Procrastinating....

I know I should be taking the borders off of my

On Ringo Lake

so I can figure out where the mistake was made,

fix it

and finish that quilt.

Who wants to sit with a seam ripper,

removing 8 borders from a quilt that was supposed to be finished

when there is new fabric waiting to be played with and sewn together?

I decided the borders could wait.

Out came this kit that I bought a year ago and is screaming to be made.

It's a Blooming Nine Patch...

made with Kaffe fabrics!

You know it had to come home with me!

 The strips have been cut for a while

and the sewing commenced the other day.

I ran out of room at the top of my design wall!

There are several more rounds of squares and nine patches to be added

once they are made.

 

I've made two of these before and the most difficult part was

choosing the fabrics.

The kit sure made it easy!

I'll keep plugging away and while this is being put together,

maybe I'll be inspired to spend some time with my seam ripper.

Happy Quilting!

An Applique Finish

This quilt has been one of my favorites to make.

I don't know why it has taken me so long to finish this one

since it is one of my favorites.

I'd get so far and stop for a while,

only to pick it up again months later.

Never the less...

it's finished!

And I love it.

This middle block is my favorite.

I love how the fabric worked for fussy cutting the flowers.

 

I hadn't appliqued anything in a while and really enjoyed making these blocks.

Now it's time to begin another applique project!

 

Finding the border fabric turned out to be more of a

challenge than I anticipated.

I am pleased with what I finally found.

I think it keeps the eye on the applique blocks.

 

This one will hang on the wall in my back hallway

for summer.

Or I might put it up there now!

Red, white and blue quilts make me smile.

Happy Quilting!

A Quick Baby Quilt

Sometimes simple is best,

isn't it?

I've had this stack of fat quarters for a while

and needed something quick and easy to do the other day,

so I started cutting squares.

I played around with them for a while

and finally decided that this simple layout was the best one.

I love the fabric with "baby" and the birds.

A couple don't really look like baby fabric,

but they play well together.

My daughter came home from work a bit ago

and told me her manager is expecting a baby girl in May.

She asked me if I had any "extra baby quilts" here.

I told her there would be one for her to give to him.

Maybe this will be the one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remember this quilt?

The quilting has begun on it.

Hopefully I will have it finished soon.

I don't know why it's taken so long for me to get to this one.

It needs to be finished and hanging on the wall.

I do see a couple of places I need to pull out and requilt.

Photos show everything!

I thought about filling the blocks with quilting,

but decided a grid would look nicer.

I'll do something swirly and feathery in the borders.

It's Whoop Whoop Friday!

Happy Quilting!

Quilt for Mom

My mom loves the reproduction fabrics.

The colors just speak to her.

She sees some of the my usual quilts,

with bright and bold fabrics,

and, while she isn't rude,

she will say
"That's really nice, but please don't make a quilt like that for me."

:)

This quilt was started some time ago...

maybe last spring?

I decided it would be her Christmas gift,

but I didn't decide early enough to get it quilted and finished for Christmas.

I wrapped the top and took it back after she opened it.

This past week I was able to get it quilted.

Just a meander pattern on the rented long arm machine.

It's bound and ready to return to her.

When I took it back from her to finish it, she made me promise

that I wouldn't keep it.

Don't worry, Mom. It's nice, but it's not my style.

:)

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

Friday?? Already??

Wow! Where did THIS week go?

It seems like it was Monday yesterday.

I've had another frustrating quilting episode

and I am really not looking forward to what has to 

happen to remedy this problem.

So, the final border was added to my

"On Ringo Lake" quilt.

I was so excited to have it finished

and was planning on taking it to the quilters on Thursday.

 

It was all pressed and the backing fabric had been purchased.

Then, I laid it out on the floor to get some photos.

Even though I had measured and measured

and am a pretty accurate stitcher,

there were HUGE bubbles in the quilt!

And I mean HUGE!

Each corner has a big bubble,

like someone is blowing air up under the quilt.

I tried taping the corners down,

pressing it again,

and nothing.

The borders are going to have to come off and I'm going

to have to find where the error has been made.

It looks good hanging on my ironing board, though.

Maybe I'll just leave it there!

 

Remember this quilt from last year?

The borders have been added and it's a finish.

(There are wrinkles here because it hasn't been pressed yet.)

I guess my seam ripper and I are going to become BEST friends soon.

Happy Quilting

(or ripping!)

First Border on ORL

I realized as I was sewing the Diamond in a Rectangle units together

into the borders for On Ringo Lake

that I rarely make quilts with this many pieces of fabric.

Especially big quilts.

I'm not a scrappy quilter for the most part,

so I don't usually have bits and pieces of

4,000 different fabrics lying around

while piecing a quilt.

(My Hidey Hole is going to need a huge

clean out after this.

Not all because of this quilt,

but all of the fabric bits not used are in piles

and have certainly added to the chaos.)

Anyway...

The first border is on the quilt

and I really like it....scrappy bazillion pieces and all.

The Diamond in a Rectangle pieces weren't used as sashing,

but I was not going to let those go to waste!

 

Instead, I used those as the inner border.

I saw the idea on line, but can't remember

where I first saw it. So sorry!

 

I paper pieced the corner blocks and made them scrappy as well.

 

This quilt is now ready for the outer border.

The aqua/turquoise fabrics are cut and ready to sew into the border strips.

Hopefully this top will be a finish in the next day or so!

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

Two Halves Make a Whole

This morning I finished sewing the blocks for 

"On Ringo Lake" Ramona version

into rows and the rows are now all sewn together

to make the body of the quilt.

