Progress, in small increments

I finished piecing the second grandbaby quilt top a couple weeks ago. You remember, the one my husband said would make a good target .... um yes, this is the one

The perfect backing fabric was found.  The nursery theme is a woodland setting, especially with foxes.

I finished ditch quilting the major seams mid-week, and free motion quilting began yesterday.  As of last night this much of the center is quilted.

Can't have feathers on a baby boy quilt, but ferns in a woodland setting seem entirely appropriate. It's also one of the few designs I've committed to muscle memory, having stitched an entire huge queen size quilt in this same fern motif several years ago.

Now to come up with a great design for the pinwheel blocks.  Any suggestions?

August Quilty 365 and Grandbaby's flimsy

Welcome September and the start of my favorite season of the year!  Cooler days, the harvest season in full swing, the gathering-in of all manner of the season's bounty, crisp clear skies, and the glorious hues of the sugar maples followed by the quieter bronzes of the oak trees, long rides through the countryside -- it just doesn't get better than this.

Grandbaby #8's first quilt top is now complete and awaiting backing and sandwiching, then some time under the needle.  This baby's quilt will be machine quilted since they live in an apartment with shared washer and dryer of unknown quality, and there are also pets in the family who undoubtedly will wrongly assume the quilt is theirs and snuggle into it every chance they get!

I was looking for a simple and graphic design for these fabrics, part of a fat quarter bundle.  I loved the simplicity of this pattern, as it went together quickly in those 10 and 15 minute snatches of time over several days. I found the pattern designed by Vanessa Goertzen in the February/March 2012 issue of McCall's Quick Quilts.

I love the white sashing and border fabric, the texture resembles a beautiful linen.  I hope you can see a bit of the texture in the next photo when it's enlarged.

I believe August 31 marked Day 299 in my Quilty 365 adventure. A little over two more months and the first goal will have been met!  I plan to stop at 366 circles and wait and see if any additional ones will be required to make the quilt top, though right now I'm thinking there may be extras since the plan is to place a narrow sashing around the squares and set them on point.  Haven't had time to do all the math and sketch out this setting option yet.    Anyway, here are the August circles, plus a couple of favorites for the month.

Over the weekend we harvested much of the garden basil and made three big batches of pesto to freeze for the winter months.  I also picked mostof the dillweed, cut and packaged them in freezer bags for our favorite dill bread and dill-mustard sauce for fish.  The tomato canning is in high gear these days, and I find myself wishing there were many extra hands to help with the prepping and processing.  It really has a way of cutting into the quilting time doesn't it?!

I'll be linking up with Audrey at Quilty Folk where other intrepid circlers will soon be posting their progress.

I'll leave you with my favorite tomato pick of the year so far, which alas ended up in a canning jar along with the rest of its less glamorous friends.  I would have taken this one to the county fair had it ripened a month sooner!

January Finish

A first finish for the new year,  completed on the young recipient's birthday, though we won't be seeing them for another couple weeks.  Made up of giant hexies - a first (and last) for this quilter as hexies have always been my least favorite quilt pattern.  This pattern looked doable and fairly quick, as it was made up of 2 1/2 inch strips and I had a jelly roll with some coordinating fabrics languishing in the stash.

In retrospect, the jelly roll was made up of many colors and mostly tiny prints that read almost as a solid from a distance while the pattern quilt used only two colorways and large prints which would probably have been a better choice.  Still, this quilt is bright and cheerful, as well as soft and cuddly, and I hope will make the young recipient happy.  The pattern is from Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, March-April 2015.

I used my largest Baptist fan stencil to mark the big-stitch quilting design, and used DMC #8 Pearl Cotton for most of the quilting.   This was a first attempt at big stitch quilting, so a lot of discoveries there - like stabbing my fingers a LOT more than has ever happened with traditional quilting!  The work does go faster though, which in this case worked out well since I wanted to have it completed in time to give it to her as part of her birthday gift.  And it just wasn't a quilt I would have wanted to spend months-on-end doing traditional hand quilting, nor did I want to machine quilt it.  The big-stitch quilting left the quilt soft and cuddly, and sweetly old-fashioned looking.   After washing the quilt finished at 58x68 inches.

