Monday Meanderings 8 - 31 -2020

August is just about gone. Is it just me or has this month zoomed by also?  (And I don't mean a Zoom meeting although I've been enjoying a lot during the month.)  It seems that I may have committed to more posts than I can deliver.  I skipped Friday but I'll be showing a finish today instead. 

First, although I was hoping to make a big dent in my homespun collection, for some reason it doesn't look like all that much has been used. I spent part of a Zoom  get together refolding what is left.  It was completely full to the top before. Hum,  there is quite a bit left still. Maybe I'll need to do another one, strips maybe 'cause I have lots of smaller pieces left. 

Here's one of my finishes from this month. This was completely from stash. The center of the stars was a Hoffman Challenge fabric years ago. I thought I was really clever with the top and bottom row.... but I think it would have looked much better if I centered a flying goose in the middle and then left a half goose (otherwise known as a half square triangle) at the far sides. Oh well.  

I used So Fine thread (Gerber Daisy #495). 

The quilting design is "Star Struck" from My Creative Stitches.  The design comes with both sharp points on the stars and rounded points on the stars.  This one is rounded. 

It's actually hard to see the stars on most of these pictures.  But the one above you should be able to see them.  I decided after I was all done I probably should have made each row smaller.  It was set about 13.5" wide and 10.25 tall.  (I forget the number of repeats.) When I use this particular design again, I'll make these two numbers closer to the same size.  I can do that by changing the number of patterns across and the number of rows.  

I haven't been sewing as much as usual, or so it seems.  I'm hoping to get at least one other of my goals done by Tuesday afternoon.  One of the things I am doing is upgrading the computer that runs the long arm.  The computer came in and we've got a connector I need on order.  My trusty computer guru will come out to move the program and files for me and set everything up. YEA!  I'm not sure when I'll be able to get a design quilted with it but I hope it is soon. 

I'm linking up with my go-to linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday. (You know the drill, I'll link with these two blogs when they post.)  I'm hoping for lots of fun eye candy when I check out these parties. 

Hum, I see Blogger has changed something else.  I always check my links to make sure they are working, but tonight the option was no longer available. Rats. On rare occasions I have linked incorrectly. Oh well.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

To Do Tuesday and Stashbusting 8 - 26 - 2020

 We have less than a week of August left and I realized I hadn't figured out my stash busting stats for July.  And woohoo! It was stash busting this month! 

2020	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
July	7.625	53.375	10.250	57.125	3.750

I noticed I'm very close to the amount of yardage I brought in last year.  And I'm less than 10 yards from the amount of usage last year.  I suspect I'm going to be higher on both those numbers by the time the year ends. 

Here's what I accomplished last week: 

8/18/2020

Quilt another one of my quilts√ this one was a little bigger than the first one. Unfortunately, I used a backing from some donated fabric so it won't be a huge amount of fabric out. 

Bind last week’s quilt √ All done, machine work front and back.

I aways sew the binding on the back first because then I can see where I'm stitching on the front.  I may be off slightly on the back but I think it's more important to be correct on the front. 

Finish Wonky Family piece√ Finished the portraits, waiting for finishing instructions from the teacher (who is out of town).

Sew propeller blocks together√

Start next customer quilt Holding off; updating my long arm computer!

Pick a ufo or a new quilt and work on it  √ Earlier this week I shared the Migrating Geese top I started. 

Here's what I'll be working on this week.

8/25/2020

Quilt another one of my quilts and bind it 

Bind last week’s quilt

Finish all Migrating Geese blocks, start sewing blocks together

Start a new baby quilt

Finish Wonky Family quilt

We'll see how I do on that list.  I have sewn about half of a column of Migrating Geese.  The blocks are 9" wide by 3" tall (finished size).  It's going to take a lot of them to bring the quilt up to about 54 x 72 or so.  (I've got some numbers in the studio downstairs but I'm too lazy to go get them to check!)  I've decided I'm going to try to sew some columns together before I decide how tall it will be.  

I hope to donate the quilt to Leashes of Valor. It provides service dogs to veterans who suffer from post traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury.  Virginia Star Quilt Guild will be providing lap quilts for the veterans and mats for the dogs.  Hopefully I'll be able to finish the quilt some time soon.  

On the home front, our neighborhood homeowners association arranged for a soft serve ice cream truck to visit.  Pat and I really like soft serve so we were there early.  There was a little line that grew while we waited our turn.  

