Singing the Blues on Mardi Gras

 One of my favorite songs over the years has been Sing the Blues Mama Lou as sung by Rita Coolidge here.  

So when gathering up my blue scraps it seemed entirely appropriate that the resulting quilt should be named for this old favorite, newly finished as of last night!

Sing the Blues was the first to be started of the three quilts I've made for Lori's (Humble Quilts) Stringalong Challenge in 2019, but is the last to be finished.  All were hand quilted.  The other two were Joseph's Coat and Joseph's Coat II, both finished in 2020.

After my last post showing some of the hand quilting a couple commenters asked about the quilting design in the white areas.  The entire time I was quilting the blue string areas I'd planned to make some sort of fern-like template for the white parts, but in the end decided on this simple design, made with these two now-well-worn pieces of cardboard.

Thinking these might go into the cardboard template tin for possible future use in the event I ever decide to make another string quilt using Marit's Spiderweb tutorial.  

I'm really loving this quilt!  Many many hours stitching all the string blocks, and many more hours after the decision to hand quilt it.  And every time I look at the wide variety of scraps I'm reminded of the many quilters who contributed scraps over the years that ended up stitched together with love, including blogging friends Janet of Rogue Quilter, Lizzy at Gone to the Beach, Cynthia at Wabi-Sabi Quilts, quilting friends from our ministry group, and I'm sure there are others I've forgotten at the moment.

And this being Mardi Gras it seems perfect that Angie at Quilting on the Crescent contributed that wonderful electric blue binding fabric!  My thanks to all of you!

Backing fabric is a 2019 print from Connecting Threads.  Quilted with Aurifil 12 wt. in three shades of grayish-blue, silver, and a deeper blue in the string areas.

A few close-ups follow.  Our weather is just too awful to attempt an outdoor photo shoot.  I'd hoped for a bright blue sky on fresh-fallen snow to showcase the quilt.  Well, we have the falling snow but no bright blue skies and temperatures are falling fast.  

Moving Sing the Blues toward the finish line was my One Monthly Goal for February so I'll be linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts when her OMG progress post goes live toward the end of the month.

Some days we go out to the mailbox expecting bills or tax notices, but find unexpected treasures in the mailbox.  Last month one afternoon this arrived, a beautiful gift from a special friend, Debbie at Stitchin' Therapy, that now hangs in my bedroom.  

And a couple weeks later this rustic beauty, a suncatcher from Lizzy at Gone to the Beach, now patiently awaiting better weather so it can hang on my back porch catching the early morning light through the kitchen window on summer days.

Thank you both so much for brightening our home on these bleak midwinter days!

And now I'd best be posting this while it's still Mardi Gras and before the falling snow completely covers the satellite dish and obliterates our internet for the rest of the evening!

Til next time, happy stitching!

P.S.  Today (Wednesday) dawned bright and clear and -8 degrees.  But the sunny skies persisted and when the temps moderated a bit Gibbs and I headed out to attempt some snow pictures.  Yay! The snow was too deep and treacherous to risk standing on a stool to hang the quilt on the dog run, so some railing shots had to suffice.

Hoping the sun is shining in your neck of the woods!

One Monthly Goal for February

 February already (or at last - depending on how much snow is falling) and time to set a One Monthly Goal for the month.  

I've been hand quilting Sing the Blues Mama Lou for several months and as of today the four-inch borders need to be marked and quilted and binding added for a finish.  Here's what it looked like when I took a photo last week:

My hope is to completely finish this quilt in February, but knowing how slowly I hand quilt, my One Monthly Goal will be to finish quilting at least two sides of the outer border.  Anything more will be icing on the cake!

Linking with Patty at Elm Street Quilts where you can visit to see many other projects in progress and set your own goal for this month. Thanks Patty for hosting this goal setting party each month.

OMG Complete - Diamond Jubilee Quilt Backgrounds

Very happy to report that the backgrounds for all my sunflower blocks are stitched down!  They still need a final trim before making the flying geese sashings, but that will have to wait for February.  Here is what they look like now, all together on the design wall (and taped to the adjacent wall).

After trying a number of layouts, I think this may be the final location for the blocks relative to each other.  There are a couple of outliers that I dithered about whether to remove the first backgrounds and substitute something else, but in the end decided that would be way more work than it's worth, especially since the blocks will be separated by sashings.  I'm hoping to make the entire quilt from stash and my scrap tubs and trying to achieve an overall scrappy look similar to the featured quilt in 19th Century Patchwork Divas' Treasury of Quilts, shown below.

A quick look at the individual blocks while they were still up on the design wall and away from the kitty's ever-exploring paws.  Had to hold the camera at an angle and attempt to get them more or less level.  As you will no doubt see, several of the backgrounds required piecing in order to cut a 14-1/2 inch square.

There are several pieces of this near vintage (1980s?) Joan Kessler print (Concord Fabrics) in the stash.  Considering using this for the setting triangles, though will likely root through the stash more before making a final decision.  

This completes my One Monthly Goal for January, and I'll link this post when Patty at Elm Street Quilts posts her January month-end OMG linkup.

Looking forward to working on a few other things for the remainder of the month.  Maybe even beginning the machine quilting on one of the five tops awaiting their turn!

Til next time, happy quilting!

The Final Four, and More

 Here we are at the beginning of Thanksgiving Week in this strangely disjointed world in which we find ourselves.  I hope you all are remaining well and have adopted the best motto I've found for our current situation - Faith Over Fear!  

I'm happy to report that yesterday I completed the final four sunflower blocks for my Diamond Jubilee Quilt, and that completes my One Monthly Goal for November.  I'm linking this post with Patty at Elm Street Quilts here.  So, here are the last sunflowers, definitely not perfect but best effort.  I'm counting on a nice lofty wool batting to fill out any little wobblies and wrinkles when this is finally quilted.  Optimist that I am ...

And here are all 13 sunflowers on the design wall, sorry about the darkness of the photo, our days have been mostly cloudy/rainy lately.

The next step will be finding background fabrics for each block and making a final decision on what method to use to applique these sunflowers to their respective backgrounds.  That will come in January since there's a lot of holiday stitching and other preparations to attend to first.  

And, speaking of holiday stitching, a couple years ago I inherited a UFO from a quilty friend.  She had begun making the blocks for a quilt called Holly and Mistletoe, found in Barb Adams & Alma Allen's book When the Cold Wind Blows.  My friend is usually a fearless applique enthusiast, but after making a stack of the square-in-square blocks and seeing the hundreds of holly leaves and berries needing hand applique that remained to be done, she decided to abandon the project.  Here's the original quilt, photographed from my copy of the book:

While I love this gorgeous quilt, and who wouldn't, I've found my eyesight difficulties make a large-scale hand applique project out of the question.  So the KISS principle was applied and the blocks were stitched into columns separated by plain strippy sashings and this throw quilt eventually began to emerge.

And here is the completed flimsy, throw quilt size at 56x67 inches.  I had originally planned to add borders to bring it to a larger size, but the quilt said no way - and nothing I tried looked good. The quilt had spoken, and who am I to argue, so after machine quilting this will just receive a green binding and done, hopefully before Christmas.

Various little holiday gift projects are ongoing, as well as my evening hand quilting of Sing the Blues MamaLou.  No current photo, but this one is progressing nicely and I've reached block 19 of 30. I'd love to have this one in the finished column by the end of the year, but January or February is far more likely. And my now oldest WIP, Quilty 365 lingers in the floor hoop, but it is DEFINITELY next on my list of hand quilted projects to be finished.  

Well, supper preparation beckons and I'll close by wishing you all a happy, healthy Thanksgiving celebration!  

One Monthly Goal for November

 

It's time once again to link up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts for our November Goal Setting.  

This post will be short and sweet.  November is a short month, made even more so with the Thanksgiving holiday and the first of non-stop family birthdays that will continue through the end of February.

So, my goal is to finish creating the final four Sunflower blocks that will make up the center of my Diamond Jubilee Quilt.  Here's a sneak peek.

I just noticed the blue flying geese in Patty's November OMG logo - guess what comes next in this extravaganza??

To see what others are hoping to achieve this month, go to the link above or here.

Til next time, happy quilting from snowy WNY where we anticipate 70 degree weather again in about one week's time!  

One Monthly Goal and a Finish!

This week I completed my One Monthly Goal for October which was to finish 4 more sunflower blocks for my Diamond Jubilee Quilt.  This brings my total to nine blocks!  Here are the newest four:

I'll link this post with Patty at Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal Finish link-up, where you can see what many other quilters have accomplished during October.  Thanks Patty for continuing to host this fun goal-setting activity each month!

This afternoon I finished binding my Joseph's Coat quilt and can now put that one in the finished column - yay!  The dog and I braved the cold almost-November gray, dank and windy afternoon in an effort to get some finished photos, with only minimal luck.  

The outer borders could have been improved upon if only there had been more of that wonderful batik that I'd also used in the alternate vertical strips.  There wasn't, and the black batik inserts at top and bottom were necessary to stretch what little was left.  It doesn't look as goofy in person as it does in the photos, thankfully!

I chose this cheery almost tropical print from Connecting Threads for the back.  I love the way the colors of the hand quilting add to the fun of this back.  I used Aurifil 12 wt. thread in about 15 different colors to quilt this, mostly freehand organic lines except for the bright yellow alternate strips where I used a stencil.  

A closer look at the front.  These batiks really mimic the gorgeous fall colors we saw a few short weeks ago.  As of now a few hillsides still have their late autumn russets and golden brown leaves, all the brighter maples of early fall are now bare except for a few Norway maples in more protected locations.

Helping - not!  When I brought out Joseph's Coat II that was completed earlier this summer the winds had really picked up.  Trying for one good shot of them together.

Finally!

For the time being both of these quilts will live here, for the grandkids to use for sleepovers, though I'm thinking this new one will have a place of honor on the back of my recliner until it's time to pull out the Christmas quilt.  Snow in the western states this weekend, hopefully will stay far far away from us for at least a few more weeks!  Til next time, happy quilting!

p.s.  I'm going to try Barbara's trick at Cat Patches and leave the first comment, and check off the box to send all followup comments to my email, since Blogger seems to have forgotten how to do it.  If I've missed replying to anyone's comments recently, my apologies!