Week 2 of my 100 days of summer challenge and more

Week 2 of my 100 days of Summer challenge is finished. Dresses 8-14 are now ready for viewing! 

I'm having a lot of fun putting together the outfits from my scraps! On Instagram and Facebook, I put a little survey to pick the weekly favorite! Would you like to play along? Just add your favorite to your comment by mentioning the Day number. If you are interested, you could choose one from last week also here. (Just scroll down a bit to find the dresses!) 

My favorite from this week is #11. 

It  is hard to choose one and I kept changing my mind. 😜

Last month, I took a video class with @craftymonkies and taught by @GaryMillsDesigns to learn Kawandi quilt making. It was on my quilting bucket list for quite some time. This piece is a practice piece and is not very big and does not have the traditional Fula on the corners but decorative points on one side. 

Kawandi is all hand stitched and pieced as you go from the outside to the inside. I love the drape on Kawandi quilts because you use a lighter fabric rather than batting in the layer. I'm gathering up supplies to try my hand at a larger quilt! Have your tried Kawandi quilt making?

Linking to Wednesday Wait Loss @theinquiringquilter, Sew & Tell @MelvaLovesScraps, To Do Tuesday @QuiltSchmilt, DesignWallMonday @SmallQuilts&DollQuilts

A Finish and a New Challenge

Today  I would like to share my newest finish with you. I have wanted to make a new quilt for my newest son-in-law for a while so I asked my daughter suggestions and colors. Brendan's favorite color is green and I choose a pattern with flying geese since he is a pilot. Looking through several patterns, we choose the pattern Formation, designed by Myra @Busy Hands Quilts. I had many greens in my stash, but I limited the spectrum to the lighter greens, ranging from yellow greens to sage.

I used Kona Ash for the background. This pattern was easy to machine piece. 

I straight line quilted 1/4" in the background/negative space with gray thread and FMQ in the geese with green thread. 

I used a solid green for the backing and one of the geese colors for the binding.

The quilt finishes at 63" x 72"

We were able to celebrate Brendan's birthday while we were visiting them in their beautiful new home in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Maker photo

Back in the summer of 2011, I found a challenge on Facebook to make a bowtie block a day! I completed that challenge but never found the challenge again. This year I decided to make a personal daily challenge throughout the summer months. I'm calling this challenge the (#100dayssummer2025project). I drafted a simple paper pieced dress pattern. I copied it and reversed the pattern so there will be 2 versions. 

To get 100 days, I started May 25th and will go to Sept 2nd.

Here are my first 7 blocks (I will try to post 1 week at a time).

All the dresses and tights are scraps from my stash. I am having fun 'dressing' the girls. The inspiration for this challenge came from the book, 

The 100 Dresses by Eleanor Estes.

I hope you enjoy watching as my collection of dresses grows!

May's Rainbow Scrap Challenge and some sewing behind the scenes

I'm happy to say that I have had the time to work on my RSC blocks early in the month! May's color is green! Such a nice color for May as the grass turns green, leaves and spring flowers start budding! 

I have a lot of greens in my stash from yellow green to dark green. I randomly chose 10 different greens to make my blocks - 5 traditional and 5 improv.

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @SoScrappy

One last 'catch-up' quilt from 2024 is Pattern Play. This quilt was made using techniques taught by @victoria_vanderlaan and stretched over a 12" x 12" canvas. I used some solid scraps from my scrap bin and improv piecing. 

I also have been sewing some secret projects. 
Firstly, I have been making a quilt for our son-in-law for his birthday. He is the only one in my immediate family without a quilt. Here is a glimpse.

I also was commissioned to make a wedding robe for my girlfriend's granddaughter from her mother's wedding dress. 

The wedding is in June but I'm sure none of them read my blog. 

After searching for a robe pattern that was the style that was wanted (wrap-around with sash tie), I started the deconstruction of the wedding gown. It was a bit tricky because behind the lace the satan was cut away. The layout needed to be strategically placed. I wanted to include the lace around the hem of the gown to go around the hem of the robe. 

The lace need to be reattached and stitched. I found that I didn't have enough satan for the sleeves so I needed to use the lace panels as the sleeves. I deconstructed the lace from the train of the gown and fitted 2 of them to bell sleeves. I also repurposed some the beaded lace to the back of the robe. 

Here is how it turned out! I'm please with it and more importantly, my friend and her daughter-in-law love it! The bride (or her sisters) haven't seen it yet. 

