Featured quilter

One of the local quilts shops (The Pin Cushion) is featuring the work of a different quilter each month this year.  I'm really honored to be the March featured quilter.  That meant going through my quilts to find a mix of large and small items to share. For the whole month the classroom is hung with my projects.

The big wall in the classroom has the large quilt with appliqued houses and pine trees, all done in blues and greens.  And the small projects on the left are a patriotic Lone Star wall hanging and a paper pieced round table topper.  On the right side is a Hawaiian applique table topper, a Stay At Home Round Robin projects from about 2023 (?), and an Easter table runner that is applique on an ombre fabric.

The table in the classroom is draped with my very first quilt, made in Home Ec class when I was in high school decades ago.  

The only reason I know the year is because I embroidered my name and date on the back of this crazy quilt.

Another wall holds the Sammy's Secret Garden quilt that was a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project a few years ago.  The cats and other blocks are all from Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage books 1 and 2.  The Christmas table runner to the right is also a Lori Holt pattern.

The Halloween quilt is a One Block Wonder, using a panel.  Well actually it used 7 panels, one kept whole and 6 to make the hexies.  Hanging from the corner of the door is a bag I made from a charm pack.

The paper pieced quilt was the project from the Alaskan cruise with girl friends a few years ago.  And hanging above that doorway is a wall hanging with appliqued Dresden blades and randomly cut leaves and stems.

Hand quilted and appliqued Santa and reindeer are the basis of this wall hanging that I made about 25 years ago. For many years it hung above our piano at Christmas.  The piano is gone but the wall hanging still comes out. 

And finally, above the French doors from the classroom into the shop - this watermelon table runner.  It's also hand quilted.  Again, this is something I made almost 30 years ago but still get it out in late summer.  It was a pattern in a magazine.  

This and that

Monday morning was a good one for sewing, with progress again on multiple projects.    

Because I was out of binding to do in the evenings, I pulled out one of the doll quilts that I made earlier this winter, and got binding put on it. Since it's only 25" square it probably will only take 1 evening to hand stitch.  

The block for Saturday Sampler for March is done. This block is 15" finished. Anthologie is the pattern we're using this year, and it is a sampler type of project with a mix of traditional blocks plus applique. Some blocks require multiples, but there will be only 1 of Le Fleur.

The 12" Farm Girl Vintage blocks have been sewn into rows.  There are 6 rows of 5 blocks, so it will be 60 x 72, unless I add some borders to make it bigger.  That decision can wait until I see how it looks without borders.

Four of the 12 blocks with white stars are all done.  These will go quickly in between other things because the parts are all cut and layed out on a design board.  They're only 8" blocks so they make good Leaders/Enders.  

At Sew Vintage on Saturday afternoon I found myself reminded of a scrappy RWB project that has been going on in my sewing room for a number of years now. 

For several years as I've worked on blocks for Quilts of Valor, there have been corner triangles trimmed off.  I can't just throw them away, so they become 2.5" HSTs that get trimmed and dropped into a big bag on a shelf. A big variety of reds and blues are sewn to a bigger variety of light neutrals. 

This is the ongoing project that has been tucked into that bag with the HSTs.  Every so often I add another row to it.  There is no plan in my brain yet for how large I want to make this.  But it has been fun to watch it slowly grow. I'll probably add a couple more vertical rows to it this week since red is the RSC color.  

Design Wall Monday - March 16

This week my To Do list will include making the 1 block needed for this month's Saturday Sampler task.

Choosing the colors for this block was probably the hardest part.  This will be a 15" block, and has pretty easy components.

Yesterday I cut all of the pieces needed to make the 12 star blocks for the 3rd week's prompts for the Quilt of Valor I'm working on with Alycia.  I'm using just 1 background fabric (white), and just 1 blue.  But the reds are scrappy as I try to use up some leftovers from other Quilts of Valor projects.  I've already made the 12 blocks with white backgrounds and blue or red stars.  These will all have white stars. 

Working my way through some UFOs can be satisfying - IF I manage to move them to the finish line, or at least a quilt top.

Next UFO in line is the set of 12" blocks I made years ago in our Sew Vintage group using the Farm Girl Vintage 1 and 2 books by Lori Holt.  At the time I made both sizes of blocks - 6" and 12" - see above photo.  The small blocks became a finished quilt right away but the big blocks have mostly been laying in a project box ever since.  

A year of so later, I pulled out a barn block and 8 animal blocks to make a quilt.  This was the first project made using that Circle of Nine book that I used last week for a QOV. The spacers and borders on this layout are slightly different than my new QOV version.  On a side note - do you see the Honey Bee block in there?  I'm using that same block pattern for the RSC blocks I've been making in blue, green, and red so far.  

But . . . there were still over 40 blocks waiting to become something.  Now's the time!!  Setting aside several food-themed blocks from the pile, I layed out these 30 so far. More rearranging is needed before I begin to sew anything together.  And that still leaves all those food-themed blocks.  Hmmmm . . . that means one more quilt doesn't it?

In between working on all of this there will be plenty more RSC blocks in red.  

I'm linking up today with:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

https://songbirddesigns.blog

RSC26 - Week #11

Today is Saturday Sampler and Sew Vintage day - my favorite Saturday of every month.  Totally quilt focused all day!  

Two red Snail Trail blocks were the very first thing I sewed this week after being gone for 5 days, without any stitching time.  Do you feel withdrawal when you can't sit at the machine or do any hand stitching for several days?  I definitely do.    

Later in the week I got 2 more of them sewn, so now there are 4 of each color Snail Trail blocks - blue, green, and red.  Plus 4 brown ones I did last fall during the dark neutral sewing month.  These are 12" blocks. 

Two red 9" Scrappy Stars were made in between other projects.  I already had 2 red ones made, plus the blue and green ones.

These are going to look good with lots more colors mixed in.

Waking up way too early on Thursday gave me time to finish a couple of quilt tops that were already nearly done.  And then there was time to make the Honey Bee blocks that were cut out.  I had planned to work on them over this weekend, but now they are done.  These 12" finished blocks are faster to sew than they are to cut.  

Let's go check out more Rainbow fun . . .

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

Finished (or not) Friday

Some weeks I have complete finishes to share, some weeks there are quilt tops to share, and then some weeks there is nothing to share.  There is a Quilt of Valor finish and 2 quilt tops to report for this week.

This is a sampler quilt with a mix of scrappy blocks I had made as test blocks for future projects. Some of the blocks were from various sew-alongs when I wasn't planning to make the entire project but wanted to play along a little.  I like to do those test blocks in red, white, and blue because then they can be used like this.  Simple sashing, cornerstones, and an outer border . . . and Voila . . . a quilt is born. 

And there is a QOV top that has finally reached the flimsy stage after sitting in a project box for over a year.  Shadow Star is unusual for me as it's not scrappy.  It used 3 fabrics only.  I really like how this turned out, but am still thinking it needs another outer border, not too wide but not too narrow.  I think I have enough of the red to do that, so for now it's hanging in the closet while I think about it. 

 Another flimsy finish for this week just needed an outer border.  This is my 2026 Stay At Home Round Robin project and is 50" square. I usually prefer rectangular quilts, but this one just wanted to remain square.  That wide border is the bubble print that I purchased this week while shopping with a friend.  The print picks up all of the colors in the quilt.  It should make a good couch quilt.  For now this one is also hanging in the closet until a backing is found and a quilting plan is made.

Check out more Finishes (or Not) today . . .

https://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/  

Progress on 3 fronts

Wednesday was a really good day with LOTS of sewing time.  Some progress can be reported on 3 different projects.

First, I finished blanket stitching around the circles on the Stay At Home Round Robin project.  Once that was done I cut the border and binding strips.  That means It's one step closer to a finish.  I hope to get those borders on this morning and have a flimsy.

The next task was attaching binding to another UFO - Triple Triangles.  Since I finished hand stitching the binding on a Quilt of Valor on Tuesday evening I was ready for more binding. 

Once those 2 tasks were done, I returned to the Shadow Star QOV.  The last 4 blocks were finished, and I've begun to sew it all into rows.  Again - I hope to get this one to the flimsy stage today.

In between these projects I've been working on some red Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  Those will be ready to share on Saturday.  

Just can't stay home

Tuesday began as a stay-at-home-and-sew kind of day - until 9:30 AM.  Then a friend called to ask if I wanted to ride along as she went to a quilt shop about 90 miles away.  Duh!!!  Of course I said yes, and she picked me up an hour later.

It was a good day for a road trip.  She had looked in both of our local shops for very particular fabrics for a graduation quilt with no luck.  But today she found what she was looking for at the shop, and I found what I didn't know I was looking for. LOL  Actually I took along my 2026 SAHRR project to look for a border for it.  The last prompt was "Quilter's Choice", and I had decided my choice was just one wide border.  But nothing in my stash looked right.  That fun bubbly print will now be the final border, and that purple stripe peeking out on the left will be the binding.  So - success was had.

But of course I couldn't stop there.  The fabric for another 3-yard quilt (for a kiddo) came home with me.  And I curated a small stack of random fat quarters, including some neutrals to replenish those in the stash.  This yardage was added to my stash report promptly, on the IN column.  Hopefully most of will go on the OUT column soon too.

Once finished shopping we went to lunch and then headed home.  A fine day!!