Design Wall Monday--Fixing Meadowland

 Design Wall Monday--see more great quilty things on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

A  problem quilt has been hogging space in the sewing room for months--my Christmas print version of Then Came June's Meadowland quilt.  In December I had done some free motion quilting of motifs with freezer paper, and then attempted a candy cane in the rectangles along the edges of the quilt, which bombed.  The quilt was in time out and taking up space since then.  I finally got sick of looking at it and revisited the issues. The main one was that I had a LOT of threads to bury. 

This pic is before I had blotted away most of the blue marking pen.  

It took quite a lot of time to get all those thread tails buried! After inspecting the quilt post a rinse and dry, I opted to leave the corners and side rectangles unquilted. 

If I change my mind, something can always be added.  I have a few missed spots catching  the binding to mend too. The project box turned out to have extra block pieces I didn't remember were there.

The corner squares were neutral in the quilt pattern (I changed them to one big square for my quilt construction row style), but for this single block I cut squares of leftover We Whisk You a Merry Christmas prints.  Such a fun fabric line.  I won the stack of fat quarters at Sewtopia a few years ago. 

There are also a lot of leftovers from the other fat quarters in this line to play with later.  Glad to have another Christmas quilt to enjoy next season. 

Design Wall Monday--Baby Girl Quilt Finish

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

I meant to link up this morning and ran out of time, then forgot all about it when I came home for lunch, but I have a finish to share. 

Binding now completed. Boy, it seemed to take half the afternoon to go all the way around this small quilt made for my nephew and his wife's first baby--and my brother and his wife's first grandchild.

A wide solid turquoise strip brought it up to size.  I used a leftover light block made from the Meadowbloom jelly roll as a label. 

I'll put the baby's name there, once she arrives and I know what it is! Glad to have this ready to mail, along with some baby clothes.

Slow Sunday Stitching--Another Baby Quilt

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

After I finished the teal border on the Lori Holt Stitch card project,  I decided to add a few tiny strawberries in the corners.  I showed the first on a prior post, but ran into counting issues and it has been in time out the past week.  I think I will just go ahead and leave it be, add the last strawberry and see!

Other hand stitching today is quilt binding on a baby girl quilt made from 2.5" strips.  The blocks finish at 6".  My arms got quite a workout turning this quilt  1000 times to ditch stitch all the shapes. 

I had matching backing from the Meadowbloom line; I previously made quilts for another relative's granddaughters.

For the binding, I saved the light print strips that matched the background. 

All ready to stitch down on the back.  The sun is coming out so perhaps I will enjoy stitching on the patio. 

A Finish and Lost Things

Our next grandson's quilt is ready to go--I got all the quilting done by walking foot, and chose a solid blue from stash for the binding. 

I had a few binding clips loose in my sewing desk, but needed more.  The plastic box of red binding clips was not in its usual desk drawer.  A 20 minute "I just saw them" search then ensued--I looked through every drawer and bin at the messy sewing desk, and then all over the messy cutting table. 

Believe it or not, the binding clips were mere inches from the sewing machine in the photo above...

...under a pile of leader-ender blocks! Mystery solved, I set to hand stitching the binding down. 

The quilt is fairly small, though it seemed to take awhile stitching the binding by hand. 

The binding fabric shade was very close to the solid strip on the backing, a hair of difference.  I love the orange print, there is not much left to put in the scrap box.  As our son and daughter-in-law have not quite settled on his name, I'll make the quilt label after baby arrives. 

In other quilt news, my niece Emma sent a pic of herself wrapped in the Bookshelf quilt.  She was so happy to have it at last :)

There are a lot of tops that need quilting and I'll be constructing backings for them.  Also I poked around the project boxes in the Hoosier cabinet and oh, my, there are a lot of them!  Another "Empty the Hoosier Cabinet" self-challenge should occupy June, for the times when I am not holding our new grandson!

Slow Sunday Stitching--Strawberry

 Slow Sunday Stitching-- Joining up with Kathy's Quilts today with the project of the moment. 

