Evening in the Garden Quilts

Well, if you keep your goals really modest you can achieve them, right?  That’s what I did for July, and that’s what I’m doing again for August.  Summer is in full swing here, along with traveling, and entertaining friends and family.

July Goals:

1. Baste Handy Dandy quilt.  Yes!
2. Begin quilting Handy Dandy.  Yes!
3. Make red, white, and blue star blocks for Kat’s Covered in Love July/August drive.  Yes!

August Goals

1. Finish quilting Handy Dandy.  (This is a large, heavy quilt, and I don’t always feel light dealing with it.  I’m pecking away.)
2. Bind Handy Dandy.
3. Make a baby quilt from a “Moon and Back” panel for my shop.

My best wishes to all of you.  I hope you’re sewing and finding peace where ever you can.

Still working away at Handy Dandy, so no finishes. I bought 1.5 yards of flannel for a baby quilt.

This week: + 1.5 yards, – 0 yards

This year: + 51.5 yards, – 65.5 yards

Net destashed added in 2019: 14 yards

How are you doing with your stash?

This week I’ve been working away at quilting Handy Dandy. I’ve been using the walking foot to quilt in the ditch along all the gold diagonal sashing and the rows that go through the centers of all the blocks. Now I need to do the border sashing and baste the edges.

So, after a number of days (short amounts of time each day to spare my shoulders, etc.), it looks as though I’ve done nothing to it. But we know it’s all firmly anchored down and ready for whatever brilliant quilting I decide to do in the blocks, setting triangles and border. Just waiting for that brilliance to strike…

Our weather here has been wonderful, sunny and moderate, so I should make the most of it.

Stay tuned.

Heres a little patriotic spirit for you in July!

Not much sewing this week, but no new fabric, either.

I’ve been uninspired to see, but that’s when a simple project like donation blocks comes in handy. I pulled fabric one day, cut and tried out a block one day, cut the rest, sewed two, then three, and, finally chain-pieced the last four in record time. So I have a dozen blocks ready to ship off to Kat for her July/August block drive, using 2.25 yards of fabric. In the process, I also found about 2 yards to dispose of or donate.

This star isn’t very original, but it worked for me this time. They’re super easy, with very few points to match. Also, I have lots of 3.5″ scraps, so a 16-patch star worked well for me. (I see that they look really similar to the ones I made last year, but that was a different construction technique. I made these using sew-and-flip flying geese.)

This week: + 0 yards, – 4.25 yards

This year: + 50 yards, – 65.50 yards

Net destashed added in 2019: 15.50 yards

Are you getting much sewing done this summer?

Since it’s the beginning middle of July, I thought I’d report on my goals.  Sheesh!  Well, it’s been hot and humid here, we’ve been working on our house, and we hosted the 4th of July party, and helped entertain out-of-town guests, so those are my excuses.

June Goals:

1. Make back and binding for Handy Dandy.  Yes.  I had just enough of some bird fabric that’s been hanging around forever.
2. Baste and begin quilting Handy Dandy.  No.
3. Make a baby quilt from recent scraps.  Yes, here.

Bonus:  I had enough scraps to make this baby quilt, and this one!

Not bad, really.  And I’ve met part of my general goals of keeping up on photos and clerical stuff.

However, I have no such hopes for (the rest of) July.  We take a lot of day trips, my garden keeps me busy, I’m reading, we’re taking an overnight trip at the end of the month…

July Goals:

1. Baste Handy Dandy quilt.
2. Begin quilting Handy Dandy.
3. Make red, white, and blue star blocks for Kat’s Covered in Love July/August drive.

I hope you’re enjoying your summer!

No new fabric, and the Sports Baby Quilt #3 used 3.5 yards of fabric.

This week: + 0 yards, – 3.5 yards

This year: + 50 yards, – 61.25 yards

Net destashed added in 2019: 11.25 yards

Yay for double digits!

Hope you’re using your stash!

This week I finished the third of these little quilts (the others are here and here). This is definitely my favorite. I know it’s just squares sewn together, but I really like each fabric and the quilting I did on them.

The solids are Kona Bluejay and Orange (from my stash), and the net print is Grafic from You + Me by Latifah Saafir for Hoffman. (Okay, it’s really chain link fence, but play along. Or it could be the fence around your outdoor court, all right?)

(I really like this fabric collection. I’d consider doing a project based on these fabrics.)

I started by quilting in all the ditches with the walking foot and Bottom Line (60 wt.) light blue thread. Then I switched to Masterpiece (50 wt.) in a deeper blue that matches the Bluejay. I quilted diagonally through at the blocks in both directions. I switched to the free motion foot to add circles to the “basketballs” and grids to the blue squares. The bottom thread is white Bottom Line.

With the diagonals already stitched, I was able to stitch the 1″ grids in each square without cutting the thread.

While waiting for Yuri to show up, I took a photo of my husband’s stream and pond. You can spot Yuri hurrying in behind the chairs on the right.

So, yes, this is as fun and snuggly as it looks.

I’m linking up to Finish it up Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Let’s Make Baby Quilts at Michelle’s Romantic Tangle.