Design Wall Monday--High Cotton, Cove, and KonMari

Back on my design surface after too long of a hiatus are blocks for my High Cotton quilt, from Kim Diehl's Simple Comforts--12 Cozy Lap Quilts.  This quilt is available as an e-pattern HERE, I just learned on a Google search.

I had a heck of a time getting the 4 patches in correct orientation at first and had to rip a couple of times for the same mistake--that always seems to happen when I leave a project too long.  I've got several more sets of block parts cut and some fabric choices ready to go for more cutting.

So far I have a little over half of the 63 pieced blocks made.  I'll do a full layout after this next batch of blocks is assembled and see what colors I think need to be added. 

We had grandson Cove for a sleepover Saturday night--well, Auntie and Mimi had--Papa was in Del Mar with his best buds.  Cove, who turns 18 months next week, spent a lot of time playing on the couch with the throw pillows, some coasters, and a table runner, and one or two toys from his toy box.  He found a copy of a book he has at home, Brown Bear (Eric Carle) in the toy box and was endlessly amused by the pictures, especially the page with all the kids on it.  He had a lot to say about it!  His vocabulary grows every day but sentences are mostly nonsense (but adorable!)

 Cove with the table runner. Already learning to prefer handmade!

Auntie Erica took Cove on a walk in the new stroller Mimi bought.  I think he spent more time OUT of the stroller looking at kitties.  This was a great disappointment to his daddy, who dislikes cats :)   He was a very good boy, slept all night, ate all his meals, and had no meltdowns.  What a joy he is in our lives.  After Cove went home on Sunday with his mom and dad, I spent many many hours in my room KonMari-ing all my clothing and accessories. Have you heard of this book?  It's starting to change my life.  More on this topic later...

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Checking off an Obligation

A few months ago, my husband's friend, a woodworker, helped me out by fixing the broken rails on the bottom drawer of my stash chest, and cutting the legs off a folding table.  I offered my sewing skills as a trade.  He requested a pillow cover for a well-used pillow his mom made him years ago. It took some time before said pillow made it to the house, but then I dragged my feet on the project due to so many others that jumped ahead in line ( a common problem around here!).  I knew what colors and sort of what design I wanted to do--finally last weekend it got done. 

 Here's the original pillow, splitting and worn out.  I wanted to use a simple design but not make it too traditional.  I decided on a quilt as you go method for the pillow top and drew out a plan. 

 Since the pillow was not large (finished size cover is 14"), I was able to use leftovers and scraps to construct my modified log cabin-style layout. 

 Pretty easy to stitch and press, adding the next sections. 

The directional print I used for the outer round required close attention, but went on without a hitch.  

I used the same instructions for the construction of the back and the binding as I used for the Moda Bakeshop Scattered Squares pillow that is currently at our County Fair.  This well-aged pine needle print from stash was a good match for the front, I think.

 Even with the extra step of making and applying the binding, this pillow was done in a couple of  hours.  My husband will be delivering it next week, hopefully, but meanwhile I'm letting it decorate a living room chair :) 

This vintage but somewhat distressed folding table now is breakfast tray height, as requested, neatly cut down despite its tapered and angled legs.  That's what an experienced woodworker knows how to do!  Sometimes I like to stand rather than sit and work on things, and having the work surface even higher than tabletop is useful.  Obligation checked off.  I hope our friend likes his made over pillow!

Fair Time Happy Dance

My sister Kathy and I met up at the Ventura County Fair today to see how our entries did.  They changed around the displays in the Home Arts building this year so it was more challenging to find all my pieces and Kathy's quilt. I have to say there was a bit of excited dancing happening to my feet today...

I first spotted my Scattered Squares pillow in a case (which is why the lighting is so weird)--1st place happy dance!

 Another 1st on Pink Lemonade!  Happy dance again!

2nd place on my Turkey wall hanging.  So exciting!

Honorable Mention on the Any Witch Way quilt.  The lighting shows up the pebble quilting and the spiderwebs in the corners; quilting was done by our Guild president., Georganna.  The piece in front blocked the photo taking a bit, lol.