Lori Holt Stitch Cards design.  She stitched her sample on a darker material than what I had on hand, this white Aida pre-stretched canvas. I added a few stitches with a single strand of green to make the strawberry flower stand out more.  Once I finished the teal blue border, I decided to add other motifs to the corners, from another card in the pack. 

The tiny strawberries are cute and fast to stitch.  I may also choose to add the flower and stem, from that same card, along the sides of the border.  Soon I'll need another project to stitch. 

We had a visit from our youngest grandson and our son this morning; Daddy was giving his very pregnant wife a break and they rode over on their bikes. 

Dane enjoyed a cinnamon roll, got his favorite toys out of the toybox, and talked up a storm, as usual. 

Staycation Sewing Progress and Plans

Staycation continues! I have been able to spend a lot of time in the sewing room.  First priority was the next grandson's quilt.  I went with a simple design and used stash fabrics.  The sashing was cut from the bolt of Kona Bone I bought from JoAnn's some months ago. It is great to have on hand. 

The bottom looks wonky in this pic but really isn't in person. 

Final white border all around.  The pattern I found online used 1" sashing, which I thought was too narrow, so I cut mine at 1.5"--that also made the quilt longer and wider.  The prints were cut 8x16 and 8x8 square, the long vertical strip was also 8", so it is not a big quilt. My Husqvarna sewing machine needed a service, however, so my older model Husqvarna is standing in; it does not have the main features I love on the newer model, the automatic presser foot lifter and the thread cutter. I took the 40 minute drive to the repair shop, and was sorry to see the Quilty Pleasures shop in the same center  that I expected to also visit had closed. Instead, I wandered around a vintage resale shop that had lots of fun old stuff to admire. I came home with a Fiestaware platter to add to my dinnerware, in a dark rusty color I didn't have. 

A rare opportunity to make a baby girl quilt for a grand-niece had me pulling sweet prints and patterns from my precut scraps and fat quarter drawers. 

The pattern I am using is "Picnic", from Kim Brackett's book, Scrap Basktet Sensations; it's the cover quilt.  Most of the quilts use 2.5" strips and squares.  I used my GO cutter to cut the neutral strips and squares for a 6x6 block quilt; the blocks are 6" square finished. I'm assembly-line stitching them as quickly as possible, as baby is due in the next few weeks. 

I made one for myself about 10 years ago. See it Here.  

The trimmings I am sewing up into cute mini hourglass blocks. 

What a sweet doll quilt these would make--there are lots more made than these few that were on the ironing board:)

Staycation Sewing--A Finish and A New Start

I'm currently enjoying the second day of a staycation--my doctor boss is out of the office on a real vacation, and I took the opportunity to use saved PTO of my own.  

The long-term project of the bookshelf quilt has reached an end at last!  Yesterday I finally quit dragging my feet on stippling the black background of the bookshelves--and, as one usually finds when avoiding a task, it didn't take very long at all to do!  The quilt has had a bath and lacks only a label to be gifted to my niece, Emma. 

I am happy with the solid black binding and ended up not putting any stitching in the outer quilt borders--I wanted to keep the illusion of a wallpapered backdrop.

Stippling the black background was definitely better than leaving it unquilted--it lets the books and objects stand out more. Finished size is about 5 feet each direction, a nice lap quilt or wall quilt. Most of the ideas for this bookshelf came from the Fabric at Work guidelines I found online.  Pinterest and Instagram also had lots of inspiration input. 

Next task on this staycation is to get a couple of quilts sent out for quilting--and my sewing machine in for a maintenance service!

I've also started a new cross-stitch project. I bought some Stitch Cards at Superbuzzy not long ago; these are Lori Holt designs and are so sweet. 

I had one of these prestretched Aida blanks, so was able to get right to stitching. 

The gingham strawberry is all done now.  I did not have the teal floss color for the border--nor anything that would be close enough, so will just carry on with the leaves, flower and stem until I pick that up. I want to stitch all of these designs!

The new task is to get our next grandson's quilt made--he will be here in a few weeks.  I also have a great-niece due very soon and the rare opportunity to make a girl baby quilt is a nice change!