a fleece afghan

Sis decided she wanted to send me home with all the pieces of fabric she had laying around.  No good deed goes unpunished. 😇  What am I going to do with a big bag of fabric?  The cotton pieces got folded up and put in a dresser I store some of the fabric in.  I decided to make an afghan with the fleece and I will be taking it back with me to Wichita.  She needs another blankie! 😉

So I squared the pieces up, split the brown nubby looking piece in two (Yup, that dark brown piece in the back is the other half to the lighter brown piece.)  Then I built a back out of one of the big piece of cotton.  As I sewed the pieces of fleece together I attached them to the backing at the same time.  I cut the backing an extra two inches per side to bring the backing around for the binding.  I had helped my mother to do this with comforts she made out of oddball feed-sack quilt tops she had.  The squaring up the fabric is something my grandmother did to make, quick, wool comfort tops when my aunt and uncle moved into an unheated house with 5 little kids in the late fall.

As you can see I just folded the raw edges under and zigzag the edge closed.  The whole thing only took 4 or 5 hours to do, once I had figured out how I wanted to construct it.

What my sister was thinking when she bought this fabric I don't know, but she gets it back on the back of an afghan. 😉  I didn't think to put a label on this one.  It is done, so it is time to get back to the scrap project I'm working on.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Judy

10-minute quilt block quilt...finished

I posted about this quilting project back in November of 2012.  I finally finished it.  This is one of the projects I found and took with me to Sis's.  The top was complete and I had made a backing for it.  So I pinned a batting in it and put it in the bottom of my suitcase.

It is interesting to note that it is the post with the most hits on my blog.  Everyone is looking for fast to make quilt blocks. This block is Not fast or easy.  It is fiddly to make as an eight-inch sized block, to put it politely.  That post is here.

I do think it would make a great bow-tie block with the raised center square.  I also like how after washing, the edges of the center squares are wavy with the way I quilted them.

The quilting is my typical stitch-in-the-ditch, a diagonal through the center of the blocks while I pondered what to do with the center squares.  I didn't want the centers to loose the raised effect but I had to do some sort of quilting because the section was to big to leave unquilted.  Thus, quilting a presser-foot's width from the edge hoping to maintain the raised look for the center of the block.  I think I accomplished that.  I used a diamond for the outside borders.

The back is twelve-inch squares so the quilt is somewhat reversible.  I like the square-in-a-square look in the quilting on the back.

Well, the label is on and it is time to put this quilt to rest and move on to the next project.  I hope everyone is having a lovely day.

Judy

a baby quilt

While I was suppose to be working on another quilt for a wedding in October, Sister Suzy came home from practicum and said they were going to have a baby shower for one of the guys at the end of May.  A distraction! Yes!  So I went out on the web, looked around, did some thinking on subject and this quilt from Missouri Star Quilt Company looked like a good bet.  They called it the Simple Squares Quilt.

I thought the quilt would look perfect in a rainbow of colors.   The quilt measures 42" by 54" after washing.  I used a low-loft batting.  That's all that Micheal's carries here in Phoenix.  I need to check out some of the quilt shops, Jo-Ann's and Hobby Lobby to see if any one carries medium or high loft battings since I like them better.

The big block is 5-inch squares.  The little block is 2 1/2-inch squares and the white sashing strips are 2 1/2 by 5-inches.  Borders were 3-inches wide.

I used stitch-in-the-ditch for the quilting.  I had trouble figuring out what to use in the border.  I wanted diamonds or triangles but couldn't get the math to work.  Then I had the bright idea to use a rectangle and connect them.

I took the leftover fabric from cutting the 5-inch strips, cut them 2 1/2" wide and sewed them in a rainbow for the binding.  The next time I do a rainbow binding I will pick off the cut edges so that it will be easier to match up sewing the strips of bias together.  I had some places where the color changes didn't match up neatly.

I used the last of the blue seersucker for the backing.

Sister Suzy will be adding a book to go with it.  Will be fun to see what she chooses.  I am betting Tuesday by David Wiesner or The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, both favorites from her childhood.

Well the label is on, so it is time to wrap this up and to wish that all of you have a great day.

Judy

sis's chemo hats, last part

Sis's chemo hats, last part...for now, anyway. 😉  I found Luuk by Annis Jones while looking for hat patterns for Tiffany's girls.

I made it with small balls of yarn I found in Sis's tub of yarn.  I think it's all worsted-weight Red Heart Super Saver done on US 6 needles, 5 stitches per inch using magic loop on 40-inch cables.  I cast on 96 for a 19-inch hat.  This hat couldn't be simpler to put together, knit three rows; purl three rows.

Looks like and old-fashion soft serve ice cream cone!  There is sizing from preemie (13) to large adult (24).

Sis says it actually stayed put on her head and didn't try to work its way up.  So I may have finally found a pattern for our bowling ball heads that works!

The last hat I knit was another one I found while looking for Tiffany's girls.  I thought it was pretty and feminine.

LuAnn Chemo Hat by Beverly Forester was knitted with the leftover blue DK yarn I got for the Feather-n-Fan afghan.  Lion Brand's Baby Soft called Bluebell.  I cast on 120 stitches that were suggested in the notes and did the full 7 repeats to get it long enough (5 1/2 inches) before starting the decrease for the crown, using a US#5 and used 1x1 ribbing instead of the suggested ribbing.  I also did not knit through the back loop where it was suggested.

I still think I got a nice lace pattern even though the rib is not as bold.

Edit:  I forgot to mention these two patterns came from Ravelry.

Believe it or not I have been sewing since I got back to Phoenix.  I have started three quilts and have finished one.  That's on top of the three quilts tops I have finished, one partially quilted and two more kits for quilts I found in Mother's stash.

HA!  And knitters think they have start-itis!  Most quilters could teach a thing or two about start-itis to knitters because most quilters have multi-generational quilt projects lying about.

I hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy

scrappy eclectic butterfly quilt

Finally!  This quilt has sat in the laundry for two weeks, finished, waiting on me to wash it so I could take pictures.  Plus, all the time it sat on the sewing machine or the ironing board waiting on me to figure out what I wanted to do next and would what I wanted to do work.

Scrappy eclectic butterfly quilt – Which is what I'm calling it.  There was a rummage through the scraps plus some of those pre-printed blocks.  Sister Suzy called it eclectic.  I think she was trying to be diplomatic.  It doesn't have a lot of wow factor for me, too random.

I spent a lot of time just figuring out how I wanted the pre-printed blocks placed. This is what I decided would be the best bet.  Then I spied the block I had put together from the scraps from the floating hexagon quilt.   I removed the hexagons and it fit perfectly.  While I was digging in a drawer of fabric I came across a piece of gingham that someone had embroidered seven butterflies on. (Where Mom got the fabric, I don't know.)

I squared them up and used the three smaller ones in the body of the quilt and the four larger ones as cornerstones in the border.  I quilted each section/block separately and used Marguerita's Quilt As You Go Method to set it together.  I bound the quilt in the same fabric I used to set the quilted blocks together with, hoping it would help tie everything together, add some continuity to the quilt and tone down the randomness of it all.  The borders are a total of 6-inches wide, the pre-printed blocks are 17-an-a-half-inches square and the scrappy blocks are 13 1/2" x 17 1/2".

The finished size is 48" x 72".  The backing was what ever scrap backing Mother had leftover.

The little heart was to take care of a spot where I didn't catch the backing into the seam allowance. And I didn't want to go to the heartburn of picking everything out to fix it.  So I fused a heart on it!

Well the label is on.

So it is time for me to get the next one finished and to wish that all of you have a good day.
 
Judy

pop, my take

I was cruising the web a while ago and was on Fons and Porter's You-Tube site, Quilting Quickly. I saw a quilt they called Pop and immediately thought; this would be a good scrap quilt.

