Polka Dot Baby Quilt

During our latest snow the other day,

I was able to get a lot of the quilting done on this

baby quilt made from scraps and left over

fabrics from other quilts.

I love it when an entire quilt is made without purchasing anything.

These polka dot fabrics came from a box of pieces

I had cut to make a larger polka dot quilt years ago.

It's amazing what is found when cleaning!

 

This was a fun quilt to put together.

Most of the nine patch squares were already cut from

making the previous quilt.

The sashing was left over from the wedding quilt

I had made for my daughter and son in law.

I just needed to cut the cornerstones and the setting triangles.

 

This baby quilt will be donated to my church.

 

There are still some tiny pieces of these fabrics

left in the box, but I'm not sure I'll do anything with those.

Never say never, though!

Happy Quilting!

Snowy Sewing and Such

Snow storm #2 came this morning and,

thankfully, wasn't as bad as predicted.

We have snow, sleet and ice,

so it's a good day to stay in and

get things done on my to-do list.

Last night I finished sewing the wool circles

into the garland and am very happy with it.

It's draped on my quilt cabinet and won't stay here, but it was

a good place for a photo.

I'm not sure how long it ended up being.

Those books on the shelf....

The top one was my grandmother's cookbook.

There are recipes that she and my great-grandmother

hand wrote in that book.

The books under her cookbook were her father's

cookbooks when he owned a bakery.

I haven't used his books since the recipes call for

5# of flour, 2 dozen eggs, etc.

They are fun to look at, though!

Last night I finally sewed the blocks of the

pastel baby quilt together.

They have been waiting patiently for months!

These colors aren't accurate... to dark and muddy,

but I can't get a good photo with true colors.

A border may be added, but I have to buy some fabric.

I don't have any of these colors in my stash.

While I was photographing the wool garland,

I took a photo of this piece that sits on top of my quilt cabinet.

This was made years ago from wool and cotton.
I really enjoyed making this, except for those half square triangles.

They ended up 1/2" finished!

Thank goodness for Thangles!

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

Slow Stitching

2019 started off with some travel up north to visit family

and with all three of us getting bad colds.

At least we've taken care of that for the year.... I hope!

Since we were traveling, not much has happened in my

Hidey Hole, but I have big plans for this year.

Now that the Christmas decorations are put away,

I hope to do a deep clean of this mess of a room I have.

Things have gotten a bit out of control and I know that no one

else has this problem. :)

While the sewing machine has been quiet,

I have been doing some very mindless hand stitching.

Years ago I purchased a bag of scrappy wool circles.

The circles came in two sizes with about 200 in the bag.

Back in the fall I saw a garland made with wool circles and stars

and knew I had found a project for these wool rounds.

Aren't these wool pieces beautiful?

 I stitched the small circle onto the large circle using silk thread.

The buttonhole stitch is not my favorite to use,

or maybe I should say MY buttonhole stitch is just not pretty.

The circles were pinned to a black ribbon,

stitched and stuffed as I sewed along.

 

I'm not sure how long this will end up being,

but it will be fun to use at Christmas.

I'm off to clean and hopefully play some later!

Happy Quilting!

Scrappy Finish

The week between Christmas and New Year's

I pin basted four quilts,

preparing them for machine quilting.

Today I am sharing the third finish of the four.

I made this quilt from rectangles I found in a box of

scraps from a quilt I made a number of years ago.

There were a lot more rectangles than I remembered,

so I started randomly placing them on my design wall

and created this top.

This was pure mindless sewing,

which is needed on occasion!

 

The machine quilting was purely mindless, too.

I was listening to a book on Hoopla while I quilted.

No measuring, no counting, so stopping and starting.

Just quilt and move the fabric.

 

It was fun making this quilt from the box of scraps.

The binding is also from my box of binding scraps.

I would not usually put all of these fabrics together,

but it seems to work here.

 

The backing peaking out from the bottom corner

was left over from a larger quilt.

This finish will go in the "to be given" pile.

Happy Quilting!

Canyon Dance Baby Quilt Part 2

Last year I started making blocks using some blue batiks

and the Canyon Dance templates.

A baby quilt was made from a little over half of the blocks,

so I had a bunch left to use.

A few more blocks were made

and another baby quilt came from these blocks.

This pattern is addictive!

As soon as I finished quilting this,

I have the urge to make another one.

 

It's a good thing, too, as my daughter has asked for a 

queen size Canyon Dance for her guest bed.

 

This one will be put away and wait for a baby to whom to gift it.

 

Happy Quilting!

One Last Finish....The Tie Quilt

The day after Christmas I spent the day in my

Hidey Hole,

basting quilts to be quilted and finished.

The first on the list was the Tie quilt I've been making for a friend

to celebrate his retirement and him no longer needing so many ties.

This has been a fun quilt to make....

time consuming, but fun.

I'm excited that it's finally finished.

I stitched in the ditch between the rows first,

then went back and quilted the sky of the flying geese.

 

Quilting the sky anchored the blocks enough so that they

won't move and become distorted.

 Plus, it didn't take away from the ties.

 

These giraffes were stitched around to anchor them in place.

 

This distorted photo is from me standing on a stool to get the 

picture taken.

The blocks are 6" finished, making the quilt 54" square.

The pattern was found in this book and was paper pieced.

 

I love all of the different ties he gave to me for this quilt.

The silks were beautiful.

