Sue's Wisconsin State Fair Winner

My friend Sue won 1st Place at the Wisconsin State Fair for her modern quilt. I am so proud of her! She sent me a message thanking me for the use of my longarm which was totally unnecessary. She is always welcome here - I would not have that longarm without her encouragement and support.

Here is her quilt hanging at the fair. I love it. She did a great job putting it all together and it is beautiful.

Toy Story (Buzz Lightyear) Quilt

I am doing this game (challenge) found over on the Country Threads Chicken Scratch blog called Connie's Dirty Dozen. The idea is to find 12 of your unfinished projects (UFOs) and number them from 1 through 12. Each month a number will be drawn by Connie and that's the numbered project you need to complete by the end of the month. You can read all the rules and instructions for the game here. The game started with July and last month I finished my #8 in two weeks. I had extra incentive in that I was donating the quilt to my church's art fair on the 20th of July so it really needed to get done. Country Threads posted the photo I sent them of my quilt here. Yay! I am keeping up with the game (so far- ha ha).

For August Connie drew #3 so here is my August project all done:

This quilt will go to Quilts for Kids. As you can see the fabric has Buzz Lightyear all over it in large print. I struggled to figure out how to cut up the fabric to make quilt blocks and still see that it's Buzz on the fabric. So I found this cute free tutorial here called the Novelty Quilt tutorial. I thought it was perfect for this fabric so I fussy cut all the Buzz images as well as his enemy. I used all leftover scraps from my scrap bin of solids to make the 2-inch squares. It was a very economical project. I used high-loft batting when I quilted this in order to make the quilting pop. I think I was successful. The quilt feels nice and puffy yet still soft.

So I'm 2 months into the Dirty Dozen game and I feel like am "winning"!

Cindy's Charity Quilt

I quilted my friend Cindy's quilt for her today. I should say over the past few days. It's a pretty big quilt so it took me a while to complete the quilting. It didn't help that I chose a harder pantograph to use for the quilt design.

The pantograph is called ripples and there's lots of curls and waves in it. I wanted to make sure I did a good job for her so I made sure I took my time. It did take a while to complete each row sine they were pretty long rows.

I used a variegated thread from the Superior Thread Omni-V line, the color is called Rolling Hills. It sure felt like a perfect match to the colors of the quilt blocks.  For the back of the quilt I used So Fine thread in Glacier. What a pretty name for a turquoise color thread.

The quilt is for a charity raffle and the money will go to the PKD (Polycystic Kidney Disease) Foundation.

What's on the design board?

My design board doesn't have any new quilt projects on it except to say that the leftovers from the recently finished One Direction quilt are present. I want to make pillow covers with the orphan blocks and I'm just trying to figure out how to arrange them in a way to use them all up and make them look cute.

I also have some orphan blocks that I'm hoping inspire me to make more Lori Holt-Farm Girl-like quilts. They are a bit putzy so we shall see.

This last week was spent cleaning out my studio and it's amazing how inspired I was to start new things once that was done. I cut 2 new kits to take with me to the senior center sew days. Before cleaning things out, I just couldn't get inspired. I think it was the giant stacks of leftover scraps from other projects that were staring at me - clogging my brain. Ha!

This time of year is when I spend a lot of time gardening. The produce I get is never taken for granted. Gardening is hard work and I love the rewards Mother Nature brings. I used up the last of the snow peas that I picked in some garlic chicken. It's one of my husband's favorite recipes so there was none left when that dinner was done.

Gypsy Wife Quilt #2

This is my second Gypsy Wife quilt. I made it with the intention that I would follow a quilt-along where each month one of each of the 10 sections would be completed. I got all the way to Section 7 when I couldn't stand it any more. I just had to keep going. So I finished the quilt top last weekend.

During the week I bought the backing for the quilt and put it on my longarmer. Once I finished quilting it, I decided to use the same backing fabric for the binding.

Today I hand-stitched the binding while watching the Milwaukee Brewers' game. It's about 97 degrees outside so it was a good way to spend the day even though I would rather be outside.

This pattern was quite a challenge and many people think it's a hard pattern but I think it's just complicated. The blocks are simple - it's the putting it together part that is unusual.

I used a pantograph called Trumpet Vine to quilt it. And even though this is a scrap quilt, I tried to showcase fabrics with cats on it in many of the blocks. What fun!

One Direction Quilt

I finished the One Direction quilt today. The quilt top was made at my weekly sew days at the local senior center. I love to cut fabrics and make kits ready to sew while I'm there. The kits have everything ready to sew which make it less likely that I will forget something when I'm there. Of course since I only work on the project while I'm there, it takes a bit longer to complete a quilt top. I finished this one over the winter sew days.

Once I finally purchased the backing it didn't take me long to quilt it. I used a pantograph called Kiss that added a nice texture among all that white background.

The One Direction pattern comes from Missouri Star Quilt Company's Block magazine. The issue is from Spring 2018.

I used a layer cake from Riley Blake's Simply Happy fabric collection along with some white Kona yardage. The quilt is rather large and it will be a nice addition to my granddaughter's room. I already washed it and it is currently drying while I am writing this post.

Presents from Mom by Creek Side Stitches

This quilt is made from donated fabrics. The fabric came from someone who goes to my church. It was her mother's. I tried to use it up in a meaningful way. There's so much of it so there will be many more of these quilts before I use it all up.

The pattern is called Presents from Mom and it's found in a booklet called Slice of Home by Creek Side Stitches. I picked out many greens and blues from the donated fabrics no matter what the print was. I cut 42 10-inch squares from the fabrics in order to make this. The instructions stated that a mix of darks and lights were important so no matter the print, that's what I concentrated on. For an experiment in color, it didn't turn out too bad - haha!

I quilted it on my longarmer using the Daisy Doodle pantograph.  I really like the quilting.

This will be given back to the church to use for whatever they want. It was a fun experiment in color.

Roundabout Table Topper

I'm pretty certain I will eventually make every pattern in the two Schnibbles pattern books that I have. I just love her patterns. This one is the small version of Roundabout. I used a charm pack to make this. It's perfect for my kitchen table.

I bought a pantograph called Coffee Break at the Houston International Quilt Show last fall from the discount section of the Urban Elementz booth. I can see why it was discounted, the pattern is so large it's hard to tell it's a coffee cup. Good thing it's for my personal use, so I don't care but if I was making it for a gift I would have started over.