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!