Quilting

Project Number One was struck off the list in May when I realized that the fabrics I had chosen for my Nearly LeMoyne Stars by Bonnie Hunter just weren’t going to work for the rest of the year. I stopped work & will finish it up as a WIP next year (or the year after-you know how this goes!)

Project Number Two was these 16 twinkling Friendship Star blocks. I decided the quilt wasn’t going to be big enough, so have decided to make it a continuing project where I make 1 block/month instead of 2 during 2022, then it will be ready to put together next fall. Thanks to Deb A. for the inspiration.

Project Number Three is resized Cozy Stars from the Pat Sloan QAL called Cozy Things. I made 4 each color month except August so I have 8 groups of 4. I have finally decided on a layout & it involves snowballing the center with the color of the stars, (here it would be red), then a sashing I am borrowing from a Bonnie Hunter pattern. It’s going to be more work than I wanted to deal with at the end of this year, so it’s going to be a RSC2022 project to get it together, one color a month.

Now for my 6 finishes or at least the tops are done! Project Number 4 was the biggest: a king-size Irish Chain that received lots of encouraging comments as I worked it through. It was a Christmas gift & they just love it!! I used the free tutorial from Melissa Corry. It has a black binding to finish it off & the background is scrappy.

Project Number Five is “Hip to be Square” from “Splash of Color” by Jackie Kunkel. I absolutely love how this came out. It’s at the quilter now so will be finished & ready to gift for Christmas 2022. I’ve had this book for a long time & wanted to make some of the patterns. So glad I finally got one done!

Project Number Six is the Plus quilt that made it to flimsy stage but hasn’t been quilted yet. It is my own design & began life with another idea in mind where the pluses were more grouped. After a while, I didn’t think it worked, so this year for RSC2021 I started unpicking the partial top, retaining as many sewed plus blocks as possible, & sewing them back together in a more ordered fashion. I offset each row, & the entire quilt is made up of 2.5″ squares with each plus having the same fabric in it, but all the pluses are different & the grays are mostly dark & scrappy.

Project Number Seven is Brickhouse which is also currently at the quilter. I got the idea for this quilt from Sylvia, who was inspired by Jo’s Country Junction, who found the idea originated with Julie of Me and My Quilts. I sewed the columns during each color month & sewed the top together in October for a finish. I used scrappy light gray squares for the low-volume sections.

Project Number Eight is the zig-zag quilt inspired by Diann at Little Penguin Quilts. It hasn’t been quilted yet & doesn’t have a name, but the flimsy is done! I sewed this month by month, but it would be a great L&E project for the future in a different color scheme. I made it with 5″ squares so I cut some from my scraps & used some charm squares. The background came from a layer cake I cut into squares so it’s consistent, but has different patterns.

Project Number Nine is also a flimsy waiting to be quilted. It began life as an RSC2020 project, inspired by a quilt I saw on Making a Lather, who credited Cynthia Brunz with her inspiration. I planned to carry it over to RSC 2021 & in a nice circle of coincidence, Cynthia’s Jan 15 blog post introduced her Scrap Mixology pattern called Chaser, which is this quilt! I’ve purchased her previous modules & immediately got this one. Because I had blocks already done from last year, this one got sewn together in August.

Finally finished this WIP. The jelly roll is from Riley Blake & supported autism research. It was given to me by the hubster for my birthday when I first began quilting & has waited for the “perfect” project. At the beginning of my Covid isolation I decided to pull it out, just pick a pattern, scrounge up background fabric & sew it up. I finally got it quilted last fall in a cute puzzle pattern & got the binding on & hand-sewn. It’s destined to be a 2022 Christmas gift. “Twists & Turns” is from a free tutorial by Melissa Corry and is my 100th quilt.

RSC2021 flimsy done! This is the re-designed Plus quilt I did without a pattern. I had a different original idea but didn’t like how it was going halfway through the year, so unpicked a lot & put it together like this. It’s made exclusively from 2.5″ scrappy squares. It’s hung in the closet with the ever-growing pile of tops to be quilted.

And here’s what my quilting partner & I are doing in our weekly virtual quilting group: Cookie Cutter by Jaybird Quilts. Without knowing it, we both took a class for this quilt (at different quilt shops) in summer 2018. One day a few months later I mentioned something about this quilt & how I was scared to get it back out & do the cutting & sewing. Then she said she had it, too! Hilarious. We’ve been dreading it for years now & after finishing our large hexie quilt, I got it out & started looking through the instructions. I realized that in the time that’s transpired, we’ve done everything in the instructions in other quilts! So we are pounding out a color set each week & they look great. With holidays, we expect to finish sometime in January! Hers is solid, mine is prints by Tula Pink.

I haven’t been posting, but I have been sewing during October. Because I got off track with the monthly color, I went off doing my own thing. But here’s an update on my RSC progress, plus some other stuff. I sewed together the top for the zig-zag quilt inspired by Diann at Little Penguin Quilts. I drooled over this last year when she was making it & I’m so glad I did it this year. I decided it’s a big enough lap quilt without any borders, so it’s in the pile for the quilter. Yay!

