A finish I can finally share!

 I'm excited to share my recent finish finish for my new granddaughter (due to arrive May 17th)! We had a 'Sprinkle' for my daughter today where I presented the quilt to her. She was thrilled with how it turned out. 

My daughter picked the pattern (Fresh as a Daisy by Linsey @PenandPaperPatterns) which I already owned (and previously made) as well as the color scheme. I did not show her my progress while I sewed to keep a bit of surprise for her. 

I named this quilt Simple and Sweet. The pattern is very enjoyable to stitch and the daisies are just so cheerful! They can't help but bring a smile to your face!

I changed the layout slightly from Lindsey's baby layout by shifting the columns up or down to get a finished quilt 43.5" x 52.5".

The background color is Kona Seafoam, the daisies and binding is Kona Snow, and the flower centers are Kona Yarrow, Kona Daffodil and Kona Mustard.  

I pieced the backing with large strips of the 3 Kona yellows 

and the Kona Seafoam. I also pieced an additional daisy into the back. 

The quilting is stitched in the ditch in white thread around the daisies, FMQ a swirl in the centers with matching yellow thread and the background is FMQ in a

 meander with matching green thread. 

Although I couldn't find daisies,  this photo makes me happy!

Linking to Finished or Not Friday @AlyciaQuilts, Linky Party @ Patchwork and Quilts, and Foto Fun Friday @Powered by Quilting

April brings on PINK!

 April! Bring on the PINKS! Angela announced pink for the RSC color for this month. I finally got some  time to pull out my pink scrap bin and start my RSC blocks! Here is my Hang Ten block, all pretty in pink!

The bonus blocks I get from the Hang Ten block are my Squiggle blocks!

I just love pink and gray together. Don't you!

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @SoScrappy

I also worked on a few more projects! Here are my first 2 Scrap Buster blocks for April. This is a Facebook group.

                      and here is the flimsy for Hands2Help. This year Mari @The Academic Quilter is hosting Hands2Help for Sarah.

Stay tuned for more updates. 

Linking to Finished or Not Friday @AlyciaQuilts and Linky party @Patchwork & Quilts

Last weekend I took a class from Craftymonkies and learned Improv Curves. This was a fun class. Here are the blocks I made in class.

And finally I will show you my March calendar journal. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend! It still is not warm here (-30º from last year's temperature). We will still enjoy some family time, Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, and Easter dinner!

Wedding Quilt finished and Received!

 I made this quilt for a very close family friend's youngest daughter's wedding.         This past weekend we celebrated with them! We had so much fun and the bride              and groom were stunning! I am finally able to share with you the quilt,            'When the Stars Align'.

My youngest daughter grew up with the bride and she chose neutral grays and white for the colors, and liked the pattern I chose. The pattern is Christmas Star by Zen Chic. Instead of placing the blocks on-point I rearranged them and I also resized the pattern to fit the size wanted. 

I machine pieced and machine quilted the quilt including a 'ghost star' in the negative space. The fabric for the back is a white and gray marble extra wide piece with a strip of the lightest gray from the front. 

Its finished size is about 63" x 75"

Here is the happy couple opening the gift! I love that I got to see their reaction!

Congratulations Kim and Matt!

A New Finish!

I have a new finish!

I finally finished my Macaron Mystery quilt designed by Cheryl @MeadowMist Designs. This is the 3rd mystery by Cheryl that I have followed. I really love her designs. The QAL started back in July 2021 and the parade ends April 7th. 

I am so pleased with how this quilt turned out. At first I wasn't fond of the half blocks on either end but with adding a border of the same background, it works just fine. It also extends the length. 

I pieced the backing with the leftover fabric pieces from the front and then framed it with Kona Turquoise. The binding is in Kona Oasis.

I straight line quilted around the montifs and gentle arches in the larger turquoise blocks. I FMQ feathers in the white borders. My quilt finishes at 61.5" x 71.5". I'm linking to the Macaron Mystery linky party.

