A doll quilt and UFO progress

Baby steps . . . each little bit of progress is good, right?

I had given a long arm friend a quilt top and backing that I thought was all ready to go.  But she texted me yesterday morning with this photo, to let me know the backing was too small.  I had given her the wrong backing for that quilt.  Darn!!  Luckily she only lives about 5 miles from me, so I drove out and traded projects, giving her the "next" one on my list.  

The doll quilt turned out very cute using those leftover squares from a backing.  I have a lot of solids, so it was easy to choose some of the same colors from that paint splatter print.  The red teddy bear will be wrapped in this one for donation.

One more of the UFO block sets hanging in the closet is closer to being a finished top.  There were 31 of these string blocks (9.5" square), with about half of them already sewn into rows.  Now all the rows are assembled, and maybe today I'll get the top all finished.  The leftover string block went into my orphan block box.  

Design Wall Monday - June 23

We survived the  wind and 100 degree temps over the weekend.  My husband didn't even play golf, so you know it was miserable out there.  Friday evening we went to grandson Jack's baseball game where we could set up our lawn chairs under big shade trees along the 3rd baseline.  But we skipped going to his big sister's fastpitch tournament on Saturday and Sunday.  It was just too hot for us old folks.  

Yesterday I pulled out a pile of 3.5" squares of a paint splatter print.  It was a leftover backing that I had cut into a big stack of squares.  Paired up with squares cut from the collection of solids it will make a very cute doll quilt.  I got the layout idea after seeing it on Kat's blog - Scrapbox Quilts on Saturday.   Like always, inspiration from another quilter.  This will use up quite a few scraps even though it's a small project. 

Last week I got 1 side of the puffy bag all sewn, so this week I'll keep working at the second side.  I am using an old polyester batting cut into little pieces to stuff those puffs.  

After a whole week of mostly sewing on small projects like bags and RSC blocks, it's time to focus on some bigger things again.  The 5th row of the Saturday Sampler is getting it's turn this week.  Today I plan to cut the pieces for it.  

I'm already thinking about sewing goals for July, and was thinking it's time to use the Indigo Way blocks to make something.  This was a Bonnie Hunter mystery introduced back in winter of 2023-24 I think.  I made blocks but not enough for a full sized quilt.  However, maybe it's enough to make a Quilt of Valor.  It's time to just do it!!

And while looking at UFOs, I think this string quilt needs some attention too.  It's been hanging in the closet, in rows for far too long.   

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog  

RSC25 - Week #24

I did plenty of rainbow scrappy sewing this week, primarily in between working on some small projects that needed to be completely finished. It was a good way to catch up with some of the RSC blocks in orange.  But it also looks like I a lot of "ping pong sewing" because I did bounce from block to block all week.  That's part of the fun for me with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - to have several different block sets growing all at once. 
 

Early in the week I made 1 orange Brighten block and 1 Buckeye Beauty block. These have the same pretty orange batik in both.  Both of these block sets need to continue to grow until there are enough of them for a quilt.  

A second orange Gameboard block was assembled another day.  There are now 2 of each of the 2025 colors, so a total of only 12.  I still do NOT have a plan for these, but something will emerge in time as the blocks continue to accumulate.

Last week I showed a couple of Paint Chip blocks that I made based on a blog post by Cathy at Crazy By Design blog.  They used 2.5" squares and I have a whole basket of those.  But I also have several cookie tins full of 1.5" squares, and the light bulb came on.  Mid-week I made a mini version of that block.   

It was a quick process to sort out orange and neutral postage stamps from the cookie tins. There are now 2 orange Mini Paint Chip blocks.   

And while I was sorting colors a few other blocks just happened to be born.  Aren't these little 4.5" blocks just the cutest?  There is the start of an idea floating around in my head of how I might be able to use these.   

With the string triangle blocks I've been combining into sets of 3, and then framing them with a black print.  With the 13 Triple Triangle blocks (6 x 15 approx) this is the layout I'm playing with so far.  I'm toying with putting a yellow sashing with these, or maybe some other bright color.  Or maybe use several colors. 

