Making Progress!

On my last post, I mentioned that I was about 1/2 finished with quilting my 100 Dresses quilt! It is now finished!  This was such a fun personal challenge quilt from the summer of 2025! 

This quilt was inspired by the book The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.  The book is about bullying of children based on their race and nationality. Estes based the book on an incident from her own childhood to atone for staying silent when a peer was bullied. We need to stand up to bullying!

Some of you played along and encouraged me in this challenge by weekly choosing your favorite dress and I thank you!

All the blocks were paper pieced from over 100 different scraps from my stash (100 dresses plus tights, hair and skin tones). I drew the pattern myself so it gives the appearance of holding hands.

This quilt finished at 60" x 80"

The backing is an aqua gingham fabric! Isn't my helper adorable!

I also joined the new challenge by Taryn @reproquiltlover on IG. The pattern is called Fancy Four Patch.

Here are my first 4 blocks. They are 4.5" finished. The tiny HST are only 3/4"! Again, I am using fabric from my stash. Only needed to add one solid color to balance out the colors. 

My RSC block for February is finished too! The color is light green! Here is my flower block!

And on a final note, I started and finished the quilting on my 2nd RSC quilt from 2025! The binding is on so the last step is to hand stitch!

I'm linking to SoScrappySaturday @SoScrappy, Finished or Not Fridays @AlyciaQuilts

It Is About Time to Update!#?

On my last post I showed a peek of my Scrappy Meets Thrift Challenge quilt. I had decided to hand quilt this baby and I love the way it turned out.  

This challenge was hosted by Taryn @reproquiltlover over on Instagram. The block size is 3" and the quilt finished at 45.5" x 48.5"

I also showed the progress on my 100 dresses quilt. It is now partly quilted so it is getting close to a finish! Pictures coming!

And I showed you my quilted coat that I made from one of my quilts. My daughter wanted one so I looked through all the finished quilts that I have and determined which ones would be the right size. From those I narrowed down a few for her to pick from. We talked about a few changes that I would make from what I learned making my coat. 

She chose this bow tie quilt that I made the summer she got married! It was a 100 days of summer challenge making one bow tie block a day.

Since her birthday is 5 days after Christmas, I needed to get started right away. 

 

She wanted the coat to be slightly shorter (she is shorter that I am) and I changed the pockets to be a bit larger.  I kept the sleeves longer because she liked the idea of a cuff. 

I kept the label (although a bit faded) from the original quilt. Another dilemma I had was the buttons closures. I did not want to make button holes, so for mine I bought frogs with toggle buttons. It isn't ideal as they don't stay closed tightly. So for hers, I order heavy duty magnet 'buttons'. We are finding that they don't stay closed especially when she uses the pockets. I'm looking for alternative options. Anyone have ideas that worked for you? I did take some scraps from the quilt and tried button holes which seem to work pretty well. Looking for buttons that will work!

I also changed the way I covered the seams. It is similar; however, I sewed the seams flat to make a cleaner finish.

Here I am trying it out before her birthday.

She loves it and it looks so good on her!

See the problem with the magnets?

Linking to Finished or NotFridays @AlyciaQuilts

Finally, I started a new block for the 2026 RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) over @SoScrappy. January's color is blue. I am making flower blocks using the flower pattern from Hello Spring from @Penandpaperpatterns

I may or may not add the leaves in the future! We will see how it goes!

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @SoScrappy

Working behind the scene. Here's a peek.

 I really do mean to get better at posting but my retired life is busier than ever. We spend quite a bit of time with our loves, our grandchildren! Although we get tired, we wouldn't change the chance to spend time with them and develop a sweet relationship with them. 

Behind the scenes, I have been quietly working on some hand stitching. The quilt I made for the #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge that I joined with Taryn @reproquiltlover is being hand quilted by me. It is a slow process. Here is a sneak peek.

I believe I have 21 rows left to quilt.

I also put together the flimsy of my 100 dresses quilt.

Sorry for the poor quality photo

And I finished one of my RSC quilts - the improv blocks!

I named this one Take Five. It finished at 57" square. 

I arranged the blocks in a checkerboard and quilted in an improv straight line grid.

I will link with @ScrapHappySaturday over @SoScrappy.

Now to get my traditional blocks arranged and ready for quilting!

Another exciting project I just finished is making my first quilted coat! I've been wanting to make one for several years and searched for a pattern that I liked and could be used for an already made quilt. You see, I have so many quilts that don't get used very often so I wanted to use what I have. I finally settled on this pattern - knowme ME2058

I needed to make some adjustments like putting the top and bottom pieces together because I was using an already made quilt. I also needed to adjust the seem allowances and eliminate the lining. I changed the pockets and the buttons. 

The original quilt I wanted to use was just not wide enough so I went with this quilt. You can read the original post about this quilt here.

I made this quilt in 2017 and named it Splendid. The pattern is a called Delectable Mountain. I carefully removed the binding, saving it for later use. I laid out and cut out the pieces. I made a pattern for some patch pockets and cut those out. I bound those separately and attached them to the 2 front pieces. The rest of the piecing was fairly straight forward but I used the old binding to cover all the raw edges of the seams. I didn't want to make button holes so I purchased toggle button closures. Here is the finished coat and some details.

Selfies before buttons and details of covered seams.

As we head into the holiday season, I hope to posts some projects in progress or completed. 🤞🏻

Linking to Finished or Not Friday @AlyciaQuilts

Where has the summer gone?

 I can't believe it is the end of August, kids are back in school and Labor Day is quickly approaching. In the beginning of summer, I started a 100 day challenge to make 100 dress blocks based on the book, The Hundred Dresses. It wasn't easy making sure I took time each day to make a dress but I persevered and realized that I'm on my last 9 dresses! I also realized that I haven't blogged since July!

Many dresses were stitched since then but I will only post a few here. If you want to see all of them you can see them on my Instagram or Facebook posts. 

All the fabrics used in the dress blocks are from fabrics in my stash. 

 To involve others in my challenged, I asked those that wanted to vote for their favorite dress/girl. Several friends on Instagram and Facebook voted each week. It was interesting to see how varied everyone's choices were. This was a fun project with just a week to go!

What else have I've been doing? 

I finished my quilt based on Denyse Schmidt's class, The Proverbial Quilt. See my previous post. I will take photos over the Labor Day weekend. Stay tuned.

I made the August blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC)! August color is Aqua/Turquoise blue.

I finished the Scrappy Meets Thrift Challenge top. It is next in line for quilting!

Finally, my daughter and I spent last Friday indigo dyeing. Here are my results!

Another fun day of craftiness!