We both opted for chocolate/vanilla twist cones.  Unfortunately it was in the low 90s and my cone was dripping while I tried to take this next picture! 

It turns out, I'm not that good at keeping my ice cream from melting all over and taking pictures!

I'm linking up with To Do Tuesday and Midweek Makers.  (I'll come back tomorrow and make sure I link to Midweek Makers.) 

That's it for now.  I hope you are getting some quality quilting time in.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 24 - 2020

Recently, I've seen several blogs showing quilts using collections of plaids and homespuns. Hey! I have a collection of homespuns and regular cotton plaids.  What a great idea to use them up, hopefully.  I recently got some Technique Sheets from Studio 180 Designs.  One is called Migrating Geese, a variation on flying geese blocks.  Hum, would this work with my plaids?  Why not? Bigger question, would I have enough of several backgrounds to make a lap quilt?  Maybe.  

The cool part of the Technique Sheet is it has information to make the block, but even better, it gives a variety of sizes too.  Saturday afternoon I decided to cut a few and see how the blocks came out and are put together.  Here are my first few blocks.  I think I'll put sashing between the rows. And, I need to make a few blocks that become the tops and bottoms.  I might have spent an hour on these. 

Sunday we were spending most of the day at our daughter's house to celebrate Sophie's 10th birthday.  But I had 30 minutes in the morning where I ironed and cut several more fabrics.  I know I'll need a lot more background but I have a nice piece from a wide back that I will be using along with a couple of homespun pieces. Each square of plaid makes two of the diagonal shapes. I've got quite a few I can start sewing tomorrow.  

I'm hoping to get some more blocks stitched up tomorrow and perhaps I can mix up all the blocks and get enough blocks to make the top.  These are very quick to make.  Who knows, maybe by Friday I'll have another top done.  Yes, these blocks are that fast to make!  The ones below are not sewn together.  They remind me of making braid blocks. I'll be mixing up all of these colors and hopefully will have a pleasant mixture. 

Even though this is a new start I'm pretty sure it will be finished fairly quickly.  So, who knows, I may need (want?) to start another new project.  I'm a little tired of finishing UFOs for a while! 

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday. Hope you join me checking out what's being made this week. (I'll add these two links when they are posted!) 

Happy Quilting!  Bonnie 

Sneak Peak: Diamond Chain

Quilting on Diamond Chain is actually done but I'm only showing a bit of it until it's bound and ready for its glamour shots.  The pattern is also called Jewel Box, Northern Lights, Jacob's and World's Fair from what I can tell.  I've got an old booklet (1988) called Templates for 171 Four-Patch Quilt Blocks that I use to find interesting blocks to make.  Most of the names for the block came from that booklet.  (And, don't worry, I don't use templates unless I absolutely have to but it's pretty easy to figure out the block pieces without templates.) The name Diamond Chain came from a video by Jenny at Missouri Star.  I liked the block, found a big hunk of backing fabric and a bunch of scraps and kept making blocks until I figured I'd done enough.(You can see it here and here.) 

That's all the quilting I'm showing today.  I spent most of yesterday watching a couple of Accuquilt Zoom sessions.  I've been to a few educational sessions from AccuQuilt since we started staying home.  I consider a class/session a rousing success if I learn one new thing.  And, yep I did and right after the class I tried it and it worked like a charm.  It has to do with trimming the ends of binding strips to make it easier to sew the strips together.  (I think I'm going to be trying it again fairly soon!) 

I'm including this pic of a butterfly mainly because we've seen so few of them this year.  Wasn't he nice to pose so well for me?  Last year the Yellow Tail was a female because of some blue on the bottom of the wings. I "think" this one is a he. 

 

I believe I mentioned several posts back that I was giving up on my hummingbird feeder as I had seen no hummers visiting.  Well, within a week or so of taking the feeder down, cleaning it, and putting it away we saw one looking for it.  So, I made some more nectar, poured it in the feeder, and hung it outside.  We've seen a lot of single birds there.  I've never seen 2 birds flitting around the feeder but Pat says he has from time to time.  I'll keep supplying the nectar until we don't see any more birds. 

