Friday, January 27, 2017

2016 Recap

Time to do a recap of last year's quilting and keep myself on track.
Quilts completed: (see the 2016 tab above for photos)
One queen t-shirt quilt, one full size denim quilt and one twin size quilt.
One Christmas tree skirt.
Five table runners, five table toppers, five lap quilts and five baby quilts.
Six mini quilts.
Seven wall hangings.
That's a total of 37 quilting projects!

Total yardage used: 71.5 yards. (does not count fleece backings, denim or t-shirt fabrics)
Total yardage purchased: 75 plus my December thrift store Thimbleberries find.  So, I nearly made it as a break-even year.

Eight projects carried over as Works in Progress.  Eight more quilt tops are finished and ready to quilt. Six really old UFO's I'll keep on the books, but one is going to be sent to the orphan block box.  I'm never going to finish the Just Takes 2 quilt and can use those 18 blocks in some other project.

January through March are my most productive quilting months, and I've completed three quilt projects so far already.  It's so easy to be motivated to finish up UFO's during a cold Minnesota winter, and I've got a great start this year.  Hope I can keep it up!

How are you doing?  Have you posted your year-end progress yet?



Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Seminole Patchwork

This January we took a short winter vacation to Florida.  It was delightful!
We stayed at the 100-year-old Peninsula Inn in Gulfport, FL.  It was so charming and restful.  They made us feel so welcome.

One of the things we always try to do in a new city is go to the museums and learn about the history of the area.  And, as always, I keep my eyes open for quilts.

The Tampa Bay History Center has a very nice area dedicated to Seminole Patchwork and the culture of the Seminole Tribe.  Their unique style of patchwork developed between the turn of the century and 1920.  Originally used for trade goods, it is still used today in their ceremonial clothing.

Can you see the flip card display?  There were two of them.  Each card holds a tiny pieced sample of a Seminole patchwork pattern.  There were several hundred different patterns.  I so longed to look through those and see each one.  But, alas, they are safely behind the glass cabinet.

It looks like an internet search might be in my future.  It's a whole new technique for me.  Wouldn't a table runner or small Seminole Patchwork project be a nice remembrance of our Florida vacation?

Monday, January 23, 2017

Love my little Calendar Girl

It might be progress, or it might be procrastination because I'm supposed to be quilting instead of piecing, but another UFO quilt top is nearly finished.

This one was started in 2011 and you've seen a number of progress reports over the years. Finally, the last four rows are finished and the main part of the quilt top is complete.

There was one last-minute glitch.  The bottom six rows were together, and the top six as well.  Then when I went to put the two halves together...the top was a whole inch too short! Out came the seam ripper and some of the end spacer strips were made wider to get it all worked out.  Lesson:  measure each individual row to make sure it's the right length, don't just presume the measurements all worked out. LOL

Borders might take some thinking.   It only measures 73 x 84, so too small for our queen size bed without a couple border strips. It's pretty busy so a solid or tone on tone might be best.  Maybe just a 3-inch black border and use it on the full size bed in the guest room.  What do you think?

There have been a few requests for patterns. Here's the best I can do for now.   The whole quilt was inspired by the 2011 McHarbors Quilt by Lyn Brown.  January: Snowflake Stars, March: Slanted Shamrocks, April: Baskets and Bunnies part 2, May: Parade of Posies, July: Flying Flags, August: Regatta, September: Windblown Leaves and November: Dresden Turkeys are all  designed by Lyn Brown .  I used a stripe fabric to make Easter Eggs and applique'd them down instead of the bunnies that Lyn had.  I needed something quicker and with a simpler shape.  Now I can only find the basket on her blog.  If you want any of the patterns perhaps you could contact Lyn through her blog or Etsy shop and she might be able to help you.  I printed the PDF files at the time, but to send one to you without Lyn's permission would be a copyright violation.  Sorry.

December Gifts are from 2014 Thimblemouse Designs by Lynn Z Provencher and were part of the Country Crossroads Quilt Shop, Orange Park, FL Row by Row Experience that year.  June Sweet Summertyme are also from 2014 Row By Row Experience designed by Roseann Meehan Kermes for Rosebud's Cottage, White Bear Lake, MN.  I bought one kit and used scraps from my stash to make additional blocks as needed.  I can't find links to either of those patterns anymore.

February Hearts are from Quiltmaker's Bitty Love Hearts, but I doubled them in size.
October Pumpkins are  from Sherri K. Falls at This & That.  They are from her Mystery Monday #6, and I reduced the size by half.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Allietare!

Yes, it's time to Rejoice and do a happy dance today.  It took a year, but my Allietare quilt top is finished!
Allietare quilt top - 84x84 

Allietare was Bonnie Hunter's 2016 Quiltville Winter Mystery, and it's a beauty.  At the time she published the clues for the mystery my scrap bins were pretty low on options.  So, I shopped my stash for fabrics. There was enough yardage of the right colors in the stash to make a half-size Allietare using constant rather than scrappy colors.

Since I have at least four Bonnie Hunter quilt tops in the pile that still need to be quilted, I thought half size sounded good enough for me.  After borders, it actually turned out much larger than I anticipated.  It will fit the full size bed in the guest room perfectly!

It's a new favorite!  It may be some time before it's quilted though. I seem to always be more interested in piecing than in quilting.  But let's count 7.5 yards of fabric used already this year and 0 new yards purchased.  Off to a good start I'd say.