Doing some catching up

It has been a while since I have update my temperature quilt! My summer plans were to start and complete a few quilts. In doing so, it was hard to sneak in time to do the regulars like my temperature blocks. I did, however, continue to log the highs and lows of every day!

I spent the last few days catching up on it...cutting all the block pieces and piecing them together, then the rows and finally adding them to the top! 

Here it is!

Look how warm our summer has been! I think we will have at least another row of those warm colors before the colors start to shift back to the cool yellow and greens AND before getting into the cold blues. 

Since we are in September already, the Rainbow Scrap Challenged announced a new color ~ dark blues. Plenty of those in my scrap bin! 

Here is my flying geese block.

I really like this block and will probably add more blocks to make the size of the quilt bigger! I will be limited by the amount of the crosshatch fabric I have left.

I also finished the Plus blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Only a few more months to go!

I'm linking up to Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts, Making Monday at Love Laugh Quilt, Moving It Forward at Em's Scrapbag, To Do Tuesday at Stitch All The Things, Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, and Scrap Happy Saturday at So Scrappy

After a Small Hiatus

First , let me tell you about our news and why I took a small hiatus from blogging (quilting and knitting, too) to visit family in Austin. We have some pretty exciting things happening there! My DD2 and SIL are expecting their first child AND our first grandchild in January! They are very excited as are we! 

Baby K Bump! They are not finding out the sex of the baby so we all will be surprised upon arrival!

These are a few of the things my daughter has made. She indigo dyed the onesie, made the teether/pacifier leash with teething beads and stitched one of her ultrasound pictures of Baby K! 

We were able to be in Austin for one of the ultrasounds! Things sure have changed since I had my daughter 30 years ago! Pretty amazing!

My SIL practicing on Miss Sadie!

MORE exciting news from Austin is that my DD3 was cloaked with her white coat at the ceremony officially starting her entry into Pharmacy School. In 4 years she will be a PhD! 

We are incredibly proud of her!

Since I have been back, I pieced another baby quilt! 

I love the churn dash block and this block came up on my Pinterest feed and I knew that I needed to would make it!

I had the perfect fabric in my stash...a sweet baby pink fabric with little flowers and the same fabric in a soft yellow! 

And guess what I did with all the HST cutoffs from the Churn Link block? Yep, I made them into small 4" churn dash blocks. 

These will be pieced into the backing! 

More on the technique I used to pieced these small blocks coming!

Happy Quilting!

A finish!

I'm excited to show you my latest finish! Last Friday, I showed you the spiral quilting on my quilt, Blush. Today, I'll can show you it all finished! 

I added quilting in the white borders around the 4 patch blocks, in the sashing between the blocks, more quilting in the white borders and in the ditch of the piano keys. 

The quilting in the border corners of the 4-patch blocks reminds me of  arrowheads. Sometimes I get stuck on how to turn the corners when quilting. Do you feel this way too? 

The quilting in the sashing are flowers that mimic the flowers in the fabric. 

I quilted flying geese in the borders and also a rope. Lots of different elements. 

The fabric line is Blush by Basic Grey and it was the first fabric bundle I purchased way back when I was a fairly new quilter. The background is Kona White, I think the inner border is Kona Bahama Blue, and the binding is Kona Chocolate. 

The back was pieced using all the remaining fabric from the line and a few coordinating pieces from my stash. 

The quilt finishes at approx. 51" x 61".

It sure does feel good to have another finish before school starts!

I'm linking up to Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, To Do Tuesday at Stitch All Things, Color Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon Quilting, and MCM at Cooking Up Quilts.

Under my needle

After finishing my Rhythm in Blues quilt and catching up on my RSC blocks, I had time to start a new project. 

I challenge myself to work from what's in my stash as much as possible. 

In my stash, I was gifted a large amount of fabric with bees on it. 

Did I ever mention that my husband is a hobby bee keeper with some friends? We have been around bees and harvesting honey for many years. I'm sure most of you have heard of the situation with bees dying and campaigns to save the bees. So I decided to use the 'bee' fabric to make a quilt. 

