Evening in the Garden Quilts

January 15, 2017
by Valerie 5 Comments

Pink Pinwheel Quilt

Actually, the name of this block is Whirlwind. I made it for the new daughter of a friend.

At first it looked like this, with plain 9″ blocks of the print. Blech. I put it up on Twitter, and the Twilters agreed it needed something. That’s when I cut the blocks down to 6″ and added borders (Snow). That gave me an opportunity to fussy-cut the fabric a little. I like the result.

If you think this only has a little diagonal quilting, good, that’s the effect I wanted. But, really, It has a lot of quilting. I first stitched in every ditch with fine thread (Bottom Line), and then did the diagonal stitching with Fantastico.

The back is a great pink and gray hounds tooth corduroy and a strip of gray Kona.

I bound it with strips of gray and white chevron fabric, which makes nice diagonal stripes.

I’m linking up to Let’s Make Baby Quilts at Michelles’s Romantic Triangle

January 8, 2017
by Valerie 1 Comment

Sunday Stash Report: 1/8/17

A brand new year and a freshort start on redusing the stash.

This week I received six yards of new fabric. Has anyone used double gauze for quilting? I’d appreciate any suggestions. I bought it for the cute elephant print, but it’s a little flimsy. Interfacing?

And I used seven yards for two new baby quilts.

This week: + 6 yards, – 7 yards

This year: +6 yards, -7 yards

Net destashed this year: 1 yard
And forty-nine yards to go! And knowing what’s coming in the mail, it will be a bumpy ride.

I’m linuking up to Judy’s report at Patchwork Times.

January 2, 2017
by Valerie 1 Comment

Design Wall Monday

Today I pulled fabrics and cut for a baby quilt for the new daughter of a friend. This is the Whirlwind block. It was getting dark by the time I took the photos, but the fabrics are a pretty blush pink.

This speaks to the state of my stash. Since I’ve worked so hard to reduce it, I assumed I needed to buy fabric for this quilt. After all, this mother has a certain color and a certain aesthetic. I thought I could pull fabrics from stash to piece the top, but was sure I needed to order the back. (I chose one of the Michael Miller “Magic” fabrics.) When went into my small, dark closet, removed all the fabrics from the Pink drawer, and brought them out into the light, I found I had plenty to choose from, even for the back. Sigh. I’ll probably make a similar quilt for my Etsy shop while I’m cutting.

I like keeping my fabrics in the closet where they’re protected from fading. I’ve invested over the years in a nice metal basket system where I can separate the colors. I don’t have anywhere else to keep it, but I do wish it were easier to see what I have on hand. Ah, well.

Also, I finished cutting all the scrap fabric for Surrounded by Scraps, Charlotte Hawks mystery quilt for this year. I have lots of background to cut yet, but I just ordered it.

I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

December 31, 2016
by Valerie 2 Comments

Summing Up 2016

First, the evidence (sort of in order, but not perfectly) that I did accomplish some things this year:

picmonkey-image-2016a

picmonkey-collage-2016b

So, a lot more than it felt like! I felt like I was swimming upstream most of the year, but it’s nice to see it all laid out like this.

2016-10-27-18-23-16 It was a year of new hair and new knees, and the loss of two family members. Sometimes it was all I could do to keep up with the house and garden, let alone sewing. It was a year when I really appreciated the blogging community, and the Twilters (Facebook and Twitter), and Twitter in general. It was a …memorable… election year. We’ll get through this together. And we’ll sew a lot.

This month:

December Goals

Revamp fireplace screen cover. Yes! Not including a picture because it looks much the same, but it is much improved, fits better, has much more quilting.
Work on Scrappy Stars Around the Corner. No. I did not get to this.
Make donation pillow cases. Yes! I made twelve.
Make December blocks for Kat (?) Yes! Well, no, I didn’t need to make any, because it turned out that it was a Nov./Dec. challenge, and I had sent mine in November.
Pull scraps for Charlotte’s new mystery quilt. No, but I decided on my background color, a raspberry solid.

Bonus: I made two Maple Leaf quilts for donation.

This year:

I will complete the large UFO quilt under my cutting table. It reminds me constantly that I abandoned it, so it takes up mental space. It also hogs most of the space under my cutting table, and is visual clutter in the room. First, I need to spread it out and come up with a better quilting plan than I had before. Then I need to mark, baste, and trim the batting on the back for faux trapunto. Then I can quilt it, etc. No, I did not do this. I just wasn’t feeling it. I did get an idea about cutting it down, since I hate how large it turned out.
I will give my studio a good cleaning. It needs dusting, a little scrubbing, and the elimination of lots of extra stuff that has accumulated there. I also need to donate pillow cases and the baby quilts that haven’t sold. Yes! I did all those things. And hung a picture.
I want to try to take another fifty yards out of my stash. This won’t be easy, because in the past four years I’ve gotten rid of 350 yards. There’s still some ~~ugly~~ less appealing fabric that I want to use up and partially replace with fresh stuff. One area that I can reduce is the scraps. I will continue to use them for quilts and donation blocks. I’m cutting soon for this year’s Scrapitude quilt, and Alycia and Kat have monthly blog drives for scrap blocks for good causes (Kat is taking January off). Yes! I just barely made it, but I did. And that’s without finishing Scrappy Stars Around the Corner!

A pretty good month and a pretty good year, sewing-wise. In the next few days I’ll decide on goals for 2017 and post them here. It really does help organize things for me and helps me remember them!

I’ve enjoyed reading your year-end posts. Happy New Year to all of you! Stay safe and healthy! See you next year!

December 31, 2016
by Valerie 1 Comment

Finishes, and the Final Stash Report

2016-12-28-12-58-03 My last quilts for this year were these twin Maple Leaf quilts for donation to Margaret’s Hope Chest for a program called A Mother’s Hope. (I heard about this from Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts.)

2016-12-28-12-59-06 I didn’t piece these six-inch maple leaves, they’re from a top I brought home that my mother had pieced. I knew she’d be glad for it to go to a good cause. I was just going to add some borders and call it done, but it was already 48″ by 60″. This drive is looking for really small quilts (36″ x 50″ or so), so I took the top apart in the middle and made it into two quilts. These each finished at 40″ x 62″.

2016-12-28-13-00-43 I quilted between all the blocks first with the walking foot and fine thread, so they have more quilting than might appear. On one I quilted straight lines through the leaves and feathers through the blank spaces, edge to edge.

2016-12-26-16-12-44 On the other, I quilted wavy lines to suggest wind, and then a feather border.

2016-12-30-14-58-54 My other finish this week is twelve pillowcases (here are six) to donate to Case for Caring (which used to be Conkerr Cancer).

This week: + 0 yards, – 19 yards
This year: + 108.25 yards, – 160.5 yards
Net destashed in 2016: 52.25 yards

So, I met my year’s goal, just barely, but I did. We won’t discuss the vast amounts of fabric that are on order, but I’ll worry about that next year!

December 12, 2016
by Valerie 3 Comments

Design Wall Monday: Leaves

My mother had a lot of gathered projects or ones with cut pieces and a block or two finished, but I didn’t I didn’t bring any of them home. I did bring this top of six inch maple leaf blocks (48″ x 60″). I’m auditioning these fabrics for borders. I may use them both. I love the colors in the print, but it’s tropical, which won’t show if I use it for a narrow inner border. The hand-dye print from Kona Bay is neither burgundy nor rust, which is why it’s still in my stash, but it’s perfect for this.

I’ll finish this up for donation, and I know my mom would like that.

I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

December 4, 2016
by Valerie 2 Comments

Sunday Stash Report: 12/4/16

No new fabric this week, and lots of usage. The Grungy Stars quilt used about 7.5 yards and alterations to the fireplace screen used another yard.

This week: + 0 yards, – 8.5 yards
This year: + 108.25 yards, – 141.5 yards
Net destashed in 2016: 33.25 yards

How are you ding with your destashing?

I’m liking up to the Stash Report at Patchwork Times.

December 3, 2016
by Valerie 6 Comments

Grungy Christmas Stars

A while back I made a variety of wonky stars using Christmas fabric scraps.

I put them together with lots of negative space made of various white and creamy Moda Grunge and borders of Windham’s Glisten. Then I took them apart and inserted a peppermint strip for definition.

Oftentimes, after a quilt is washed I regret not having quilted it more. This was not the case. I quilted shadow stars in the plain blocks, and filled around all the stars in various ways.

I quilted holly and ribbons in the first, wide border. I quilted roping in the narrow gray border.

I quilted ribbons in the outer border. (For this I used my Leaves Galore ruler from Sue Pelland. I just didn’t move it over as much as for leaves. I guess long, skinny leaves look like ribbons.)

After the fancy quilting, I went back with my walking foot and quilted straight lines wherever they fit to try to make the border quilting a little closer in density to the center. I didn’t succeed, but it’seems also pretty flat, so I think it helped.