starts and finishes

The kids were home on spring break last week, so we filled our days with fun activities and day trips. However, I have managed to finish a few things over the past few weeks. The Bits of Washington quilt is quilted and bound ... just simple swirls, but I love how it turned out. I used a scrappy green binding to match the scrappy trees for the evergreen state. Each block makes me think about something special in my home state.



I also finished binding the grandmother's flower garden for my mom. The quilting is loose and loopy so I didn't add any puckers. Then I gently curved the binding rather than following each hexagon. The edges were a bit frayed from it's many years being stored wherever it was stored. It would be so fun to know the story of who made this quilt and how many places it has lived. It is now on its way to my mom for her to enjoy and use.

Judy Niemeyer visited our guild this month and taught 2 great workshops. Her presentation and trunk show were wonderful - what an amazing collection of quilts and an amazing number of paper pieced stars! I took the half-day One For All Seasons table runner workshop and have now finished 74 of the 120 spiky points for the three circles of the runner. Picture to follow soon.

I sewed like mad!

Our retreat was great fun ... in a hotel that we had not stayed in before. They put out tons of wonderful snacks all day long, both healthy and not-so-healthy. We really didn't need to go out for dinner, but we did anyway. Lots of sewing, lots of laughter and great to see what everyone was working on. I made great progress on my Washington State swap blocks. It's all together in a top, with wonky tress and free-pieced letters to tie together the assorted blocks about WA state (where I grew up). I really like how it turned out, although it's quite a bit bigger than I thought it would be!

I also mostly finished the scalloped binding on the grandmother's flower garden quilt (lots of easing of puckers in that binding!) and a simple charity top. Now I'm working on some cushion covers for my brother ... he choose black duck cloth, so it's not a very exciting project, but they will be well used an appreciated. Hope to get those done soon so I can get to finishing my WA quilt.

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.

Swap Quilt Finished

I finished and shipped this little monochromatic quilt this afternoon for the FSQS-5. I was glad that my partner liked purple, because I had plenty in my stash to choose from. I decided to hand quilt it with black pearl cotton ... I like the texture it adds, and since I am not a hand-quilting, tiny stitch expert, I think my bigger stitches look pretty good. I would have liked to have this 18" square quilt stay in my home, but it's fun to swap and I look forward to what arrives in my mailbox in the next few weeks.


I also sent off 2 bushfire blocks to Tia for the quilts she is working on. I forgot to snap a picture before the envelope was sealed, but they were bright and cheerful.

My next project is a Neil Armstrong astronaut jumpsuit for my son. His 2nd grade class does a "biography breakfast" in which they research a person and present a report dressed as that person. We decided on the "in capsule" jumpsuit rather than the walk-on-the-moon suit since it's much less puffy and easier to wear in class. It's a great project and the audience has lots of fun trying to guess who each student is portraying.

Crumbs and Strings

My overflowing string bin was calling out my name to use some strings! Sewing some of my strings and crumbs together has been very relaxing as I use a spare moment here and there, so I am building up a pile of blocks and trying to empty my bin (that may be impossible, however!) I've seen some great pictures of crumb quilts on blogs, (like this beauty), and I'm inspired to complete one of my own. I've finished about 40 8" blocks ... I'll decide the size of the quilt when I can glimpse the bottom of my bin.


Our guild had a comfort quilt workshop this week and it was terrific to have a room full of 50+ women making quilts for others. I brought this small scots plaid quilt (an abandoned ufo) all quilted and ready for binding, so I finished the first quilt of the day. I had cut lots of squares and rectangles to make a large quilt in this pattern several years ago, but it just never caught my interest again, so I used some of the rectangles to add a piano key border and called it done. Nice to have off to be used and loved.

I have a few small projects to finish with a strict deadline ... FSQS-5 and SFRR3, they are all completed in my mind, but not in reality yet. I've a few weeks left, so I must set aside the strings sometime soon and finish them. I'm also inspired by the Bushfire Quilt Project to make a few maverick stars for those who have lost so much in Austraila. It sounds like a wonderful crew of quilters are working together to help others.