 

I need to make a label and sew it in place and then it's ready for delivery.

A trip will be planned for this as this friend has moved from our area!

Today will be the last link to Design Wall Monday for 2018.

I wish everyone a safe and happy New Year.

May 2019 bring you much joy, peace and creativity.

Happy Quilting!

Best of 2018

It's always fun to look back on the year

and remember what was accomplished in the quilting department.

This year was different for me for some reason.

I have a lot of little finishes....

table runners, pillows, baby quilts,

and only a few large quilts.

It's all good.

Things were made and my creative juices were allowed to flow.

Here is a recap of what was made in 2018.

May 2019 bring as much time to create as you desire.

Happy Quilting!

Merry Christmas!

The house has been decorated,

the cards have been sent,

the gifts have been wrapped and exchanged,

the carols have been sung,

no baking was done

and it was a wonderful Christmas.

My daughter and son-in-law from California were able to

join us for a couple of days,

so our hearts and house were full of love and laughter.

Santa quilter was busy the last few days before Christmas!

My LAQ was able to get this done and back to me before Christmas!

It was bound and finished before the big day.

 

I just love the quilting design on this.

It's light and airy, but festive.

The light green thread is perfect, too.

 

This was the challenge quilt for my

History of Quilting group that I belong to.

I decided to make it from Christmas fabrics

and used mostly all stash fabrics.

The pillow workshop was in full swing, too.

 

All of these were made from placemats from Target.

Yardage was used for the backing and binding.

 

These were in the dollar section!

(They were $3 each.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Happy Quilting!

Christmas Pillows and Decorations

Last year I found a blog post tutorial

where a woman made Christmas pillows using

kitchen towels.

It was an easy project and the pillows were so cute.

This year I found cloth placemats at Target 

with a very cute design

and knew they would make really cute pillows.

Isn't it cute?

The tree is embroidered and gives it more texture and definition.

I used yardage for the back and the binding

and put in an invisible zipper.

One for me and one for my daughter!

 

The Peace and Santa pillows were made last year from dish towels.

The pillow in the back was made several years ago and is paper pieced.

My home is finally ready for Christmas.

I've decorated my quilt cabinet like this for several years now.

My vintage ornaments are on this metal tree,

away from any possibility of being knocked off and broken.

 

We had our family room painted this fall.

Gone is the dark woodwork.

The white is so much brighter and my decorations show up

so much better!

 

I made the star Santa years ago.

He's wearing denim overalls!

The other santas are made from antique quilts and old blankets.

I found these at craft shows over the years, 

all made by the same person.

She no longer comes to my area, though.

Their brothers are on top of my quilt cabinet.

 

Several years ago I found these vintage candy canes and added a couple

of others to the dish.

The vintage tree toppers finish off the display.

 

Our tree is tall... 9 1/2 feet... and is packed with ornaments.

My mom made the tree skirt for us years ago.

I gave my older daughter this Jim Shore nativity when she was younger.

She loves setting it up every year.

Our Advent wreath has one of my Nativities in the center.

This Advent wreath uses ball shaped candles,

which are difficult to find.

I have to reuse the candles, if I can.

 

This wreath is an oldie, too, and was fun to make. 

It adds such sparkle to the room.

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Merry Christmas!

More Polka Dot Fun

In my last blog post I mentioned finding a box of scraps

that came from a couple of quilts I had made a number of years ago.

I knew the box was in my cabinet...

I didn't remember how full it was!

On Monday I shared this quilt that I had started with the

3x6" bricks.

   

It's all sewn together and in the "ready for quilting" pile.

I should have just put the box back in the cabinet

and stayed focused on what I needed to get finished,

but NO!!

Ramona had to start playing with more scraps.

(And I don't enjoy working with scraps for the most part!)

 

Next thing I knew,

this was being created.

It used the 1 1/2" and the 2 1/2" squares from the box,

in addition to some 1 1/2" strips of white I had cut when

making my DD and SIL wedding quilt.

 

It has gone together super fast and I really like how it looks.

The setting triangles are left over 10" from a precious quilt, too.

One of the things I SHOULD be working on is a 

Sew Together Bag for my older daughter

for Christmas.

 While I was playing with the scraps,

I sewed some 2" squares together for the outside of the bag.

Now I need to do the rest!

Hopefully more will be done on this in the next day or so.

It's time to stay out of my cabinets and work on what is in front of me!

Happy Quilting!

Just What I Need....

... another distraction!

The other day I saw something that reminded me of these little

blocks I had made from scraps a long time ago.

These little blocks were turned into a cute table topper.

Well, I found the bin of scraps I had used to make these blocks

and let me just say....

BIG mistake!

I didn't remember that there were all sizes of cut pieces in this bin...

narrow strips, wider strips, 2" squares, 3" squares,

HST's, 3x6" blocks, etc.

How could so many scraps be crammed into this bin??

 

I started separating them into size piles and made even more of a mess.

Well, yesterday while this was happening...

I was doing this in my Hidey Hole.

These 3x6" bricks were almost randomly put up on my design wall

and the sewing began.

 

All of this fabric is from a couple of quilts I made years ago with 

fabric with dots and circles.

Each piece has some kind of dot or circle in the design

and, boy, did I have fun collecting these!

A lot of the strips are sewn together already, so it won't take long to finish this one.

I'm not going anywhere today, so let the sewing continue!

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!