Summer Update: Part 5

Moving right along in my busy season, I started working on a baby quilt for my daughter's baby shower.  The theme for the nursery is Costa Rican jungle with Monstera leaves and toucans. The color theme is muted greens, blues with some pinks and yellow highlights. 

The paper piece quilt pattern I purchased was only one block that finished at 18". It came without instructions. It was a bit tricky to figure out how to sew the blocks together. 

Each block had 16 sub blocks that are sewn together to make an 18" block. The number of pieces in each of the sub blocks ranged from 6 to 25. I made 6 blocks for a total of 684 pieces of fabric in the quilt. It finished at 36.5" x 53".

We had a beautiful day to celebrate this new life and the parents to be!

It was a pleasure to shower this couple and my newest granddaughter with love!

Linking to Finished or Not Friday @AlyciaQuilts, and Wednesday Wait Loss @TheInquiringQuilter

It's been a while...

 Summer has been crazy busy - regular summer busy and our new retirement busy - which includes travel! 

In my last post, I showed the quilt I made for a wedding gift to a very special couple. We have known the bride since she was born and her parents even longer! I asked for help naming the quilt as I was having difficulty coming up with a name that worked for me. After reading many suggestions, both here and social media, as well as asking my daughters, I came up with the perfect name (in my opinion). I finally named it 'Love Grows'! Here is a picture taken on top of Mt Washington!

It was so windy! This is the best of several attempts but it was fun trying! 

(more pictures here.)

The finished size is 63" x 73". 

Also in previous posts, I showed you the process of designing and piecing a baby quilt for another special couple. I have also know mama since birth and her parents longer. Our youngest daughter was raised with these 2 girls! Since I was going to miss the baby shower (due to retirement travel), I desperately tried to get this finished before leaving. I managed to finished everything except hand stitching the binding so it came with so I could finish during the car ride. Here are pictures taken on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. 

I quilted this with several different thread colors. I stitched spirals in the sun and straight line rays. The mountains have straight lines following the peaks and the trees are quilted with triangles. The finished size is 36" x 42". 

I'm linking to Off the Wall Friday @ Creations-Quilts, Art, Whatever, Finished or Not Friday @Alycia Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop @Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Wednesday Wait Loss @the inquiring quilter

I also brought some EPP tumblers on our car trip and I managed to finish the last 36 as well as start randomly sewing them together in rows of 10. 

I'm not sure what the layout will be but at least I got a start on some rows. I can always make them longer. I have 300 tumblers.

My final project for the car ride was to work on an old UFO from my cross stitch days. I was inspired to pull this project out when I saw Annie's @Annie's Musings, cross stitch project that she recently started again. I drew up this pattern from a picture I took after we put on the addition to our house! I got bored with it while filling in the sky/background and I haven't worked on it in years!

This is what it looked/looks like!

Before

After

I have put in a few more rows since being home! Maybe this will get finished after all! I still have all the details/outlines to do after the background is done!

PROGRESS!

I will leave the rest of the updates for another post as this has gotten quite long. if you are interested in my vacation pictures you can see them on my instagram or facebook accounts.  Thanks if you have read to the end! 

Progress!

Last year I participated in a QAL called Oh Say Can You Sew. Clue 5 ask you to make 128 blocks which were made from 9- 1" HST. That meant I needed to make 1152 - 1 1/2" unfinished HST! That is a LOT of very small HSTs! 

After making 80, I put the project aside and forgot about it. Well sort of...it was in one of my project boxes just looking at me...reminding me that this UFO needed attention. So this week while I waited for the backing fabric I ordered for the mountain adventure quilt, I picked it up and took some time to figure out where I left off. Instead of making more HSTs right away, I decided to make the ones already completed into 9-patch blocks. Here is my progress.

I also cut more tumbler blocks for my EPP project so they would be ready to come on vacation with me.

I finished the binding on the quilt I made for a wedding gift! I love how it turned out! Shh! It is a surprise but I don't think anyone involved reads my blog. 

The bride wanted muted greens and my daughter picked the pattern. I did make slight changes in the pattern. I haven't yet found a name for it. A couple ideas are 'Agave You' (I love you) or just 'Agave'. My daughter thought the quilt reminded her of an agave plant hence the names.  Any suggestions are welcome! Help me decide!

The backing is all one piece.

Linking to Monday Musing @Songbird Designs, To-Do Tuesday @For the Love of Fabric, Design Wall Monday @Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Sew & Tell @Melva Loves Scraps

I also finished piecing this little baby quilt and I now received the backing I order so I need to get started on sandwiching and quilting!

Hopefully I will get started on this soon!

A finish and some catching up!

 Once again I am finding myself playing catch up with my monthly obligations...like QALs and sewalongs and charity blocks. I think that maybe I over committed this year but I have a hard time NOT joining in. It leaves little time for my own designing and for sewing for my family, friends, and me.

So when I found out that a close friend's daughter was going to have a baby, I needed to get busy and make and complete a baby quilt. 

