Here's to the close of 2020 and new hope for 2021!

 I thought I would participate in the Best of 2020 linky party hosted by Cheryl @Meadow Mist Designs. She has asked that a new blog post be written highlighting the 5 best of my blog post from 2020. Cheryl has left it up to us to determine which post are 'the best'!

The first 'best' up for me is my post from October 31st when I posted about my finish of my Look on the Bright Side quilt. This quilt was made from my participation in the Quiet Play Pattern Club from 2019. All the blocks are paper pieced and designed by Kristy Lea. 

I really enjoyed sewing the paper pieced blocks in rainbow colors and the text blocks!

I picked this post because although this quilt took me longer than usual to finish, I kept working on it and finally finished it~~~no UFO here!

Second 'best' is from my blog post on August 30th. This post showed the finish of my I Spy quilt featuring by grandson. He still loves to take out the quilt and 'spy' all the things on the quilt! There are over 100 things to search for!

My third 'best' is Manifest, a quilt I featured in my May 13th blog post. I designed this quilt for my daughter. She loves very simple designs and sent me some ideas to work with. This quilt also feature some of my natural dyed fabrics!

The fourth 'best' is my Breaking the Rules quilt featured in my March 19th blog post. This quilt was created as part of the #improvtrianglesewalong by Nicholas Ball. I really loved learning this technique and how this quilt turned out! It now hangs in my quilt room.

I quilted it using a dense straight line/matchstick type quilting...much denser than I usually quilt!

Finally, my fifth 'best' is my Orphism quilt. It is based on the Cubism Art movement which is known for it's abstraction and bright colors. This was featured in my 

May 6th blog post.

I really like this quilt that is made with 2 different sizes of HST. The pop of yellow really makes the quilt stand out. 

Well, that is my 5 best! It was hard to pick only 5 out of 20 quilts that I made during 2020, however it was fun to look back through the past year. Hope you enjoyed it!

I'm linking to the Best of 2020 @Meadow Mist Designs.

I finally finished it!

 I am excited to show you my finished Quiet Play Pattern Club 2019 finish! I named it~ Look on the Bright Side. This quilt is entirely paper pieced. I love paper piecing but it does take me longer to finish each block as there are many small pieces that go into these blocks. 

The top has been finished since late summer but I really didn't know how to quilt it.

The backing is a piece of rainbow stripe fabric.

I finally decided to just quilt an overall meander. 

This quilt makes me so happy! 

I bound it with Kona Navy. 

Here is the coloring sheet I used as I made each block. 

This quilt finishes at 51" x 61.5"

The Quiet Play Pattern Club is the creation of Kristy Lea.  She did run a club for 2020 but I didn't participate because I was still working on my 2019 blocks!

I will link to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? @Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Favorite Finish Monthly Link Up @MeadowMistDesign.

 

I also put together my RSC quilt! Here it is with borders added.

Linking to ScrapHappyBooDay @SoScrappy.

Linking to SoScrappy:Wrapping up the year

I promised to show you the placemats I finished to go with the Tossed Apples table runner. Here they are...

They are getting good use this Fall!

Hope you are enjoying the beautiful Fall weather! We have had some snow flurries but the colors were beautiful this year! 

Stay safe!

What have I been doing?

 It has been a while since I have had time to update you on what I've been doing? In between time spent with my grandson and some time away with my DH, I have been quilting. I finished the apple table runner I previously shared and started 4 apple place mats that still need to be quilted.

I picked the quarter apple pattern from SewFresh Quilts for the placemats.

I also completed the top from the QAL from the National Quilters Circle, Starlight Mountains. This was a 5 week QAL with week 5 ~ the quilt assembly. Even though it is called Starlight Mountains, I wanted to use fabric from my stash. The watermelon fabrics were donated to me several years ago.

I'm not sure what I'll call this quilt as Starlight Mountains doesn't seem to fit. Any suggestions welcome.

I was able to sandwich my 2019 Quiet Play Pattern Club quilt! It is ready to be quilted! Soon!

Finally, I finished the 2nd step in the Morewood Mystery Quilt. Here are Steps 1 & 2!

Hope you are able to get out and enjoy the lovely Fall weather. DH and I were able to take a few days in Fond du Lac, WI and biking in Freeport, IL on the Jane Addams Trail. 

Beautiful colors in WI!

Rail to Trail ~ a wonderful time biking!
And because I can't resist...my grandson and I did a little craft making binoculars and then went on a walk in the neighborhood where he was having fun 'spying' all kinds of things! 

Thanks for hanging in on this rather long post! Stay safe!

Where does the time go?

 Once again, I have been away from my blog longer than expected. Time just seems to get away from me. We did get away for a long weekend camping! It was my grandson's first camping trip! It is always nice to escape for a while. 

I have finished and delivered the T-shirt quilt, named Unforgettable Moments, to the graduate! This girl (and her family) is very dear to me/us! She is now off to college! Praying for safety during this time.

She had so many t-shirts from all her activities...school, soccer, volleyball, camp, etc. I can use so many more t-shirts and vary the sizes by doing the puzzle format. It gets a little tricky and small filler pieces are used to make it work. 

It has been a strange year for graduates, but I wanted her to feel special cuz she is!

She wanted neutral gray to offset the bright and varied colors of the t-shirts. 

The backing is an almost solid gray I found in 108" wide so it required no piecing! The binding is gray and white houndstooth from my stash. 

I quilted in a diagonal straight line in the body of the quilt and a elongated diamond braid in the border. Finished size is 64 1/2" x 74"

Yay! A finish!

I also finished putting together the top for the 2019 Quiet Play Pattern Club! I had to rearrange the blocks from the original layout to get a better color balance.

I really like how this quilt came together...the picture blocks and the text blocks! Hard to pick a favorite! It is now waiting to get sandwiched and quilted (behind a couple of other quilts) 😆

I joined the Morewood Mystery Quilt with Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. This month the cutting directions were released and I finally got the pieces all cut!

I'm ready to start sewing the first clue in September. 

I'll leave you with this cute camping picture!

Rainbow Picture Blocks

Wahoo! 

I finished making the picture blocks for the Quiet Play Pattern Club from 2019! The last block was the feather! It was fun to piece!

I also remade the rainbow block! I originally made it with a different background fabric before I actually thought about how this quilt would come together. I was thinking white fluffy cloud so I made the background a light blue! 

I changed the cloud from Kona Snow to Kona Silver so the background could remain Kona Snow like all the other picture blocks!

Here are all the picture blocks that will be included in the quilt. Which are your favorites? It is so hard to choose!

These will be merged with the text blocks in a very cute quilt!🤞🏻

(oops, I just noticed the feather is upside down)

Kristy from Quiet Play also included bonus blocks throughout the year. I only made a couple of them. 

They are all so cute!

Linking to What I made Monday @prettypiney.

Speaking of cute, my daughter gave my grandson his very first haircut. 

(Due to Covid-19, she didn't want to bring him to a salon.)

He did great! 

Occupied by watching Mickey Mouse cartoons!

His cute new BIG boy haircut! 

Sad to see his curls go but his hair was so long! 

Amazing how it changes his looks from baby to toddler!

💙 this kid!

Rainbows and Scraps

I did a little extra scrap sewing of blues since my blue scrap bin is overflowing. The pattern is Traffic Jam by Pat Sloan.  It was a very easy quilt to piece together. I was limited in the size to make because of the gray marble fabric from my stash. I only had enough to make a baby quilt. 

I'm linking up to Scrap Happy Saturday @ SoScrappy.

I also was able to finish the last of the text blocks from the Quiet Play Pattern Club from 2019. I really love these text blocks! 

Here they are all together. Once I finish the picture blocks, they will be put together into one quilt. I have one to go but I will probably remake one because I used a different background fabric. 

(I made it before I made up my mind on the direction this quilt was going.) 

Soon to come is the finished t-shirt quilt I've been working on. 

Sandwiched✔️ Quilted✔️ Binding Made✔️ Sew on binding___.

Manifest and more text and picture blocks

Today I would like to present Manifest!

In the beginning of April, my youngest daughter ask me if I could 'try to make a cute minimal wall hanging? Pleeaaaasssseeee?' She wants it for over her bed as 'a piece of you with me in San Antonio.' 

(She will be moving there this summer to finish her studies) 

She sent these as examples.

The bottom one is a mural done by an artist friend.

I thought that it would give me a good opportunity to use some of my natural dyed fabrics that I hand dyed last summer. So after pulling them out and searching for more inspiration, I came up with a plan. 

I used 5 of my hand dyed fabrics and some Kona cottons. The yellow in the sun was dyed with turmeric, the orange/red is dyed with madder root, the orange/brown is madder root with soda ash, the yellowish brown is avocado with iron and the gray is dyed with black beans. The blue Kona is Prussian, the gray is med gray and the borders are white. The piecing was a little tricky but I did it without much waste! The inverted V could be interpreted as a mountain or as shelter. 

The backing is a lovely yellow/orange from the Sunny Splash Collection my Lecien. The machine quilting is all straight stitched 1/2" apart except the gray which is 1/4". The finished size is 36" x 44".

I love this wallhanging (I love when I step out of my comfort zone and try/learn new challenges) 

and most importantly, so does my daughter! 

Thanks to my hubby for being the quilt holder!

I also worked on 2 more of my Quiet Play Pattern Club 2019 blocks...one text and one picture! Last post I asked for recommendations as to which color I should do the next text block in. Light pink was chosen so here it is! The word cut with the rainbow scissors picture block.  

Here are all the text blocks together so far!

Only one more to go! Which color next? Light blue or light purple? 

Make is dark purple

Here are most of the picture blocks.

I made one more that I used a light blue background because I used white for the cloud. I will either remake that block with a white background or chose a different block. Many bonus blocks were included in the pattern club.

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 

What have you been working on?