Monday Meandering 4 - 30 - 2018

Finished quilt to share! (Because I forgot to share this earlier!  It was finished and delivered at the FCQ quilt show earlier in April.) This quilt is going to TAPS. I fell in love with the dog fabric when shopping in Lancaster County last May.  I bought a yard and some go with fabric too.  Here is my first pull of fabrics for the quilt.  (Check out the dogs carefully. I really liked the little one with the spiked hair and collar. Some designer has such a good sense of humor!) I used one of my go-to patterns Two's Company by Karie Patch Designs.

I swapped out the grey polka dots for white which just looked better. I ran into a problem when I realized I didn't have enough of the theme fabric for the borders.  Sigh.  My solution was to make a pieced border. You can see the side borders where I interspersed red with the print. I chose a nice meander stitch. When finished I decided I'd have liked the meander a little smaller, something that is easily done with a computerized long arm.  (By the way, the blue tape you see in the center is the way I mark next rows when I have to scroll the quilt forward.) 

Here's the finished quilt before giving it to the guild. Hum, the picture isn't quite as clear as I would have liked.  I took this up in Maryland and it didn't get clear and sunny until the day after I passed the quilt on. Oh well. You can see how I pieced the border.   I tried to highlight different dogs in the border.  The bulldog with the Union Jack on it seemed to get in every section! 

Here's my choice of which quilt to work on next (as noted in my goals for last week.) It's a group of opportunity blocks I won from a FCQ block of the month back in November 2015. I'm sure these blocks have aged enough. Now the question -- would you border these blocks or just let them stand on their own? Black binding seems perfect for this group of fabrics.  I'm hoping I can use these for a Hands 2 Help quilt.  Check out the logo on my side bar if you want more information about H2H. 

On to the weekly goals.  I missed getting the charity quilt quilted. I decided it was time to see why the computer drivers weren't working correctly.  I'm waiting a new board that should solve the problem.  I'll be throwing three charity quilts on Ruthie as soon as the she is working correctly.  Or if she still is being cranky, I'll place the rows manually for each row. Not a hard fix but I'd rather let the computer do it! I'd like to get the quilts done before retreat.  

April 23, 2018

Bind Braid Shuffle√

Quilt charity quilt

Work on Jamestown Landing√

Pick and work on a UFO√

April 30, 2018

Sew opportunity blocks (UFO) together 

Work on secret project

Hand quilt on Civil War quilt 

Work on Jamestown Landing

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap!, Main Crush Monday and Moving It Forward. I'll be checking some of the bloggers who post there.  It's aways fun to see what folks are up to.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 2 - 5 - 2018

Here's one of the projects I worked on this week. It took me two weeks to finally cut out the Taps quilt but I started sewing it while I was sewing the Plus quilt blocks together.  Um, that Taps quilt went together really fast.

This pattern is called Two's Company from Kariepatch Designs. I've used it several times to make donation quilts.  So far the three rows are together.  Once I sew the rows together I'll figure out which fabrics I have enough of to do the borders with.  It is going to be 43 x 55" unless I make some changes to the borders to make it slightly bigger. 

Next I pulled some fabrics to make a Valentine's Day table runner.  Do you check in with Moda Bake Shop?  They have some lovely free patterns.  I fell for this one designed by Kristina of Center Streets Quilts.

I pulled fabrics over the weekend but haven't started cutting it. The table runner shown measures 62 x 41" which is way too long for my dining room table.  So I'll only be making 3 hearts instead of 5.  I've actually figured out how many pieces I need for the shortened quilt and should be ready to cut it out soon. (Hey, if I don't get it done by Valentine's Day that's ok.  I'll have it done before the next one.) 

Here's my stashbusting statistics for January.  I purposely held out from buying any fabric in January.  I really had enough hanging around the stash so I used it instead.  Note: Woohoo! I didn't buy any in December either.  Be prepared for some pent up stash enhancement going on in February although I've been out shopping -- just haven't found what I want. 

2018	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Jan	0	0	9.625	9.625	9.625

Here's the Weekly Goals lists. I did very well for the most part. 

January 29, 2018

Quilt 1^st Rainbow Color Challenge Quilt√

Cut Out Taps Quilt√

Pick a new project, preferably a UFO to work on√

Make 10.5” string blocks for Covered in Love started

Quilt Alphabet Challenge quilt √

And here's what I'll be working on this week. 

February 5, 2018

Finish 10.5” string blocks

Make heart table runner

Sew plus quilt together

Sew Taps quilt top

Sew more triangles and string blocks for class

I'm linking up with my regular parties -- hope you take some time to see what people are up to these days.  Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, and  Main Crush Monday. I'm heading off to these sites to see what folks are doing these days. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Quilts from the At-Home Retreat

Two weeks ago three friends came down from Maryland for our annual at-home retreat.  Ruthie 2 was a popular machine over the weekend.  I finished up a charity quilt that I wanted them to take back up to MD.  And they each brought quilts to long arm. 

Here's Nancy working on her quilt.  She chose Malachite pattern designed by Patricia Ritter. 

It was a lot of fun to see the design stitch out.  I bought the design when I had Ruthie and it was a little too big for her.  But it is much better on Ruthie 2 as she has more space.  Check below for the close up of the design.  It provides a lot of texture.  

Close up of Malachite pattern.

Mary Beth brought a TAPS* quilt to get it finished quickly.  (Nothing like a computerized long arm to make quilting easy!) She chose Ginger Stars by Apricot Moon.  This is one pattern that I have used over and over again. There are other "Ginger" patterns that I use a lot too.  

MB also brought this gorgeous quilt to get finished.  I believe it is a Bonnie Hunter quilt but don't know the name.  (MB -- feel free to leave a note with the name!) Her pattern choice was Easy Peasy Baptist Fan by Naomi Hines. 

After much persuading Sharon decided to quilt a TAPS quilt she had just put together. She made this quilt last year as a block of the month through A Quilting Life blog.

She chose the Ginger Stars design also.  (Sharon -- found another star pattern that I didn't have in my notebook.  Maybe your next red, white and blue quilt will be quilted with it.) 

* TAPS stands for Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. Members of Faithful Circle Quilters have been supporting the program for several years now.  These donated quilts are given to children who attend the program in May in the DC area.  I recently heard how the children (up through the teens) enjoy receiving the quilts, dragging them around the event.  Even returning campers love getting a new one.  I've got my fabrics pulled and pattern picked out.  It will be my next new quilt, eventually.  Quilts are due by mid-May.

I have more pictures to share of projects that were being worked on... I'll try to remember to include them in another post. 

Today I'm linking up with Midweek Makers, Let's Be Social and tomorrow I'll link with Needle and Thread Thursday. I forgot to come back and link this until Saturday morning -- the link was no longer available.  Sigh.  I hope to spend some time today checking out blogs posted on these linky parties! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings

A few weeks ago I finished the orphan blocks quilt that Sharon and I worked on when we were together in January.  Here's my part of the orphan block collection.  We decided to only work with white background fabric and save the tans and creams for another event.  Sharon didn't think she had much in the way of orphan blocks but she found quite a few r,w,b blocks from lotto blocks that she had won.  

We started by placing bigger blocks or smaller ones that when placed together became a bigger unit. We tried keep a balance between red blocks and blue blocks. 

We added in bigger blocks from Sharon and started to add spacers to fill in so that the odd size blocks would fit with each other. She had some blue pieces from a different quilt she made but didn't use. It was great that we didn't have to make those flying geese for this quilt!  

We were getting sections finished off and sewing the blocks together. Then we decided to put flying geese all around the quilt. 

Here's the quilt just about all finished.  Need a few more flying geese on the bottom right.  

Next up a close up of the quilting. This design is called Ginger Stars -- my go to quilting design for red, white and blue quilts. 

Here it is with its red binding put on.  Unfortunately I didn't do a great job on keeping the points on the flying geese, rats especially since Sharon worked so hard to keep the points while sewing them together 

This quilt will also be going to a TAPS -- Tragedy Assistance Program that will be held over Memorial Day weekend in DC.  Sharon and I really enjoyed making this quilt.  We'll have to decide if we have enough blocks to make another orphan block quilt next year.  Hum, maybe we should makes some blocks over the year with red, beige, and blue to use up the other blocks. 

So let's move forward to this week and see how I've done with my goals.

March 13, 2017

Continue repair of afghan√ All done!

Begin sashing the A Tisket A Tasket Blocks√ sashing cut

Make a block or two for the stripe challenge blocks √

Figure out something to do with the Tangram block ugh I'm not sure on this

Continue working on zippered pouches√ (5 more done)

And now what I hope to work on this week. 

March 20, 2017

Sash and border the Tisket a Tasket blocks

Continue making zippered pouches (more zippers have been ordered)

Work on a new hat for Natalie

Make tangram block

Figure out what to do next on the stripe challenge blocks

That's it for me today.  I'm linking up with Monday Making, Moving It Forward Monday, and Main Crush Monday. I hope you can visit a few of the links.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie