April's Monthly Minis

 This month's mini is actually five small pieces, three are full size 12x16 inch placemats, a smaller perhaps luncheon size placemat, and a hot dish mat or mug rug.

These are mostly leftover pieces from my Marrakesh quilt of a few years back.  After piecing all the 2-1/2 inch squares and assembling the larger mats, the remaining small bits were randomly pieced into rows for the mug rug.  Some leftover less-than-a-fat-quarter size pieces make up the bindings.

I had this piece that was just large enough (with some seaming) to make the backing for all the mats.

Another swiffer box of scraps emptied, but why does the scrap pile in the corner of the room keep growing??

After two lovely 80 degree-plus days early this week, we've had a day of snow and this morning there was snow on the deck and a cold north wind blew all day, though the sun shone brightly.  We've covered the iris plants tonight as our low temp is expected to be in the low 20s.  Brr!

I hope it is warm and sunny where you are!  Please check out Wendy's blog at The Constant Quilter to enjoy more monthly minis.

February Mini

 Back in 2016 I made "Memories of Astoria", a special quilt for my husband who spent his early college years in that little town near the mouth of the Columbia River.  You can read more about the inspiration for creating this quilt here.

While making that quilt I made two versions of the "fish through the porthole" block.  The first one ended up being a little too large for the space so rather than ripping and cutting down the background an identical but smaller version was created for the quilt and the first became an orphan block.  While digging through a bin of fabrics last month I unearthed said orphan and decided this was the year it would become a finished mini quilt. 

It was just a matter of adding another round of borders to bring the block to a placemat size.  The circles were hand appliqued, so I decided to hand quilt around each of the fish, then a bit of machine quilted clumps of beach grass and stitch in the ditch for the borders, and it is finally finished.  

Some fresh-fallen snow on a sunny late afternoon provided another view in a different setting and light.

We're bracing for yet another snow-ice-freezing rain storm tomorrow.  It's been a wild-weather February with everything from record low to high temperatures, snowstorms, ice jams and major flooding, with a few sunny days to give us hope that spring will eventually arrive.  The first robins and red-wing blackbirds made an appearance yesterday.  I may go out and look for any sign of daffodils poking through the ground before tomorrow's snow covers them yet again.

Be sure to check out Wendy's (The Constant Quilter) post on the 28th for more February minis.  

Til next time, happy stitching!

Time for a Mini

It's nearly the end of January, and for probably the first time ever, my monthly mini has been waiting patiently for a couple weeks to make its debut on the blog.

Following up on Janet O.'s "baggie challenge" from last fall, I found another baggie of mostly red and white tiny flying geese,  mostly finished and ready for pressing.  They made up into this placemat size little quilt.

The narrow blue strips separating the columns of geese are leftover 1" strips from cutting the layer cake pieces for the hatchet blocks shown in my previous post here.  Border and binding are from some miscellaneous less-than-a-fat-quarter pieces in the stash.  It all appears a little bit wonky in the photo, just as it does hanging on the design wall - keeping it humble but happy!  

Here is the back, made with a found piece of an older toile, bordered with another small piece from the stash.  

I've decided that the minis for this year will all be more or less placemat size since there are already more wall size mini/small quilts than we have room to display.  It's always nice to have a new placemat, and some of these may eventually be donated to the local meals-on-wheels office for holiday delivery to their clients, or given as little gifts.   Trying to use up as many scraps and odds and ends as possible this year.

For more mini quilts, check Wendy's blog The Constant Quilter at the end of each month where she posts links to a growing number of mini-makers blog posts.  Thank you Wendy for continuing this Monthly Mini Challenge for yet another year!

Rounding Out the Year with a Mini

 I finally have finished Janet's (Rogue Quilter) fall challenge to take a baggie of saved scraps and turn them into a mini quilt by the end of the year.  I finally located the photo taken of the actual baggie and contents, leftover mini tumbler blocks Janet had sent to me several years ago along with some miscellaneous mini charms that I cut into more tumblers.  

Here is the original mini made with the majority of Janet's tumblers a couple years ago.

And here is the latest mini, just completed last evening:

Janet's "rules" for this baggie challenge included allowing for one additional fabric plus one "neutral" to be added to our baggie's contents.  My "neutral" in this case just happens to be the blue stop border.  This little quilt just wasn't having any of the more traditional neutrals - cream, tan, light gray, etc.   The blue turned out to be perfect, though with less than a fat quarter it was a challenge to create a narrow binding, most of the binding strips were 9-11 inches long - 83 total inches needed.

A piece of blue that has been in the stash for quite a few years was used for the back.

A big thank you to Wendy at The Constant Quilter for rounding up the mini-makers each month, and to Janet for issuing this "baggie challenge."  There are more baggies  and swiffer boxes of scrappy pieces to keep me "challenged" for another year at least!

Wishing you all a new year filled with faith, love, peace, and good health.

Winter Solstice

Today was clear and sunny, and our latest dusting of snow has disappeared.  The five little Christmas table toppers were completed over the weekend, three have already been gifted, the remaining two will be on their way Christmas Day.  A few photos:

All are minimally machine quilted, stitch in the ditch, just enough to hold them together.  So many project, so little time ...

This was a fun little project that used up a lot of 3-1/2 inch scrappy pieces.  

Today is the winter solstice and I've been busy working on my monthly mini, aka Janet's Baggie Challenge.  And I'll leave you with two burning questions:  Is blue a neutral?  and When your quilt screams "NO" do you listen?

Quilty Quarantining

 Ah, quarantining for 24 days - what to do but quilt!  It seems this enforced seclusion has jump-started my quilting mojo again and for the past few days I've been piecing this top.  A second version of a quilt made for our church camp auction last year which was named April in Paris.  This version I'm calling "Younger than Springtime" in a nod to the Rodgers and Hammerstein song of the same name featured in the musical South Pacific.

Younger than springtime are you

Softer than starlight are you

Warmer than winds of June

Are the gentle lips you gave me

Gayer than laughter are you

Sweeter than music are you

Sunlight and moon beans

Heaven and earth

Are you to give me

And when your youth and joy

Invade my soul

And fill my heart

As now they do, then

Younger than springtime am I

Gayer than laughter am I

Sunlight and moon beans

Heaven and earth

Am I with you

Easy peasy piecing, basically large 4-patch blocks which are then sliced and diced with sashing inserted.

Design is a slightly altered version of a pattern featured in Love of Quilting by Tony Jacobson called All Inked Up.  My version used a slightly smaller block size in order to accommodate the size of some of my favorite fabric scraps, especially this one which was the inspiration for the general mood of this quilt.

A few more close-ups of the springtime inspired fabrics:

A couple other small tops completed at quilt ministry before we went on covid/holiday hiaitus, these are still awaiting sandwiching for simple machine quilting:

Super-scrappy happy blocks quilt for nursing home:

and a simple row baby quilt:

I need to stop photographing tops on that gray carpet on cloudy days, the colors in both of these are much nicer than you see here.  Maybe some outdoor photos when they're finished.  Anyway, these three bring the total of completed tops awaiting machine quilting to four, very soon to be five as another donation quilt top is in the works.  

We weren't lucky enough to see the "Christmas Star" the past two nights as our skies were overcast.  The forecast calls for heavy rain tomorrow followed by a lake effect snowstorm on Christmas Day.  Sounds like perfect weather for a crockpot turkey breast with all the trimmings.  

til next time, happy quilting!

Shades of Autumn

 When Lori at Humble Quilts announced her fall mini quilt-along with the title of 50 Shades of Brown I decided to look for inspiration outside photographing some of the shades of brown found on our property here in the hills of southwestern New York state.  Which I did over the past couple weeks, but first since this is a linky party, here is my completed top.  As yet unquilted while awaiting an order for more Insul-brite since this little quilt is destined to become a Christmas gift for my son and DIL who are in the finishing stages of a large kitchen remodel.  Their new cabinets are a dark brown and the counters are all a white or off-white quartz and they requested some hot dish pads including one large enough to hold a big lasagne baking dish.  This should fit that request well, and I'll likely make a couple smaller square mats in coordinating fabrics to go with this one.  And maybe some in Christmas fabrics, but I'm getting ahead of myself ...

I deviated a bit from the instructions for four directional borders and chose this brown and blue stripe simply because I liked the fabric.

We've had one of the loveliest fall seasons since moving back to western New York a few years ago, and it's been fun to wander through the garden areas and along the creek to soak in the gorgeous colors.  Browns of all shades abound, but a few other colors found their way into the photos.  Want to take a little walk with me?

Chickadees, goldfinches and hummingbirds found our sunflowers and the zinnia seed heads irresistible so when we cleaned out the flower beds I wove a bunch of the zinnia heads into the back garden fence near that row of sunflowers.  The hummingbirds and goldfinches have since departed for their winter homes.

There are hundreds of others, so many lovely days, so little time before the snow flies. Speaking of which the weather forecaster mentioned that word in our forecast for later this week. Wait, it's not even the middle of October yet!

Time to link up with Lori at Humble Quilts here.  Clicking the link will send you to the many versions of 50 Shades of Brown little quilts that have been created.  Thanks Lori for another fun quilt-along!

 

Finishing the Month with a Mini

 Behold, an Almost Rogue Amish mini from Lori's 2019 fall quilt-along, is finally well and truly finished! Binding added this morning after some hasty sparse big-stitch hand quilting last week before the grands arrived on Friday evening.

Most of the predicted storms never materialized and the kids were able to swim in the creek, climb the mountain on the other side, have their requested campfire with S-mores, and more importantly, keep the dog well exercised and totally exhausted by the time they left!

Seven-year-old version of King of the Mountain

 the Energizer Bunny culprit!

At the other end of the house  another Swiffer Box Quilt  was in its early stages, designed from leftover orphan blocks, strips and squares, this time by our 9-year-old granddaughter.  Guess I'll have my work cut out for me in the coming weeks, but that many leftover scrappy hunks I won't have to deal with later!

After the busy weekend, it was nice to walk around the property taking in the last of the summer flowers.  

Interesting how the orange binding appears yellow where the sunlight hits.

We're still harvesting an abundance of summer squash, and the winter squashes are getting there.  Something is attacking our few butternut squashes, most likely deer, but the Delicata, Carnival, and Spaghetti squash seem to be undisturbed so far. The roma tomatoes are getting there, we should harvest the first few by weeks end for our first tomato-basil pie of the season.  The last of the green beans will likely disappear with dinner tonight.  Fall is quickly approaching, my favorite season.

Linking to Wendy's post at The Constant Quilter where you'll find many other wonderful minis.  While you're visiting her blog, be sure to check out her previous post showing her fabulous Community Supper quilt.  It's amazing!