Some finishes and more...

The flannel quilt, Pink Puppies, is now completed. It is 42" by 53" and a donation quilt. 

This was a cute kit 

with striped binding.

I added the pink flannel backing. I free-motion quilted this with large swirl flowers. I think they show better from the back. I used 40-weight Aurifil thread, #2423 pink.

Colored Strings is finished. This donation quilt is 58" square.

The back is red with colored circles and the binding is a black and white stripe.

I free-motion quilted this with rulers, doing four different motifs. I used the same motif for all 4 squares of the same color. I used a beige/brown Aurifil 40-weight thread, #2326. 

The first motif is a four pointed star.

This a a diamond pattern repeated a couple of times.

Next is a wedge pattern.

The 4th pattern is three four-sided figures with one common corner.

I finished piecing Diamonds With Squares. I'm adding a scrappy white border and it will be ready to pin and quilt.

I also began another quilt that I'll call Black/White with Red. All of the blocks are made. I'm still using some black/white strings that I made years ago. After adding red to the corners, I sewed some of the blocks together and decided to make a change.

The new layout has white sashing with red corner stones. I already like it much better. 

I finished this sweater. It is not gathered but appears like it in this photo.

I also finished my afghan, from Building Blocks by Michelle Hunter. Each of the 12 squares is different and is written for a person to learn more about knitting. Although I have knitted since I was a child, I am, for the most part, self taught. It's a great book/pattern and I did learn a few things.

To look really nice, one would have to get on the floor and spread this out nicely. But today, I'm not getting on the floor. 😉

You might be able to see it better on the back of the couch.

I am making another afghan from Michelle Hunter's book Building in Color. This one is knit in ten strips each using 2 - 3 colors of yarn. I am working on the second strip and have already learned things! It's nice to be filling in the gaps in my education.

I'm still going to physical therapy. We were rear-ended in a car accident in September of 2018 that moved vertebrae L3 about 1/4". My L4-L5-S1 vertebrae were fused together with cement made from my hip bone and screws in 2011. Well the spinal canal in L3 is much smaller than before the accident and is now full of arthritis and more so all of the nerves are again being pinched. This includes both sciatic nerves (right and left). It gets rather painful at times and it is difficult to move. The PT will continue a few more weeks and I'll start injections in early December. If need be, L3 will be moved back and fused to the vertebrae below. For now, I don't get a lot of exercise but I am able to sew some, I can knit, and I'm very good at taking naps!

Life could be worse but I'm hoping is gets better soon.

Just Checking In

Irish Chain with Solids is slowly being quilted. I'm quilting it as I follow Angela Walters' "Quilting with Rulers Challenge".

I continue working on projects and finished the top Basket Weave Strings. I decided to use a teal grunge for the background.

The inner border is a plain cotton in the same color.

I've put together a couple of blocks for the Aspen quilt.

I ordered this book, Quilts for Scrap Lovers: 16 Projects: Start with Simple Squares by Judy Gauthier after watching Judy on The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. 

I wanted to see this simple block and how she was making it and using it. It is the only block used in the cover quilt of the book.

First I took my new color wheel (I've never actually owned one before.) and pulled some fabrics from my stash.

Then I made a few blocks, well it was quite a few. I took the liberty of making the blocks my way instead of Judy's because I really don't mind working with triangles.  I still need to finish sewing the blocks together.

A couple of days ago, I found this picture and decided to make a few blocks for a quilt I'll call Batik Knots. I have a lot of 2 1/2" batik squares and thought it would be a good way to use some of them. Figuring out the size of the middle dark square took a little time, figuring, and testing. I finally settled on a 3 3/8" square. It might have been faster to track down the square on the Olfa website but I don't know what size their yellow squares are and I do know mine are already cut at 2 1/2".

Here is the first block I made.

And now I have enough to see what my quilt will probably look like.

I'm still knitting - I'm on the last sleeve for my sweater and I have 8 of 12 blocks finished for the afghan. I am spending a lot of time knitting because I'm having some back problems. I'll see a specialist next week. In the meantime I have physical therapy. I had a CT scan because I can't have an MRI with the screws in my back. My PT said we're going to treat this like it is a pinched nerve for the time being. I'm pretty comfortable when I'm sitting and knitting so that works for now.

My projects at the moment

In early May I only had two long term projects going, everything else was finished. One of those projects, Tiny Log Cabins, is done and now LOTS of other projects have been started.

I have 5 quilts in the to-be-quilted pile:

Irish Chain with Solids has a red border.

Magic Star now has a white border, added since this photo.

I purchased a kit for a small flannel quilt a few years ago at a shop going out of business. Pink Puppies was fast to put together.

I began making some monochromatic string squares a while back, using four squares in a block. This past week, I made more squares and put the blocks together. Colored Strings is a finished quilt top.

Missouri Star Quilt Company's Rhombus Gemstones was fun to make. I used a Grunge jelly roll, Bella white, and MSQC's rhombus large template.

 

I have three quilts that are long term projects - they have small pieces. I'm making a dent in the tiny scrap bin!

Little Squares is still in progress.

There is Easy Breezy that I think I called Easy Peasy before. I have about 30 blocks done.

I began Aspen which was inspired by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts.

I'm also making a dent in slightly larger scraps. I started another Bonnie Hunter design, Basket Weave Strings, a few days ago.

I've been playing with Missouri Star's Circle Magic. I have a few 'blocks' finished.

I am still working with Christina Cameli's Pathway. Instead of the pillow that she demonstrated in the class, I am using the technique in a quilt.