I've already completed a couple of my goals this week.  I'll be sharing how I'm doing on that sometime on Tuesday.  For now, I'm linking with Needle and Thread Thursday, Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Beauties Pageant #94, and Finished or Not Friday. I hope you can do a little blog surfing to see what folks are up to. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Let's Get It Done!

Here's what I've finished from my goals list last week: 

8/10/2020

Shop at new quilt store √ fun to visit and yep, I bought a yard of fabric

Work on Wonky Family piece√ 3 rows are done. From top to bottom: Ellie, Theo and Sophia. Each background is about 4 x 5".  I keep thinking I might want to change some of the colors of the kids and body shapes.  Mostly likely I won't because this is the first time I've tried this method.  I'll tell more about it when the piece is finished.  

Finish putting together dogs top√ done and moved to the to-be-quilted closet! 

Work on the propeller blocks (have to get the dog blocks off the design wall before I can do this one. √

Finish customer’s quilt √

Quilt one of my quilts √ 

And here's what I'm going to do this week. 

8/18/2020

Quilt another one of my quilts

Bind last week's quilt 

Finish Wonky Family piece

Sew propeller blocks together 

Start next customer quilt 

Pick a ufo or a new quilt and work on it 

Since I've changed the day of the week I'm posting my goals, I can tell you I've already finished one of the goals!  You'll have to wait until next week to see it though. 

Hum, I haven't done my fabric statistics for last month.  I'll try to get that done this week too. 

That's it for today.  Here are a few linky parties I'm linking with: To Do Tuesday at Home Sewn by Us, Mid Week Makers at Quilt Fabrication, and Colour & Inspirations Tuesday at Clever Chameleon Quilting.  Let's take a look at these parties to see what people are working on.  (One I'll have to link up with later but I've been doing pretty well coming back to do that recently.)

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 16 - 2020

 And, again, where did that week go? 

It zipped right on by . . . and I've been able to blog a few more times each week.  So, I'm changing up my normal blogging dates. (We'll see how well I can keep up with this plan!)  Monday I'll show some quilts or progress on quilts but I'm not going to do my goals list.  I'll do that either Tuesday or Wednesday.  I'm planning on linking up to To Do Tuesday by Home Sewn By Us.  I'll probably figure out a couple of others to link with too.  Then around Friday I'll share a quilt recently finished or moved forward.  I'm not sure if I'll have a finish every week but I'll find something to talk about! 

Today, I'm sharing a customer's quilt I quilted a few weeks ago.  And, I LOVE it. Marlyn was pretty happy with it too. 

So Fine thread 474. The quilting pattern is African Samba. I really like this design and have used it on several quilts over the years. 

I forgot to show my finished top from the Silver Lining Sew Along that Jacquelynne Steves ran.  I think it started Mid-May and finished the last weekend in July. It didn't take me very long to make an extra block and then get the top pieced. 

Eventually I'll find a backing for it and get it quilted.  Hum, I wonder if I could make a backing with the left over fat quarters? 

That's it today! Wow, I like the fact that this takes much less time to create! Now, it's time to list my linky parties.  You know the ones I love to read and share! Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday. (I'll add the other links as they post their blogs.) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Ahoy Mateys!

Here's the second quilt I finished last month: Ahoy Mateys!  

Many years ago I purchased an odd roll of pirate fabrics.  They weren't any "known" cuts, just left over fabrics at a quilt store.  I let them marinate for a few many years and finally decided to put them in a twist and turn setting.  Except, I couldn't get a very big piece out of each because through the years I used some in Happy Quilt blocks.  I purchased the embroidery design set called A Pirate's Life from Designs by Juju. (Yikes, there is a sale going on there this month -- 12 sets for $12. I don't get anything if you choose to shop there, I just like their designs, especially for my grands.)  I added 4 embroidered designs to go with the pirate fabric. I love it! 

I was a bit nervous when I quilted it because I thought the quilting might look bad over the embroidery. No, not bad at all.  I used a stipple pattern included with my robotics.  

Here are a few close ups:

Here are two of the embroidered blocks.  I used the same blue print on the back and as the binding. 

Normally, I would donate this to a NICU to be given to a premature baby.  Except, I really like it.  So I'm thinking of putting it away for a future great grandchild. Is that too weird?  My grands run from age 10 to 4 so we aren't talking about anyone getting this very soon.  (I'm pretty sure my children are through having babies.) What do you think?  Does it make sense to start a small stash of quilts for future greats?