Honorable mention on Cove's quilt.  I like that they showed the backing fabric with the way they displayed it.

 

And another Honorable Mention on the Trees runner, which was displayed in an unusual way!

We then found Kathy's quilt high up on the wall.

 

She got a 3rd place for her Tree in Lavender Field quilt.  Happy dance for Kathy too!  She wasn't going to enter anything, not thinking it was good enough, but I told her if she didn't enter, she couldn't win.  Once again, Big Sister is right! 

We celebrated our wins with some great fair food.  A fresh grilled chicken kebab that fed us both, some seasoned spiral fried potato chips, and Kathy had a bacon wrapped pork belly street taco.  Then we checked out the Floral displays and the Garden displays.  There were some really fun "mini gardens" in either wagons or wheelbarrows.  Amazing what can be grown in such a small space.  Our favorite larger garden display was very creative and fun: 

 

It was a mine sluice with the title "Not Yours Mine" and these funny headstones.  My favorite: "I told you I was sick".   Then I dragged Kathy to the Gem and Mineral building to see all the collections that people display in cases.  There were the usual Elvis and thimbles and model cars, but also some fun collections of old "Friends of Barbie" and antique kitchen toys.  I seem to have only gotten one photo of a diorama, which cracked me up. 

Godzilla destroying a city!  Kathy helped with her phone flashlight so I could get the pic :). We finished off our several hour visit with my favorite fair treat: Indian Fry Bread.  I chose powdered sugar and Kathy had cinnamon sugar on hers.  What a fun time!  I did a couple of errands afterward, then came home and had a 90 minute nap after all that walking around in the hot sun and steamy buildings.  Great Sunday!

A Quilt for Sagen

I had a power session yesterday to complete the quilting, binding, and label for the comfort quilt I've been making for our neighbor's 12 year old son Sagen, who has an osteosarcoma (bone tumor) on his leg and has been receiving chemotherapy in preparation for surgery probably later this month.  

Sagen and his mom squinting in the blazing sunset with the finished quilt--he loved it!  He asked me, "How did you make this?" and I told him how quilters buy yards of fabric, cut it up into small pieces and then sew it all back together again :).  Here are some details:

I started with quilting the black chains.  I had seen a fun detail on Pinterest where a quilter had interspersed a few zig zag stitches among straight line quilting.  I used my three-step zig zag stitch for this quilt. 

This is what the zig zag detail looks like on the back. I like it!

I then changed thread numerous times to quilt all the green blocks, using a very simple curvy line in the prints. My sister said they looked a bit like hands.  Originally I was just going to leave the white background unquilted, but it looked so unfinished that I quickly did a large meander through.  I left the white squares in the blocks unquilted for variety. You can see the green print on the edges that I used to for the binding.

The backing was another Pinterest idea, a "zipper" style, with a simple piecing technique.  I had to do this because of MATH problems--I had not ordered quite enough of the striped flannel from Connecting Threads so bought some black flannel from my local fabric store to expand the backing.  I then had so much of the flannel left that I made a matching pillowcase.

Here is Sagen wrapped in his quilt.  I named it "Love and Luck" and told him that the "hands" in the blocks could either be the hands of all the people helping him, or the hands he's going to high five when he beats cancer.  I also told him the significance of the red block, the heart of the quilt where all the extra love is. He loved it and the pillowcase--his mom said he always brings his own pillow to the chemo sessions.  We're all pulling for you, Sagen!

A Few Finishes and Some Further Along

Despite the awful heat and humidity following some wonderful rain, some stitching is still happening here.  It is nice to have a few items checked off the list!  

First is the reproduction doll quilt Pink Lemonade, from Lori of Humble Quilt's quiltalong from a few years ago.  I've been hand quilting this and finally put the last stitch in early one morning. 

 I like the way the big stitches give it some depth and tone down the yellow a bit. 

 One of my favorite green blocks.