I've also been knitting. I'm making Michelle Hunter's Building Blocks afghan and hoping to learn things along the way.

I also began a sweater for me - Petite Knit's Anker's Sweater.

And what would life be like without more masks?

Right now, I am enjoying making more than finishing so that's what I'll do! Who knows - there might be more starts before anything gets finished. A new pattern book is arriving today!

Note: Blogger still seems to have issues with font sizes so it is what it is.

Scrappy Blue is finished

At last I have a finish! I have many projects in various stages (post coming soon) but just this one finish. Scrappy Blue is a 58" square donation quilt.

I fussy cut the middle of every other blue square. The alternate blue squares are surrounded by a 3/4" wide piece of various scraps stitched together. The two youngest grandsons that live somewhat near us sewed most of those borders when they visited one day in July.

I used more scraps for the piano key border. It will make a good I-spy quilt for some young person.

I quilted this with Double Loop which is different from Double Bubble. I used 40-weight Isacord #3444 thread.

The back is a red fabric from my stash.

I still don't have the tension on my Juki perfect so I can't use a different color bobbin thread. One of these days, I'll work on tension...

Tiny Log Cabins quilt is finished!

I began working on some tiny log cabin blocks about a year ago. I think I had 64 blocks done when the pandemic began and finished the other 80 in the last few months. I found sewing them to be very therapeutic.

The 1" square center of each block is a white fabric with tiny red squares. The block finished at 4" square. For the light side of the blocks, my criteria was white, beige, or soft colors. For the dark side, I wanted bright colors. Once in a while, a piece of fabric was used on both a light side and a dark side - that's character, right? Tiny Log Cabins did make a dent in my tiny scraps. Yay!

I decided the quilt needed borders and auditioned different colors. Everything I tried looked good but I liked this red the best.

This donation quilt is 58" square. 

The finished top sat for quite a while because I couldn't decide how to quilt it. I've always wanted to do a giant spiral on a quilt so when I saw a photo online showing an off-kilter quilted spiral, it hit me that this would be a good time to try one. 

My spiral is centered - I thought it needed to be with the design of the quilt. I used my new echo quilting foot and free-motion quilting for the entire spiral. Using the foot was a bit of a learning curve and I had lots of problem on the center of the spiral. When I finally got the foot adjusted correctly, things went much better. I think I mentioned that I'd probably never do another one but then I looked at the finished quilt and decided I might! I used Aurifil #2600 Dove Gray 40-wt thread to quilt this and Aurifil #2600 Dove Gray 50-wt thread in the bobbin. 

The back is a blue with small, blended white spots. The binding is a striped fabric from my stash.

Not much else is new around here. I'm still dehydrating and freezing produce although it's winding down. I still plan to find and preserve potatoes, apples, and pears. These pictures show the last of the tomatoes, corn, and beans.

I'm still making masks but not in huge numbers.

We did order a new fireplace for our patio. Last Monday, Ray and I put it together. 

I think S'mores are on the agenda for later this evening.

A Quilting Finish

Things got busy around here this week but I have a finish! The teal, green, orange and yellow quilt is done. 

I saw a picture of a quilt that I liked a couple of years or more ago and printed it. I couldn't find any information about who designed the quilt or if there was a pattern and I still haven't. Here's the picture.

I used a little math, redesigned a little bit and made my quilt using scraps. The center of the original quilt looks like it was pieced. I found a piece of fabric in my stash that had the four colors I wanted in the quilt so I used that. The quilt is flat but I didn't smooth it out on the 'bumpy' grass. 

I machine quilted this with a large meandering stitch and Aurifil #2600 Dove 40-weight thread. It's seems like a long time since I did any machine quilting and I really enjoyed it. 

The back is similar to an orange grunge I was going to use the same backing fabric for the binding but I liked the black and white in the original picture so I used a black and white stripe. 

This quilt has been added to the donation pile.

I'm still keeping busy taking care of produce - dehydrating, freezing, and eating! 

Our Illinois grandsons visited for three enjoyable days this last week. The older one was here for two days and used the Cricut to cut a piece for the guitar he is making/building. He also made waffles for us! We played Farkel and he helped me perfect and sew his mask pattern. 

The other two boys made S-mores cookies with the 6-year-old doing all of the measuring and breaking the egg while the 10-year-old did all of the mixing. They both worked on making and rolling the dough balls in graham cracker crumbs and preparing maybe eating the marshmallows and Hershey kisses. They also sewed scraps together while I was perfecting their mask patterns. One had a chain of scraps 53 1/3 feet long. He measured it and wrote down the length - important stuff! Later he pulled out the slip of paper to accurately tell his parents about his accomplishment. The 6-year old with a little guidance from Grandpa sewed most of his strips side by side and ended up with a nice, large rectangle of strips. We played Double Ditto a new game that we all enjoyed and Frisbee. That evening we had a picnic and were able to play miniature golf on our way back to their home. In a perfect world our other grandchildren  would live close enough to come visit for a day or more every so often. 

The mask making is picking up again because all of the grandchildren will need them for school. I am making custom fitted masks for each of the kids and they are choosing fabrics. Here are some of the latest.

Each of the masks will end up with elastic or lycra for the ears or with elastic or lycra around the back of the head. No one wants ties which I understand because I don't like ties either. The kids will each decide which mask has what.

And... today I emptied the sewing machine room. New shelves are being installed tomorrow and that room will be in order and clean by tomorrow night.