Button Collection Quilt

I finished my Button Collection quilt today. I used a jelly roll from Tula Pink's True Colors fabric collection and some light green yardage for the background. I picked a few of the True Colors prints to make the borders, backing and binding. The colors are very pretty.

The pattern comes from the Spring, 2020 issue of Quilts & More magazine. I fell in love with it the minute I purchased the magazine, but it took me a while to find the right fabric to make it. I think Tula Pink's True Colors collection was the right choice. I did have lots of fabric strips left over when I finished this so I really didn't need to buy a jelly roll, yardage would have been a better choice. 

A funny thing happened when I went to quilt this. I ran out of thread. I wasn't paying attention to how much was on the spool so I didn't notice it was low until I was half-way done quilting it. So I went to order another spool of the same thread and Superior Threads was out of stock. So I shopped around and found the thread at 2 online quilt shops. One offered free shipping if I spent more than $75. That gave me incentive to check my entire thread stock and see what other colors were low. So I made a list of thread colors and ordered enough of them to get over the $75. Wouldn't you know it?? The shop sent me a shipping confirmation for my order and a credit for the ONE color I really needed - it was out of stock in their shop. I wish they would have given me an option to replace it with something else or cancel the order altogether. So I ended up ordering from the other shop anyway. Of course by then two weeks went by. Oh well!

I used a pantograph called Brocade to quilt this and I like how it looks on the back of the quilt as well as the front. 

The quilt measures 64" x 54" and I hand-stitched the binding.

What's on the design board?

October was an interesting month. Even though I am officially retired, I felt like I was always playing catch-up with everything I did. I had to catch up on making a quilt sample for work that I thought I would have completed sooner. I had to catch up on quilting some client quilts. I also had to catch up on getting all the remaining vegetables picked from my garden before it was too late. The weather can turn cold rather suddenly around these parts.

I also have a memorial quilt to complete. I started it a few weeks ago and struggled with how to proceed. The quilt is supposed to have t-shirt blocks, flannel shirt blocks, and dress shirt blocks. I just don't like them all together. So the design board looks like this today:

I've eliminated the flannels and the t-shirt blocks. I like it much better. And there's enough shirt fabric to make many more blocks. So I think I will make 2 quilts. This one will be all dress shirts. It will make a nice representation to preserve the memory of the loved one that wore these. 

I won't be working on this over the next week since I have a craft fair next Saturday. I have to make sure my inventory is ready to go. It will be my first fair with a partner! I invited my favorite sewing friend Sue to come try her hand at selling her handmade items. We will share a booth where she can see if she likes the experience. I'm sure I've mentioned to her that there's really no way to know what to expect...at least in my experience. No 2 fairs have been alike. I can sell a bunch of one thing at one event and then a totally different thing will be popular at another. I never can tell. Maybe I am just terrible at marketing. All I know is that I hope she enjoys it.

October Client Quilts

This month I quilted 4 projects for the quilt shop. 

I quilted this table topper and matching table runner. 

I quilted a Christmas wall hanging for the shop too. The original pattern was for a large quilt but the shop manager liked it better it a smaller version so one of my co-workers made the sample using less blocks than the original pattern. I love the star blocks so much that I am going to have to download the free pattern from the fabric manufacturer just to make my own version.

I also made this sample. It has lots of little 'house' blocks that border the panel. I am always happy and amazed when the borders come out the exact size they need to be to match the panel.

The only other quilting I did was for my daughter. She made my granddaughter a butterfly patch quilt and I quilted it for her. I really wanted her to come over and do it herself. But I forget that the longarmer can be a bit intimidating at first glance.

And that's it for this month. I also had one of the ladies from my church quilt group come over to use the longarmer to quilt a small lap quilt. She plans on quilting 2 queen sized quilts next month. I like having the company in the sewing room - it keeps me in my sewing room for the day without the distraction of things like housecleaning or cooking - ha!

Perfect Table Topper

I made this table topper with no pattern. I used the leftovers from a pillow project I made last fall. Some of the scrap pieces were pretty small so the best I could come up with was 2-inch squares. I sewed 100 of them together - 10 rows of 10 squares. 

I added an inner border cut from 1-inch strips of coordinating fabric. The outer border strips are 2-3/4 inch strips of fabric. I used 100% cotton batting and matching fabric backing layered and quilted in a meandering pattern.

Using the same fabric for the binding as the inner border really made this project look like it was better planned than it really was - ha! The finished project measures 20" x 20" square - a perfect size for the center of any table.

Craft Fair Table Runners

In an effort to replenish my table runner selection for my next craft fair, I made a few fall and Christmas runners. I used up scraps from last year for the fall ones, and some new fabrics for the Christmas ones. I was in quite a hurry to complete these, so I didn't spend much time on pattern selection. I really need to take some quality time to look at patterns for Christmas projects, and I plan to make that a November priority but for now, these will have to do. 

New (old) Bathroom Door

My husband refinished this old door this week. On one of our antique adventures we picked up the glass door knobs - that's something I look for everywhere we go. This one was so pretty after he cleaned up the plate behind the knob. 

This is our powder room door on the first floor of the house. It's next to my sliding barn-door that's stained the same color. The basement door is also on the same wall and needs to be replaced. Once we find an old door we will change it out.

Fall Decorations

The pandemic has changed so many things including trick-or-treating. In our community, it was cancelled, then reinstated, and now that the cases are on the rise, it's a use your own discretion thing.  Since we don't have small children of trick-or-treating age we are ok with skipping it. We even decided to go light on the fall decorating. We usually go all out with tombstones and giant wooden ghosts and the grim reaper in the yard. It feels like a good year to take time off from all of that.

So our decorations look like this:

That's the back yard and in front we have a mum plant and more little pumpkins.

What I've discovered is that there is great joy in not working so hard to decorate lots. I'm seriously thinking about selling some of my decor next year at our summer rummage sale. I'm surprised how much I enjoyed not decorating. Maybe this is one of the effects of living through a pandemic, I guess time will tell.

10-Minute Table Runner Test

I picked up a 10-minute table runner kit from the quilt shop's clearance bin and I thought I would test it out. Does it really take just 10 minutes? I was going to find out. 

I felt a little like I was cheating because the fabrics were already cut in the kit. I did remeasure to make sure they were correct so I guess that could count towards the time I saved by using these precut pieces. 

The first step was to sew the pieces together to make a long tube. Then flip it right side out and press so that the feature fabric was in the center.

Then I had to trim the uneven edges off, fold the runner in half and stitch along the cut edge.

Then I had to iron the seam flat.

Once flipped over after pressing the seam the runner looked like this.

At this point the instructions suggest an embellishment to hold the fabric down once folded over. I didn't do that. I think I would like it better if I did some free motion quilting on it which I will do another time. (I don't like to put the free motion foot on my machine until I have more than once project to quilt.)

According to the clock this project took a total of 14 minutes. I guess I will have to work faster next time.