It, obviously, has not been trimmed yet.

I just love these colors together.

 

It's tempting to stop here and have another throw size quilt,

but I really want this for a bed.

Plus, I don't know what I would use all of the diamond in a rectangle

units for and they were my least favorite to make.

They will go somewhere!

There are some neat ideas out there using these

units as the outer border,

but I don't want the quilt to end with the coral colors.

I want the eye to see more of the aqua/turquoise colors.

So what if I did this?

Use the diamond units as an inner border and finish

it with an outer scrappy aqua border?

I think this could work!

Now it's time to sew all of these coral pieces together.

I'm getting there!

Happy Quilting!

Progress...

We just returned home from spending a few wonderful days with

our daughter and son-in-law in California.

It was warm, not too sunny, but warm.

And it's snowing here...AGAIN!

Doesn't Mother Nature know that we've already had two

snows this winter and that is plenty??

I guess she doesn't care. :)

One good thing about snow in the south

is that it slows the pace of life.

(Unless you work for VDot!)

I've spent the morning working on my version of
"On Ringo Lake"

and have half of the blocks sewn together.

I decided to leave out the sashing and may use it as an outer border.

The biggest problem with changing the layout is

the seams aren't pressed in the right directions for nesting.

                        I'm not going back to remake all of the units, though, for this to occur.

 

Hopefully in the next day or so the other half of the blocks will be sewn together.

Then I will decide whether or not to add an outer border using the sashing pieces.

 I am really liking how this is coming together.

Knitting!!

I haven't shown any knitting in a long time.

I've made several pair of socks, but just haven't put them on the blog.

This sock was so fun and easy to make, with

just one cable going the entire length of the sock to add some pizzazz.

There was a lot of knitting time on planes back and forth to

California, so the second sock is well underway.

Happy Quilting!

Decisions, descions...

All of the units for the mystery quilt

"On Ringo Lake"

are sewn and trimmed.

I've seen several different layouts that people

have used and really like some of them.

These colors are just beautiful together

and I love how the blocks finished.

I am trying to decide if I want to follow the original plan

 from Bonnie Hunter or change things up a bit.

This is the original layout minus the brown cornerstones.

While I like this layout,

it's super busy.

One really needs to pay attention to the direction of the

sashing pieces, too.

I was getting them backwards, just laying out a few here.

 

As I was making the blocks,

I put them on my design wall without the sashing

and really like this look.

I was trying to think of what to do with the sashing pieces

and then I saw others using them as the outer border.

This layout is so much calmer to me.

There is a lot of color and are a lot of pieces,

but my eyes aren't flying all over the place.

I think I've made my decision!

Maybe this will be a finished top soon!

Happy Quilting!

More Pillows!

My younger daughter and her husband moved to California

after getting married in September.

They purchased a house and have a couple of guest rooms;

one of which is going to be my older daughter's, who has Down Syndrome, "room".

They are decorating it in the colors of her favorite team...

VCU Rams black and gold.

They tried to find some throw pillows in those colors,

but did not have any luck.

Mom to the rescue!

We are going soon for a visit

and the pillows are finished and ready for delivery.

I had all of this fabric left over from two t-shirt quilts

I made a couple of years ago.

 

These pillows went together pretty quickly

and are bright and fun.

 

I'll get the pillow forms before we go and have them ready

for my daughter to put on the bed.

 

This backing fabric is so fun!

This is what I used on the back of one of the quilts

and had plenty left over to use on the pillows.

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Stay warm!

 

Happy Quilting!

First Finish of 2018

I put this quilt top together back in the spring of 2016.

And then it waited and waited for me to quilt it.

Rarely do I have a quilt top hanging around for that long,

waiting to be quilted.

Unfinished, yes...

but once a top is finished, it's usually quilted fairly quickly.

Anyway,

this baby quilt is finished!

I saw this pattern on pinterest a long time ago

and loved the prairie points long the outer border.

Once it was made, I was concerned that they would

not stay sharp once the quilt was laundered.

A friend suggested that I sew buttons in the middle

of each point.

That would be super cute, and I even bought the buttons,

but then it couldn't be used as a baby quilt.

When I started quilting this the other day,

I decided to quilt the prairie points down with a little swirl.

Now it can be laundered and not mess up the points.

A niece is having her fourth child in March.

This one may be going to her for her new little one.

On another note,

I've been sewing the blocks together for "On Ringo Lake"

and laid all of the parts out together in piles.

Somehow... and I counted the units out into piles of 10...

I am 6 units short for Clue 5 and one unit short for clue 7.

I'll be getting those made this afternoon,

so I won't have to stop when I get to the last few blocks.  

Piles of units to be sewn into the blocks.

I hope everyone is warm and safe and sewing away in this frigid weather.

Happy Quilting!

Happy 2018!

They say if you do something on January 1st,

you will do a lot of it throughout the year.

I'm excited because I spent time with my family,

including my daughter and son-in-law from California,

I spent time sewing and creating

and

I took a long nap!!

I am not a napper, but yesterday just called for one.

Over the past couple of days,

I've been sewing the clues for the

"On Ringo Lake" quilt mystery.

Here is the pile of Clues 5 and 6. 

They have all been pressed and most have been trimmed.

 

When the clue came out that shows the blocks sewn together,

I just had to make a few to see how I like them in person.

 

I like them a lot!

They are pretty busy and I'm not sure how they will look with the sashing

Bonnie has designed, but I will make a little and see what I think.

It's going to take a while to get these all sewn together,

but with it being so cold,

sewing is a good thing to be doing!

Happy Quilting! 

Stay Warm!