Six more blocks

Have you been sewing along with Kathleen Tracy's "Aunt Addie's Blue Ribbon Quilt"?  The final set of blocks was posted this month and here's what mine look like.

I'm looking forward to seeing how she puts the block sets all together on July 1st.

Sewing along on Cheddarback

So far there hasn't been much quilting going on this summer.  That seems fairly typical for me.  I'm really motivated and productive in the sewing room from January through March and then.... well, things just get in the way.

But, I've kept up with the Cheddarback monthly sew along from Gay at Sentimental Stitches.  Here are months 3 and 4.

Gay is doing a wonderful job drafting patterns from her vintage quilt.  It wouldn't look exactly the same, but it is easy to see where modern piecing methods would be easier on some of the 5-inch blocks. Especially that one on the lower right. Sometimes the math just doesn't work out nicely and clearly the original was hand pieced. 

The angles on that bow tie were hard to get right by machine.  On the basket blocks I just finally hacked off the base to make it all fit.  Why not?  No quilt police at my house!

It's a fun challenge.  I can see how Gay was particularly drawn to this quilt.  The way the quilt maker balanced a large block and four smaller ones using columns and rows is so creative.  This would be such a great layout for orphan blocks - and maybe that is just what it was for the original quilt maker.

Scrappy Stars finished!

Keeping the enthusiasm to quilt up the pile of quilt tops pieced last year has been tough, but I'm still working at it.  This past week I finished quilting Scrappy Star.  The pattern is from  "Toppers" by Lynda Milligan & Nancy Smith and published by Possibilities Quilt of Denver, Colorado in 1998.  I found the book at the police department auxiliary's annual book sale last June.  (or maybe the year before...)

Scrappy Stars  86 inches square

The main body was quilted in vertical rows with the walking foot, but there was fun to be had with free-motion borders.  The blue border has fish, the red border has stars and the green border has Baptist fans.

This was such a great quilt for using up scraps from my 5-inch and 2.5-inch bags.  I sure thought it would make a bigger dent in those than it did.  Isn't that always the case?  I even expanded the size from the original 6 blocks to 16.

Sometimes I feel like my scrap bags are magic - you can take out as much as you want, but the bag will still always be full!  Even Harry Potter would be amazed.

My Bonnie Hunter "Grand Illusion" was sandwiched and pinned this weekend.  Look for that one to be finished next.

Can't resist a sew along!

No matter how busy I am, it seems I just can't resist a good sew-along.  Especially when it is a reproduction of a vintage quilt!

Gay at Sentimental Stitches is sharing the patterns for a lovely vintage quilt she has in her collection.  She gave it the name Cheddarback from the brilliantly bright color of the backing fabric.  I've had to re-make two blocks because I wasn't happy with a couple of my first fabric choices.   (Medium green did NOT play well with others.)   But, now that I've decided on a more unified and subdued color palette, I love it!

Here's the first two months of the sew along.  I just hope I can keep up with the patterns while they are still free on line and don't miss any months. (Sometimes I get behind on my blog reading.)

My favorite block is the basket - where the plaid ended up quite wonky.   I cut all of the pieces out of a single 6-inch block of fabric.  Classic vintage look!

Good Fortune with Scrap Squares

Two more quilts are out of the UFO pile this month. I've made so much progress in quilting things up this winter! 

One more queen size quilt is pinned and ready to quilt, but that might not be done for a while.  My Elna is in the shop for repairs.  I prefer to do my quilting on that machine.  She seemed to think that the top thread was always broken.  After 6 or 7 re-threads I finally just took her in to the shop.   I was hoping that a piece of broken thread was stuck in there.  Looks like it will be a more expensive repair than that. (sigh) They seemed to think a sensor has gone bad. 

Fortunately, I have a back-up machine that does nice piecing and applique.  The lights are shot in the display panel, but a flashlight seems to do the trick to help me see where to press on the panel to get the stitch I want.  (Don't let anyone tell you quilters aren't persistent.)

Here's the second version of Scrap Squares.  This pattern sure helped use a lot of 5-inch scraps!  The backing is a cute fleece print, and there's no batting.  It will make a great little throw to curl up and watch television or read a book.

And...  Good Fortune is all quilted up too.   That makes 4 Queen, 2 Twin, 2 Lap quilts, 1 small wall hanging and 2 table runners so far.

Navy and Tan

Navy and Tan throw 53x45 inches

This little lap quilt went together over the summer.  It was an attempt to use up some matching, but fairly dull fabrics from my stash.  On their own, the colors weren't much to write home about, but put together they make a nice combination. 

It' great to get these fabrics moved along from the stash and made into something useful! The backing is fleece, and there's no batting.  Fleece is warm enough for a little throw.   Time to snuggle up with this quilt and some popcorn to watch a little television.

A peek of Summer

A really snowy Minnesota February was brightened by quilting up this cheery quilt.  It's a traditional Hen and Chicks block, and the crisp colors in the fabrics are a burst of summer.  The border is a chicken wire print found at JoAnn.  Perfect!

Cute Chick!  61x73 inches

It's so exciting to see the quilt tops that I've pieced up over the past year or so being finished, and that UFO pile dwindling.  Hope I can keep it up for another month!  So far this is the 5th quilt for 2019, and two table runners besides.

Here's the table runner I made with the three leftover blocks from this quilt.

Love the little chicks in the red print fabric.  So sweet!