A couple weeks ago I was the lucky winner of a giveaway on Country Lady Quilts blog, and received this sweet packet of fabrics from Terry.  Thanks so much Terry, I'm thinking these will soon find their way into a baby quilt on the soon-to-be-started list.

Our short January thaw is apparently over as it's snowing again this morning, however we have much to be thankful for as last weekend's nor'easter missed us entirely!   But much as I don't care for the cold and snow anymore, these days do afford more time in the sewing room and that, my friends, makes me VERY thankful!

Finished at Last!

Finished at last and slept under last night.  My Christmas gift to me, this Blockade Quilt, now officially out of the quilting hoop, all bound and about to have its label attached.

I had help stitching down the binding

Trying to find a place large enough to spread it out for photographing the entire quilt was impossible. It finished at 80 x 90 inches after washing - here it is on the guest bed where it will take up residence

This quilt came to me as a completed top, the seller had acquired it from the estate of an Ohio Mennonite lady who was a prolific quilter and had also owned a quilt shop for many years. The top is machine stitched, with fabrics primarily from the 1950-1960s era, although there are several fabrics that appear earlier than the others, the one below feels and looks like feedsack to me.

Some of the fabrics remind me of pajama prints from the 50s when I was very young, especially that blue print in the lower left corner of the following photo.

I spent nearly eight months hand quilting this vintage piece, working on it a little every day and finally finished the borders in a week-long marathon of stitching, pretty much abandoning all the other in-progress projects.

Border detail

Back is white muslin that shows quilting detail 

The mail brought a little package the other day, from an old friend on the west coast.  Inside was her Christmas card and this sweet little ornament!  Exquisitely detailed, constructed with five different wood species, and the machine has gold metallic thread 'threaded' through a tiny wood tension mechanism and wire thread guides.  The ornament is approximately two inches long and a little over an inch tall.   Love it!

A closer detail:

Today's agenda includes making a huge batch of pierogi for the holidays, then we really must get out the wrapping paper and ribbons and attack the mound of gifts piling up in the guest room.  Time's a'wasting, and we celebrate an early Christmas with my son and DIL and the three youngest grands on Wednesday.  The rest of the grands will arrive on Sunday for their Christmas in the country.  Busy happy times ahead.   To all of my blogging friends I wish a joyous and peaceful Christmas with friends and family.  

Bloggers Quilt Festival Time - Fall Edition

I just love this time of year, crisp air, bright blue skies, the red, gold and bronze-tinged hillsides, and of course the fall edition of Bloggers Quilt Festival for early morning inspiration over a steaming cup of coffee.  Thanks to Amy Ellis over at Amy's Creative Side blog for yet again sponsoring this festival!  Your work is very much appreciated!

My entry this fall is a quilt I call "Campfire Memories," a scrappy creation containing bits and pieces of my life and nearly every quilt I've made over the past twenty or so years.  Like a well-loved photo album, this quilt contains memories of my son's high school graduation and leaving for college, his wedding, my daughter's college quilt, grandbaby quilts, a group quilt made for a dear co-worker who had lost her home to fire, donation baby quilts, a tiny memorial quilt for a mom of an angel, our marriage quilt, and so many more.  It also commemorates a more recent event, our retirement and cross-country move to be closer to our kids and grandbabies, since this quilt was made in the midst of that move!  Without further ado:

It's a bit difficult to get accurate photos in our house, the next couple of closer shots provide a better idea of the true colors, and the quilting.

A close-up of the quilting, all stitched on the Janome Horizon using the even-feed foot. Seemed to take forever with all the starts/stops in every corner to change direction, but I do love the four-pointed star-effect as the sashings cross.  Each of the 4 inch string blocks was quilted in the ditch along the outer edge of the blocks, then the X patterns were quilted in each of the sashings and corner blocks. The quilting may be a bit more visible in this next photo of the back.

The stats:  From a pattern in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine (July/August 2013) in which Marianne Fons based her quilt on an antique quilt she had seen; finished size 86x63 inches; string blocks pieced on Casey Jones, my go-to, all-time favorite piecing machine, a vintage 1950s black Singer 301a; machine quilted on the Janome Horizon; Aurifil 50 wt. thread used throughout; Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting.