This has turned out to be a long post.  Thanks for hanging with me. I will save another of my secret projects for my next post! 

Linking to Finished or Not Fridays @AlyciaQuilts, and Off the Wall Fridays @Creations-Quilts, Arts and Whatever.

April's RSC blocks and some Stripe Hype

 I finally found some free time to work on April's RSC blocks! April's color of the month is red. 5 improv blocks and 5 traditional blocks. 

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday at SoScrappy.

I'm still catching up with pictures of quilts I made in 2024 but forgot to post on my blog. Today I'm sharing my Stripe Hype collection. I made my first in September 2024 (read more here.) I decided to add to it and make a quartet of coordinating 10" x 10" stretched canvas pieces. 

The inspiration for these pieces came from various sources on Pinterest including an advertisement for a rug, an art print by Batta Anastasia, and some Bauhaus prints. I changed some of the colors to fit into my color palette of black, white and red. I very happy with this graphic line work.

I also joined a QAL @reproquiltlover on Instagram. It is called #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge. I'm making the 3" paper pieced economy block using the template by Taryn. Here are my first 25 blocks!

I'm linking to Finished or Not Friday @Alycia Quilts, TGIFF @Devoted Quilter, and Off the Wall Fridays @Creations-Arts Quilts Whatever.
 

March RSC blocks and another finish from 2024

 March is almost over and although I finished these blocks about a week ago, I haven't had time to post. March's color for the RSC is yellow. I made 5 yellow traditional blocks to join January and February's blocks. 

And 5 yellow improv blocks to join January and February's blocks.

I'm enjoying making these blocks and it is fun to see the difference between the traditional and improv of basically the same block.

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @Soscrappy

In my last blog post, I wrote about my Wish Upon a Star quilt that was started at the @craftymonkies retreat last summer. Another of the quilts that I started there was my Citrus quilt. At the retreat, Nicholas Ball taught a class called Fruits and Vegetables. If you don't know about Nicholas Ball, he is a improv extraordinaire! I went into the class with the idea that I would make a grapefruit with the possibility of adding additional citrus fruits later. I left the retreat with this completed block.

Once I got home and started on the orange, lemon, and lime blocks, I realized that the grapefruit should be the largest fruit but it wasn't. So I carefully unpicked the peel, the pith and then added a section and increase the size of the current sections. I then added back the pith and the peel. This is the final grapefruit block.

Here are the 4 citrus fruits together.

I straight line quilted this piece vertically about 1/4" apart but I used citrus colored threads to out line the word citrus. 

Citrus finished at 31" x 31" and was completed in October 2024.

I'm linking to Finished or Not Friday over @Alyciaquilts

Memory Quilt and more

 March has been a busy month for me! I have been working on a few behind the scenes projects. Some I have finished and some are still ongoing. 

I previously mentioned my colleague and friend's sister who passed away a few years ago and left her 3 children behind. I offered to make quilts for them in memory of their mom from some of her clothes. I previously finished quilts for her 2 nieces. You can see them here and here.  I had one left to make for her nephew. I wanted to make a more masculine quilt so I decided to highlight the textures in the clothes and frame the squares with coordinating cottons. 

I cut 12" squares and stabilized them (like making a t-shirt quilt). I tried to get 2 squares from each article of clothing but a few I could only manage to get one. Once the borders were sewn, I arranged the squares in a pleasing and balanced order. 

The quilt was machine pieced and mostly straight line quilted (4 blocks FMQ). Each block has different quilting depending on what spoke to me. 

The back is a large piece of backing fabric: black brush stokes. The binding is in Kona Glacier.

I delivered it to my friend at school this past week. She was deeply touched and said it would be appreciated and loved by her nephew.

I labeled it with this poem.

Maker photo! Finished size 48" x 64"

Here is another one of my quilts from 2024 that escaped getting attention on my blog. 

Wish Upon a Star is a wallhanging quilt that was made following the @Craftymonkies retreat. The class was from Collage to Quilt and was taught by @SarahHibbert. At the retreat I made a collage out of paper scraps. Once home, I pick this collage to make into a quilt.

Sorting through my stash I found fabrics that would work nicely to replicate the collage.

Using the technique that Sarah explains in her book (From Collage to Quilt), I enlarged the image to the desired size. 

Once it was pieced, I quilted in straight lines with coordinating thread colors. Then I stretched it over a canvas frame using the method taught by @victoria_vanderlaan (another teacher at the retreat). I am so proud of this accomplishment!

Maker photo!