A finish!

The quilting on the Milky Way Quilt took a bit of time for me because I quilted more densely than I usually do and I did put it aside a few times to work on some piecing of QALs I joined for 2018. I am excited to show the finished 

Milky Way Quilt!

This was a 2017 QAL that I followed over at Blossom Heart Quilts. Each month a star pattern was released based on a star in the Milky Way. I used scraps from my stash to construct each paper pieced star, the inner border and the binding. 

The back is a rainbow stripe fabric from my stash and a bit of the Kona gray from the background.   

Rainbow stripes for rainbow stars!

The quilt finished at about 58" square! 

Head over to Instagram and search

#MilkyWaySampler to see other Milky Way Quilts!

The quilting is dense with straight line fill around the stars. I quilted a web or net around the small stars and diagonal lines around the large stars. Some of the stars have in the ditch quilting while others have some free motion spirals in the centers. In the setting triangles, I FMQ feathers. Along the inner scrappy border, I quilted linked bubbles and in the outer border, I FMQ a scallop and straight lines. I'm very happy with the quilting on this quilt! 

This is my 3rd finish for 2018!

I also have an update on my Regatta Quilt. I put together another section of the quilt! This QAL is a no pressure, no deadline quilt along with Home Sewn By Us. 

Click the link to see updates of others participating!

I'm loving the colors of this quilt! 

Those little white random squares are the number order stickers that I use for organization. Most have fallen off. 

Only one more section to go! 

I'm linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts, and Show Off Saturday at Sew She Can.

A little Under the Weather

Although I have been a little under the weather, I have managed a little bit of sewing. I told my hubby that he can tell I'm not feeling well when I don't have the energy to quilt!

So what have I accomplished?

I got my Milky Way QAL quilt sandwiched and the quilting started! Since there is quite a bit of negative space, I am

quilting a bit more densely than I usually do. 

I also finished 2 more sections of my Regatta quilt. 

It is hanging vertically on my design wall to save space but it will be horizontal with the dark blue section on the top.

I'm excited to see how the rest of my colors look. I'm following along over at Home Sewn By Us. 

I also made a few more blocks for my Temperature quilt. 

Each row will have 18 blocks across the quilt. The 1st row is complete but you can see how different the temperatures were for the 2nd row 

(these are Jan 19-24 temps.)

I'm quilting along with NeedledMom. 

My knitting & crochet club spent January making red baby hats for the "Little Hats/Big Hearts" project. We donated 60 hats for heart health awareness to a local hospital. 

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! 

Falling Behind

It is Fall and I find myself falling behind in my quilt alongs and challenges. School has been busy, we took our annual trip up to Door County, and the Chicago Cubs are in the playoffs. All these have contributed to minimal sewing time.  Yesterday I took a day off from school thinking I would have time to catch up but I found that I really needed to get some household duties done first. This  only gave me a couple of hours in my sewing room. 

I was able to complete my pink little spools yesterday 

and this morning I worked on my Milky Way QAL star called Sol. The QAL is sponsored by Blossom Heart Quilts.

These challenges/QAL will soon come to an end. Here are all the little spools together. All arranged neatly in rows with the purple and reds spools stacked. How do you arrange your threads in your sewing room?

Here are all the stars so far in the Milky Way quilt.

Now to get caught up on my Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along blocks and my October goal for OMG. 

I am linking to So Scrappy Saturday Parade of Pink.

September Goals Update

I'm happy to say that I accomplished my goal for September! I needed to finish the quilting and bind this quilt.

I had started the quilting with the little sail boats following the tutorial by Lori Kennedy over at The Inbox Jaunt. I needed to finish those and then add waves to the borders following another tutorial by Lori. 

I bound this quilt with a blue and white fabric I bought last year while vacationing in the Pacific Northwest with this quilt in mind. 

Here is my finished Sail Away! quilt. I made this quilt with different nautical prints and other red, white and blue prints in my stash following the pattern called Nautical News by Busy Hands Quilts. I replaced one of the blocks with a sail boat block. 

I also added a paper pieced anchor block to the back.

It does feel great to use fabrics from my stash which I had collected over the years! 

The finished size for this quilt is 59" x 79"

Even the label is nautical themed!

I also kept up with the quilt alongs that I am following. See my orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and The Milky Way QAL here.

The newest finished blocks for the Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along are 

Kitchen Door 

Sunday Dinner

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

Block finishes

September brought a new color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ~ ORANGE!

I was able to get busy this week and make a few mini orange spool blocks.

Only a few months to go before we put this scrappy quilt together! I will link up to Scrap Happy Saturday over at SoScrappy!

The other monthly QAL that I'm participating this year is the Milky Way QAL. I have been using this same color (for the most part) in this QAL as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. So this month's star is Betelgeuse and here it is in orange!This QAL is by Alyce over at Blossom Heart Quilts.

There are 3 more stars in this QAL before we put it together!

Finally, I'm been doing the Sew Along with Pat Sloan, Grandma's Kitchen. This challenge is weekly so it is a bit more of a challenge to keep up. Here are the last 2 weeks blocks.

This is Recipe Box. For this block, several alternate layouts were suggested. I chose this layout because it reminded me more of a recipe box. My dark fabric forms the box around the mint green fabric which actually has recipes written on it. This is from the fabric line Domestic Diva by Riley Blake. Link up here.

The 11th block is a appliqué block Peppermint Swirls. 

Pat adds stories of her grandmas in each pattern. It is fun to reminisce about my grandma! My grandma didn't have peppermint swirls but she did have candy! Reeses peanut butter cups were her favorites and she always had plenty to share with her grandchildren and great grandchildren! Link up here.

Are you caught up with your QALs?

August Finish

It's that time again when we share our monthly goal finish. My goal was to make something out of the 15 minutes of play blocks that were uncovered in my sewing room. In my last post I showed a pattern that I decided to use. I rewrote the block to fit the size of my blocks. I also needed a few more 15 minutes of play block to make a good sized quilt. 

The pattern for Fat Quarter Shop

I'm happy to share that I was able to finish my goal and now have a flimsy waiting its turn to get sandwiched and quilted!

I really like the scrappy secondary stars that are formed!

My other goals are always to keep up with my monthly QALs. 

My little spools for the Rainbow Scrap challenge in neutrals.

Polaris for the Milky Way QAL. 

And blocks 7 - 9 of the Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along!

Linking to Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen.

 Linking up to OMG August Finish Link Up at Elm Street Quilts. 

It has been a good month for quilting!

It's all Natural!

August brought a new no color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ~ low volume! My little spools look great in low volume but I've been using the same color for The Milky Way QAL and low volume doesn't speak well with night sky stars! Here are the cute little spools in low volume prints ranging from whites to dark creams. Looks like threads I would have in my sewing room!

Here are all the little spools so far!

 For most of the months, I made 5 spools but I originally was going to alternate the layout from 5 spools to 4 spools. Not sure what it will be in the end. I may need to make one more purple and one more red. They are just too cute!

I'll play with the layout when we get closer to the end of this year's challenge! I'm linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday over at SoScrappy.

So I had this dilemma that I mentioned above...low volume doesn't work well for night sky stars so I needed to pick another color for The Milky Way QAL. Way back in January, the color of the month was purple. The purple I used for my star was a very pinkish purple. 

So I decided I would make another purple star using deep purples. 

Here is Polaris!

The patterns and designs are available from Blossom Heart Quilts. 

The 6th block in Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along is Wash Day! I love this block and how it reminds me of the agitators on my grandma's and my mom's wringer washer.

I linked up to Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along over at Pat Sloan's blog.

Do you remember my 15 Minutes of Play blocks? This is what I decided to do with them. 

Using this pattern I uncovered in my sewing room, I resized it to fit my 'Play' blocks (which are 6" and the pattern called for 4"). I still used 2 1/2" strips to border the  'Play' blocks and make the star points which will result in the center of the secondary stars to be 4". I felt that there would already be plenty of negative space without making the strips larger. My blocks finish at 14". 

Stay tuned to see how my August goal turns out!

Here's what's happening!

The month of July has been filled with demolition/renovation of our kitchen. It has made me stay at home with workers coming and going. Some of my time at home has been spent cleaning out kitchen cabinets, sorting things we don't use or need, and living out of boxes! However, I have given myself permission to spend time in my sewing room also!

The color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month is blue which happens to be my most overflowing scrap bin. I made these 5 little spools blocks!

These don't use up a lot of scraps but I am lovin' these mini spool blocks! Linking up at So Scrappy.

I also used blue for this month's Milky Way Star ~ Regel.

Here are all the stars in the Milky Way...so far!

I may add some mini stars! Go over to Blossom Heart Quilts to see more.

I joined the Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along with Pat Sloan. This is the first time that I joined one of Pat's QAL. It is perfect for Domestic Diva by Riley Blake that I have had in my stash for quite some time. I won 2 charm packs way back when...but I didn't have any yardage. I did find some online and ordered 2 pieces for the bigger pieces needed. I also went to the fabric store to find some corals to coordinate. 

The blocks are released every Wednesday, so far 3 have been released. 

The first block is The Kitchen Table. It was easy to make out of the charm squares and some background fabrics. 

The second block needed longer than 5" so I'm waiting on my fabric order. 

The third block is The Key Holder. 

(The lighter coral fabric is one of the fabrics I found to coordinate with Domestic Diva)

I love how Pat includes a little story about her memories of her grandma's kitchen. I'm really enjoying this Sew Along! Head over to Pat Sloan's blog for all the information and blocks!

Finally, here is a cute picture of my niece's daughter with the quilt I made for her! She loved it!