Flea Market Flowers Sew Along

I started the Flea Market Flowers quilt along back in spring but I didn't get very far. I was interrupted by the need to make a wedding quilt. Once I completed that I was spent on quilting for a while. I hate to make excuses so I knew I had to finish this one and my goal was to get it done before the end of the year.

This quilt pattern is free on Lori Holt's blog. Each week we were to make a Dresden block. It's nice that I can go back to each week's instructions and work the project all the way through even though the quilt along is done.

                             

There were so many flower petals to make. In fact, I counted them. There were 480 Dresden flower petals in all and there were also 68 leaves. 

Even though I did not make the end of year deadline, I did have the quilt top completed by New Year's Eve. That in itself was quite an accomplishment considering my recent appendectomy. But again, no excuses!  These poor lonely quilt blocks have been hanging on my design board all summer long. Not to mention all of fall too.

I finally loaded the quilt on my longarmer on January 3rd. 

I used a pantograph called Citrine for the quilting design.

I sewed the rick rack and the binding on during the week. And I finished the quilt label yesterday. 

Yay! All done...

Bear Paw on Point Quilt

I started this quilt at the once-a-month sew day with my Basement Quilters group back in February. Usually when I start a project at a sew day I finish the project there. That means I will end up working on the same project for quite a few months. However, I don't have a lot of other things going on lately. So I finished the quilt top at home.

I quilted it using a pantograph with lots of swirls. It complemented the bear paw points nicely and filled in the white background blocks. 

The quilt pattern used a jelly roll where you sort the light strips from the dark strips to make blocks that have lots of contrast. Sometimes I find that the line between dark and light gets a little blurry when the medium color strips are used. I think I need a color theory class! At least the jelly roll takes away some guesswork.

Small Projects

I've had this small Chalk Couture project for a few months and I completed it today. My husband made me some shelves for over my coffee station. The shelves are made from wood we had milled from trees on our land up in Marinette County so they are special to us. The shelves are sitting on pipe fixtures, just like some I found on Pinterest. Once he put up the shelves I was excited to make the Chalk Couture project. 

Here's what it looks like on the "coffee wall" shelf. 

I still have some decorating to do to make it look like I want it, so my next step is to get some greenery for color.

Once I finished the chalk project, I dug out some vinyl I've had for a while. I made up this project bag to take to my quilting group. I quilted the back patchwork panel, added a zipper and vinyl window to the front and sewed on binding. It was so quick and easy. I plan on making more in different sizes as teacher gifts for teacher appreciation week which is in April.

Quilts for Kids Finished Quilts

The snow keeps piling up; there's now 22 inches on the ground. The piles are so high, you can't see over the top of them. To make things worse, the average daytime temperature is 6 degrees so it's not fun to go outside and play in it. While we're hunkered down, I did finish two charity quilts. I had these two in my stack of finished quilt tops since last year. It felt good to put them in the washer once they were finished. I seemed like a good idea to photograph them on top of the piles of snow.

My 10 year old granddaughter did some of the quilting on the minion quilt. She had a good time working the longarmer. I hope she wants to do it some more.

This quilt pattern is called Perfect 10. I used fat quarters I got from a friend who didn't want them anymore. I promised her I would use the fabric for Quilts for Kids so I finished the quilt top in October. I just never took the time to quilt it. I don't know why.

Pencil Me In Quilt

This quilt has been sitting in my sewing room since October. Sadly, it fell victim to the holiday quilting and crafting rush but that's ok, there was no rush to finish it. I used half of a Tula Pink jelly roll to make it and the pattern can be found in Fons and Porter's Magazine. It measures 48' by 68.5" so it's lap size. 

I used a pantograph called Amica for the quilting.

This was a nice bonus project using leftovers. It will make a nice gift.

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.

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.

Quick Four Patch Quilt

I finished quilting and binding the quick four patch quilt today. I used a flower pantograph and there's a pretty purple polka dot fabric on the back.

It looks so soft and comforting, I just love the pretty colors.

It seems that quilting only happens on rainy days, so I'm happy when they occur. Gardening is fun, but it's such hard work that a rainy day feels like a day of rest. And there's nothing like resting in my sewing room.

What's on the design board?

I've had some fabric samples that were used by fabric distributors to sell fabric to shops. They come in a grouping with a large swatch of each print available in a fabric collection. I wish I would have taken a photo of this collection. It seemed like a very small amount of fabric. Some of the pieces were a little smaller than a fat quarter and a few of them were a little larger. I think there were 9 different prints in this collection.

So I took the pieces and laid them out. Then I got inspiration from the quilt tutorial found here. I realized that I really liked this tutorial, sadly, not so much for the content but because it was not full of ads! I understand that people make money with their blogs by linking to ads but I absolutely hate having to scroll through the ads to read a blog post. And frankly, I refuse to click on any of them. Not even to remove them. I think that counts as a click that gets the blogger paid and I won't do it-that's how I boycott the ads, lol. As if anyone cares. Haha!

After doing some math to get a common width of the fabrics in my little collection, chose to cut the pieces into 3" strips. That minimized waste. I sewed up the little 4-patches in less than 2 hours. It was so fun. And I can't believe how many I got. The funny thing about these is that I put them on the design board in a random pattern. I just plopped them up there and I don't think I will rearrange a single block. 

I will add white sashing and a large white border and it will be ready to quilt. What a fast and fun project.

Here are all the blocks I made:

Butterfly Patch

This quilt is called Butterfly Patch. I made the quilt from the same fabric collection that was on the pattern. I loved it that much.

It took me some serious shopping to get all the fabrics found in the quilt. I ordered from 3 different shops in order to have everything I needed. That's how committed I was to making this happen.

The pattern is basically made up of 4 different simple patchwork blocks. They were made in matching pairs so the same blocks could be used on each butterfly wing.

When it came to the backing I just chose a close match at my local quilt shop. It was pretty and looked great in one big piece.

Bordered Nine Patch Quilt

I should call this quilt trouble. Only because it gave me trouble from beginning to end. At first I couldn't find a good background fabric to use to make this then I struggled with accurate seam allowances that I had to correct. That followed by me losing one of the blocks that I never found so I had to re-make it from scraps. Once I got the top together the trouble didn't stop.

I used a nice large piece of fabric for the backing but it wasn't large enough. I had fun taking all the leftover pieces that were pretty small and making a long strip to use on the back. I used the same fabric that I used as the background fabric for the front on the back to separate the patchwork strip from the print. I think it looks great. However, I measured wrong when I pieced it all together. The back wasn't wide enough. So I went back to the quilt shop to purchase more fabric to add the fabric on the opposite side of the back. That made it look like I planned on framing the print with the grunge fabric. I did not plan that at all! It's just that it looked better to add more fabric to the back on the left side that more grunge on the right.

So much trouble!

Foot Pain and Potholders

I've been struggling with this weird foot pain for about 4 months now so today I saw an orthopedic doctor who specializes with feet. And after some poking around and an x-ray, it turns out the bones that connect to three of my toes are too close together pinching off the nerves.

Apparently this is the kind of thing that happens after a lifetime of being a long-distance runner and years of wearing high heels. So I got a cortisone injection between my toes that is supposed to bring relief. So far all I can feel is pain and discomfort. The doctor says it should feel much better by Monday. I think it's going to make for a long weekend.

Over the past few days I've finished a few pot holders for a craft show. They are very pretty and basically in two different sizes. I say basically because I started with batting scraps then did scrappy quilt-as-you go sewing until I covered the entire piece of batting. I added Insul-Bright and a piece for backing along with twill loop before sewing.

The batting scraps I used were in at least 4 different widths when I cut them into squares. So I just sorted them into smaller and larger once I completed them. That will make it easy to just use two price points instead of worrying about pricing by exact size.

Have a Heart Valentine Pillow

I fell in love with the Have a Heart pattern in the new issue of Quilts N More. I knew I could make one from my stash. It's always fun to be able to make that happen.

I spent the afternoon binge-watching The Ranch - season 6 on Netflix while I sewed. I love how funny the show is and how over the various seasons, they've pretty much had parts for most of the cast of That 70's Show. That was a fun series too.

The cute pillow is now resting on the sofa in the living room. Since I don't have much Valentine's decor, I'm happy to have this.