Finished (or NOT) Friday - Candy Lane finished

There is a finish this week - binding and all.  Sorry for the poor photo, but the outdoor photos were even worse in terms of color accuracy.

Candy Lane is 48 x 58, and made from a kit containing 5 half-yard cuts.  The pattern is part of the Half Pack Quilts from Sassy Sunflower that I bought on the August shop hop.  This was a really easy pattern, and I'm going to enjoy this as a "couch quilt" for Christmas. The fabrics in it are all metallics, with both gold and silver.  There are snowflakes quilted into it.  And there are snowflakes on the backing I found.

The final block for the Moda Blockheads 6 sew along is done.  This 18" block is Mod Water Wheel by Sarah Thomas.   It went together very quickly, using just HSTs and squares.  Personally, I can see a quicker method using flying geese where those red pieces are, but I did follow the pattern provided. 

One layout option leaves me with 6 extra 9" blocks.  I like how this looks with the 18" blocks in each corner.  I could make a duplicate of one of the 9" blocks and add another row of them right below that center medallion. That would change the quilt from square to a rectangle, which I like better anyway.  Plus several of those 9" blocks already have duplicates, so making one more of a single will be fine.  Another option would be to remove those duplicate blocks and just leave it square.  Hmmm - decisions, decisions.

Thursday afternoon I changed thread to black, and worked on the Dresden project again.  Once all the blocks are blanket stitched with black, then I can do some squaring up before setting them into rows on point.  

This n that

I was missing in action yesterday - at least as far as the blog is concerned.  

I had good intentions on Tuesday afternoon to write a new post and share a photo from the Veteran's Day event where we awarded 3 quilts.  See above.  But, alas . . . when I got home at 2 pm there were 5 trucks on our street belonging to our Internet service provider.  They had a big hole dug at the other end of our block. My husband confirmed we had no Internet (or cable TV) when I walked in the house and by the time it was restored a couple of hours later we were already leaving town for college basketball. 

On the drive home late Tuesday night we caught some glimpses of the Northern Lights, even with lights from traffic all around us.  Based on the photos from around here that I've seen they were really spectacular earlier in the evening.   

And while I'm thinking about lights - here is a really poor quality photo of some the permanent lights in our neighborhood.  After Halloween I switched ours to yellow and blue for our SDSU Jackrabbits.  Tuesday night when we got home our neighbors had changed their lights to red and white - because they are USD Coyote fans.  I love it the rivalry fun. 
 

Wednesday morning 5 of us went to a local school to award 2 Quilts of Valor during their annual Veteran's Day program.  The whole program was student planned, and very well done.  They planned the event for the 12th because on the 11th there was a ceremony renaming a bridge for one of their alumni who died in WW2.  It worked out great because they showed video of the bridge ceremony during the Veteran's program.  We were listed on the program as "blanket donation".  LOL   There was a huge crowd - all of the students in K-12 in that district, all of the staff, lots of local community people, a large group of veterans, and lots of family there for the 2 men receiving quilts.  It was awesome!

I got home in time yesterday to say good-bye to my husband as he left for a quick overnight business trip.  That meant I spent the rest of the afternoon in my sewing room - for the first time since Saturday.  It sure felt good to sit down and just sew.  Four rows are assembled for the Ribbon QOV.  Five more rows to go.

And I worked my way through some of the Dresden blades that were cut.  None of these have been sewn onto their background squares yet, but I may work on them today.  However, before changing to black thread - I'll be working on the LAST red/white/blue block for this year's Moda Blockheads.  

Veteran's Day 2025

 On Sunday, our QOV group was honored to present 3 quilts to veterans. 

These 3 gentleman were nominated by the American Legion in my husband's home town.  They host a community veteran's luncheon annually, and we've been invited to come present quilts for the last 4 or 5 years.  The 2 young men are not only veteran's but currently wear a different kind of uniform - as sheriff deputies.  The man in the middle is a Viet Nam era veteran.  

Today we'll be presenting 3 more quilts at a large Veteran's Day program and lunch here in Mitchell.  And tomorrow we'll do 2 more.  

Design Wall Monday - Nov 10

Winter came to visit this weekend. We woke up Saturday morning to this.  We got about 3" of wet heavy snow, which is melting now and soaking into our dry ground.  The moisture is much appreciated, if not the cold temps.

There is one small finish to report before the week begins. The Bah Humbug pillow for Christmas is done, and I even had an 18" pillow form for it.  The expression on the face of the cat is why I bought this kit in the first place.  The only quilting on this one is stitching right up around the applique.  I replaced the wool backing in the kit with a Christmas print from my stash.  The red binding came from the left over binding drawer.

It's Veteran's Day week, so it will be busy and very inspirational.  We awarded 3 quilts yesterday at a Veteran's luncheon in a nearby small town.  Three more will happen at a large Veteran's event tomorrow here in Mitchell, and finally there will be 2 on Wednesday morning at a Veteran's program at a nearby high school. I'll try to share some photos near the end of this week from those events.  

There is a lot of binding to do.  Candy Lane quilt is nearly done.  There are 5 placemats ready for binding.  And the binding strips are cut for a Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt.  

I'm hoping to get a few more of the Dresden blocks made, to get closer to having enough to assemble the quilt top.  Green and orange blades are cut and ready to sew whenever I do manage to get some time this week.

Because of all the patriotic quilts happening this week, I plan to get back to work on some Quilt of Valor projects that are WIPS in my studio.  One project is pinned into rows, and the other needs more blocks made.  And there will be one final Blockheads block posted on Wednesday.  Mine have been red/white/blue, so that makes 3 Quilts of Valor projects going on at once.  Not to mention a stack of orphan blocks left from previous QOV.  Oops!!  Maybe there are 4 patriotic projects going on. 

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog        

RSC25 - Week #45

 One little pile of scraps did not end up in the scrap bins!  Yay!!

Remember those orange batik pieces trimmed from a big quilt project in October?  I cut them into Dresden blades - only 3.5" long.  Those blades have become the bright element needed on an otherwise boring UFO.  The various green batik stems and leaves were also left over from that recent quilt, and the brown batik was in the scrap bin.  All have been fused on and blanket stitched with black thread.  It's ready to quilt. 

The background on this wall hanging was a kit purchased on a shop hop several years ago.  The pattern is called Feel the Churn - and it's just a simple big churn dash with a 6 x 6 set of squares in the middle.  But it was all blacks and browns on cream.  I knew it needed something added to be more interesting, so it was sewn and just hanging in the closet as a UFO for a few years.  Now it's a flimsy - and a marriage of UFO and scraps.  

Another set of RSC blocks is receiving attention.  And look . . . more Dresden blades and more black thread.  There has been an obvious theme this week.  LOL  These blocks were begun early in the year and then neglected.  Three purple blocks took shape this week from blades already cut and laying in the project box.  That box also held all the 10" grey background squares.  

These 19 blocks have now been blanket stitched.  There are still 5 more (2 teal, 1 yellow, 2 blue) ready for blanket stitching, which is what holds the pieces onto the background square.  There are still more random colors of blades in the box.  

A bunch of green blades are cut but not sewn yet.  I'll cut some orange ones over the weekend, then I can work on those blocks next week.  I'm excited for this RSC project to start looking as I imagined at the beginning of the year.  

There are plenty of leftovers of Tula fabrics from a project earlier in the year.  I used a few to make a very sweet 18" block.  This is Prairie Lily from Lori Holt's book Prairie Home.  I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it did use up scraps.  

What other fun projects are happening in the RSC world?

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Finished (or NOT) Friday

I actually HAVE finished and nearly finished projects to share today.  The past couple of Fridays it was more of a progress report on NOT finished things.
 

The Lone Star wall hanging for my son-in-law is all finished.  My daughter wanted to honor his Native American heritage with a star quilt.  We shared lots of pictures back and forth online until deciding on this spinning version of a Lone Star.  In hindsight, I'm wishing I had used the black as the background, and added one more bright color.  But it did turn out very pretty and it's quilted with a gorgeous variegated thread that really pops.  I love the texture of the quilting too.  Mariah did a beautiful job quilting this for me. 

In the "nearly finished" category is Cactus In the Cabin.  It's a flimsy and 85" square, after adding the 6" black borders all around.  Green batik binding strips are cut and hanging with the flimsy but I may wait until later this winter to get this one quilted. 

Also nearly finished is the Bah Humbug pillow.  I need to finish hand stitching the edge binding, and find an 18" pillow form for it.

I'm linking up with Finished Or Not Friday . . .
https://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/

Blockheads #23 & more

Yesterday's calendar included the monthly DAR meeting, with a Quilt of Valor award as our program.  We meet each month in the local Carnegie Resource Center, which of course is a historic Carnegie library building.

The building is really beautiful, and is now the home of a lot of original Oscar Howe art.  And it's the home of the local historical and genealogical organizations.  It's open to the public in the afternoons for research or to enjoy the ever-changing displays of local history.  When you walk in the front door and look up - there is a huge dome covered in original paintings done in the 1940s by Howe as part of a WPA project. Framed Howe paintings hang on the walls below the dome all around the balcony.  

Our QOV group has been asked to do a quilt award each year at the chapter DAR November meeting, as an annual event.  In return they give us a donation. This gentleman is a Korean War veteran.  As always it was an honor to be involved.  

This week's Blockheads block is another 18" one, and I'm guessing that next week's will also be 18".  I've resolved to NOT start playing with layouts until I have all the blocks done.  And next week should be the final block release.    

This is Criss Cross Applesauce by Laura Muir.  It was a good opportunity to use a bigger print in those large corners.  

Yesterday afternoon I managed to get the back put onto the Bah Humbug pillow.  Hopefully I'll have a finish to show soon.  And I cut binding for 2 of the projects just picked up from quilters.  My plan today is to get the binding attached to at least one of those projects.