Finishing This and That

Next week is our guild's annual close-to-home retreat. We bring whatever we wish to work on, stay 3 days, laugh much and sew lots. Last year was my first ever quilting retreat, and I had a wonderful time and made some good new friends. Although I'll miss my family, I'm looking forward to a girls sewing get-away. Here are my piles of potential projects to bring with me ... I have so many things I'd love to finish, I'm not sure what I'll work on.


One thing I should be able to finish is putting a scalloped binding on this flower garden quilt. My mom found the top at a flea market, and it only needed a few repairs. I did a gentle, curving machine quilting meander. Hand quilting would have been ideal, but that would have taken me years and this quilt needs to be used and enjoyed, not stored away for another 50 years. The vintage fabrics are great, but the top was pretty lumpy, so tight machine quilting would have been a puckery nightmare. I have yellow to match the flower centers for the binding, and I hope to send it back to my mom for her April birthday.



I've finished a few charity items ... this Chinese coins top is sandwiched and ready for quilting, and these QAYG blocks are for the Heartstrings special project for Australia. Great to use up some strings and batting scraps in those blocks.


Finally, I received my SFRR-3 center this week and was immediately inspired for the first border. These little 1/4 square blocks will surround the center and pick up lots of the colors used by the center block quilter. This will be done way before the deadline!

LIttle Steps

Although I have no major completions this week, I have found some time to work on this and that. I spent a few hours using my friend's longarm and got my daughter's "sewing room bits" top quilted. I have the binding sewn on the front, now I just need to hand stitch it to the back. I also quilted a small comfort quilt and have the binding stitched on for our next guild meeting. This bordered blocks quilt with a school print in the centers was a comfort quilt I finished last month. The bordered blocks is my current favorite comfort quilt pattern - it works up quickly and is a nice showcase for fun kid prints.


This pieced top was formerly a small travel pillow in my grandmother's car. She usually didn't do fancy patterns, but just rectangles of varied sizes nicely arranged. In her later years, she was always making small lap quilts or kids pajamas to donate to the local hospital. My father had used the pillow in his car for a number of years, but he gave it to me last year to fix up. There were several rectangles which were only shreads, and all of the fabrics are very faded from sitting in the back seat of the car. Some fabrics on the back side are still rather vivid. I found some old fabrics which blended well and replaced the worn out patches. I decided I would do some simple hand quilting and make this into a doll quilt / table topper. The remaining fabrics are a bit frail to be used in a pillow. The old patterns and designs make me think of my grandmother and I'd to have it in my sewing room.

Mailbox Treat!

I received this wonderful green spring quilt in my mailbox yesterday - it is so lovely and such a treat to find something fun in my box. Thanks so much to Gabriele to her beautiful work and Margaret for organizing a great swap!


I also have finished a few things ... the Neil Armstrong astronaut suit is ready for my son's presentation tomorrow. I thought of a clever way to make the NASA and Apollo 11 patches by copying photos I found online, printing them onto fabric, fusing the fabric to interfacing and doing a satin zig-zag stitch around the edge. Not as bright as official badges, but just fine for a 5 minute presentation. Perhaps he'll wear it for Halloween as well.


I added my daughters name to a quilt I finished up for her which contains her favorite cast-offs from my sewing room. Orphan blocks, favorite fabrics, cut-up panels, just things that caught her fancy. I love making Tonya's free-pieced letters, although I have not made that many of them. I made one for Linus which she really liked and wished for one of her own. It's about 60" by 80" and I'll quilt it next week on my friend's gammill.


I got a bit carried away making example pillowcases this week! I taught a mom-and-me sewing bee class last night at our local Park & Rec and everyone made pillowcases for their bed. It was so great to see all the combinations the girls came up with. Lots of lace, but also lots of cozy blue flannel plaids, so everyone was happy with the choices from the donated fabric box. Next week we will make mother/daughter aprons (only girls signed up this time.) I'm sending my sample pillowcases off to Alicia for her QOV project, it felt good to use up some fabrics that never fit into other projects.