The blocks are 8-inches square, finished.  Four 4 1/2" by 2 1/2" scrap strips and two 8 1/2" by 2 1/2" background (white) strips.  I used black for the two borders.  To make the inside border that is black and white you need some 8 1/2" strips of white and black; the corners will need four 10 1/2" strips of black.

The two borders make the center look like it is floating.  I used about 2/3 yards of black, 1 2/3 yards of white, 1 1/3 yards of assorted prints, 1/2 yard of binding fabric and 2 1/2 yards of backing fabric. 

I used stitch-in-the-ditch for the body of the quilt and a back-n-forth-boxy look for the border. You know I just realized this makes the third quilt; I have used a boxy look for the fill-in quilting.  I must be channeling some Cubist or something!  I used the blue seersucker again for the backing.  I had some trouble with puckers on the back this time. I had to do some picking and re-smooth the fabric to get it to lay flat. Blah!

I made my standard 48" by 72" quilt.  I dug around in the binding drawer and found an off-white from Mother's stash that was just the right length.  I had twelve inches of excess leftover.  Yeah!

I had trouble with the bobbin thread breaking.  I think I replaced that one corner three or four times!  I quit when it looked this good even though I should of picked it out, again, and tried to hit the previous stitching better.  Maybe, next time!

Well the label is on.  I hope everybody is having a great day!

Judy

hearts and baskets quilt

This quilt is one out of my 'I'm so frustrated, I don't know what to do with it' tub.  I was rooting around through the tubs-n-dressers of fabric, looking for an idea for a wedding quilt and found a bunch of pre-printed blocks.  I found large ones, small one and some borders.  I sorted out the large ones and started to quilt them up as individual blocks all the while ruminating about what to do with the smaller blocks.  As I was quilting the larger blocks in this quilt, I had an epiphany.

The basket border strips had the same colors as the basket blocks.  Plus, the hearts-n-Dresden plate block had the same background and colors as the basket blocks.  And, what do you know, the grays in the house block match the other three.  Look at that, the colors in those little heart blocks match everything.  If I put them all together, they would make a nice looking little quilt.

So, I started measuring the layout and setting little blocks together, sewing chunks there and strips here, adding them to the already quilted blocks.  All the time trying to figure out how I was going to add the center strip.  I quilted the strips on the right side.  I didn't like how I quilted them, couldn't think of good, easy way to add the center strip if I quilted the left side.  So I threw the whole thing in the tub and walked away to let it simmer a while.  Like over a year-n-a-half!

Well, I got real tired of looking at that tub of unfinished projects setting on that dresser so I pulled out the easiest one (the half-hexie one) and finished it.  This quilt was the next one.

What to do, what to do?  The most prudent thing to do was get the seam ripper out and start picking. Sigh!  I picked the quilting out of the Dresden block did some fancy pinning-n-sewing and got the rest of top and backing added on.  I tried a new idea for quilting the strips of baskets and hearts on the left side.  I liked it so well; I cheerfully picked all the quilting for the strips of baskets and hearts on the right side, out and re-quilted them.

I went through Mother's stash of leftover bindings and found a couple of pieces I though would work for this quilt.  In hindsight, I think the pink gingham looks the best on this quilt.  The little floral print would have looked better if I had added a border of some sort, because there is not enough contrast between the background fabric and the floral binding.  Based on the measurement of this quilt (43"x68") that was probably the original game plan, because I like these little quilts to be 48"x72".

I finished using up all my scrap pieces of batting in this quilt so the next quilt will be with one big piece of batting. Yeah!

Well the label is on.

I hope each of you is having a good day!

Judy

floating half-hexagon quilt, my take

Remember this quilt top?

I finally finished it!  This idea for a quilt came from the Missouri Star Quilt You-Tube Channel.  I'm always looking for ideas to use my closet/dressers full of fabric.

The finished block measures 5.75” x 4", sashing strips are 1.5" and cornerstones are 1.5 square.  The quilt is my usual 48" x 72" afghan/lap quilt/toddler bed quilt. I made 72 blocks, 8 across, and 9 down.  I could have made the quilt 10 down but I decided I wanted more border.  So, I eliminated one row, split the top and bottom borders with a half-inch wide strip of color in the middle.

I didn't have a half-hexagon ruler to cut the hexi block pieces with.  I dug through some quilting templates from Mother's stash, marked one with some tape and used it.

I didn't use 5" charm packs but scrapes from another projects.  It takes two, 2 1/2" x 9" strips to make a block. After you cut the background fabric into half-hexies; then cut the half-hexies in half (quarter-hexies?).  Sew the background pieces to the colored prints and then sew the two halves together.

I choose to stitch in the ditch and then triangles in the centers of the hexagons. The extra quilting was two-fold.  I thought it would look good and I used scrap batting.  When you use scraps of batting you, want the quilting closer together so the edges don't shift as you wash it.  I used straight line quilting about 3/4" apart for the borders.

One of the reasons this quilt took so long to finish was because I couldn't decide what I wanted to use for the backing.  I dug around in the fabric stable (It's too big to be a stash!) and found a huge piece of blue seersucker I forgot I had.  After washing the quilt, this seersucker is as soft as flannel against your skin.  I am going to keep that in mind when doing baby quilts.

I used what I had of that shade of yellow for the binding and had just barely enough.  Yeah!

Well the label is on, so it is time to hit the publish button!

I hope everyone is having a good day.

Judy

decisions...decisions

Decisions...decisions...I can't decide whether to use this in the backing or save it for another project.

These are all the scraps left over from making this quilt top.

The block I built with the scraps left over from the quilt top is 24" by 18".  I can't decide if I want to use the rest of the flocked material to built  the block out to 72" by 48" or use some other fabric to get it to the right size.  But, what fabric or fabrics would I use?  Would it look okay scrappy or do I want the fabric to blend in somehow with the block?  Nor do I want the backing to show through to the front.  So would the scrappy block be real obvious from the front if I used it?

I think I'm going to set the whole project aside and let it ferment until I get a bright idea.  I.e. when my Muse comes back for a visit and whispers an idea in my ear.

Think I will get busy on my sister's sweater I'm knitting for her.  I actually have the body knitted and I'm trying to pick up the right number of stitches for the sleeves.

I hope everybody is having a good day!


Judy

belle's wedding quilt

I finished Belle's quilt right before Sister Suzy and I left for a trip back to Kansas after she finished her first quarter of school.  I started this quilt over a year ago.  It spent several months setting after I started it because I just didn't feel like finishing it.  It was one of three; I started and lost interest in over the last year.

This is a tossed nine-patch, believe-it-or-not.  When I saw it out on the web in this size I was surprised at how different it looked from the one I had seen on a quiltinaday you-tube video and made for Sister Suzy one Christmas.

I just realized I made one for both Belle and Sister Suzy!  Kewl! The connection between Belle and Sister Suzy is they have been friends since third grade.  Sister Suzy was the Maid of Honor for Belle in October when Sister Suzy flew back to Kansas for the wedding.

Side Note: Flying in and out of Mesa to Wichita is a lot easier than Sky Harbor to KCI or Ok City.  Mesa and Wichita are smaller airports with only one building and you can get direct flights at a reasonable price.  Then getting from KC, MO or OK City to Wichita is an additional hassle.

I used the Crazy Short-cut Quilt-as-you-go Method to set the quilt together with.

I know I keep talking about this method of setting a quilt together.  But...man...it beats the hell out of wresting a king-size quilt's worth of materials in a home sewing machine!  And you end up with a nice looking quilt.

I spent a lot of time thinking, as I quilt and set it together, on what kind of border I was going to use.  The plans for this quilt is on my computer with the dead motherboard and I couldn't for-the-life-of-me remember what I had decided for a border.  So, this is what I decided on.

Belle was using fall colors for her wedding and I just happen to have some fabric that fit the bill.  Yeah, for a closet of fabric!  I decided to offset the borders instead of using cornerstones or the standard horizontal set of the border.  I think it gave the quilt the right pizzazz.  I chose a solid green for the binding and outside frame.

