Design Wall Monday--Log Cabins and Star Blocks

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

The Log Cabin and Star swapped blocks continued to occupy my design floor.  There were so many blocks left over after my initial layout that I played some more with the little quilt. 

An extra row of blocks all around was fun to lay out, but looked a bit heavy. 

I adjusted the rows and sent out a query on Instagram: double row, or spacer strip and cornerstone?  The latter won out.  Luckily I had a large piece of muslin in stash that I cut vertically so no seams would be required. My strips were cut 2.5" wide and the 2.5" cornerstones came from my scrap system drawers. 

I pretty much scant stitched all  the seams of these blocks together; I wanted the stars to be pointy and preserved.  I think it turned out well.  The quilt top is about 60" square.  I am not really a square quilt lover, and will audition another border top and bottom. I'm happy to have so many of the swap blocks in the quilt top!  

Slow Sunday Stitching--DMC flowers

 Slow Sunday Stitching--see more great needlework on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

I hadn't touched my DMC kit stitchery in a few weeks, but pulled it out today to work on while hubby was needing me nearby while he was installing new window blinds in our  bedroom vanity area. 

You can barely see that I've added more of a very light pink color around the center flower.  I had previously stitched most of this section and had to pull it out due to several errors.  It has been weeks since I removed those stitches. I'll probably work my way down to the lower portion of the design next. Now that I've fixed the bad spot, it is more appealing to pick up again!

There are several completed stitcheries from last year that need final finishing/framing.   Why is that so often the hardest part?  lol

Log Cabin and Star Block Play

I had a small number of leftover blocks from the Log Cabin Loonies project recently sewn into a small top last month. A lot of star blocks remained from Barb's last swap (Fun with Barb)  a couple of years ago.  I laid them out together. Some of you may remember that the mailer I sent my swap blocks in had exploded en route to Barb, and a kind mailperson had forwarded them on to Barb, but too late to swap.  Barb very kindly sent my blocks back and HER swapped blocks.

My Log Cabin blocks finish at 7.5 inches, and if I have figured correctly--and skinny the seam allowance while sewing the 6" finished star blocks together--they should just come out even.  I really didn't want to scramble my brain trying to figure a spacer border between!  I like it set block to block anyway.  Grandson Hunter told me he liked my quilt and wanted to help sew it.  I told him this was too complicated, but I'll have him choose some big squares of other fabrics and we will sew them into a quilt. He was very excited about that. It would be a great summer activity.  

I made this mini quilt last weekend while Grant was golfing.  I think they were leftover charm pieces.  

Backing cut from a fat quarter and diamond quilting, with binding made from a long hoarded print. 

Cute on my mini quilt hanger.  So fun to play with small projects!

Design Wall Monday--June Doings

Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog.  Always lots of variety to enjoy there. 

In the endless effort to move projects out of boxes, on Saturday I sewed up the Plaidish2 blocks I had kitted up a couple of months ago. The Plaidish quilts are designed by Erica Jackman of Kitchen Table Quilting and are a free download on her site, with  tutorials. It is all about value placement. 

I managed to successfully chain piece the rows together without twisting!  

I have now completed 10 of the large  A blocks, but less than 10 of the B blocks, and none of the C blocks.  Lots of playing in the scrap drawers on Sunday and cutting, cutting, cutting for more variety. 

For my plan, I'm making 20 of the large A blocks, 31 of the rectangular B blocks, and 18 of the C border blocks.  

A mini rainbow made of 2.5 x 3.5" rectangles--lots and lots of different medium prints in my piles--hmm, that dark purple may have to join its dark friends.  Each A blocks uses 12 of the medium print pieces and 9 dark pieces..  I love playing in the scrap bins and moving things along.  My neck isn't very happy after all that cutting, though! 

The original Plaidish quilt pattern uses a lot more dark fabrics.  I finished this one in May 2021 and gifted it to my niece, Hannah; it lives in Arizona now.  I do like the narrow sashing and center squares on this design. 

Our County Fair is finally returning this year   Entries are due in July so if I want to enter something, decisions will need to be made on possibilities. Pondering....

A Day in The Keys

Our daughter-in-law's parents invited us on a Harbor boat ride last weekend.  In our City, the area with homes on the water is called The Keys.  Our hosts bought a builder-grade and altogether boring house a few years ago when they retired, and turned it into a lovely home.  They enjoy lots of cruises on their power boat and watching all the wildlife there.

We went all the way out to the harbor mouth.  Our man-made harbor is bordered by long jetties on the beach side, and a large breakwater on the seaside.  Pelicans spend a lot of time fishing and resting there.

It was an overcast day but it seems the fishing was good. 

This Pelican was being hounded by several seagulls while trying to consume a catch. 

Back in the dock area of the marina, some sea lions were playing King of the Dock, jumping up and knocking each other off.  Well, some of them were--the big brown one in the back of the above pic complained about the noise and activity but didn't join in the play :).

We watched the five sea lions playing for some time, before heading back into the Keys and home.  It was a lovely couple of hours getting our Vitamin Sea!   Our mutual grandson is nearing his 2nd birthday in August.  Hard to believe it has been two years since we were all awaiting his arrival!  We're so glad to have joined families.  

Design Wall Monday--Memorial Day 2022

Design Wall Monday, on this Memorial Day.  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I spent a good chunk of time yesterday playing with the Adam's Rib blocks (Fons and Porter design) and sewing them together. 

I decided this was a bit too busy, since the pinks are different, and changed to a straight setting. 

It was quite tedious to get all the many seams to nest. I ended up opening up one seam in the top or bottom row of in many of the blocks to flip the orientation of pressing, and in every other row had to press different seams the other way, but was happy I did.  That was a lot of seams to match in these 6" blocks!  The black and white fabrics were mostly leftovers from the baby quilt I made grandson Hunter, who is about to graduate from Kindergarten.  I used the black and white monkey print on the back of his quilt, and had this large width left to use. 

Hunter's quilt:

On this Memorial Day, we remember those who served and lost their lives in that service.  So many young men and women lost over the years.

.  

A patriotic mini quilt on display.  

Design Wall Monday--Garden Pinwheel

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

Moving along older projects is going to be my focus for the next little while.  Mostly my projects stall at the quilting stage.  Such is the case with the Garden Pinwheel quilt I started years  ago (self-designed).  The top was completed during one of my UFO self-challenges wherein I worked on one project for three days and then switched to another.  This quilt top (made from leftovers of the Rick Rack Road quilt I finished in 2011)--with its backing and already made binding-- have been hanging in the closet since September 2018!  Definitely an elderly UFO...

I ironed the top a little and cut batting.  It barely fits on the floor of my sewing room. 

I started with ditch stitching and then will add a motif to the purple/green HSTs.  The appliqued leaves will get stitched down with different colors of green thread from stash.  I'm looking forward to calling this pretty quilt a finish! It is a nice throw size.