Whale Baby Quilt Finish

 My grandson was born in April

and before he was born,

my daughter and son in law asked for a

Whale quilt.

 

I ordered this pattern and pulled some fabrics

to make the whale, but immediately knew

it was not what I wanted.

The fabric pull was going to be way to busy.

 

After some looking and pondering,

I found a pattern of a Sunset at Sea. 

Now I knew what I wanted to use.

 

To make this quilt even more exciting,

I had won a selection of water colored hand dyed fabrics

from Vicki at Colorways by Vicki Welsh

and had purchased a few other fabrics packs from her 

to make another quilt that never happened.

I had my plan!

The whale pattern was scaled down to 75% and the

fun began.

 

 

 

I could not be happier with how this quilt came together.

 

 

 

 

 

The only fabric that is not from Vicki in the body of the quilt

is the lightest water blue. 

The sky, the sun and the whale are all made from her fabrics, too.

The borders are batiks that I purchased for the quilt.

The quilt has been delivered and

my daughter and son in law are very happy with it.

The little man is only 5 1/2 months old, so he isn't thrilled yet!

(I did make him a quilt when he was born.... an outer space quilt.)

 

 

As a side note,

for some reason none of your comments are

coming through to my email.

For the longest time I was getting most of them

to my email, but now none are.

I have looked to see if I can change a setting,

but have had no luck.

Does anyone have a suggestion on what to try?

I do appreciate all of your comments and feel badly

that I can't reply.

 

Happy Quilting!

 

Travel and Busy Month

 As so many of us say these days....

How did we get to the end of September already??

I have been gone a lot this month,

traveling and doing fun things with family and friends.

Therefore, my hidey hole has been pretty quiet.

I did start a new quilt last week and it is

pure mindless sewing!

These fabrics have been hanging in the cabinet for

    quite a while and it was time for them

to come out and play.

 

 

The sunflower and lattice fabrics are Robin Pickens

and I just had to have them when I saw them.

 

The HST's are 5" square and were fun to play with,

trying to decide on a design.

 

I think this will be a picnic blanket or a table cloth.

 

 

 

Hopefully, it will be sewn together soon. 

 

 

 

The September Gridster bee blocks were made

and are on their way to the Queen Bee.

I had not made this block before and really enjoyed it!

 

 

I'm looking forward to getting a couple of things quilted

and on the finished side soon.

 

Happy Quilting!

Luna Top Finished

 I think I am at the end of making this round of

Baby quilts and the Luna quilt finished it off. 

For this one I pulled out my stack of primary colored fabrics

with a lot of black.

I've used this stack to make several other quilts over the years

and pretty much finished up the pile.

 

 

 

The background fabric has black (or maybe navy blue??) dots

and worked really well with all of the bright fabrics. 

 

 

 

This quilt went together so quickly!

I think I'm just going to use straight line quilting

on this one to finish it.

 

Something new is being worked on in my hidey hole now

that the baby quilts are finished.

(For the moment anyway!)

 

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

 

 

Happy Quilting!

Sew Together Bags

 A while back I had a pile of HST's left over from my

Lucky Stars quilt and could not throw them away.

They were too small for me to make into squares,

so they sat for a bit.

Then an idea came to me...

sew them onto a piece of fabric and use them for

the outside of a Sew Together Bag.

 

 

 

 

 

I had enough HST's to make the "fabric" for two bags!

 

 

 

 

 

I kept sewing organic straight lines with different colors of thread

and was so excited with the finish.

I sandwiched batting and fabric before sewing them together,

so the outer fabric was good and sturdy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bright batiks were used for the pockets and linings.

 

 

 

 

 

This batik plaid was fun for the end pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

I had not made one of these in a while

and it was fun to create them again.

 

 

They will be given as gifts,

although I would like to keep one for myself.  :)

 

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

 

Happy Quilting!

 

Oriana is Finished

 Back in April I took a class at one of my

local quilt shops to learn to make
Oriana.

I had wanted to make this quilt for some time

and could not figure out the pattern, for some reason.

I signed up for the class and then began

looking for fabric.

This part was challenging!

I finally decided on a rainbow color scheme

and began cutting strips.

During the first class I was able to figure out the pattern

and went to town after that.

My quilt top was finished before the second class.

After I finished it, I sent to to

Rebecca Grace Quilting

and asked her to work her magic on the quilting.

She returned it to me a couple of weeks ago

and it is finished!!

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest challenge for me in making this quilt

was deciding where the different colors would go. 

 

 

 

It lived on my design wall for a couple of days

and I kept going in and moving strips

until it was pleasing to my eye. 

 

 

 

The next biggest challenge was getting the seams to match to make

the circle.

My seam ripper was called into action several times.

 

 

 

 

I could not be happier with Rebecca Grace's quilting!

She does such a phenomenal job in every aspect of her quilting.

With all of the different colors in this quilt, 

I decided to bind it in black.

 

I'm excited to finally have made Oriana!

 

 

Happy Quilting!

 

Lucky Stars is Finished

 "Lucky Stars" has been on my list of quilts to make

for a long time.

The group I go to "quilt camp" with every year

decided to each make this quilt for this years camp

to put on our beds while we are there.

We aren't supposed to show our quilts to anyone else

until the big reveal at quilt camp.

No one reads my blog, so I can post the photos here.

 

 

 

This quilt was made with my three most favorite fabric elements...

Kaffe, Batiks and polka dots!

 

 

 

 

This pattern went together so quickly

and was an easy one to make.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the twin size, which seems big to me,

but it will work on my bed at camp.

 

 

 

 

I thank my lucky stars that Rebecca Grace

quilted this for me.

She chose the design and I love it!

 

 

 

 

 

It will be fun to see all of our Lucky Stars quilts

at camp in November.

Hopefully I'll remember to take photos.

 

 

 

Isn't the backing fun??!!

Happy Quilting!

Red, White and Blue Finish

 In the beginning of 2022 I told myself that I was

going to work through as many kits and projects 

that had not been started or finished on my

"Shelf of Shame" in my hidey hole.

One of the first things I worked on was a red, white and blue kit

that I had purchased a number of years ago.

The quilt top was finished pretty quickly and then it sat.

And sat and sat.

Now I can say it is finished!

 

 

 

Flying Geese are one of my favorite quilting designs,

so this design was a fun one for me.

 

 

 

 

 

I quilted it with straight lines and stitching in the ditch...

fast and easy.

 

 

 

 

This photo looks like the geese are taking off in flight! 

 

 

 

This morning my daughter told me of an Air Force

officer who, at the age of 46, didn't wake up one morning,

leaving a wife and four small children.

She asked if I would like to donate this quilt to them.

What a great idea.

This will be on it's way soon.

 

 

Hug your loved ones tightly today.

 

Happy Quilting!

Kassie's Tree Skirt

 As some of you know,

my traditional wedding gift is a

quilted Christmas Tree skirt.

 

Two of my nieces were married before I

 began this tradtion,

so I needed to make them each a tree skirt.

 

One was made and gifted back in the spring

and the second one is now finished

and ready for gifting.

 

 

 

 

 

As I was looking through my Christmas fabrics

I found this pile of triangles

I had cut to make another tree skirt. 

A few more prints were cut

and laying them out began.

 

 

 

I don't know what it is about quilts made with triangles,

but I just love them. 

 

 

 

There are some tradional fabrics and a few more

whimsical fabrics in this skirt. 

 

 

 

The thing my niece may appreciate the most

is the backing fabric.

It's from my mom's stash of Christmas fabrics

and probably dates to the 90's.

My mom didn't sew much,

but enjoyed making Christmas things.

Kassie will like having part of "Gram"

in the tree skirt.

 

 

Happy Quilting!

 

 

 

Solid Bold Baby Quilt Finished

 I have to say...

This baby quilt did not end up anywhere near

where I had envisioned it and
I LOVE IT!!

This was started by using a pattern in a recent

American Patchwork and Quilting magazine

and I immediately changed the pattern a bit.

 

 

 

In the magazine the blocks were set like this,

so a plus sign was in the middle of each block. 

 

 

 

I just love these bold solid colors paired with the black and white. 

 

 

 

I was playing around with taking photos of the quilt top

after the blocks were sewn together and turned my camera on an angle.

I loved the blocks set on point!

That's the way it was finished.

I quilted it with primary colored variegated thread and just followed

the straight lines of the quilt.

 

This wee one hasn't arrived yet,

but the quilt is done and waiting.

 

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday.

Happy Quilting!