Go check it out and see the many variations!

SAHRR Parade and other things

 Today is the start of the Parade for the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) challenge for 2022 hosted by Quilting Gail. Here is my finished quilt, Change the Ending! It debuted on IG for #igquiltfestday14. 

This year I started with an orphaned quilt block I found in my sewing room. Each week a new round was added. This year there were curves, diamonds, stars, signature, fence rail, and shoo fly. 

For the quilting, I thought it would be appropriate to use the quote by C.S. Lewis about changing the ending. I FMQ the quote into the center since my orphaned quilt block was transformed into this quilt!

(my attempts at showing the quote)

"You can't go back and change the beginning but you can start

 where you are and change the ending."    C.S. Lewis

My quilt finishes at 36" square.

I'm linking to the linky party @QuiltingGail.

I really needed to catch up on labels so I spent a few hours doing this. 

I have a few more to go.

Finally, here is my February calendar!

The March color for RSC is yellow/gold

                  Angela announced the color for March. It is yellow/golds!                    Bright colors to help get through the month of March!

I have been busy finishing a wedding gift quilt and my SAHRR quilt. I'll save those for another post (the wedding is April 2nd and the SAHRR parade is March 21st.) After those were finished, I got started with my monthly challenges. First up is Hang Ten in yellow and the 1st three together.

Next up, is Squiggle in yellow and the 1st three.

and finally my scrappy gray blocks!

I'm linking to Scrap Happy Saturday @SoScrappy, Finished or Not @Alycia Quilts,

and Linky Party @Patchwork and Quilts

I also managed to piece 2 more of the blocks for The Stash Buster Challenge on Facebook. 

This year I'm participating on the #igquiltfest hosted by @amyscreativeside.

Everyday during March there is a prompt on Instagram related to quilting. One of the prompts was Upcycle. I wanted to show you the jean jacket I embellished. I had been thinking of making a quilted coat (it's all the rage 😜!) and even took a class with Victoria Findley Wolfe but just haven't had the time. So the next best thing was to        find a jean jacket at Goodwill and add an orphaned quilt block to the back.              I hand quilted the block after machine stitching it down. 

I love how it turned out!

That's what I've been up to! How about you? Hope you are finding time to create!

Final Round of SAHRR

 This week I spent most of my 'free' time quilting a wedding present. I did read the SAHRR post hosted by Chris Knits early in the week. She picked shoo fly for the final round. I just finished a shoo fly quilt for RSC from last year so I didn't think it                 would be too hard (except that I was running out of fabric.)                         I thought that I would spend some hours on Saturday and get the round done! However, my SIL was running a race on Saturday morning and my daughter and grandson anticipated going but it was rather cold so she called and asked if we could hang out. They only have one car right now so we planned an outing and went to pick them up. We spent the morning together at a local electronics/appliance store that has a huge aquarium, a fountain and more fun things to do (no, we were not shopping). We dropped them off in time for lunch and a nap.

Enjoying the 'dancing' water fountain!

The moray eel and shark among many other fish!

We got home and had a bite to eat and I headed to my sewing room. Calculating how much fabric I would need to make this round and determining whether I had enough fabric, I got busy. I needed to keep each round as narrow as possible so I wanted 3" finished shoo fly blocks. I needed to add a narrow half inch border to make my quilt 30". Then I could add 10- 3" shoo fly blocks to each side. I didn't actually have enough fabric for 40 shoo fly blocks and I was running out of time. I did find more of the main black fabric hiding in my stash so I crossed my fingers that I could stretch it this round. After sewing small shoo fly blocks through the afternoon and into the evening (stopping only to have a bite to eat with my DH), this is what I came up with! 8 pink/black, 8 green/black and 4 black/light green shoo fly blocks with black background strips between.  

                   I am pleased with the results of this year's SAHRR challenge! I missed the link up but still glad I finished this round!
 The finished parade starts on March 21st!