Sue

Look at what happened in my quilt group this week: some scrap aqua & light blocks. So I managed to stick with y’all on the color theme this month, if you disregard the green.

This is Hope #3, my third Breast Cancer Awareness quilt & I finished the hand-sewing on the binding this week. I’ve made one each Sept in honor of my friend, Traci, who passed away after her third battle in Sept 2021. The first was a way to process my grief, with the idea that I would gift it to someone dealing with breast cancer. I’ve given away the first two, so now there’s one ready for another gifting. Which hopefully won’t happen because I don’t want friends or family to deal with this. With all that’s happened in my life, it’s taken a while to get this one finished, so it will be time for the next one to start in a couple months, but I have the fabric ready to go. This was made with the free pattern, No Point Stars from Cluck Cluck Sew. It’s an easy pattern, but very striking in any color combo.

I want to get some WIP’s off the shelf so I pulled out my blocks for Catching Rainbows by Bonnie Hunter. This was an RSC2022 project. I have several of these still around because of the accident, move, surgery, blah, blah, blah. My accident was in August 2022 so I got many blocks done for each project, but some are still sitting in the boxes. When I pulled these out, there weren’t any orange & purple as those are the months I was recovering. I started laying it out & decided that even though I was making a smaller quilt than Bonnie’s, it was still bigger than I wanted. So out came the red & a couple others. This is the result with a few more string blocks made to fill in the border. It’s a sort of pastel rainbow. LOL I like it & it’s a good lap size that is in the queue for quilting.

This is what I’ve been working on all week: the new Runway pattern by A Bright Corner. I used up 2 half jelly rolls I got on sale, some background fabric in my stash, & I have a donation top. I taped together some batting, cut a blue clearance 100% cotton sheet from IKEA into a backing, & it’s ready to go to my friend for quilting. I made enough blocks for the throw size but decided it was too big, so did the lap size & will make the leftovers into a donation baby quilt. This will be a nice teen boy quilt.

And here’s my progress on Bonnie Hunter’s 2024 Leader & Ender Challenge: County Clare. The first row was made last week, & the parts for the second row were made this week. I need to dig into my neutral bin for a little more variety there next week.

Keep cool in your sewing room & make cute stuff!

I made a tabletopper, Brightly Holidays by Cluck Cluck Sew, & it’s rectangular on the pattern & wanted it square. I saved out the last row, added some leftover squares between the blocks, used pieces from the backing to make a border, & voila! A little matching bonus runner for our sideboard, all quilted & bound for the rest of summer.

Some long sewing afternoons this week got the Summer Block Party to flimsy stage. Not sure when it’s going in for quilting, but it’s all done! It’s a free sew-along & you can still sign-up through July, & get the patterns if you just can’t resist. That was my situation & so this squirrel project is done & it’s back to my regularly scheduled sewing. LOL

That included getting “Wild Blue Yonder” done for the Festival of Trees auction benefitting Primary Children’s Medical Center. I make a quilt every year for my pilot brother-in-law who died in a plane malfunction. He was an Air Force pilot. His widow & daughter pick the theme & add books & puzzles to the display for auction. We hadn’t done planes for a few years, so decided it was time. This needs to go to the quilter next week & get done so it’s ready for December, which feels like it’s right around the corner now!

I spent a bunch of time cutting & prepping for projects this week. One of them included Bonnie Hunter’s 2024 Leader & Ender Challenge: County Clare. I copy down the patterns every year but have never joined in, so this is the year. I bought the green grunge to have one part be consistent throughout, then the rest is all scrappy from my stash. I sew using an L&E method anyway, making 2 or 3 quilts at once, but since I love Irish Chains, this was too hard to pass up. So there’s a tray full of little squares & rectangles by my machine & this is how many have gone through so far. I decided to sew them together as I go & let the scraps fall where they may to make the sashing go easier. I hate sewing sashings, but love her layout with the sashings, so here we go!

I got my tabletopper quilted & bound just in time for July! Still hand-binding the bonus runner from the extra row.

Here are the next two blocks for the Summer Block Party. This is my squirrel project, but now I don’t feel guilty since I accidentally did my aqua blocks in June & can do other stuff in July! I might get to this to the finish line this month.

You saw the top already, but here’s a glamour shot of the finished Hocus Pocus quilt for my daughter-in-law. Glad to have it done & in her hands.

I started on the Festival of Trees auction quilt for December so it will be done in case something happens. Love these MSQC planes in RW&B fabrics chosen by my hubby in honor of his brother.

And just for fun, a shot of the shirt my kids gave me for my birthday. For those of us who didn’t get a letter from Hogwarts! And I cut out the kit I got for my birthday of Amy Smart’s Pine Hollow Patchwork Forest in her new Albion fabrics, so you may see some trees soon. (I made one in scrappy Christmas a few years ago that I love, so it’s time to make one in her new lovely line.)

I finished up the wonky Lori Holt paper pieced hearts in blue & will finish the AWOL February reds next month. There were lots of blue blocks to make this month with all the shades.

I made these 10 Patchwork Hearts by Quilty Love this week. At the beginning of the year, I planned out my finished quilt with how many of each color heart I wanted & where in the quilt, so that I would know each month how many I needed to make. I can’t wait for this finish, as each month I’m excited about these cute blocks! Also, in the lower left corner you can see the end of the leftover row tablerunner that has a border made from the leftover backing of the topper. Which is almost done having the binding sewn down!

Here are the first four blocks of my squirrel project! The Summer Block Party is a free sew-along where some of my favorite designers are giving away a block to sew into a fun summer quilt. They’ve released all the patterns, but are still accepting sign-ups through July, so you can get in on all the fun! I’ve been having fun working on these blocks. I’d originally intended to just do them scrappy from my stash, but couldn’t really pull together fabrics I liked, so made a trip to my local store for the suggested solids. So many had been in to buy them that I had to substitute 2 shades & get a different background than they used! But I’m liking the result.