I found the pattern Pinwheel Puzzle by Elaine Theriault in the March/April 2018 issue of McCall's Quilting magazine. I made it a bit smaller than the pattern and then added the words Save the Bees on the side. I used the book Spelling Bee by Lori Holt for the letters. The top is finished but it needs to wait for quilting until I finish what went under my needle this morning...Blush!

I pieced this quilt back in May but it has been waiting for quilting. I pushed the Harry Potter, Rhythm in Blues and KF Mini ahead of it so it starting nagging begging me to start quilting it. Yesterday, I got busy and sandwiched it and this morning it went under the needle. I quilted the spirals in the centers of the 4 patch blocks. Borders and sashings are next. 

I'm linking up to Finished or Not Fridays at Busy Hands Quilt, Can I get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Off the Wall Friday at Creations.

Here is my entry for Pets on Quilts 2018! 

Nellie loves to sit on the quilt and rest her head as she watches out the window! Feel free to vote for her! Head over to see all the cute furry friends!

New monthly color and a neighborhood update!

August is here and a new color has been announced for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ~ ORANGE!

I was able to find some time yesterday to work on my RSC blocks! 

Plus Sign blocks

Flying Geese Block

I'm linking to Scrap Saturday at So Scrappy. 

I'm excited to announce that my little neighborhood has grown. Another population explosion and we are up to 81 houses! 

I still haven't run out of blue scraps! Each house is made out of a different blue fabric mostly from my scraps. My friend, Joy, gave me a few of her blue scraps to add to the neighborhood. I'm always looking for more so I can keep expanding my neighborhood! Since these houses are only 4 1/2" unfinished, it doesn't take a big scrap. 

Do you have some blue scraps to share?   

Linking to Show Off Saturday at She Can Sew

Rhythm in Blues!

Rhythm in Blues is finished! 

It went from this idea

to this finished quilt!

My daughter has been doing indigo dying and has been encouraging me to try dying my own fabrics for my quilts. I just haven't been able to get all the supplies ordered when I found Marika Indigo Batiks by Connecting Threads. While at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago (way back in April), I purchased a Strips Pack (their name for a jelly roll). I realized that I would need an additional pack and some yardage for the ends and backing. I ordered them and then they sat for some time as other things got priority of my time. 

I finally was able to start cutting out the fabric and sewing! 

After opening the Strip Pack, I realized that 4 of the strips (in each pack) were with white background, so I put them aside to use as the borders. The rest were cut in 10" pieces for the field of my quilt. 

I sewed the strips together in the method you would use to join strips together for making a binding. However, since I wanted the angles to be different on each end to form a trapezoid, the layout of the fabric and angle drawn is different. 

I named my quilt Rhythm in Blues because of the movement created by the alternating trapezoid shapes. I quilted using a freeform curve idea I found on Pinterest. 

My quilt finishes at 46.5" x 56".

I wrote up a pattern with more pictures if you are interested in making my quilt Rhythm in Blues. I would love to see your version! You can share by tagging me @dmtornes #rhythminblues on Instagram.

Here is the link to my pattern Rhythm in Blues.

I'm linking up to Finished or Not Fridays at Busy Hands Quilts, Can I get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and TGIFF at Anja Quilts.

Fun Mail Day!

Today my book, Quilts! Quilts! Quilts! came in the mail! 

No, I am not a published author. However, I have been working on my 3rd book of Quilts for several weeks! 

Every couple of years, I put together a book to document the quilts that I have made (totaling 168.) I include a little about each quilt: techniques, fabrics, the recipient, if it was given to someone, the size and date of completion. 

I use an online book publisher. There are many but I started with Picaboo 

(when I made a book for my daughter's wedding) 

and have stayed with them. 

I like the quality and it is easy to use.

Here are all three of my 'published' quilt books! 

I also have another quilt just about finished! I have been thinking about this quilt for months and I found and bought the fabrics back in April at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago. I drew out the plan on graph paper and determined the size, etc but then things stalled. 

After I finished Harry Potter, I just had to make it a priority so that it would happen before school started again (and be out of my head!) 

Here is a peek.

I may put together a tutorial if anyone is interested. 

The finish is coming soon!