On the back, I used solids for the backing, setting the blocks with gingham.  Yeah, more gingham out of the stash!

I really like how the back turned out.  As you can see, I played around with different ways to quilt each block.  I was trying to hold boredom at bay.  It helped.

The quilt ended up being 96-inches square, with each block being 14-inches square.  I did not make a nine patch and then cut it.  I just built each block using a 10-inch square, 2 - 10x5 rectangles and a 5-inch square.  Most of the fabric was previous cut strips leftover from other projects.

Well the label is on.

So it it time for me to wish all of you a good day!

Judy

quilts Mother and I collaborated on

I found some pictures of quilts Mother and I collaborated on and I am playing with Hubby's computer to see if I can up-load them.  Guess what, I think it is going to work!

This is the last embroidered quilt Mom and I made together.  This quilt is for a friend of my younger sister.  Tricia and my sister went to high school together.  Mom and Dad kind of finished raising her, the hugs and encouragement when she needed it and the lecture/boot when she need that too.  If Mom called, as she became frailer Tricia was right there to help Mom when we couldn't get to her.  As a token of Mother's appreciation for Tricia's time and trouble, Mom wanted to make her a quilt.  My sister helped with color selection for the embroidery floss and borders.  I suggested the flying geese sashing to tie all the different blocks and colors together.  The great part was having Tricia help to pick out the fabrics because Tricia didn't know the quilt was for her.  She was just having fun playing with fabric!

As I was researching how to make flying geese, I discovered the symbolism of the background as being the sky.  I had originally planned to make the background scrappy too.  So my 'ah moment' was to turn the background into blue and make all the corner squares green for fields.  I thought it pulled the quilt together quite nicely so did everyone else.  The original idea for the border didn't work once I had the main body done.  So a trip to the quilt shop with it laid out on the floor in the classroom auditioning fabric culminated with me calling my sister and asking her to come help.  Boy, does it ever help to have someone who has had some art/color training!  She didn't have any trouble pulling the hand-dyed fabric for the outside border off the shelf.  I looked at it, but it was expensive...and I was spending Mom's money.  The inside border took a little more trial and error to get the right shade of green for it.  Tricia was so overwhelmed she cried when Mom gave it to her.

Mom's being silly in this one!  She likes having her picture taken about as well as I do!

This quilt was for my sister.  The embroidered blocks are lilacs and dragonflies.  I decided it needed to be set together with some kind of lattice sashing.  There are two colors of green.  The blue patches are the same fabric as the border believe it or not and the on-point cornerstones are a deep purple.  I had to hand-sew the points to the border to get them to come out right.  There were 50 billion little pieces to this sashing.  I was surprised I didn't have more problems setting it together.

This one went to my older brother and his wife.  The embroidered blocks are Jack Dempsey rose blocks.  As my sister and I were trying to find fabric to set this quilt together with, one of the ladies who worked at the quilt shop said, if it were her, she would eliminate some of the excess white around the edges.  The light bulb went off for us and we changed up the layout.  Then, as I am wont-to-do, I changed it even further after I got home and started playing around with the idea.  I ripped and resewed several spots because I was having trouble getting it to lay smooth with no puckers.  There were a few spots I ended up hand sewing to get it right.

Yeah, a blog post from some pictures I found while cleaning out and rearranging closets!  And yes, I'm avoiding the mess, why do you ask? LOL

I hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy

just checking in

Just checking in, been having all kinds of computer problems.  Took my tower into Best Buy and they tell me my motherboard is dying although the funky sound is coming from the hard drive.  I got on Hubby's computer and sent an e-mail to his brother-in-law because I decided they were full of it.  However, I will have to stop calling them names after he e-mailed back and said it is a good possibility that something on the motherboard isn't working right and not feeding the correct power to the hard-drive.

