Sprinkles on Top Quilt

I got a jelly roll for 40 percent off at my local quilt shop. The fabric line is called Dandi Duo and I just love it. I was surprised to get home and find the perfect pattern to use it up. That rarely happens. It's in a book called Jelly Filled by Vanessa Goertzen. 

The pattern I chose is called Sprinkles on Top and it requires lots of neutral yardage. Luckily my stash if full of whites and off-whites. I've been collecting neutral prints for many years and it's time I start using them.

I longarmed the quilt with a swirl to soften the look of the modern blocks.  

The backing was put together with some extra yardage of the same fabric line. It's prettier in person than in photos. 

As we head into the end of summer, it's canning time. I find it bittersweet. I absolutely love summer and I don't ever want it to end but I love canning season. Harvest time is my happy time. 

I canned a case of salsa today using all ingredients grown in my garden except for the garlic. I just don't like growing it so I pick it up at the local farmers' market. My garden is my second-favorite hobby after quilting. 

Summer Projects

I picked up some peaches at the farmers' market last Saturday. When the peaches are available at the market you have to get there early because the line is long but it doesn't matter because they are worth it. And today I thought I would give peach ice cream a try. 

I love summer so much. There is so much to be grateful for. The vegetable garden is thriving, the flowers are blooming, I can be outside all the time. I appreciate every warm, wonderful day. But when there are rainy days, I have taken the time to enjoy my embroidery machine. 

I'm also having some fun with some of the things we've collected on our antiques and barn sale shopping trips. 

This spring I wanted to paint my garden fence. In the process of scraping off the chipped paint, the boards just broke away. The fence was so rotten we ended up taking it down. I was sure I would miss the look of the white pickets, then Jeff designed a new fence using stuff we had lying around. Some cedar boards and leftover wire fencing made a really nice new fence.

What a nice, fresh look we have in the yard now. 

A Little Embroidery Work

A friend asked me to embroider a baby name onto her vintage quilt. I was very worried about ending up ruining it so I asked a few embroidery experts what I should do. Of course, that turned out to be a mistake. I asked two people and got two different answers. And I didn't like either answer.

So onto Plan B. I decided to just wing it. The worst that could happen is that I would have to rip it out. I can handle that. I offered up a few fonts for the name and thread colors. She made the same choices I would have.

I practiced on a piece of muslin with thin batting. It was the same thickness as the quilt. I likes the results so I loaded the quilt onto the machine.

I think it turned out way better than I expected. I guess I should follow my own instincts more often.

Daybreak Sock Monkey Christmas Quilt

I've been hanging on to a Sock Monkey charm pack for many years. Then one day I went to a Quilts for Kids sew day, started digging through donated fabric to find coordinating fabric that matches the charm pack prints. It was a nice. surprise.

All I had to do is find a proper pattern to use that would incorporate the amount of fabric I found. As I sorted through my many Villa Rosa pattern cards I came across the Daybreak pattern. It was a perfect fit!

I had just enough fabric to make this cute little quilt. I took the finished top to the quilt shop and matched it up with some nice, soft brown flannel. It was a great compliment to the Christmas themed prints. 

I free-motion quilted the quilt and added flannel binding. It's a nice addition to my growing stack of Sock Monkey themed quilts that I have going.

A T-Shirt Quilt

I have a new t-shirt quilt project, a gift for a college graduate. Usually I sew the quilt blocks by spreading them across rows or columns. I wanted to try something new and I love the look of mosaic t-shirt quilts so I thought I would give it a try.

The neat thing about a mosaic is each block can be cut a different size. From there, you measure each block and draw it out on graph paper to scale. 

It was really fun to move the little graph paper blocks around until I liked where they were. What a genius way to work!  It was just as fun to convert the graph paper blocks into a quilt top. 

I spent a rainy afternoon sewing the blocks and by the end of the day the entire quilt top was done. All I had to do was add some borders.

I quilted the quilt with a swirl pattern and made the binding out of the same fabric as the border. There was no need to add any more color to the quilt besides the color from the t-shirts.  

I really like how this quilt turned out. I think it was the feminine color palette as well as the mosaic layout. I enjoyed making this one more than most of the t-shirt quilts I've made.

Dancing Bears Quilt

I had 2 kits that were designed to make throw pillows along with some matching yardage. I decided I didn't want to make the pillows so I took the kits apart and sorted through the fabrics. In the end, I had a little more than 1 yard of each of 3 different prints. So I got out my 3-yard quilt books and found a pattern that I thought would be great to use with the fabrics. The pattern is called Dancing Bear. Since there are trees and bears on the prints it felt appropriate to do a bear paw type quilt block. Like the bear is in the woods - haha!

The 3-yard quilt books have a different technique for binding than I usually use. Their version uses less fabric so I didn't have enough fabric left over to do it my way. So I found some green fabric in my stash that matched very well to use as binding and there was enough to use for backing as well.

I longarmed the quilt using a leaf pattern that complemented the tree prints. I like how it looks on the green background.

I will add the quilt to my stash for craft fairs. I can usually sell a few quilts when I vend at a lower price point so this one will work for that purpose.

Villa Rosa Red Rose Quilt

I made my mother a quilt from some pretty fabrics and last week I came across the scraps left over from it. There were some really pretty pieces left. After I sorted the pieces I chose a pattern that would accommodate the sizes of the scraps. The Villa Rosa pattern, Red Rose was a perfect fit. 

I put the quilt top together on one of my basement quilters days. We meet the second Saturday of every month in the basement of a church. My quilt group may not have a very original name, but it certainly is a fitting one - haha!  The leader of the group is a member of the church and so are a few of the quilters but most of us are not. The group is considered a community service offered by the church and they ask for nothing in return. 

I finished the quilt top in just a few hours while at our sew day. Once I got it home and put it on the longarmer and I immediately got a little extra help. I think my kitties like using the longarmer as a hammock.

Some of the ladies in the quilt group who belong to the church donate their finished quilts to the church. They give a quilt to all the babies baptized there and they also give them to their shut-ins. I thought this might be a good one for a shut-in so I donated it to the church. It feels good to give a little back to them since they allow us to get together at their facility.

I used as much of the leftover scraps to make the backing in the hopes there would be no more left. I'm doing my best to use up the good stuff I have in my stash. And it was nice to use this up in a good way.

Gumbo Sock Monkey Quilt

From a large bundle of Sock Monkey fabrics, I made a few quilts.  The bundle contained so many fabrics that I started by sorting through the many colors. I separated out the teals, pinks, and purples to make this one.  I used the Villa Rosa pattern Gumbo. It was fast and easy and didn't use many of the fat quarters in the bundle. I'm going to have some fun trying different patterns to use up the bundle. 

I found a bolt of polka dot fabric at my Quilts for Kids meeting. It makes great backing and the colors match the sock monkeys. It was a great fabric find. 

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