Sigh, Nothing Finished

Usually I have a finish for the Finished (or Not) Friday.  Not this week.  I'm sewing but I don't seem to have much progress to report.  But I do have some pictures! 

Big Stars are a direct response to this post by Nancy at Wyoming Breezes.  I have a quilt (ok, probably a UFO) that I made with various 4 patches.  The shoebox I stored the 2.5" squares still held quite a few 4 patches and I began sewing more together.  

A little later I got to thinking about one of the project boxes I have that was labeled 16 patches.  Upon looking in it I found at least 6 16 patches with red and white/cream squares and a few with blue and white/cream squares.  And a bunch of blue and light strips sewn together.  I realized that years ago I had requested those blocks from the FCQ Equilters and I had already made one quilt from them. Looking at the bounty of blocks I knew I would use them to make Nancy's stars.  They make huge 16" blocks so it will only take 12 and more than half of the 16 patches were done.  

On to the star points.  I took out my trusty Wing Clipper from Studio 180 and got to work.  Evidently I didn't pay attention correctly at one point. OOPS! 

I haven't decided whether I'll be working on these while I work on my Ombre Log Cabins or not.  I'm going to a retreat at the end of September and I like to have projects all cut out and ready to sew.  I may just cut out everything for the other 10 star points and finish them and the top at retreat. 

On other fronts I decided it was time to start up Ruthie and see if she will work for me.  I loaded this cute tumbler top I made with leftover doggy fabric. The first row did fine but the next one has balked.  It won't stitch.  I'll be contacting the company that did the electronics that connect the computer to the long arm and order some new cables and 2 different circuit boards. I'm hoping it will be resolved with a new cable.  Luckily there is no deadline for this little quilt. 

I've been spending a lot of time reading this last week.  The one I'm almost finished with that really struck me is The Premonition by Michael Lewis.  I'm usually not a huge fan of nonfiction but this book reads more like fiction. It is based on real people and the real beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic. In many ways it shocks me -- how inept America's response has been -- way more so than just the last administration's bumbling and denying. The American public health services have been vastly underfunded for years. The for-profit health providers (think hospitals, labs, pharmaceutical and insurance companies) really aren't benefiting people -- they are in it for money. It's a fast read and is only 300 pages (my copy. Although Amazon says it 320 pages.) It's well worth the time and has done a great job keeping my interest.  

I need to get back to sewing.  I'm linking up with Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Finished (Or Not) Friday, and Beauties Pageant. Take some time to check them out.  

Happy Quilting All,  Bonnie 

Table Scraps Challenge -- Finished

I'm tickled to have my July table runner challenge done.  Here's the front.

If you are participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge you know that July was a second chance at blue.  I'm pretty sure one month was suppose to be lighter blues and the other was darker.  Um... both of mine are dark blue.  Check out my previous blue table "runner" here. I started out making that one as a table runner and ended up with a wall hanging for our beach house. 

My goal this month was to use some string piecing.  Needless to say I didn't make much of a dent in any of my scraps.  But I do like the finished project. 

After the top was done I wanted to find a blue for the back.  Except, blues are a problem area for me.  I don't really have a whole lot of blues I like or the ones I like I really didn't want to cut into.  Visualize riffling through a stack of fabric or a box of fat quarters.  And, now visualize my glee when I found the perfect fabric for the backing. Only one problem.  The fabric had never been washed and I worried about bleeding. And I was right. 

I have no idea how many times I rinsed the fabric -- maybe 10 or so.  But eventually the water ran clear.  I ran it through the drier and continued onto finishing the runner.  

This fabric is a batik I purchased from one of our trips to the Caribbean.  I'm pretty sure I purchased this fabric in the Bahamas probably 20 years ago.  I had about just enough to use it as the backing of this table runner. I trimmed off some of the border on the short edges so it would fit.

My quilting was done from the front but really doesn't ruin the lobsters and turtles. 

Remember the discussion above -- that I don't have a great selection of blues?  I could find nothing to use for a binding. So I trimmed the piece so that there was an even amount of fabric in the front and back.  Then I flipped the front fabric up and trimmed a half inch off the back and batting. 

Next I ironed a 1/4" seam around the top and folded it over the backing. It was totally finished after the hand stitching.  Weird, I know.  But that's what I did.  I doubt it is all that obvious.  Bonus -- I can use both sides of the runner. 

Here's a different view. (These railings lead to the basement where my studio is.)  You can enlarge these photos.  I did outline quilting around the stars.  And lines on the strings.  The center string section I used a wavy line (actually one of the stitches on my Bernina.) 

I'm happy to have a navy blue runner to use since my other one is going to be hanging on the wall at the beach house once we visit again! 

Friday is a busy time for linky parties.  I'm linking up with a lot of them. Quilt Fabrication, Needle and Thread Thursday, Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday, Beauties Pageant, Table Scraps Linky Party, and Scrap Happy Saturday. Phew!  That's a lot of linky parties.  But I love to see what everyone is working on. Ok, not everyone but a lot of people participate so I do see a lot of projects! I hope you spend some time surfing too. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 
 

It's a Finish!

 A new finish.  It was done a few weeks ago but pictures were finally taken last week.  And, we decided to gift it to friends of Pat's from his barbershop group.  It arrived yesterday.

It's hard to see but the fabric in the center of the stars is owls.  I am happy to report all fabric came from stash. On the other hand, this is directly related to me buying the bright green at JoAnns when not many Kona colors were available in late spring. Once I got home I started thinking about what I would do with the fabric! You can see two choices here. Below is a closeup of one of the stars. 

And the back of the quilt....

The quilting design is Fern Gully.  It has become my new favorite. I like the way that design gives texture but doesn't detract from the quilt design.  I wish I had 3 or four designs that do that.  

Many thanks to my quilt holder.  He does a great job even when I take too long. Here's his response to my request to "Turn around." 

In other happenings this week I received a USPS medium flat rate box full of novelty fabrics.  Yep, I made another purchase from Sew Its For Sale.  And it was a great one.  Here are the darker of the fabrics waiting for their spin in the washing machine. Yes, I do wash every fabric that comes in.  I love the feel of the unwashed fabrics but I figure it is wiser to wash out whatever chemicals are used in the making of the fabric before they are stored.  

It is always fun to receive mail with a variety of new to me fabrics.  (One had 1997 date on the selvedge. But it looked like something I could definitely put to use.)  I am still in the process of folding it and marking amount of fabric, cost and date acquired.  I tried matching up a couple of the pieces with fabric on hand.  I can see some more sawtooth stars like the owl quilt in my future.  It's a fast and easy quilt since I have the AccuQuilt dies for 9" stars. 

I'm linking up with Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Beauties Pageant 105, and Finished or Not Fridays. I'm looking forward to see what's being worked on these days. 

Public Service Announcement:  Folks, the corona virus is rampaging across the country.  Yes, we are close to a vaccine.  But, no, we don't want to risk more people getting sick and dying. I plan on staying home over the next few many weeks.  Our family has decided to not have a family Thanksgiving dinner.  Maybe it will be a Zoom gathering.  We had thought about an outdoor meeting at a park but considering how fast the numbers are rising -- nope, I am not going to do that either. Virginia hasn't gone to lock down but that's what Pat and I plan to do pretty much. We are tired of the restrictions.  But we also don't want more people dying, so we will be hunkering down in our house. (Honestly, we've been doing that for a while as we've only been going out for groceries and a few hobby related shopping trips.)  Take care of yourselves.     

Happy Quilting All. Bonnie