Forest animals is the theme for the baby's room and shower. So I found some paper pieced animals and trees designed by MadebyMarney on Etsy. Mary's style is unique and cute. I added the squirrel designed by Protoquilt. I did change the patterns a bit and I embroidered the eyes, noses, and other markings (instead of buttons). I added the words and designed the layout. 

The blocks are all paper pieced except for the Forest Friends which is appliqued.  The sashing and border print is a woodland animal print I found at Joann's. The backing is one piece of another woodland printed fabric. 

The animal blocks are 8" squares and the tree block is 12" square.

I quilted with a stipple across the quilt being careful not to sew over the embroidered features. The quilt finishes at 37" x 40". 

                                     I hope mama and baby like it!                                            Linking to Favorite Monthly Finish @Meadow Mist Designs.

In August, I participated in the #30daysofimprovqal on Instagram. This was the 2nd year. Each week there is a shape that was the focus: stripes, polygons, triangles, and curves. On 5 days of the week a new prompt was announced to help you make your block. All the fabric that I used was from my stash. The last week focused on composition. At first I thought I would do a more traditional layout giving each block its own space. But the more I looked at it hanging on my design wall, I wasn't satisfied. I ripped it all out and began rearranging, adding and stitching it back together. This is how it turned out. 

I straight line quilted every 1/2" from the top to the bottom. 

I added corners for hanging. 

This quilt finishes at 27" x 31.5" This quilt is gifted to a friend.

It is now nearing the end of September and I just got started on light blue for my RSC blocks. They came together pretty quickly.

Hang Ten in blue and all nine colors.

Squiggle in blue and all 9 colors

And my 3rd RSC block in blue and all nine colors

I'll keep working and hopefully will be ready to go before October comes. I got a few more things to catch up on!

A Little of This and That

 I've been working on my final quilt for the Hands2Help2021 challenge. I will be donating 2 quilts to the Little Lambs Foundation and another quilt as my Hometown Hero. More on that in a later post. I put the final stitches in the binding of       Spring Fever yesterday! 

This is a bright baby quilt.

 

I pulled fabrics from my stash to match the piece, also from my stash, that I would use for the back. I drew a simple quilt pattern on graph paper. 

The rotating pink squares bring movement to the simple design.

The backing has little rose buds in blue, pink, and yellow with green stems. I needed to piece the back to make it big enough. 

The Little Lambs Foundation suggests 36" x 42" for the size of a baby quilt. 

Spring Fever is 36" x 44" ~perfect!. 

I FMQ petals in the yellow blocks, leaves in the green blocks, and a offset circle shape in the pink/white blocks. 

The binding is a striped fabric with a mix of colors that I felt would go nicely. 

It was nice to stitch this quilt completely from my stash!

I'm linking to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? @Confessions of a Fabric Addict and 

Link Party @ Quilting Patchwork Applique.

EDIT: I've sent off 2 quilts to Little Lambs Foundation this week!

I haven't updated you on my Thankful Slow Stitching in awhile. It has been a little slow lately as I have doing some additional hand stitching. Almost all the green stems are finished!

Slowly I have worked on some scrappy blue tumbler blocks. Here is all the colors I've completed so far.

Linking to Slow Sunday Stitching @Kathy'sQuilts and ScrapHappySaturday @SoScrappy.

I forgot all about sharing my March journal calendar and it is almost the end of April. I'm more accountable to keep it up when I share it so here it is! 

The Big Reveal

Several people have commented about the peek at my quilt in my last post and were looking forward to the reveal. Well, here it is!

The pattern is called Braque after the cubist artist George Braque. I have named it Orphism which is an offshoot of the Cubism Art movement.  This art movement focused more on abstraction and bright colors. The bright yellow pops of colors make this a bright and happy quilt!

The back was pieced with pieces from my stash and 

the binding is Kona charcoal.

It was machine pieced in sections to get the random effect of the mostly HSTs.

I machine quilted it in straight, vertical lines about 1/2" apart. 

It was a bright sunny day to do the photo shoot!

I think this is my new favorite quilt!

The quilt finishes at 60" x 75"

I also finished the binding on the last of 4 charity quilts for Hands2Help2020 challenge. 

I'm named it Kimba for the lion featured in the fabric. I built the quilt around the cute lion and coordinating light green fabrics I purchased. The remaining fabrics (rusty oranges and white) were from my stash. It is an unusual color for a baby quilt but I really love how it turned out. 

The pattern included 2 basic blocks: a friendship star and a whirligig. 

It was machine pieced and quilted. I chose to stitch in the ditch around the friendship star and stitched a star pattern in the whirligig. I kept the quilting simple to allow for it to be soft and fluffy. 

The back was pieced with the scraps from the lion and green fabrics and a piece from my stash. The binding was a gold from my stash. 

It finishes at 36.5" x  46.5"

Labeled and ready to be sent off! 

Linking up to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, Brag About Your Beauty, Peacock Party, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, and My Quilt Infatuation and UFO Busting