I'm linking up with a few parties today. Check out Needle and Thread Thursday, Can I Get a Whoop! Whoop!, Beauties Pagent #93, and Finished or Not Friday.  I think that will keep all of us busy seeing what is new!  I hope you can relax with a cuppa and see what folks are working on. 

And, just a fun image at the end:

It's a UPC made into a bear.  I just laughed when I saw this one. It's on a package of Bear Bites from Kodiak Cakes. (A different take on Animal Crackers.) The cookies were supposed to look like a bear paw, a bear face and side facing complete bear. Unfortunately, they don't really look like the picture on the package. But they are pretty good cinnamon graham crackers.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 8 - 10 - 2010

I have had "working on the dog blocks" on my goal list for several weeks.  If you read this blog regularly you might remember they are really old blocks -- as in early 1990s from a block swap on the old Prodigy. I know I've taken them out once before but haven't found the post or the pictures from then.  So I started anew a couple of weeks ago. I find it interesting when someone shows the process of going from blocks or a beginning idea to the final design.  I haven't quite got the final design ready to show but I can show some progress shots.

All I did was slap them on my design wall.  I tried to figure out placement but honestly, with all the different blocks divisible by 3" I'm floundering. 

So next I tried to draw the sizes on paper.  Eh, didn't work well because I was using 10 squares to the inch paper which makes it really hard to work with multiples of 3. Cancel that idea and toss the paper. 

Next I remembered I had a 2 x 2" flannel grid.  I got it years ago when watercolor quilts were popular. 

Ok, I'm making progress. I've added another floral dog in the same pattern but cut to 9" instead of adding background to make it 12". 

I've filled in some of the "holes" with fabric.  I wasn't sure about the blue and beige stripes made from half square triangles but they do help lighten the feel of the piece. And, I'm thinking sashing between each row. (Although that dark blue doesn't add anything.) 

I've added a couple of blocks -- the machine appliquéd dog on the turquoise in the top row and the dog fabric with the star in black and white.  Hum, I didn't quite make that block correctly.  To make the star stand out correctly I should have put the black with white dots in the four corners.  (It's not being changed, I don't have anymore of that black fabric...) I've changed the blocks around a bit.  I machine zigzagged with medium grey thread around the black scotty on the dark red to make the scotty more obvious. (bottom row, left.)  I've added several different ideas for sashing and I've used more of the hst in blue and beige.  

My plan for completion is to use several different fabrics in the sashing between rows. I may use various sashing but I plan to pull colors from the blue fabric with  dots fabric and from the blocks.   I hope to also use dot as a border around the whole quilt. 

That's my big plan for this week.  I want this moved into the to-be-quilted closet rather than the UFO tub! Time will tell. 

Goals from last week: 

8/3/2020

Finish Sewing Silver Lining Blocks into top√

Quilt customer quilt √ started 

Plan dog top and make fillers as needed  √ Good progress made

Visit new quilt store opening 8/3! Boo — opening postponed, I’ll visit it next week 

Decide whether to participate in Morewood Decided against it… need to finish UFOs not start big new ones…. little news are ok though! 

And, now, this week's goals... a lot more than I usually list but I'm trying to make progress on stalled pieces.

8/10/2020

Shop at new quilt store 

Work on Wonky Family piece

Finish putting together dogs top

Work on the propeller blocks (have to get the dog blocks off the design wall before I can do this one. 

Finish customer’s quilt

Quilt one of my quilts

A few thoughts before I end:  Does the new Blogger drive you crazy?  I like to move my pictures around, place text next to a pic, design the space, so to speak.  Um, doesn't really work for me.  Bang head on computer a few times.  I'm putting up with what I can get it to do.  

And how about a cuteness overload picture? Our son's family spent a week at the beach house and ended it by picking up a new puppy they had purchased at the beginning of the summer.  Introducing the newest grand dog: Walter, aka, Wally. 

He's about 8 weeks old and is a German Short Haired Pointer.  Here's what Wikipedia says about them: " The German Shorthaired Pointer was developed to be a dog suited for family life, as well as a versatile hunter. Therefore, its temperament is that of an intelligent, bold, boisterous, eccentric, and characteristically affectionate dog that is cooperative and easily trained. This breed is smart, friendly, willing, and enthusiastic."  I don't think Walter will be hunting but he will enjoy family runs and bike rides.