Let's see what else is going on in the RSC world because there is a LOT of inspiration out there in the RSC blog posts.
https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Labor of love

The genealogy project tracing my husband's dad during WW2 is done.  The photo books were delivered to me on Wednesday, and I got the packages put together to mail right away to Dave's 3 siblings.  The packages might even arrive in their mailboxes today.  This was definitely a labor of love for me because I really loved my father-in-law.  He actually passed away suddenly 3 months before we got married, and ironically he was the only person who knew we had just gotten engaged.  

The photo book was put together with photos and newspaper clippings, along with info gleaned from his discharge papers and other sources.  The spiral bound book is an eBook written by a man from his unit that follows that unit from training through the end of WW2.  The dates and locations in the book matched up perfectly with the paperwork and what was written on the backs of photos.  His name appears in the book on the Embarkation roster.  

The Wine Tote & more

 The wine tote bag is done, and it did turn out nicely in spite of my struggles with it.  Basting that bottom circle before sewing it was the right move.  It's actually pretty cute.  Using a border print was a good idea, and this kit used one from a previous Minnesota Shop Hop.  

I must point out the size of this tote - which is significantly larger than a standard bottle of wine like the one sitting next to it.  It even comfortably holds a 1.5 liter bottle.  

The Blockheads 6 block for this week is Cat's Cradle by Kiley Ferons.  I whined about poor instructions for that wine tote, but must compliment this designer on her very clear set of instructions for those half rectangles.  She had great pictures - and I still cut them slightly wrong!!  Those blue corners should be meeting the red corners, but mine obviously do not.   However I'm not redoing this block because it really still looks OK.  The first 3 weeks it was suggested to make 2 blocks, but this week only 1.   So there are 7 blocks total so far. 

A bag finish

Tuesday was one of those days with lots of focused sewing time.  No laundry or genealogoy projects to cut into my day, although I did have to go get some groceries late in the day.  The sewing themed Hemmingway bag is checked off the To Do list.
 

The mini version of it is also done.  This is the 3rd set of these I've made.

The pieces are all cut for the Puff bag.  There will be 50 of those little puffy squares, 10 in each of 5 bright colors.  

To Do Tuesday

 Well, there is ONE of the circles sewn into that wine tote project.  Good thing I began with the lining because it didn't go well.  The kit instructions had you do fusible interfacing on the lining to give it structure, and batting quilted to the outer fabric.  Let me just say that the fusible interfacing makes it next to impossible to smoothly "ease" that circle into the bottom of the lining.  I plan to hand baste the bottom circle to the outer fabric because it needs to look nicer than that lining does.  

When I got frustrated with the wine tote, I switched gears to work on the Hemmingway bag because that is a fairly easy project.  The zipper is an interesting process for this bag, and really the only tricky part.  The bag body is all one piece, cut on the diagonal.  The zipper is taken apart so you only use 1 side and attach that to that diagonal seam.

The diagonal is folded around so that the zipper meets again at the edge.  And now the tricky part - getting that zipper pull back onto the teeth of the zipper.  Any little thread sticking out will cause a headache.  But both the large bag, and the mini made with the trimmed triangle are ready to finish with the binding added inside the bag.

And because I was still irritated by that wine tote, I decided to play with scraps for awhile.  Remember the orange Paint Chip block from my Saturday Post?  It was made with 2.5" squares, which I have in abundance.  But I also have a TON of 1.5" squares. 

See the cookie tins and sewing notion tins?  All full of 1.5" postage stamp squares cut from scraps over the years.  I've been using them in the Gameboard blocks to make the center 16-patch unit.  And yesterday morning I had this crazy idea (squirrel) to use some to make miniature Paint Chip blocks too.  Why not?  The tins are really getting full anyway.  

Maybe today I'll finish up that wine tote project.  Or maybe another squirrel will distract me, and I'll go off in another direction.  LOL