Ribbon Baby Quilt Finished

 This quilt top has been finished for some time

and has been patiently waiting to be quilted.

It's turn came the other day and it's now a finished baby quilt!

 

 

 

 

I just love these ombre prints and wish I had purchased them in

every color.

They make such fun quilts!

 

 

 

 

 

The pattern for this baby quilt was in a recent issue of

American Patchwork and Quilting.

I didn't make it nearly as big as the quilt in the magazine.

 

 Deciding how to quilt this one had me stumped

for a while.

Then I decided to just do something simple and get it finished.

This is labeled and ready for delivery.

It feels so good to be getting some of these

quilts finished and out the door!!

Happy Quilting!

The Iris Quilt Finished

 This past week was an emotional one for my family.

We all gathered in Michigan...

my family,

my siblings and their families,

my one remaining aunt and her husband

and lots of cousins...

and had the interment of my mom's ashes.

She would have been so pleased that so many gathered

to say their final good-byes.

It was a beautiful day in Algonac... a little town

on the St. Clair river.

It was in the 70's with a soft breeze and blue skies.

We shared a delicious meal after the interment

and had time to visit and catch up with each other.

Rest in Peace, Mom.

Upon my return home,

I picked up my sewing machine from it's

yearly clean and service

and put it right to work yesterday.

The Iris quilt is now finished.

 

 

 

This was a quick quilt to make and jelly roll friendly.

 

 

 

 

The most daunting part of the construction was trimming it.

I marked it with a frixion pen first to make sure it was square

and then trimmed the sides.

 

 

I quilted it with a grid and used a color of the Ombre

that I had not used in the quilt for the binding.

It's labeled and ready to deliver to the sweet little one.

Happy Quilting!

Kelly's Baby Quilt Blocks

 There are a number of quilts that I need to get quilted

and have not had the mojo to do this.

So, instead, I keep making quilt tops.

One of my daughters' college roommates is expecting

her first child in September,

so a quilt was started for this new one.

 

 

I saw this pattern in the American Quilters magazine and 

thought it would be perfect for a boy.

 

 

 

 As I was cutting the pieces, I decided to make

a small change to the pattern.

Instead of using all one color and making a ring,

I added another color and made it a bit different.

 

These are the blocks I ended up with for this quilt.

I made 20 for a baby quilt size,

shown below.

They are not in any kind of order yet,

just added to the wall as I finished them.

Then, as I often do, I turned my camera and took

a photo on an angle.

WOW!!

I really like this layout!

Here are most of the blocks turned on point.

I am going to remove two of the vertical rows

to make it a bit smaller and cut those

blocks in half for the setting triangles.

Again, the blocks are not in their final order.

 

It will percolate on the wall for a bit,

so I can be sure this is the design I want.

I will play with them to get them arranged

in a pleasing way and get them sewn together.

 

Now, I REALLY need to get a couple of tops quilted!

 

Happy Quilting!

 

The Iris Quilt

 Once again, we are having a baby explosion here.

The latest aren't family babies,

but friends grandchildren.

I love giving each little new person a quilt.

 

 

I have followed Kitchen Table Quilting  

for some time and really like a lot of her 

quilting designs.

I had not purchased any of her patterns until recently.

The Iris Quilt pattern arrived and I knew I

wanted to make this from my Ombre fabrics.

It turned out nicely, I think.

 

 

 

This went together so quickly,

but it did help that I had already cut

2 1/2" strips from the ombre fabrics. 

This is a baby quilt size, which will be 39"x39".

 

 

All I need to do now is get up the nerve to trim it!

Do I have any volunteers??

 

 

Happy Quilting!

By The Sea Finish

 This is the fourth and final addition to the

seasonal wall hangings I'm making for a dear friend.

For a recap,

here is the spring wall hanging.

Then last week I posted about the fall wall hanging.

And now I have finished the summer wall hanging.

(She already had a winter one from several years ago.)

My friend has a beach house and LOVES

going there with her grandchildren.

I found two applique patterns and combined them

into one wall hanging and made a few changes.

It is ready to gift.

 

 

 

I had not done any applique in quite some time

and loved getting back into it.

 

The patterns for these can be found here and here.

 

I have another applique project I'd like to start,

but need to get a few other things done first.

 

Today I'm posting to Design Wall Monday.

 

 

 

Happy Quilting!