We had Cassie for the week. So, we got to have some up close time with Walter when Kevin and Theo came down to get her.  The bonus was it was neutral territory for the dogs to meet.  Theo is trying to convince one of them they might like the grass in his hand. (Hum, I never thought about it but how appropriate I've written about my current dog quilt and introduced Walter in the same post!) Hopefully we'll get Walter pictures over the next months.

Lots was going on last week.  This coming week will be much slower! 

I'm linking to my regular linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Main Crush Monday and To Do Tuesday. (I'll be popping back in to see if these bloggers post this week.)  I had a great time looking at folk's blogs last week.  I hope you'll join me at looking around the Net this week to see what is new! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

RSC Finish

 Here is a finish from June.  These are left over Braid Shuffle blocks I used as my RSC blocks in 2017.  Look here for a pair of quilts I made in 2018 from the braid shuffle blocks.  During the pandemic I've been trying to finish UFOs.  These blocks weren't really a UFO.  They were leftovers.  I decided I would make some more blocks so I could make another quilt. Here is the quilt I made from the extra braids. 

It was fairly late on a cloudy day when I took this picture.  The background is Kona White.  The long arm pattern is called Fern Gully.  I love the fact that I could use this unusual blue fabric that I have had for YEARS!  

I realized I had a lot of tops and not much in the way of backing fabrics.  So I ordered two wide backs and bought one from JoAnns.  This is the one I bought at JoAnns.  I've already used it on a couple of quilts and I am pretty sure I have enough for at least two more lap size quilts.  

I finished one other quilt in July so I'll be sharing it in the coming weeks.  

I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday,  Whoop Whoop Friday, Beauties Pagent, and Scrap Happy Saturday when it posts.  

Hope you are finishing and/or moving ahead on your projects. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 8 - 3 - 2020

Welcome August!  If you are counting days 'til Christmas there are 144 days. (Really?) And, there are 93 days to the election.  Have you figured out how you are going to vote?  We were very pleased with the election we voted in  during the pandemic.  We were able to request our ballots on line.  Once we filled it out we could return it to the local Office of Elections.  It was only 2 miles or so away from our house.  Very easy to get the ballot through the mail, fill it out, and return it in person. We'll be repeating that experience in November. 

On to my goals from last week.  Here's what I was working on. 

Goals 7-27

Quilt Customer Quilt ✔️

Bind Pirate Quilt ✔️

Bind Braid Shuffle Quilt ✔️

Finish blocks for Silver Lining QAL ✔️

Set the airplane blocks from last year’s Rainbow Scrap

Here's a peek at the 2 quilts I bound last week. 

We are going to get some some rain and winds from Isaias. Once the weather dries up I'll get full photos of these two quilts to share. 

Once the customer picks up her quilt I'll try to post a picture of it. It turned out really well. The Silver Lining QAL blocks are all done.  I've started sewing the blocks together.  Hopefully the top will be done by next week. 

Once again the poor propeller blocks have not been put on the design wall. No doubt I'll bring them out once the Silver Lining tops is finished. I'm also still working on the dog blocks and have made some progress.  At least I'm not threatening to put them back in a box for another decade! 

Here's next week's goals. 

8/3/2020

Finish Sewing Silver Lining Blocks into top

Quilt customer quilt (another one.) 

Plan dog top and make fillers as needed

Visit new quilt store opening 8/3! 

Propeller blocks! 

Yes, we have a new quilt store opening soon.  We've been without a local store for about a year.  I'm hoping to do some shopping soon! 

Wait, I did do some shopping last week.  I belong to the group Sew Its For Sale, a group on Groups.IO.  People list fabrics, patterns, books and notions for sale, generally discounted compared to current prices.  Someone had a group of purple fabrics available. I fell for them. Voila! New to me purples! These will show up in my July fabric statistics. And I've already used a piece from one of them. 

Remember when I was painting a quilt block? You can read a little bit about it here. I finally finished it. Pat put the final coating on it and made a hanger for it. Now it is hanging on the wall of our deck. It's 24" square. Much smaller than blocks on barns but definitely a fine size for our deck. 

I'm looking forward to spending some more time in the studio this week. I'm really hoping I can figure out those dog blocks.  They've been waiting since the mid 90s.  I think that is long enough! 

I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, and Design Wall Monday. I'm sure there must be something new I'd like to try! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie