OMG Success!

Here's what I said at the beginning of the month:

So a long story to get to my June OMG: 

I will have the center pieces cut out and all the units made for the blocks.  

BINGO! 

All the blocks are finished. 

They don't look like all that many, do they?  

I slapped some up on my design wall because I wanted to decide on the setting blocks for them.  I wasn't thrilled with the look from the book.  So I decided to audition fabrics from my stash. 

The red is red on red polka dots. Beneath it is black.  Hum, what do you think? 

The top one is the background fabric.  Next is a dark mottled blue.  Which do you like better?  Dum, dum, dum du, dum, dum, dum, du.... a little musical interlude while you decide.  It took me about 2 seconds...

I liked using the background fabric.  Except ... I made several cutting mistakes as I was working and even though I had lots more fabric, I didn't have enough to cut all of the triangles.  Sigh.  I spent a morning looking at all my favorite and unknown online fabric sources with no luck.  I finally checked on Etsy and found several different sources.  I'm not much of an Etsy shopper so I was surprised I happened to pick a shop two states away.  The fabric arrived 3 days later so I am ready to work on this again. Of course, I don't have the time right now but soon. I want to have the whole quilt finished by the next guild meeting on 7/14.  Hey, two weeks.  I should be able to get that done!

So OMG is done for June. I'll be figuring out my July goal soon. 

I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Elm Creek Quilts One Monthly Goal Finish Link Up.

I'll leave you with a car "decoration" from a fellow guild member.  I like it! And, sorry for the photographer's reflection.  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 6 - 25 - 2018

Today I'm sharing an antique quilt I've been working on for a customer.  Thank you Marlene for allowing me to share this one and to work on it. 

This was made by Laura Catherine Boozer Walke who lived from 1857 to 1946 in Marengo County Alabama. She is Marlene's great grandmother. It is beautifully hand pieced.  Surprisingly enough it doesn't have a lot of holes or tears.  I only saw one little hole.  It has seen a lot of staining and spotting.  It's been soaked twice and many of the really bad spots have come out.  I'm going to recommend that once it is finished she soak it again. 

Most of the fabric is from the 30's.  I've worked with these types of fabrics both original and reproductions.  Darn, I still like them.  (Said the gal with a shoebox full of 30's reproduction fabrics from the 1990s. Must make something with them.) Marlene chose Ginger Heart as the quilting design combined with a beige thread.  It shows off the design on the backing quite nicely but is subtle on the front.  

I am going to have a challenge putting the binding on.  I'm assuming that I can't just trim off the excess fabric in a straight line before I put on the binding. I'm sure that would jeopardize the hand piecing.  My best suggestion is to cut beyond the quilt, put the binding on the front and try to roll up the excess into the binding.  Sharon and I had a discussion about that yesterday.  What do you think?  Anyone have any better ideas?  

It's hard to see but quite a few of the fabrics were pieced so they could be used.  Within the oval are two seamed fabrics on both sides of the bottom point.  I also saw one within the colored fabrics but I couldn't find it when I was taking the pictures. All I need to do is make the label and bind it.  It's being bound in the same bright blue as the backing that you can see in the top picture. (You can click on most of the pictures to get a bigger view.)  

Getting this top quilted was part of my weekly goal from last week. So, yep checked that off the list!  (Hum, because I import my goals list it has changed the font size. It looks the same as I type (and paste) the copy but looking at the preview it is smaller.  Sorry folks! I like Verdana type as it is clean looking and reasonable size for me to read.) 

June 18, 2018

Finish 3 more pillowcases√

Finish Civil War Quilt binding √

Begin design process for secret project √

Start putting Beachside Bungalow together Oops!  Ran out of fabric so I'm waiting for more of the background fabric so I can cut the triangles.

Start quilting another quilt √ and finished the quilting

And this week I've got a full plate of what I want to get done ... time will tell if I get any of it done! 

June 25, 2018

Bind customer quilt

Add inner border to Jamestown Landing

Begin making string border for Jamestown Landing

Work on red, white and blue heart quilt

Sash and sew together stripe blocks

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Start sewing Beachside Bungalow (Celebrate) together

I've got my week full of sewing projects.  The one I really want to finish is the binding on the antique quilt.  And, yep, I'm hand stitching it to the back.  Eek! 

I'm linking up with my regular parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Moving It Forward and Design Wall Monday.  Join me in cruisin' through the quilting blogs on the internet. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie

Monday Meandering & Stash Busting Statistics 6 - 18 - 2018

I guess I've been really goofing off on my stash busting statistics recently.  I was surprised to see I hadn't added April's statistics to my spread sheet.  I was figuring the May statistics and oops!  I am two months behind.  So below are my numbers for both months.  Not too bad overall.  

2018	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
April	5.00	16.125	5.875	35.625	19.50
May	8.50	24.625	7.000	42.625	18.00

I've still used more fabric than I've purchased overall but I have been buying a bit more than I'm using.  Hum, could that be because I am working on Jamestown Landing, a big quilt that will be taking a lot more time before it is finished. I probably need to be careful on my purchases over the next few months.  And, get some projects finished! 

Here's a new top I finished this week.  I started it at retreat in May. The airplane fabric came from the estate fabric.  It had been used for a backing fabric and this was leftover after the quilt was trimmed. I took the pieces and picked out all of the stitches that had run into the edges.  Found fabric!  Perfect for a cute boy's charity quilt.  

 So over this week I've been working on the "Celebrate" blocks.(Here's where I showed the fabric pull.) And here's what it is going to look like: 

Guess what! I've got all the blocks finished. I worked really hard to get them done but now I'm waiting a bit until I put it together.  I've had quite a few customer quilts and projects to work on so I'll be focusing on finishing those over this upcoming week. 

So, what about those goals I set last week?  Well, most have been done or at least started! Oops! I forgot all about the secret project.  Must get going on that this week. 

June 11, 2018

Make more blocks for Beachside Bungalow project √ All done! 

Make some pillowcases√ 1 done, 3 more to do

Begin design process for secret project Eek -- I forgot about doing this! 

Bind Civil War Quilt √ well, binding is made and ready to put

Quilt a quilt (mine or customers….)√

June 18, 2018

Finish 3 more pillowcases

Finish Civil War Quilt binding 

Begin design process for secret project

Start putting Beachside Bungalow together

Start quilting another quilt

I'm linking up with my normal linky parties.  Join me in spending some time surfing the internet this week.  Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Moving It Forward, and Design Wall Monday.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Hands 2 Help Finish

Here are the two quilts I will be sending to Little Lambs for Kids Foundation.  Yes, I am extremely late based on when Sarah called for sending and posting and the like.  But, but... ok, I can get ridiculously behind on things.  Truth told I was probably finished with one of the quilts in time and the other probably only needed it's binding.  But I know the Little Lambs will appreciate these quilts whenever they receive them.   

First up is the one I made from opportunity blocks.  You can read about moving these blocks from just a group of blocks I won at a guild meeting to becoming a quilt in this guest post on Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Here's the finished quilt out in the sunshine.  (That was in short supply for much of this spring....)

This was quilted with a design called Mermaid Fingers.  I love using Mermaid Fingers and it really worked well on this quilt.   

I showed the other quilt earlier.  But here's the finished Looney Tunes quilt again. You can read about it here.

In honor of Father's Day I thought I would share some wood toys that Pat has been making.  Theo got one for Christmas -- a dump truck. (Sorry I couldn't find a picture.)   However, I'm pretty sure Kevin wasn't going to let him play with it for a while.  Here are a front loader and a truck. 

He has as much fun making these as I do making my quilts.  It's nice to have a hobby.  One of these days I'll show what he's made for my quilting time!  

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? Enjoy some down time and check out what folks are sharing on these linky parties. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 6 - 11 - 2018

Yes, another week just went flying by.  EEK.  Do you think time goes faster the older you get?  I sure do.  

Today I'm sharing the two quilts I made from the 2017 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I actually finished them several months ago but didn't get the pictures taken until this weekend just before I passed them on.  These are going to a NICU in the Richmond area.  Country Piecemakers, the Powhatan, VA guild to which I still belong, sends quilts to them on a regular basis.  It's great for us because one of our members works there and takes charge of the quilts. 

I tried to make a "boy" version and a "girl" version.  It's hard to tell but the top picture is the girl version because of the purple (ok, really dark purple border) and the pinks in the braids.  The boy version, with a blue border, does have some purple in it but I figured that would be ok.  Sometimes twins are in the NICU so our members try to have quilts that are alike but slightly different.  
You can see more posts about them here, here, here, and here.

Goals were achieved last week! 
June 4, 2018
Finish hand quilting Civil War Quilt√
Begin prep on Beachside Bungalow quilt√
Quilt 2 customers' quilts√
Work on OMG project√

And for this week:
June 11, 2018
Make some more blocks for Beachside Bungalow
Make some pillowcases
Begin design process for secret project
Bind Civil War Quilt
Quilt a quilt (mine or customer's...) 

Hopefully I'll get all those items done and more.  

I'm linking up with my regulars: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Moving It Forward, and Design Wall Monday. I'll be spending time off and on all week checking out these to see what folks are working on across the internet. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Blogger is driving me crazy this morning -- I can no longer import text and get it to the right size.  So I retyped everything except the links and the siggie.  I made that text bigger but it doesn't match the rest. It's done, I'm tired of fighting it!  And ... the arrows at the bottom.  

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June OMG

After some consideration I decided to use a new quilt project as my OMG.  I'm giving Jamestown Landing a break.  Although the inner border will be easy I don't really like doing the string quilting for the outer border so I'm avoiding that mostly! (Some might call it procrastination.) 

It dawned on me some time on Sunday that the class I was leisurely getting ready for was actually 6 days away and I had to decide on my colors and start cutting like crazy.  I was thinking of using black and whites with a pop of color.   So I was ready to look for some sort of background fabric but spotted a very cool "celebration" fabric I had bought earlier this year for a project but found a better fabric.  The celebration print was staring at me from the shelf.  (Note lightbulb flashing above my head!) 

It led me to pull a ton of Moda Marbles, Kona solids, and other reads-as-solid fabrics.  See how great they look together....

The quilt is from Big Book of Strip Quilts published by That Patchwork Place.  There are 60 quilts that use 2.5" strips.  Someone in Country Piecemakers in Powhatan volunteered to run a one day class using Beachside Bungalow.  Honestly, I could do it myself but it will be more fun with friends I don't see all that often.

I decided to go the "cheap" way and purchase the electronic version of the book to read on my iPad.  I was hesitant to buy a quilting book for the Kindle app because I don't think I can print out the pages.  I did't think it would be all that convenient to have to keep referring to the tablet.  Except it hasn't been all that bad.  I'm still thinking there must be a way to print a few pages but I haven't spent much time on it yet.

Ok, my opinion is I don't think the quilt pictured is all that attractive.  But, my fabrics?  They are going to make that pattern shine like the top of the Chrysler building. (To quote "Annie.") 😁

Fast forward through the day and I've got about half of the fabric cut.  Unfortunately, strip piecing is not a part of the directions. And, I'm using fat quarters rather than a jelly roll.  I've been cutting a ton of 2.5" x 4.5" bricks and another ton of 2.5" squares.  I have at least another day of cutting to do.  Plus I really want to make some of the units before I go to the guild meeting and class on Saturday.  

So a long story to get to my June OMG: 

I will have the center pieces cut out and all the units made for the blocks.  

Now the truth of the matter is I'd really like to get all the blocks made but I have quite a few customer quilts to do this month so that might be more than I can accomplish. I call it being realistic! 

On to my hummingbird tale.  We've had our feeder up since early May when reports said that hummers were moving north.  We saw one or two early on but I haven't seen any for ages.  Pat and I were eating lunch on the back deck today and he saw a bird do a "fly-by" to check out the feeder.  I suspect she was hesitant to stop with us on the deck.  But yippee!  Tonight I saw one sitting on the feeder having dinner.  And, it wasn't the usual ruby throated hummer. Unfortunately this picture was taken through a fairly dirty window.  Sigh.... But I'm tickled to have a dinner guest!  Do you feed hummers? 

I'll be linking this post with Elm Street Quilts, Midweek Makers, Wow=WIP Wednesday and Freemotion by the River. 

 Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering

 Looney Tunes is my most recent finish.  The color in this picture is a bit subdued compared to the real quilt.  This quilt will be going to Utah for one of the Hands 2 Help charities.  I'm late getting it finished but I'm sure they will be able to use it at some point.  I have another quilt that is going also which I'll show soon.  

I chose a quilting design called Pipeline that actually came with my computer software.  I've used it a couple of times and I really like the texture it gives.  I used an Omni thread in green and a poly bat that I bought on a roll from JoAnn Craft store. The roll was relatively cheap.  I really like the definition it gives to the quilting.  On the other hand, I prefer a cotton or a cotton/poly bat for my quilts. Although, considering this is going to Utah I'm sure the warmth associated with poly will be appreciated during winter!  

Here's the closeup of the quilting. Lots of nice texture.  I figure this quilt will be good for a boy or a girl.  

Once again I've been very successful on my goals for the week.
May 28 , 2018
Bind Charity Quilts√
Finish 6 Jamestown Landing blocks√
Sew Jamestown Landing blocks together√
Hand quilt on Civil War Quilt√

And this week I'm working on these goals:
June 4, 2018
Finish hand quilting Civil War Quilt
Work on OMG project
Begin prep on Beachside Bungalow quilt
Quilt 2 customers' quilts   *Heck, I've finished 2 of the 4 I had to do so I might only get 1 done this week.  It's bigger than the others so will take me longer. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

That's it for me now. I'm linking up with my regular blogs:  Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, and Moving It Forward. (I'm posting this Sunday night, I know amazing that I am ahead of the game this week!  I'll edit it Monday to add all of my regular links.) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie