Progress !

 This is an update on the list of on-going projects.  I am finding that knowing I need to report on my project progress kinda keeps me moving along.  So here is my list:

1 - Temperature Quilt - Got this one up-to-date last week, and now behind again :)

2 - Coronaville Quilt - Got this one up-to-date last week, and now behind again :)

3 - Brimfield - I completed the paper piecing of two more blocks, Block 9 and Block 10.  Block 9 is totally complete, but I still need to applique the Block 10 to the background.

4 - Hollyhock Quilt - Completed

5 - I Stitch Club - Wish You Well - Completed three blocks - January (shown in earlier post), February and March

6 - Baby Quilt - Whirligig - Completed

7 - Lone Star - All the Rose Stars are appliqued in place and I have designed a border of diamonds that I am in the process of making and appliqueing to the top.

8- Adeline's Quilt - I did not list this one before as I  forgot about it.  I had taken it to a long arm quilter for quilting.  I now have it back, need to make the binding and get it finished.  This will be my "Big Girl Quilt for my granddaughter, Adeline.

9- Cottage Grove - This is a quilt I started in 2011 along with a good friend of mine, Darlene.  We were each working on our own quilt and had them about 1/2 completed when for reason we set it aside.  We dug it out two weeks ago and are meeting once a week to get it done. We have the appliqued borders and blocks complete. There are 5 cottages in the quilt, we have completed 2 and for the last two weeks worked on number 3.  Cottage 3 is done - on to Number 4 next week :)  (Cottage 3 is my favorite - a Quilter's Cottage quilt shop.)

Momma's Blocks

 Completed this quilt.  The blocks were hand appliqued by my mother sometime before 2009, which is when she passed.  These were leftover blocks from quilts she had made.  I have the Hollyhock quilt, one of my favorites and she gave it to me several years before she died.  She hand appliqued and hand quilted the ones in my quilt, using a quilt as you go method.  The butterfly block was left from a quilt she made for my father based on a pattern given to her by my father's mother. I never knew my grandmother as she died when I was 9 months old.   My daughter now has the butterfly quilt.

This is the label I put on the quilt.  It will be a gift to my brother, Jack.

Wish You Well

I recently started a new Block of the Month by Gail Pan called Wish You Well.  I saw a picture on another blog and could not resist.  I am just now getting started and its been going on since January, so I just finished Block 1 for January.  Its a fun block to make and each block has a little embroidery  which is one of my faborite techniques.

 I must admit that I debated with myself about starting this, as I already have so many on-going projects.  Not just UFO's, as I had many of those as well, but these are projects that I am currently working on each week.   So here is a list of what are the projects I am actively working on:

1. Temperature Quilt (Machine work)- I got caught up on that one Sunday.
2. Coronaville (Machine work) - I was up to date on Saturday.  I need to cut out some more fabric as I have pretty much exhausted all the ones I had precut.  
3. Brimfield (EPP and hand applique) - 8 blocks completed, 12 to go.  I did cut out two more blocks Saturday
4. Hand quilting Hollyhock quilt - I have 7 of the 12 blocks quilted.
5. I Stitch Club - Wish You Well (WYW) (Machine and hand embroidery) - Completed block for January.
6. Baby Quilt - Whirligig (Machine work) - Done, just need to add a label
7. Lone Star (Machine work and EPP) - lone star and Rose Star blocks completed but need to add borders in order to fit EPP'ed Rose Star blocks and applique them down.  This will be the next quilt to go on my hoop

Whirligig

In McCall's Quilting magazine, July/August 2018, I found this quilt called Whirligig, designed and made by Nancy Allen.  I thought it so cute and wanted to make it  for a baby quilt, but the pattern  was for a  76" x 92" quilt.  

So I drew it in EQ so that I could get the smaller size templates, but I could not get the pinwheel border to come out right....so I adjusted the pattern to use the sizes I wanted.  Here is the design I came up with and will measure 45" Square.

I have completed all the blocks, sashing and the first row.  

While working on a quilt, often I will also be deciding how I want to quilt it.  This will be a baby quilt for one of the mothers-to-be at my church, and generally I machine quilt with a simple pattern hoping it will be much used, washed and loved.  This first row just seemed like a celebration to me, so I decided to quilt vertical rows using different colors of thread to match the colors in the quilt - like streamers. I found the colors in my machine quilting thread stash - Can't wait to try out the quilting.  Might make wavy lines, maybe just keep it simple and straight.  First got to finish the quilt top :)

Brimfield as of July 25

I recently started working on Brimfield blocks along with 4 other friends.  We are each doing something a little different, and gather once a week on Zoom to chat about our progress and basically visit.  Its one of the highlights of my week. 

Here are the blocks I have made so far.  I am using a mixture of Granny Chic and Farm Girl Vintage fabrics.  They do make me happy as I think of Granny and her Granddaughter living happily on a farm, with no Coronaville, protests, election campaign ads, economic woes ...going on.  Represents to me a simple, happier time.

Glorious Nine-Patch and Temperature Quilt

Today I got my Seasonal Temperature Quilt  caught up.  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the days seem to go by.  I thought I had just updated it 3 days ago, but I was ten days behind.  I call it seasonal as I started with the first day of Winter on Dec 21.  Winter months are silver/grey, Spring is green and summer is yellow. The large white areas name the season. the White small strips in the winter months indicate when the low temp was 25 degrees or less - only six days in Winter dropped below 26 degrees.   

This is a partial row that I have started, beginning July 20.  Notice the first strip on the left - I call this my fire fabric, and it us used whenever the high temperature is 95 degrees or higher.  Only one day this summer so far that has happened, and then it was exactly 95 degrees.  I use Weather.com to get the highs and lows and it sure does not agree with my car.  I had to take my husband to the doctor on July 20 and had to sit in the car to wait for him. They would not let me come in to go with him - not even to the waiting area.  So I found a shade tree to park under and I had brought my book to read, rolled the windows down and made it ok.  My car temp read 97 degrees when we left the house.  Once he was done and we were on our way home, the car temp display ran got up to 103 decrees and stayed around 99 - 100 all the way home.  Once back near the house it was back at 97.  According to Weather .com, our high for the day was the 95 degrees.

This is my most recent baby quilt for my church ladies expecting babies.  This will go to a mom who already had two cute boys, but is expecting her first girl.  I thought she deserved something pretty and sweet and I always love scalloped borders on baby quilts for girls.

I did a simple cross hatch quilting with variegated thread.Did a little pattern just for interest.  The backing is a soft pink and the floral binding is the same used in the quilt top. 

Coronaville Quilt Top completed

This is my Coronaville Quit top with 120 houses.  I arranged the blocks in a topsy-turvy block surrounding a cross I embroidered on the center square.

I am not done with the houses yet, just the quilt top.  I plan to keep making houses until we can go out without wearing a mask or practice social distancing.  South Carolina is in worse shape now than it was back in March and April....so I guess I have a lot more houses to make.

I will put the blocks I make from this point on the back of the quilt.  Not knowing how much longer I will be making houses, I decided to make the backing houses smaller so that I can get more on the back.

I hope and pray by January we will have a vaccine and can get back  to some kind of normal lives.  My quilt club's retreat is the third weekend in January and I sure want to go!

Four Baby Quilts

I enjoy making quilts for the pregnant mom's in our church and this years seems we are having a bumper crop, with 5 babies on the way and one born in March.  I have to wonder how next year will be after all this "stay-at-home" time.  So far, there will be three new baby boys, one girl and the gender of the other two is not yet known.  I completed one quilt back in February to give to the mom who delivered in March, but did not get to give it yet due to this corona virus.

Schnibbles design that I enlarged to make ta baby quilt size.

Backing and bow for the Schnibbles quilt.  I found the cute cowboy flannel and could not resist using it for the backing on this quilt.  This is the way I wrap the quilts for the baby showers, with the label on the outside.   I use the same label on all these baby quilts.

A simple four patch that I used to highlight the cute animal print.  I fussy cut the various animals for the blocks that go between the four patches.

Backing for the four patch.  I did have to add a little strip to the sides to get the backing wide enough for the quilt, but I think it is so cute.

I saw a quilt like this on pinterest and used EQ to get my sailboat design.  I added the pennant flag and that is dimensional, so the baby will have something to play with.

A Lewis & Irene fabric for the backing

The pattern is Jelly Nation by Katrina Hadjimichael.  All the fabrics are Lewis & Irene jelly roll cuts which made putting the quilt together quick and easy.  I am thinking this will be for a baby girl, although I think it would also be ok for a boy.

Backing for the Jelly Nation quilt - also a Lewis & Irene fabric.

I have two more baby quilts to make, and have started a girl quilt using the Glorious Nine Patch pattern I found in a 2002 McCall's Quilting magazine.  My first attempt at making one of these quilts, and having a few problems.  Wish I could find the acrylic templates for cutting out the pieces.  I have had to draw them from the pattern sheet and then cut them from plastic, and  I am sure they are not quite right.  I did find one of the patterns with the templates on line and have ordered it - should be here Wednesday.  I am determined to master this pattern, and heaven knows these days I have the time to work at it.

Hope you are staying safe, healthy and happy.

Pemberley pictures

Pemberley - Finished!

Its finished!! I began this project on Feb.5, 2018 and was so excited to get it started.  A few days later I fell and broke my wrist, and it had to sit for a few months while I recouperated.  Then that same year in November, I fell down a flight of stairs and once again, had to set it aside.  Its a lot of hand piecing and needle turn applique.  I completed the top and started hand quilting on November 16, 2019 thinking it would take a long time to quilt.  Then....the corona virus came on the scene and I had many days at home to get it quilted. Took me 373 hours, 24 minutes to complete the quilt.   Hope you can see the quilting on the back.

I have a bunch of pictures I want to post as my blog is like a quilt diary to me and I print it out at the end of each year or two.  My next post will just be a bunch of pictures.

HQ Day 89 - 88 Coronaville houses

Today is Day 89, but I just finished working on the first 88 days of my Topsy-Turvy Coronaville houses.  I have renamed it to Topsy-Turvy Coronaville.  I am going to put sashing between the "quads" of houses and add a 3" border.  Found what I consider the perfect fabric for the quilt as I believe my poor Coronaville has been covered by storm clouds since this all first started.  Covid 19, Economic disasters, protests marches, riots, looting, and unbelievable talk of unfunding police departments. One brave 38 year old officer was killed in an ambush last week - left behind a wife and small child. The majority of our police are good, brave men and women seeking to keep us all safe...but you are going to find bad people everywhere, even on the police force.     I think it is good thing to review all policing policies, make changes where needed, bring justice to those doing wrong but also wrong to judge all police officers by the bad actions of a few.  I think it is a shameful thing in our country when innocent people are killed by the police, but it is also a shameful thing the number of police officers who are killed in the line of duty. All lives matter!

HQ Day 86 - Memory Quilt

Its Saturday and its Day 86 - so hard to accept this.  I really thought, when I started counting these days, that the 42 blocks I had cut out would be more than enough for my Coronaville.  Now here I am at Day 86 and the number of new cases in SC hit an all time high yesterday!  Inwardly I thought it was getting better, until the outwardly news brought me back to reality.  Hospital cases for SC and NC are up, and from what I heard on the news, its starting to get bad in NY as well.  I may have enough houses when we finally come to Phase III for the front and back of the quilt. :(

This week I have been working on a memory quilt for a sweet friend that I go to church with.  Her mom died in October 2019 and Barbara asked me to make her a quilt from her mother's clothes back in March of this year.  I told her to gather up the clothes she would like me to use, and maybe some jewelry or other things of her mothers she would like me to use.  A few days later, we were all under Stay-at-home orders, and she brought me a big trash bag full of the things she wanted me to use.  She laid them down on my porch while I kept my 6  ft distance and we talked.  That seems like a decade ago now.  I got very busy making face masks and really just did not get started on it until two weeks ago when I started working out a plan.  I finished it today, and hope to give it to her tomorrow.

It measures 54" square, made of 7 1/2" blocks.   All the fabrics are from dressy blouses,  a sweater and some knit type casual shirts.  She included one pair of slacks.

This block was a turtle neck sweater and the turtle neck was a very pretty cable knit while the rest of the sweater was  straight knit.  I was able to get a 6" heart out of the turtle neck.

 I added this necklace that Barbara included, leaving the necklace in tack with the remaining chain behind the heart.  It has a pretty diamond and I believe its a baby ring.  I am not sure the significance of the baby ring but I felt it belonged on the quilt and looked so pretty against the red sweater.

 I thought, someday, someone may want that necklace as a memory of their great grandmother.

I hand embroidered this block with her Mom's name, date of birth and death.  Barbara told me she always called her Mom and I included a little saying "Always in my mind, forever in my heart."
















I had this fabric in my stash and thought it made a good backing for the quilt.

I hope to give it to her tomorrow.