Design Wall Monday--Star of the Show

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

The situation of finished tops piled up on the corner of the cutting table having become untenable, I set about working on the smaller tops.  Star of the Show, a baby quilt from a British quilt magazine, Quilt Now, which I made last year, I intend to give to our daughter's friend.  

 I made a simple stripe backing out of the leftover fabrics, and decided to use the maker's "signature wavy diagonal lines".

Although the Silver Kona I used looks very yellow in this pic, I used a neutral gray thread and my walking foot to do the lines, just wiggling back and forth as I went.  Fun to quilt!  

 I was very pleased with the finished quilting, which took hardly any time at all.  I no longer use basting pins or spray baste since Dora Cary of Orange Dot Quilts came to our guild and showed how she layers, smooths and loosely folds the quilt sandwich, then sets it aside to rest for a short period before quilting.  It is such a time saver!  I do put one safety pin in each corner and recheck the layers periodically as I quilt. 

Having already made the binding, it went on immediately. 

The Silver Kona I again used for the binding. That green fabric is a hand-dyed Ricky Tims fabric I bought many years ago at one of his seminars--my sister and I had a great adventure going to Indiana for that.

The colors are a little truer in this daytime pic of the backing before quilting.  I'll get a label on it and give the quilt it's first bath before gifting.  Baby is due late this month, I believe. 

I quilted the Perkiomen Valley baby quilt the same way, but it still needs a binding.  This wavy diagonal quilting was so fun and easy!

I think it looks great with the straight lines of the blocks.  It has been over two years since our Ventura Modern Quilt Guild started making Perkiomen blocks and quilts for victims of the Thomas Fire and Montecito Mud/Flood disasters.  Recently there was a story about a cat that went missing in the disaster in Montecito and was recently found alive and well as a rescue cat!  Amazing and happy story!

Slow Sunday Stitching-Jan 17

 It's Slow Sunday Stitching--see more posts on Kathy's Quilts blog.

I'm cross stitching on an inexpensive wooden craft kit I picked up at Joann's some time ago. 

I finished a similar wooden ornament deer scene before  Christmas and gave it to my sister.  These are fun little projects.  The needle-nose pliers provide good help to pull the needle after running through stitches on the back. Since this photo I've finished the ground, stars and tree ornaments.

We've been rearranging furniture in the guest room since we gave away the bedroom set of my MIL's to a friend in need.  The quilt is from Judy's Mystery quiltalong some years ago on Patchwork Times, when she used to quilt a lot.  I've since switched it out with the Jewels in the Curio quilt which has been gracing the stair railing since I finished the binding some months ago.

I sent this to David's Quilting and love the Alex pattern with open curvy quilting. It is just big enough for the Full size guest bed, here it is laid out on our CalKing.

I caught the sliver moonset at sunset the other night.  It has been very hot with little humidity, which makes for spectacular sunsets but is always worrying in dry, dry, and windy southern California.  Fire danger is HUGE, there was a fire a couple of days ago in the County, but far from us. Fingers crossed they won't shut off our power in the middle of telemedicine work next week! Today we also remember the Northridge Earthquake of 1994 that knocked out power for millions in SoCal for days and caused much damage ( we lost power in our county for most of the day). Our kids were small then and our older daughter in the top bunk was so used to the bed being jostled by her little sister below, that she never even woke up :)

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?

NYE, Holiday's End

Happy New Year! Our New Year's Eve included a trip to the beach.  I like to take a sunset photo on the last day of the year.  Grant and I wandered up and down the boardwalk above the beach, with lots of other socially-distancing and masked walkers, skaters, bicycle riders, and dog-walkers.  There were lots and lots of surfers, far out from the low tide, stretching from Surfers Point to the Pier.

Someone had made sculptures on the concrete breakwater.  There were more on the sand up and down the beach. 

We got a sunset selfie while waiting for the light show. I took many many photos but felt the quintessential shot with the surfer who walked into the frame was the best :)

Our NYE was a quiet one at home--we watched a couple of episodes of The Crown, listened to fireworks going off all over the neighborhood at midnight, and were more than ready to say goodbye to this tumultuous year, tucking away the good highlights for remembrance!  

I spent New Year's Day taking down the seasonal decor, with help from Grant.  It seemed to take all day to get it packed up, even though I had put out fewer items this year!  The living room looks dark without the lighted tree.  

Jingle Kitty and vintage Mouse and brush tree went back in the box with Santa and the cross-stitched gifts.

A trip to JoAnn's today for some fusible web was necessary to move on with the Greenpiece project, having made notes of all the steps left for the center applique and borders. While at JoAnn's I remembered I had not shown the finish of a little embroidery kit I had purchased there some time ago for a few bucks.  

It was a good project to work on between telemed patients in December.  As you can see, it came with the embroidery floss and, curiously, a very sharp and long needle, which I soon switched out for a tapestry needle after stabbing myself a few times.  

I added a few more snowflakes than the pattern called for :).  I needed to use needle-nose pliers by the time the finishing 3 strand cross-stitches were added, as the wooden piece of course was not flexible enough to allow me to grasp the needle and pull easily with my fingers.  I dug into my husband's tool chest for a pair, but vowed to buy"cute" ones for my own use.  I found some at JoAnn's today, a small pair in the jewelry fixings aisle, half off with my coupon :)

The ornament went to my sister as a Christmas gift.  It was beyond my calculating skills, but I really wondered how many stitches that 28x28 stitch piece actually took.  The outside holes have two stitches in each hole, but the inner holes have four stitches in each.  That is a lot of pushes of the needle!  I also have this simpler wooden ornament to stitch, which I had bought with the deer one: 

So cute!  One more day off before returning to work.  I plan to spend it sewing on Greenpiece applique.

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!

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.