Saturday Sewing Satisfaction

Saturday night I finished my third Hopscotch and Butterscotch, a Bonnie Hunter pattern. I made this one bigger than her pattern by 10 blocks. My first on is one I keep on my chair and it is just not big enough when folded in half to cover head to toe for my afternoon naps. Hope to get this one quilted soon to replace it.

I used a darker inner border on this one .

happy stitching this week

latest projects

My two inch strip drawer was running over so I pieced the strips end to end and crocheted this rag rug. I am really pleased with how it turned out even though it didn't work for under Johnny's chair. The chair just wouldn't roll over it, but I think it looks good in front of the fire place.

This is what I have been piecing for the last couple of weeks. It is my third rendition  of Bonnie Hunters Hopscotch and Butterscotch. The original pattern calls for 20 blocks and the first time I made it using Thimbleberries scraps. We were sitting on the front porch on one of the cooler afternoons and I had it covering up against the chill. Johnny said I don't know why you didn't make that big enough to really cover up so I came in and started piecing blocks again using civil war reproduction fabrics and makings 30 blocks. This will increase the size quite a bit. I just lack sashing the last row and then putting all the rows together. I plan to use a red inner border then the piano key outer border.

I am looking forward to the quilting retreat at the Red Rooster week after next. If I don't finish this one before then I will at the retreat. I have several other unfinished projects that I want to work on at the retreat. Probably more than I can hope to accomplish.

Happy Stitching

DWM

This weekend my goal was to clean up my sewing room. In one pile I found this little baby quilt that just needed the outside border added so I put that on so I could count one more finished quilt top.

Then I found these blocks and put them back on the design wall. I have over half of the nine patches done but need to finish the rest.

That was pretty much all I did in the sewing room, instead I read a great book. "Did You Miss Me" by Karen Rose, if you like a lot of suspense look for any of her books, just couldn't put it down.

Going to be a very busy week, stay safe and hope you get to quilt some.

Another Friday Finish

I started this twin size quilt last Friday afternoon and finished it this morning. I am not sure how I will quilt it yet but hope to get to it soon. It measures 55 by 74 inches.  The pattern is in the Sept./ Oct. issue of MaCall's Quilting magazine. There are two different chevron patterns in this issue but this one is called Chevies on the Levee. It was the easiest chevron pattern I have ever seen. It is made with bar unit set on point, rather than half square triangle or flying geese that I have seen in other patterns. So I gave in to the Chevron craze and put this one together. I think it will be great or either a boy or girl.

 

Here you can see how the blocks are set on point.

A little closer view after they are sewn together and the border is added.


This one was made with 2 and 3/4 inch strips but I may do the pattern again with smaller strips for a baby quilt.

Friday Finish

Finally finished this super king size quilt. It measures 110 x 110 and is made from a pattern on Moda's Bake Shop called Simple Stacked Blocks.

The way this pattern is done when you stack the  blocks you have left over  pieces plus I had left over test blocks from the green that I ended up not using on the front. Now to get it to Gina to quilt.

Big Pieces

One of my best friends from high school has asked me to make her a quilt. My first commissioned quilt. She said she wanted red, gray and black. She wasn't sure about her pattern but after much deliberation we determined she preferred the more modern look. I suggested she look at a pattern on Moda Bake shop called Simple Stacked Blocks and she loved it. After I made a few sample blocks we decided to add a splash of gold.

  Go check out the pattern to get a better idea of how  the blocks will look, or be stacked.

Weekend Inspiration

This was my weekend project. It is from the book Skinny Quilts and Table Runners from today's top designers. This particular project was called Astrological by Marti Mitchell. Most know that I love log cabin quilts so I thought this would be a quick easy project. I had thought I would piece, quilt and bind it in a day. WRONG

It only had 6 log cabin blocks, but then it had 2 blocks that were 3/4 black and 1/4 white. These were used on each end to square off the design. The trouble came in the pieced sashing parts. Notice how there is both saw tooth stars and friendship stars.

This made piecing and putting together the sashing and rows a little detailed. Needless to say I had to take out a few pieces and switch parts. Also if you ever do this pattern the pink setting triangle were cut the wrong size, too small. I had to calculate the correct size and recut. Problem was I didn't have a large enough piece of fabric left of the light pink so they all had to be cut from the brighter pink, but I think I like it better this way.

I barely had room to hang it on the design wall. I am still working on the mystery just needed to do something different this weekend.

Got to work today, so no quilting, hope you all have better luck.

Teresa 

update

When I decided to enlarge the mystery I needed to make 180 more green and red four patch units. I got 68 made this morning before work. Now I have to cut more green and red strips.

Teresa

Parts and Piecies

I have decided to make the mystery quilt a king size so it is back to making all the basic units. I have enough of all units to make about 6 of each but need a lot more. Trying to organize them in this basket.

I use Thangles to make the half square triangles need for the pinwheel and bird in the air blocks.

The neutral 54-40 blocks have been a lot easier than I thought they would be.

The red 54-40 are used in the pieced border. Trying to make a few along the way to keep a variety in the dark wings of them.

The four patch unit is the easiest but I am running out of the right shades of red and green.

The bird in the air block deals with a lot of bias edges and uses more of the black fabric. I hope I have enough. Would hate to have to go shopping, laugh if you must.

I could not get the computer to upload my photo of the chevron block, can't figure that out. However it is I guess the most time consuming of the different units, just ahead of the bird in the air unit.

This quilt will take some time. I only sew on it a few hours a week, so this may be a year long process. Longer if I get sidetracked.

Happy quilting.

Teresa

Sidetracked

We had a great day stitching last Saturday at the Courthouse, the only problem was I let Ada talk me into bringing the tub of 6 inch squares home with me. Now remember we have already made at least 3 quilts from this tub maybe 4 or even 5, but the tub will still barely close. We made the other quilts using the disappearing nine patch so I thought I wanted to do something different this time. I got to looking through some books and saw this block in a Nickle Quilts book. It called for one 5 1/2 inch color square and four 3 inch white squares. Since a lot of those 6 inch squares weren't exactly square this would work. Plus a lot of those squares are pretty ugly so this cuts them down to a smaller size. I tried to choose some that read as solids and with a nice contrast to the white. We will have to find some pattern that cuts them even smaller for those real ugly ones.

Here is six blocks put together without sashing.

I

I am using the no waste flying geese method so there is a lot of trimming.

These are waiting on the second white square to finish the goose.

Mystery

I know it has been a long time since I posted here and a lot has been going on in my life. I will talk more about that later maybe. I have finely gotten some time to sew on Bonnie's mystery. If you look close you will see a little difference. I completely turned one block around when putting it together and just love the difference.

This is how the block is supposed to be done.

This is what you get if you turn the chevron unit around. I really like it and Johnny says he likes it better the the original.

I like how it cleans up or strengthen the white background. The diamond is more distinct.

Turning the gold part of the chevron out makes the diamond kind of choppy. I have debated maybe putting the original block around the outside or just rip apart. I have only done 5. I have also been debating making it the king size. My concern is having enough of the black that I used to replace the blue in Bonnie's quilt. I used dark reds to replace orange and gold for the yellow. The greens leaned more to the dark blue green side. I may have to go bumming from my stitching buds on the black.

Looking forward to Saturday's stitch group. Hope the weather warms up some or that old building will be cold. I plan to take a quilt that needs binding so at least I will have something to cover up with. 

Stay warm and happy stitching.