If you're new to my little blog, I hope you'll stop back again after the festival and check out some of my other projects.  In the meantime, there's a ton more inspiration to be found in every category of the Bloggers Quilt Festival!  Thanks for visiting!

Paper Doll Memories

When I was very young, I couldn't wait until my mom's magazines would arrive, because the back cover often contained a paper doll complete with wardrobe to be cut and assembled, then loved and played with until they were practically in shreds.  I think of those days whenever this UFO is hauled out of the little bin.

Called Betsy's Closet in Stitches, it reminds me of the old Betsy McCall's paper dolls of all those years ago.  After stitching a few of the outfits using light shades of the various colors as recommended for the embroideries, the project got bogged down, and frankly I was bored and disappointed in the way they looked.  Very pale and bland and (to me) just plain boring.

Then, inspiration struck, after reading a recent post from Barbara at Cat Patches blog, where she had colored in the background of an embroidered quilt block she is currently stitching.  With nothing to lose, and hoping to be inspired to complete this little project at last, I dug out the big box of crayons we keep around for grandchildren's visits, and began coloring a couple of the completed blocks.

I liked this next red and white dress just the way it turned out and did not add any color to it.

This is the block currently in progress.   There are four blocks remaining to be embroidered after this one is completed.

I think these will be my take-along handwork project while we're traveling.  Once the embroidered blocks are finished, it will be quick work to piece the sashings and borders from the remnants in the
scrap bins.  There's also a piece of vintage paper doll fabric found at a yard sale a couple years ago that I think will make a perfect backing. The entire quilt finishes at about 24 x 30 inches, just about perfect for a granddaughter to wrap up her dollies and teddy bears.

A couple days ago we harvested the first of the pie pumpkins.  The trees are beginning to show a bit of color along the creek bank behind the house.  The sunflower heads are heavy and drooping. Though it is hot this week, first frost in these parts can be expected any time after about September 12.  And now my favorite season of the year begins!

Speaking of favorites, here's a new favorite from our garden.  Lemon Boy.  Beautiful color, delectable almost citrusy flavor.  This one weighed in at a hefty 1-1/4 pounds!  We polished it off at supper last night (that's a luncheon size plate in the photo).

Here's to a fun-filled, safe holiday weekend!

An Old Quilt Revisited

Fourteen years ago, right after our cross-country move to Oregon, I made my daughter her college quilt.  From start to finish the quilt took eight weeks, including the (fairly sparse) hand quilting.  This is rephotographed from an old print of that quilt when it was newly completed, just before packing it in that small wooden trunk and mailing it off to her for Christmas that year.

Last week, while helping her clear out an apartment, I noticed the quilt's binding had become quite frayed along the edges, and offered to bring it home and rebind it for her.  She was a bit reluctant at first, saying this was her very favorite quilt and she wrapped up in it every night, but she finally relented and it came home with me for a few days.  So, this is what it looked like when I laid it out on the spare bed:

Faded - definitely, a lot!  Fourteen years of everyday use, countless washings in laundromats with Tide pods (yikes!) really takes a toll.

Fabric nearly threadbare and about worn out, but soft as a kitten!  Found about a dozen of those small tears on the front, no doubt from a few kitten and puppy claws through the years.   Now, this is one well-loved quilt!  I was happy to discover that the quilting threads had all held up to the wear and tear, and the poly batting, though a lot thinner than when it was new, had not bearded or lumped despite the sparse quilting.

A little patchwork ensued.

The original binding was that same dark blue solid used in the sashing, and had long disappeared from the stash.  I finally located a soft faded dusty rose fabric in a tiny print that looked like it would blend well with both the front and back of the quilt.

So, sporting some quilty band-aids and new binding, this one is ready to make the trip back to my daughter's place next week and will hopefully last a few more years.

Our spell of heat and humidity has finally broken, 44 degrees this morning when I turned on the coffee pot.  The garden is beginning to look like it is ready for fall to arrive.  I think we are too.

Finish!

Campfire Memories is officially finished, right down to the label added just before supper last night!

This was such a fun quilt to put together, so much scrappy goodness here, bringing back memories of nearly every quilt I've made over the past twenty or so years, blog giveaway winnings, yard-sale finds, plus other bits of fabric that found their way into the stash totes along the way.

Tried a few shots outside but the colors were a bit way too washed out in the late evening light and beyond my photoshop skills to bring back.  I'd planned to try again this morning but it's a chilly 48 degrees with heavy dew on the fields so we're going with my indoor shots from last evening.

A close-up of the quilting, all stitched on the Janome Horizon using the even-feed foot. Seemed to take forever with all the starts/stops in every corner to change direction, but I do love the star-effect in the sashings.  Each of the 4 inch string blocks was quilted in the ditch along the outer edge of the blocks, then the X patterns were quilted in each of the sashings and corner blocks.  The quilting may be a bit more visible in this next photo of the back.

Just enough quilting to hold the layers together but not lose that soft cuddly feeling when wrapping up in this one, which I plan to do - a lot - there's another New York winter coming in a few months after all!

I had originally planned on using Hobbs Polydown batting for this quilt, but grandson #2 was here while I was putting the top together, and asked me who the quilt was for.  When I told him it was staying at our house (for now) and it was called Campfire Memories, he immediately responded "so when we have campfires down by the creek in the summer I can take it out and stay warm with it." Umm, not if you want to live a long and happy life buddy!  Well.  That put an end to the thought of poly batting for this one.  Just in case someone does sneak it out of the house and next to a campfire, we went with Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting.  Just seemed like it would be a tiny bit safer.  Just in case.

The stats:  From a pattern in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine (July/August 2013) in which Marianne Fons based her quilt on an antique quilt she had seen; finished size 86x63 inches; string blocks pieced on Casey Jones, my go-to, all-time favorite piecing machine, a vintage 1950s black Singer 301a; machine quilted on the Janome Horizon; Aurifil 50 wt. thread used throughout; Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting.

Today I'll need to knuckle-down and weed the veggie garden (again) and probably mow the lawn (sigh) though I'd really rather be prepping appliques for some evening sewing.  Maybe tomorrow ...

New Beginnings and Closing In on a Finish

Cutting up fabrics into little triangles and squares makes me happy! This has been a great week! We've had a few rainy days lately, so after finally completing the machine quilting on Campfire Memories last weekend, the work/cutting/quilting table was pulled out of its corner behind the Janome and into the middle of the room, and the fabric totes came out of the closet.  Several hours of cutting later, this lovely batch of triangles, squares and rectangles are now (sort of) neatly stacked in their respective containers awaiting their turn under the machine

to become more of these:

Yes, I'm finally starting the basket quilt I'd planned as a NewFO project a couple years ago, but that had been on my quilt basket bucket list for more years than I can remember.  There are enough pieces cut to make more than one scrappy quilt, so I'll stitch up blocks until I run out of background and/or basket pieces, then start playing with putting them together.

The first quilt will be at least loosely based on this quilt from the Fons and Porter Fat Quarter Friendly book published in 2000.  Theirs is called French Country Strippy, and I loved the quilt since I first laid eyes on it.

I plan to change it up somewhat, possibly adding another strip of baskets to make it better fit our queen size bed, but will decide on that option after I have enough strips sewn together to lay out on the bed.  The basket blocks will be scrappier than the pattern, using a greater variety of fabrics from my stash rather than the yardage I had picked up a few years ago, that now looks way too bland with too little variation in value for what I had in mind for this quilt.   It feels so good to be working on a new project again!

On the slow-stitching side, I'm closing in on finishing up Campfire Memories, hand stitching the binding down on the final side, then just a few stray quilting threads to tie off and bury.  Hopefully the finish will coincide with a non-rainy day so I can get some photos to post later this week.  Still plugging along with the hand quilting on the Blockade quilt, trying to put in at least a few stitches every day.  Looking forward to getting down to the borders on this one, where I think the quilting will progress a bit more quickly.

We're heading out to the city later this morning to one of the daughter's where we'll celebrate Father's Day with some of the kids and grandkids.  Wishing you all a wonderful family-fun-filled weekend!