Bats and Boos

 Last year the Fat Quarter Shop shared this mystery quilt along.  Such cute little bats and pumpkins!  The fabrics were pulled and pattern printed, but the season passed before I knew it.   I never even got started.  Late this summer I finally got tired of moving the pile of fabrics from place to place in my sewing room.  I pulled it out and got to work.  The purple border was an extra step I added, and it frames the quilt so nicely.   All finished- well in time for Halloween.  All fabrics from my stash too!  (5 1/2 yards worth) 

Bats and Boos 43.5 inches square

Wedding Ring for Jackie and Jeremey

 Yesterday extended families and friends came together to celebrate the marriage of our lovely niece and our new nephew-by-marriage.  What a beautiful day!  You can't have an aunt who quilts without receiving a wedding quilt.  Every stitch made with hopes and prayers for a wonderful life together.

Our niece has always enjoyed skiing, and their new home in Colorado will offer many opportunities for them to continue in the sport.  Fabrics chosen for their quilt kept that in mind.  The blue and white both are snowflake prints.  Navy and grey borders frame a field of single wedding ring blocks.  The pieced  blocks even reminded me of snowflakes.

The pattern was in a 2006 Quilting Block & Pattern-a-Day Calendar by Debby Kratovil.  Coincidentally, the blocks were featured over days that included the bride's birthday.  It was meant to be!

It's not quite queen size in width.  Perfect for cuddling up on the sofa on crisp winter evenings with a cup of hot cocoa.  Love and best wishes to the bride and groom!

Jamestown Landing in progress

 Bonnie Hunter has been a favorite quilt designer of mine for years now.  Every year I try to do one of her designs. They are challenging for me, and it's always interesting to give it my own twist.

For a number of years I've been saving blue and white half-square triangles.  I've also been saving selvage edges from fabric.  Instead of string piecing the neutral blocks on Jamestown Landing, I used neutral selvages.  It certainly gives a similar look, and it was a great way to use up the selvages that I didn't use in my basket weave quilt.  That being said, I'm all done saving selvages!  Three quilts is enough.  I don't think the method of topstitching them together is strong enough to withstand much practical use.  But, I did enjoy giving it a try.

Here's a quick snapshot of Jamestown Landing before I started quilting it up.  The quilting was finished last weekend, and trimming and binding are up next.  I hope to share the finished quilt with you soon.

Valentine Mystery

 Here's a sweet little quilt that seemed to take forever to get the binding handwork done.  I can hardly remember when it was started.  It was the Valentine Mystery sew-along from last February by Kathleen Tracy.  This little cutie finished at 15 1/2" square.  Usually these small quilts are part of my sit-and-wait handwork when I go to doctor appointments, but lately I barely get in three stitches before my name is called. 

A quilt for the June bride

Our niece was married last weekend and I finished their wedding quilt with just two days to spare.  Her favorite color is red, and she wanted a controlled color palate.  Nothing scrappy for her!  Classic and classical are her style.

As I thought about the design I wondered "Where does the time go?  Sand through the hourglass."  It has been a joy to watch her grow and change, and she was a stunningly beautiful bride. Disappearing Hourglass is the pattern I chose for their quilt, in a two-color red and white.

Disappearing Hourglass 92" square

The white fabric has a sweet gray swirl which softens the look of the quilt.  Her bridesmaids wore burgundy red dresses quite similar to the red in the quilt.  I'll call that a win!

While I was sewing their quilt, I was reminded how a marriage and a quilt have some similarities.  As much as I try, on my quilt blocks there are always points that just don't match up right.  But, in the grand scheme of things that doesn't really matter unless the quilt is going to be entered in a competition.  A marriage is NOT is a competition!  Some points won't be perfect, but focusing on those too closely just makes you dissatisfied with the whole thing.  With a quilt, and a marriage, you need to  see it as a whole.  The imperfections become insignificant, the overall beauty is revealed and you see that marriage, like a quilt, is truly a work of art.

Winter birds

 This little wall hanging cheered up our cabin this winter after the Christmas decorations came down.  

Winter Birds 3x44 inches

When I first purchased my Elna embroidery machine I tried out a number of Embroidery Library designs. These winter birds were stitched on a piece of blue linen I had on hand.  They turned out beautifully, but I never could figure out what to do with them.  They sat in the orphan blocks box for years.

This January I finally used them to make a wall hanging, and it worked out perfectly!  I trimmed the blocks down to 9 inches and added navy linen-look cotton sashing.  It gave me a chance to practice my free motion stipple quilting.  I quilted right through the embroidery and it worked out well.   I used two different shades of blue thread for the wavy line quilting in the sashing and border.

Many Happy Hearts

 This sweet little quilt has been a UFO for over a decade.  The vintage 30's colors look just like springtime, and I'm so happy it's finally a finished quilt!  My hubby was kind enough to put up an old brass curtain rod near the ceiling in the hallway so I can photograph quilts through the bathroom doorway.  Hey, it works for me!

Many Happy Hearts 45 x 54 inches

The pattern was printed in Spring 2007 America Loves Scrap Quilts from McCalls Quilting.  I may have the book/magazine or maybe found it at the local library.  A single photocopy page, and all sorts of fabric scraps, were put into a project pack and brought up to our lake cabin.  I worked on it for a season or two, then set it aside.  This winter I was looking for something to work on and pulled it out of the sewing drawer.

Of the original pattern's 20 blocks, I had finished ten.  Two more were cut out and ready to applique.  It didn't take long to finish up those two blocks and call it 'good enough.'  Those 12 blocks became this sweet little quilt.  

The borders didn't take long, but oops!  Problem...

Border before re-stitching to shorten.

 Using fewer blocks in the quilt put the pieced border pattern off kilter.  This was actually a pretty easy fix.  I needed to shorten the sides by one block width. (2 inches)  Nothing was getting ripped out! Oh no. Starting with every-other horizontal seam (and then adding in a couple more as needed) they were re-stitched right next to the old stitching line.  Just a thread width. This took up enough length to make the border fit perfectly, and no one is the wiser. (wink)

 The backing is a white and gray plaid fleece.  No batting.  So soft and cozy to cuddle in on a cool spring evening.  

Moda Love for Ukraine

 So many quilters are showing their support for the people of Ukraine as they both battle and flee the invading Russian military forces who are destroying their country.  A floral print in the Ukrainian national colors of royal blue and yellow inspired this queen size version of the Moda Love pattern.  

I used 8.5-inch blocks to best fit the amount of fabric I had on hand.  Seriously, the math is so easy with this pattern that any size block can be used.  The yellow grunge and the floral were entirely used up, and the blues were mostly scraps. I won the bobbin race a few times too!   

Next step is to figure out what designs I want to use to quilt it.  I use my domestic sewing machine, so there may be a lot of straight lines and walking foot stitching.  We shall see. The pieces on this quilt seem huge to me!  The past few years my quilts have mostly been 2.5-inch triangles and Bonnie Hunter designs.  At that scale a simple stitch in the ditch, or diagonal through the block quilting pattern works well.  That's not going to work on this quilt, but there's no hurry.

Two wedding quilts for nieces with summer and fall weddings are next on my to-do list.  Those both have specific wedding dates to be finished.  Stay tuned!