So, I've got to dig through all of Hubby's computer stuff and see if there is a spare motherboard lying around.  Find all the disks for the software and if I have the right ones.  I'm also looking at just moving my hard-drive to his computer.  Then running both hard-drives from his, but I will need all the software before I start and his computer needs to be upgraded to Windows 7 cause his still has XP on it.  Also, he has some sort of exotic motherboard that is specifically for re-mastering music and videos and the standard stuff isn't always compatible.  Ah, for the days of our old KLH 286 with plug-n-play.

Don't have much to report on the quilting front.  I have two quilts started and with the blocks about half quilted.  I have lost interest in both.  Come to think of it, I have three quilts started and laying around. Sigh!

I haven't started cleaning out the second bedroom.  I need to get a move on it as I am heading to Kansas the middle of June to load Sister Suzy up to bring her out here with as much stuff as possible.  I would love to rent a truck and empty the storage room and my sister's garage but I may not have the funds to do it. Another sigh!

On another front, I'm beginning to think I may be allergic to corn. (Sister and oldest daughter are/were allergic to corn.)  I've been watching my caloric intake in an effort to take some strain off my knees.  I had a bowl of popcorn about a week ago and overnight gained five pounds.  (I gain 2 to 5 pounds if I have any dairy.)  It has taken me a week to get most of that weight back off.  If that (being allergic to corn) is true, I will probably need to drop peas and soy from my diet as they are/were both allergic to those items, also.  Double sigh!

Well enough grousing!  There are lots of good things going on, too.  Even if it's nothing more than John Bradford's, "there, but for the grace of God, goes I."

Y'all have a good day!

Judy

another pretty - shamrock

I made me another pretty to hang on my wall.

Since it is March, why not something to do with St. Paddy's Day?  I looked at leprechauns, rainbows, pots of gold, shamrocks and all sorts of thing to appliqué.  As beautiful as some appliqué is, I don't have the patience nor do I like it when my hands go numb from gripping a small object such as a needle for long periods of time.  So I when I discovered a pieced shamrock over at Quilting Works.com I went for it.

This is what I came up with in EQ6:

Once again, EQ6 did not have this block in their Block Library, so I went to the Easy Draw section and drew the block.  I then imported the block into my lay-out.  The block is a 12-inch block set on point.  I played with the inside border to get just a section on the bottom.  The outside border is the binding.

Need to cut:
(12) 3.5-inch blocks for the patchwork of the leaves of the shamrock.
  (9) 2 3/8-inch blocks of background for the shaping of the shamrock leaves.
 (1) 6.5-inc block of background for the quadrant the stem is in.  This is where I variated from the pattern and instruction, and used a 10-inch piece of bias binding cut down to 1.5".  Pressed the sides under a 1/4" and machine appliquéd it across the diagonal of the 6.5" block.
 (1) 6 7/8-inch block cut on the diagonal for the 2 lower triangles around the shamrock of background material.
 (1) 9 7/8-inch block cut on the diagonal for the 2 upper triangles around the shamrock of back ground material.
 (2) 6.5 x 7.5inch blocks for either side of the flowerpot on background material.
 (1) 9.5 x 7.5-inch block for the flower pot.  The flowerpot was another variation from the pattern and instructions.

I had to square up the block after I added the four side triangles and before I added the flowerpot bottom.  I trimmed off about 3-inches of the stem part of the block.

I was having trouble pinning the trimmed flowerpot to the two pieces of background until I had an Aha! moment.

Take the piece you cut off the pot and lay it on the background to get the right angle for pinning.

Sew it down and press.

Repeat with the other side and trim the seam allowance to a 1/4-inch.  Attach to the bottom of your block.  I echo quilted the background and stitched in the ditch around all the colored parts of the quilt with an echoed flowerpot in the center of the pot fabric.

When I got ready to make binding, I decided I didn't want the original green binding but something different.  Why not a gold binding to represent the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?  I found a goldish-yellow print in the stash.  I think it was just what this pretty need.

The label is on

So now I need to get busy with a wedding gift for Hubby's nephew that is getting married this June.  I have a couple of ideas, so we will see where they lead me.

I hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy