A Couple of Finishes!

I've had quite a few finishes so far this year.  For some reason I haven't been posting pics of the finished quilts.  Here's hoping I can start sharing finishes once or twice a month until I have shared all the quilts I've finished this year.  

Here are a few I’ve already photographed.

First up is Thirtysomething.  I started this ages ago…the book by Gail Bong, was published in 1997. My guess is I started it in the late 1990s.  I also had a special ruler and a stand alone pattern dated 1996.  It was a great scrap user but the small blocks were fussy to make.  And, in its way, it wasted a lot of fabric.  I was happy when I  finally finished it.  

The quilting design is a stipple that was included with my computerized quilting set up.  It has been donated to Virginia Star Quilters.  (Notice some of my Rubber Ducky collection sitting on the quilt holder.)  Sorry I don't have any other pictures of the finished quilt. I was happy to move it on. 

Next up is my first Picket Star quilt. The blocks were from the FCQ Equilters.  When I emailed info about my block I included some pictures showing the colors I wanted in the blocks.  I don’t remember if this is the source I used for pictures but it was like this website, Design Seeds. (https://www.design-seeds.com/p/palette-search.html) 

The blocks are designed by Preeti Harris who blogs at Sew Preeti Quilts. You can find the pattern here. https://sewpreetiquilts.blogspot.com/2020/04/picket-star-quilt-block.html  This may look familiar to you as I’ve recently finished another top using the more “girly” colors of pink, purple and blues. (Ok, blue isn’t girly but the other two definitely are.) It's sitting in the to-be-quilted closet until I get backing for it.

Quilting design is Random Clams by Jessica Schick.  I like how much texture this design adds to a quilt. 

I used leftover backing for the binding.  I still have this quilt but it probably will be donated through the guild sometime.  

These photos were taken in mid March. Notice the blossoms on the tree behind.   Thanks to hubby for being my quilt holder.  

Say hello to Piggy who lives in our garden.  Our granddaughter gave us Piggy a long time ago.  She likes to move him around so we have to figure out where she's put him and bring him back to this spot so we can see him. I can see Piggy, this bit of garden, and our bird feeder from my sewing machine.  

Thanks for visiting. Visit the following Linky parties: Midweek Makers, Finished or Not Fridays, Needle and Thread Thursday, and Beauties Pageant.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 6 - 3 - 2024

Welcome to the new month, the 6th month of the year.  I spent the last three or four days in May getting some finishes.  Here's my goals list for last week.  Not as good as I hoped for but not all that bad either. 

5/27/24

Make some placemats (3 -4) -- ✔️ One done, more to come. 

✅Bind Knuffle Bunny quilt -- finish #2 for May.     

✅Pull out a block set and plan a top -- 9 big blocks make a decent size quilt. 

✅Quilt one of my quilts  -- quilted and bound. 

✅Sing in local community show -- I'm glad it's finished but I did have a lot of fun. 

I used an old orphan block for this placemat.  Surprisingly, I even found a piece of the fabric that was in the pinwheel and used it to surround the block.  I've had it ready to quilt and finish for about 3 weeks and finally did it this week.  I have enough of a pretty fabric with flowers and pots on it that I'll be making several more  placemats in the coming week(s). I may just do a regular binding on it. The pink above just looks like too much for the overall placemat.  I know I made it smaller than the pattern called for but it needs to be even smaller.  

The blocks below are called Picket Star and were designed by Preeti Harris who blogs at Sew Preeti Quilts. If you click on the link and then scroll down just about to the end you can find her tutorial for Picket Star.  I used it as the block for my round for FCQ EQuilters a year or so ago.  I have already made one quilt from the blocks. You can see it as a top here.  (Hum, I wonder if I've actually shared the finished quilt yet? It didn't come up in a search of my blog.) 

I'll be sewing this together this week.  I will probably figure something to add to the top and bottom to make this into a rectangular quilt. The blocks finish at 17". On the first quilt I used some smaller squares separated by white fabric at the top and bottom to make it rectangular.  (I still have 4 star blocks left. Hum, maybe a baby quilt or I could just make 3 more blocks...decisions, decisions!) 

Here's what I hope to work on this week. 

6/3/25

Make some more placemats (2 - 3)

Quilt and bind one of my quilts

Start sewing Picket Star blocks together

Continue cleaning up cutting table

Cut scraps into squares, rectangles, and bricks 

I think all of that is doable this week. I have my regular stitching group on Monday afternoon and one morning get-together this week and the rest of the week is free. Wopee! 

Last week I took advantage of a $4.99 a yard sale on Keepsake Cottons at JoAnns. I have had great success finding decent fabric in the Keepsake collection to use for backings. I check them carefully to make sure they are higher quality.  This time I bought 5 backings and one piece to recover my big ironing board.  The cute, bright, colored, speckled one is for the ironing board.  I think it'll make me smile every time I iron some fabric. Hum, that bright green on the far right is an odd color. It went well with the quilt it will be backing... I hope I still like it when I start quilting it! I didn't write down which piece went with each top. I'm not sure where the geometric green one goes. Maybe I can tell by size.

The light turquoise at the far left has already been used on my Wiggle Time quilt. Pictures to come!

I've continued to succeed on my 15 minutes of stitching.  Sometime I'm long arming, some stitching on the domestic sewing machine, some knitting, some planning, some processing scraps or ironing fabric.  But I am having fun doing what I love to do.  I just realized I've been calling May April all month long.  I've checked the number of days to June 2 and it is correct. Hopefully I'll continue with the right days for the rest of the year. 

W/ending 6/2 — 154 days in to 2024. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/May = 5/5 days or 31/31! 
• 15 minute days/June = 2/2 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 147/154 days
• Success rate =95.4% 

Not bad!  I foresee June as 30 of 30 days of stitching. July might have some non-sewing days. We’ll see what happens as it gets here. 

It's time to do a little reading.  I'm in a cycle of reading happy ever after books. I'm still reading The Ministry of Time but I keep putting it down and thinking about it. I like to think I am savoring it but I'm not so sure I am.  It is a remarkably different book.  But I wonder if it is as good as I anticipated since I can put it down for days, if not weeks? 

I hope you can spend some time checking out quilting blogs around the internet by using these Linky parties: Oh Scrap, Stitching Stuff, Design Wall Monday, and Monday Musings.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Progress Being Made

I've had my nose to the grindstone so far this week.  Here's what I've gotten done or made further progress.

After finding this top I was able to get borders on all sides.  The side borders are the same size as the center sashing.  The top and bottom borders are the same size as the strings in the Roman Stripes blocks. I'd love to get this quilted in the next two weeks but I don't think I have backing fabric. And none of my new backings would work. 

I decided to add a small border on the top and bottom of Picket Stars. You can read about my thoughts and how it looked before the little borders here. I tried something bigger but it took away from the stars.  So this one is also ready to go to the quilt closet.  Yep, no backing for this one either. (Although I could use the turquoise one I showed last week but that means the top I planned to use it for won't get done. Sigh.)

Here's what I've gotten done on the Card Challenge. Doesn't it look weird? 

Every evening I get some of the hand stitching done.  It needs to be finished and turned in Wed, 9/21. Hopefully I'll get all the flowers on, stitch the old linen on to a fabric piece and then quilt and bind the quilt. (Probably by hand. ARGH. Do I really have enough time?) 

This is what it might look like.  Maybe I'll put a few more little yellow flowers in the mix.  After I turn it in I'll post about the finish. It will be hanging in the Virginia Star Quilter's booth at the Virginia State Fair from Sept 23 until Oct 2. (Pat and I will be working the both the evening of Oct 1.) 

Here are the parties I'm linking up to.  Enjoy spending some time surfing lots of quilting blogs and getting all sorts of new ideas. 

Midweek Makers 

Needle and Thread Thursday 

Finished or Not Friday 

Beauties Pageant

Have a great weekend. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 4 - 5 - 2021

 

Last Saturday in Nags Head we saw our daughter Jenny and her family.  She gave me this bag that she said held my fabrics.  Neither of us has any recollection of why I'd given her the fabrics.  But when I opened the bag I was tickled to have them back. 

The pile on the left is mostly 1/2 yard pieces of grey  The pile on the right are mostly fat quarters.  And the piece in the middle is 1.5 yards of a luscious light blue that this photo doesn't do justice to.  Welcome back fabrics!  (I've already used one of the blues working on my RSC block.)

Have you seen Preeti's Picket Star block and quilts at SewPreetiQuilts.blogspot.com?  She has made three quilts with the blocks. Here's a link to her block tutorial and one to two quilts.   If you scroll down to the comments you'll see my comment asking her about how she chose her colors and her answer.  (Just in case you want to make your own version!) 

You might be wondering why I am sharing all this info about this block.  Let me tell you!  It's my turn to ask my fellow FCQ EQuilters to make blocks for me and send them here.  OOOH it's always fun to get mail from them.  I'm asking them to make this block.  I also shared pictures of colors I'd like them in and Preeti's rational about how she chose her colors. I'll share some of my fabric pulls one of these days and when I start getting my blocks in. It's a big ask but I'm betting these gals are up to the challenge. 

Now to share my goal successes! 

3/28/2021

Quilt and bind another quilt☑️ Hopefully I'll share it Friday.

Make and apply binding for my quilt ☑️ You can see it here. 

Cut out a couple more r, w, & b Ohio Stars ☑️ Finished 2 blocks, 1 more left. 

Figure out more dog fabric for tumbler quilt. ☑️ Finished!

I did finish the last row for the dog tumbler quilt. I asked a friend if she had some dog fabric and she came through with 3. One I had. One I used and one I really think had mice on it. I'm ready to start ironing the rows and sewing them together. 

And now for this week I've picked 5 goals.  Hopefully I'll get them all done. 

4/4/2021 

Cut and sew flowers & 9 patches (You might remember the 9 patches from here). 

Make last R,W, & B Ohio Star block.

Put together 1 Happy Block Quilt from FCQ Equilter’s blocks from my last turn.

Quilt Customer’s Table Runner.

Work on doggy tumbler.

That's it for today.  I'm linking up with my favorite parties as they become available: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday.  Take some time to do some surfing -- the weather is going to be great here so I'll be surfing too.

;-). (Just one is up Sunday night, I'll add them tomorrow.) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie