  First, I finished the little quilt for my Russian friend, with the help of my sister.  We swapped--I gave her the pink and white floral for a small quilt she is making for a family member, and she gave me some fun fur/minky type fabric that I think a 7-year-old will love.  We used spray baste to attach the batting and keep the fun fur from stretching during the quilt-as-you-go process.  It worked perfectly.

Sewing the strips with the walking foot with ease. Sooo glad a walking foot was invented!

Almost there...

I added some extra lines of quilting in the larger strips with the dolls, and in the side borders.  I didn't have enough to do top and bottom borders so left it just as you see.

This pic was taken at night so the colors are not as true.  A scrappy binding finished it off.  I want to use my machine's built in alphabet stitching to label the quilt but it has been so long since I did it I'm having trouble remembering how to do it.  I decided to tackle it tomorrow! This is a small quilt, only about 3 foot square, I estimate. I hope she'll love it.

Another project got to flimsy stage.  This is the bulls eye quilt made from gifted blocks. 

Borders are all on.  Again, nighttime photo doesn't give true colors, but you'll get the idea, right?

Finally, a shopping trip to Roxanne's A Wish and a Dream quilt shop, just up the coast in Carpinteria (featured in the current Quilt Sampler mag as a re-visit), was successful in the hunt for prints to go with batiks previously purchased for a gift quilt that I need to get started on.

My sister Kathy was a bit dubious about the selections I made, but I think they'll work well. There will be some editing, I have no doubt.  I bought half yard cuts of the prints.  This is going to be a really girly Willow Weave quilt, and the fabrics will be cut into 2.5" strips.  I should have plenty of leftovers to play with as well.  

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Design Wall Monday

On my design surface today  is a project I thought of starting nearly two years ago, but didn't.  

In July 2012 we had some very special guests from Russia come to stay with us for several weeks: a long-time friend who had moved to and married a Russian lady, and their 5 year old daughter, Alica (pronounced Ah-lisa).  Alica and I instantly had a mutual admiration thing going, and we enjoyed spending time together. She was enamored of the matryoshka doll her mother brought as a gift for me, and which I let her play with when her parents were out of sight.  Shortly after our visitors left, I found this cute matryoshka doll fabric at JoAnn's and always intended to make Alica a small quilt.  Well, her father is in town visiting us again, and I pulled it out of the stash along with some companions.

Alica will be 7 years old soon, and her favorite color is pink.  The fabric above is photographing red, but it is really a deep, bright pink and has cats all over it. 

More like this!  Alica was also fond of my cat, Mini; said cat would have nothing to do with a five year old girl, though Alica kept trying :) .  I'll make a simple strippie quilt, just a nap size, for my dear little friend in Nizhny Novgorod, with love.

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday--Nov 21, 2011

On my design surface is another new project, which jumped to the front of the line while I was avoiding contemplating quilting on the wedding quilt.  This is a comfort quilt destined for Quilts for Kids.  I showed the skull, flame and stripe fabrics last week and my plan for a strippie quilt.  Finally some sewing happened over the weekend.

I had just enough of the skull fabric to cut three 6.5" strips, but had to piece the flame fabric for enough width for two of the strips.  Luckily it is a busy fabric so difficult to see the seams. I cut all the pieces and stitched the top together in just a couple of hours.  It will finish in the 40 x 45" range.

Even got a backing made...

..and the binding cut and sewn.  All of the fabrics came from stash and scraps and I am very happy to move them on.  This orange piece was in a bag of "scraps by the pound" I bought at my LQS a year or two ago.  It was fun to get a wide variety with fabrics I would not normally choose.  Just now I am short on reds so it's time to get another bag.

I like to chain sew my binding, just flipping the right side up on the loose end of the strip and adding the next strip.  Eyeballing that seam does not work for me so a mechanical pencil and small 1" x 6" ruler are always within reach for marking.  Not shown here are the cut borders and finished backing and binding all ready for the Flowers for Nana Girl quilt.  I will have three more quilts to sandwich once I get all of my basting pins out of the wedding quilt!  I got brave and started the quilting on it Sunday night but didn't get far enough to share pics yet. See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Jake's quilt

I finished up the baby strippie quilt this morning with enough time to take pictures and get a label on it before dashing to get ready for the drive to the party.

I originally thought I would add red rickrack into the binding but it seemed too "girly" somehow so I left it out.

The initials were cut out of some leftover furry fleece and satin stitched on. I made the decision not to switch from the walking foot that was already on the machine and I think that helped keep it smooth.

This backing is reading orange in the photo but is red flannel with a brown spacer I had to add when I discovered my MATH problem I mentioned earlier.  You can see the very simple edge to edge quilting I did.  Quilting was pretty easy with my new sewing desk's extension table and the Machingers gloves. 

Here's the pattern I made on my computer for the initials.  I had recently read on someone else's blog that they used a font that was 436% of normal to make a pattern.  So I experimented and this J is 750% of normal for the font I chose, making the letter about 7 inches tall.   So much easier than drawing freehand!  I cut 1/8" outside the pattern line to allow for the width of the satin stitching.  Hint: Choose a light gray color to print out your pattern so you don't waste ink. 

Jake's Pumpkin Patch was the party theme and orange the color of the day.  There were orange drinks, orange ice cubes, orange candies, orange cupcakes, and plenty of orange decorations, all made by Jake's mom and grandma.  That's Jake in his mother's arms with his cute faux-hawk hairdo.

Check out the terrific scarecrow and his raven!

Jake got a pumpkin cake all his own to dig into.  I think some of the cake did actually get into his tummy!

The rest of us ate these adorable cupcakes.  The icing was melting, however, because it was HOT today, probably about 95 degrees at midday when the party took place.  Jake's parents chose not to open the gifts until after the party so we didn't get to see the reaction to the quilt.  I hope they like it!

A little quilt

I finally did get all my nine patches in the mail for the swap set up by Julie.  I mailed them on Wednesday and she posted a picture of them on her blog today.  Wow, those priority boxes really do work--thanks, U.S. Mail!  I can now reveal the front of the little quilt I gave a sneak peek of on my previous post.

Leftover 4 patches and scraps and stash were mixed together in this 20" square quilt.  It was fun to make a quick little gift like this and Julie said she loved it.  So glad!

Magazine layout style...

Tonight I spent a good 2 1/2 hours quilting the Strippie Baby Quilt and got the binding half on.  Then I ran out of both bobbin thread and steam and called it a night!  I'll finish it up as quick as I can in the morning.  We need to leave here by 11:30 AM for Baby Jake's party so I better get to bed.  TGIF.

Catching up

Since posting last, it was quite a rest-of-the-week-still-getting-over-my-cold blur.  Wednesday was catch up day at work and I was exhausted that night. Thursday I filled in all day for our receptionist who was sick, then that night we celebrated both Grant's and Nick's birthdays with dinner out and I was exhausted.  I looked a little like this Thursday night...

...complete with the half-closed eyes.  Yesterday was another long day at work and before 10:30 PM I was in bed, ready to watch a little HGTV and go to sleep.  So no sewing happened at all after my sick days, but I wanted to share something I put together during that time.

This is a Quick Strippie quilt from Mary Johnson, who has other terrific free patterns--she primarily shares these for charity quilts but I needed a fast baby quilt for our 1 year old grand-nephew's birthday party next Saturday.  I cut and sewed this in one afternoon. 

A closeup of the adorable print of puppies.  The backing will be a red flannel I found at JoAnn's and the binding the blue print, which I paid the most for--it was $10 a yard at the pricey fabric store but was the perfect color.  The puppy print and the brown dot I bought for a bargain at my friend Tanya's mom's sale.   I plan to cut the baby's initials out of some tan fleece I have on hand and applique those somewhere to make it a bit more special.  I seem to have a thing with initials just lately!

Do you use snippets like these?  Before I started reading blogs (Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville in particular)  I had never heard of sewing on and off a "threadsaver" like this--and I have been sewing for 37 years and taken many classes!  I find it immensely helpful and am amazed at how much thread it really saves.  Added bonuses: I don't have to hold the ends of my thread when I start a seam, so no chance of the thread getting balled up on the back; 100% cotton thread is also very curly and this eliminates having to fish for the ends as well.  My bobbins last way longer too.  Someday I will get organized enough to start a leader-ender project with the snippets.  But for now, I am getting pretty comfortable with remembering to use one at the top and end of every seam.  I'm off to sew now--Happy Quilting!