PROGRESS!

Last Tuesday I showed you my spool quilt sandwiched and ready to be quilted. I also mentioned that I had finished the quilting on my 2 color bear claw quilt.

Here it is...now called Beary Sweet!

I worked backwards on this quilt, starting with and building the quilt around the backing fabric I had in my stash 

(probably inherited from my mom's stash.)

and using the book two-color Quilts my daughter gave me many years ago.

(This is the second quilt I have made using a pattern from it.)

This is my first finish of 2018! It finishes at 40" x 56" and will be donated as a charity quilt. 

My spool quilt is finished! 

This completes my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2017. The scrappy little spools are all stacked in an organized manner on a shelf! 

The backing is another piece of fabric I inherited from my mom's stash. This is called Mumms the Word by Debbie Mumm. It has all kinds of sewing notions and   sewing needs scattered across the fabric. I also had a extra block I pieced in. I FMQ 'thread' in the color of each spool and woodgrain in the borders. This is my 2nd finish of 2018 and measures 36" x 43".  

I took some time to start piecing my Regatta Quilt (before I sandwich my next flimsy). I am following the QAL over at Home Sewn By Us. I had finally cut all my colored strips and some of my white strips and squares to get started piecing. I was so excited to get started! 

Section A complete!

These are the darkest of my colors and will actually be the first rows 

(not columns but I'm just temporarily saving room on my design wall.)

I also got my delivery (or at least most of it...one backordered 😞) for my Temperature Quilt which I'm following over at NeedledMom. 

Again, I couldn't wait to get started to see what my quilt will look like. One Square in a Square per day. I had made a spreadsheet to keep organized while waiting on my order but I think that I will continue to record daily the temperature high and lows. 

This will actually be the 1st row of the quilt with the darkest (top) square being on the left. January started very cold here, then a bit of a warm up with cooler temperatures following. This will be a fun quilt to track through the year! Head over to Needled Mom to see how different Mary's looks!

 One final update....I finally got around to building (with my hubby's help) a new design wall! It is slightly bigger than my old one. The blocks 'hang on' so much better! We followed this tutorial over at SewKatieDid. 

Here it is being put to good use!

I'm linking up to To Do Tuesday over at Stitch All The Things, FreeMotion by the River for Linky Tuesday, and Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

Status Report

I'm still working on finishing my 2017 challenge quilts and one charity quilt but I'm happy to say that all of them are now in the flimsy stage! The charity quilt is  sandwiched and ready for quilting!

This 2 color Bear Claw is from a book about 2 color quilts. It is 40" x 56". 

I used a different layout than Pat Sloan for my Grandma's Kitchen Quilt. It was a bit of a challenge to put all the blocks together as there were 2 different size bocks. This quilt will finish at 60" square. 

I added the setting and corner triangles to the Milky Way quilt but I wanted to make it bigger so I first added a scrappy border using more of the scraps in the stars. Then I added an additional gray border. This quilt will finish at 56" square. 

 I'm not a big fan of square quilts yet these 2 quilts just happened to end up with a square layout.

My little spools are all arranged neatly in the thread shelf. I found this fabric that looks like wood and used it to border the spools. I love this Little Rainbow quilt. It will finish at 36" x 43". 

For 2018, I decided to join the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again over at 

So Scrappy. I will also do a temperature quilt following NeedleMom. You can find more information here. 

I will also join in making the Regatta Quilt with Home Sewn By Us. 

Now to get quilting so I can start on piecing for my new challenges! 

October Goals

It is time to set some October goals! Since I finished my Sail Away! quilt, I can now refocus on my quilt using the orphaned 15 min of play blocks that I had finished the flimsy as part of my August goals. 

On Saturday (still officially September) this happened!

I found some time to sandwich this quilt and it is now ready to quilt! I'm not sure how to quilt it yet...should I match the thread colors to the blocks, use a variegated thread, or a neutral? What do I do in all the negative space? 

Decisions to be made! Ideas? 

My goal for October will be to make a final decision on the quilting and get it started. Bonus would be to finish!

I also have been working on a charity 2 color quilt. It is a basic bear claw block with lots of HST pieces. I found this technique that makes 18 2" finished HST and it really speeded up the process. 

Have you ever used this technique? It was new to me!

The papers did not come big enough for the large HST piece so I did these using a traditional technique.

October brings a new color for the Rainbow Scrap challenge and a new star for the Milky Way QAL. This month's color is pink and the star is called Sol. 

I am also keeping up fairly well with the Grandma's Kitchen weekly Sew Along. 

Here is last weeks block.

I'm linking up to One Monthly Goal October Link-up over at Elm Creek Quilts.

We are heading up North mid~week to experience the trees showing all their glorious Fall colors! It is such a beautiful time! Hope we have great weather!