Closeup of the two color binding I made to simulate a flange.  Much more accurate for me! I'm going to enter this in our County Fair and the deadline is Sunday so I'm glad this one is done.

Then there is a duo finish.  I promised DD Erica some Euro pillows as a Christmas gift, but she had to wait until Christmas in July for them to be delivered to her room. 

 The first zippered cover took much longer than the second to make.  Isn't that always true?  I bought the 26" Euro pillow forms at Kohl's on a good sale at Christmas. 

I really like the texture from the simple Kantha style stiching.  I used ombre thread for machine stitching first, and then ombre embroidery floss.  Now I'm going to need some of these for my own bed!

A near finish for the Any Witch Way quilt--the guild president is a longarm quilter and did a great job on this small quilt.  (For those who ask, the pattern from Quiltmaker Sept/Oct 2009  is now available as a digital issue per my search today!)

It's a bit hard to see, but she did pebbling in all the black border and put a spiderweb in each corner. So fun!

All I have to add is the binding and this will be ready for Fair entry too.  These witches have been waiting a long time for a finish.  I can't wait to finally hang this up at Halloween after 6 years.

I spent a steamy Sunday watching TV while big stitching on this pillow that I want to enter in the Fair.  I've only just realized when taking the picture that I forgot to add the border strips of white before quilting.   Hmm.  Not sure what I'm going to do about that. 

In other stitchy news, I've now completed the back of the quilt for my cancer-stricken neighbor and made a companion pillowcase out of the flannel.  This is what happens when you are THIS SHORT of backing fabric and have to buy a coordinating flannel to make the quilt back the way you want it...I'm hoping to get it basted tonight and have already decided on a quilting plan as well as the binding color so things should move along!

We got to see Grandson Cove a lot over the weekend.  He had his first traditional Swedish pancake made by Papa and made lots of yummy noises while eating.  He's always busy running everywhere and is talking more and more all the time.  Very exciting when he calls us Mimi and Papa!  His Mama sent me this photo of him looking out their window.

Love him to bits!

Design Wall Monday--July 13, 2015

On my design surface is the ongoing comfort quilt project for our neighbor's son who has cancer.  I now have a finished top to show:

About that one red block...

I like my quilts to have a "heart", where all the extra love and good wishes lay right over the recipient's heart when they draw the quilt over them. I've done this for a lot of quilts and people seem to like it. 

I've got the flannel for the backing all ironed and need to do just a bit of math to figure out the best way to piece the backing.  Have you ever seen a fabric fray in swags like this?  I thought it amusing.  I'll take the top to my guild meeting Monday night.  I'm also going to pick up my witches quilt which has now been professionally quilted.  Can't wait to see what it looks like!

Other progress on the second and third quilts in progress include deboning about 13 shirts from my brother-in-law's closet, and cutting a bunch of background squares and print squares for the Bullseye top remodel for my brother.  I need to sew faster!

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday--July 6, 2015

We had a great 4th of July weekend, spending time with lots of family and watching the fireworks from my parents' backyard.  Grandson Cove (16 months) was a little scared at first, but his Great Auntie Kathy had explained before they started that they would be really loud and go "pow pow" and "boom boom".  He had his eyes glued on the display while in his mother's arms, and kept saying "boom boom".  He was totally worn out by the end of that long day!  

On my design surface today are some completed blocks for the comfort quilt I'm making our neighbor's son, who has an osteosarcoma on his leg and is undergoing chemo prior to surgery  He's feeling well enough to join his All-Star baseball teammates in the dugout this week. 

I'm liking these so far!  I've been careful with my piecing so the top will go together easily once all 20 blocks are complete. I got 10 done yesterday.

Next one is laid out next to my machine with the others stacked and ready to go.  

I also managed to finally finish the big-stitch embroidery on some pillow fronts for Euro pillows I promised daughter Erica at Christmas!  This was the second of the two fronts.  Now on to the pillow construction.  I've already got the zippers and pillow inserts as well as the back pieces cut.  I'll have to revisit my notes to see what finished size I planned.  Don't want them to be too big or too small.

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.