I also sewed the top for Brick House, which becomes my third top done for RSC2021! I got the idea for this quilt from Sylvia, who was inspired by Jo’s Country Junction, who found the idea originated with Julie of Me and My Quilts. Again, a quilt I coveted in the past & got around to sewing this year. So cute & scrappy.

This friendship star block is a direct lift from Deb A. I saw these blocks last year in the RSC link up & determined that quilt was in my future. I made 2 blocks each month this year & put them up on my design wall. After mulling it over, I decided I want it larger & need 8 more blocks. So this project will continue in 2022 where I’ll make 1 block/month & finish it off then. I love how sparkly it is!

In honor of my friend who passed away at the end of Sept after her third fight with breast cancer & for October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I bought the new Riley Blake fat quarter bundle for this quilt. I pulled out an old pattern that I’ve never made called Helter Skelter by Abbey Lane Quilts & just pounded through it. It went to the quilter at the end of October. My plan is to finish it off & save it for a friend or family member who needs it.

My quilting partner & I made this modern hexagon quilt this month over FaceTime. We also sewed the backing & binding together so it’s ready for the quilter & finishing when it’s quilted. This was a fun challenge to get those hexies lined up. When I showed it to my husband, he asked me why there weren’t blocks in all that open space on each side. I tried to explain modern design but he just asked if we were keeping it or giving it away, cuz it’s not his favorite. I said, gifting.

Also this month, I made this top as a favor for a friend to give her son for Christmas. I used my stash & she bought the backing & is paying for the quilting. The pattern is Dual Screen by A Bright Corner & it’s in his college colors. The pattern was just released & I bought it, so it was in the set of possibles I sent her. She liked it the best, so I was able to make a brand new pattern! It’s also at the quilter right now.

And a flurry of sewing down binding & movie watching has gotten me three finishes this month. “The Beehive” is slated for a Christmas gift & is from an old FQS Sew Sampler box. The fabric has been in a project box for years waiting for the perfect person. Now it’s made & ready.

This is the Festival of Trees 2021 auction quilt to raise money for Primary Children’s Medical Center. It’s in honor of my brother-in-law, an Air Force pilot who died in the line of duty. I’ve been doing a quilt for him for several years now, since it got too hard for our extended family to do a large tree. His widow adds books & my niece adds a small tree to the mix & we pick a theme each year that has something to do with his life. This year it refers to him being in a high school production of “The Wizard of Oz” with a sister. Fabric collection & free pattern are Jill Howarth from Riley Blake.

And this is “The Farmer’s Wife”. My husband gave me the book several years ago for Christmas, & my quilt group started working on it. We did one or two blocks a month so it took us a very long time. Theirs are done in traditional repro fabrics, but of course, mine is a bright modern rainbow! I actually love this way more than I thought I would while we were making the blocks, so I think another rainbow sampler is in my future.

Finishes! The shade from the tree makes the background look blue but it’s really scrappy white & cream. LOL This is the King-size Irish Chain quilt using the tutorial from Melissa Corry that I’ve been working on all year for RSC2021. Because it’s a Christmas gift, I went ahead on my monthly colors to get it done & to the quilter. But I worked on it monthly for the first half of the year & many of the RSC gang was very encouraging. It was large to piece & so big to hand sew the binding. I had to put it on a kitchen chair in front of me to hold the bulk while I sewed it. It was too heavy & bulky to keep on my lap. The binding is black Confetti Ombre by V & Co. & it’s really fun.

I finished the binding on “Pumpkin Patch” on the last night of September so it’s in the orange month. This was fast-tracked because it’s for me & I want to snuggle with it this fall. I bought the fabric on August 10 & hammered through cutting & piecing it, got it to the quilter, then binding done quickly. So happy to have it done & proud of myself for doing it so fast with all the other projects going on. And I ate breakfast this morning with it draped over my lap while reading & eating! Happy dance!

Orange plus blocks. These are from the partial top I’ve been ripping apart to re-envision into a whole new design. They are all weird sized because I left some gray around some of them whenever possible while ripping because I now have an idea of how I want to lay them out & I need “sashing”. No idea how many I actually have or need, so when I lay them out, I may need to make more. And the last row for the super fun zig-zag quilt from Diann at Little Penguin Quilts. Will sew rows in October or November & think about borders.

Orange is probably the final color for several of my projects. Next month I will start laying some of these out & seeing if I need more of anything. The friendship star blocks were inspired by Deb A. & I love how they turn out. The middle column are 4 resized Cozy Stars from the Pat Sloan QAL called Cozy Things. The tall columns are for the Brickyard quilt inspired by Julie of Me and My Quilts. I have orange blocks for two more RSC projects to finish up during the last few days of September coming up.

Here’s my big accomplishment for the week: I finished up the final week, Week 8, of the Clear Sky Quilt Along with Andy Knowlton of A Bright Corner. I kept up each week & this week I put together the flimsy. Although I did each block with scrappy white backgrounds, I used the same fabric for the sashing. Turns out I didn’t have enough for the borders, so I cut what I had left into sashing size for a stop border & made my own pieced border from leftovers. I used up most of the Lori Holt aqua & brown chunks I used as the basis for the quilt, so that was good, & the rest can go into upcoming scrap quilts.