My last finishes for 2023

I had a few quilts nearly finished and decided to push and get them done before the New Year.

The first finish is Stargazer. 

I basically followed a tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Company to make this quilt with a few changes, the big one being that the aqua blocks with stars in my quilt would be plain white blocks according to the tutorial. 

This 62" square quilt is quilted with a loop-de-loop pattern using Glide #10WG1 Linen thread.

The back is a soft turquoise with hints of purple.  This quilt will live with us, When I finally finished it, both Ray and I decided we needed to keep it.

I think you can see the backing better in this unquilted picture.

A number of months ago, I saw an idea for a layer cake quilt. Basically, you use a layer cake and pair the lights with darks, making HSTs (half square triangles). Then you just arrange them however you like. I looked for flannel layer cakes on our fall trip in October but couldn't find any. So I bought flannels that were red and/or gray and cut my own 10" squares. I decided to arrange so no plaids were touching. More variety might have been nice but now that this quilt resides in our family room, it's really grown on me.

This 56" by 72" quilt will stay out all winter. I quilted it with a meandering stitch using Glide #70187 Ruby thread.

I found the backing in the sale room at Olive Juice Quilts in Onalaska, WI this fall. The fabric is also flannel and makes the quilt reversible. A lightweight Dream Cotton batting makes this a nice weight, snuggly quilt.

Tumbling Blocks has an interesting back story. Cheryl of 

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting shared a post in September about the Faithful Circle Quilt Show. I saw a picture of a blue ribbon quilt about 2/3rds of the way through the post and decided I would like to make it as an I-Spy quilt with a variety of scraps. I decided to draft the pattern and 'copy' the quilt while finding a way to change it to make it mine. I ended up with a neat quilt that is similar to the more complex original, and I was able to keep those neat light/white diamonds between the squares. 

A small piece of the original with gorgeous custom quilting:

Mine:

It looks like the original is on point but it's more complicated than that. I'm glad I saw the original and I'm happy with my simplified version. My quilt is 56" by 62".

I used Glide #17543 light gray thread to quilt this with a meandering stitch.

The backing is a bit of a fun surprise with the bright bold colors.

The Frog Quilt began with a panel that I found last fall when I was looking for some other fabric. 

I quilted this with meandering loops using Glide Battleship gray #10430 thread.

This 48" by 55" donation quilt has a yellow/green back pieced with some scraps from my stash. 

The last two quilts are the final quilts made from the fabrics of the second quilt I rejected for Grandson J's graduation. I think almost all of the red/gray/black fabrics that I pulled for the second try are finally sewn into donation quilts.

JGQR2B (J's Graduation Quilt Reject 2, version B) is 56" by 70".

This donation quilt was quilted in a loop-de-loop pattern with Glide light gray #17543 thread. I used a lot of the original red/black/gray pieces which were already sewn together and cut them to size.

 

The backing fabric is a black and gray print.

JGQR2C (J's Graduation Quilt Reject 2, version C) is 54" by 60". 

This is also a donation quilt. I used Glide #10877 sterling gray thread to quilt a meandering motif. 

The backing is a black and gray print.

Here is a close up showing the pattern I used. I sewed two pieces of fabric together making a square block. I then alternated the direction of the blocks. This quilt used a lot of the shorter leftover pieces of the other red/black/gray quilts.

It's hard to believe that there are no quilts in the 'to-be-quilted' pile and none in the 'waiting-to-be-bound' pile! 

I am in the process of cleaning my fabric closet (a very large dormer closet) where most of my stash is housed. My stash should have been cleaned out two years ago before being moved to the closet when I needed to make room for my longarm. At that time I couldn't physically do anything so it was delayed. I have added a lot of fabric to the stash in the last two years and decided in October that it is time to get this done. So far I have removed 2 small boxes and 5 tall kitchen garbage bags of fabric that I no longer want/use. I still have a ways to go but almost all of the larger pieces of fabric have been sorted. Everything I no longer want goes to a group making donation quilts so I think this is a win for both of us. The most interesting part - I still have a closet full of fabric!

I hope you had a joyous Christmas

and I wish you a

Happy New Year!