Insanity Quilt Progress

 Last night I completed the left flower border on the insanity quilt.  This actually did not take as long as I thought it would - started on May 3 and worked on several other projects in the mean time.  I usually work a little in the early morning before hubs gets up and then at night while we watch tv.

I am considering adding the right and bottom borders the same and then re-design the top border to include some applique birds based on a paper garland my daughter Jennie made for me to hang on my mantel.  I decorate my mantel for the spring and summer with bird houses and birds, and this little garland is the perfect touch.

She used scrapbook paper for the bird, but I am hoping she has the pattern and I can make them with fabric to applique across the top of my insanity quilt.  I sit and look at these birds across the room from where I quilt, and I guess that is my inspiration.

My insanity quilt center measures 43" x 50 1/2" and the flower border is 8 1/2" wide.  So once the borders are added to all sides the quilt will measure 60" x 67 1/2" which I think is big enough,  Rhonda Pearce's design for the Insanity quilt has one more border but I am thinking of leaving that border off. This is a picture I pulled off the internet.  If I leave that border off, I can hang the quilt up in my living room in the Spring with my other bird decor, lol.  Not to mention, this will save me from having to add another 3,815 hexies to compete that outer border.  I do love her design, but I love even more the idea of adding some applique birds and using it as a wall hanging.

Gather Round Seasons

I have started a BOM by Kathy Schmidt - embroidering on a preprinted pattern.  I completed my first block for May:

The frame recommended by the designer is shown below.  Using a square frame appealed to me more that the round one, seemed to have a more traditional look.  The round frame is cute though,

 

Starry Sampler - all handquilted

 I have mentioned before that my Guild is making the Starry Sampler for our 2026 Block of the Month.  There are 16 beautiful EPP blocks in this pattern, but we are only doing the first 9.  I am hand quilting mine as I finish them, and today I finished quilting #9.  Whew, now to get them attached into a quilt with a Quilt-As-You-Go technique.   Here's the first 9 blocks:

I have also made progress on the Sunbonnet Sue - Completing Block 2 (Falling Leaves) and 3 (Ice skating)

I will add buttons to the dress after it is quilted.

This dress gets buttons, too.  The Gingerbread man is a button as well. I will attach it to the quilt with a thread that allows it to be removed from the pocket but not removed from the quilt.  I also have some snowflake buttons that I plan to add in the background.  All buttons will be added after the quilt is quilted.

And not to be neglected - I covered 320 white hexies and 140 green hexies and selected 17 flower hexies for the left flower border of the Insanity quilt.  Now that I have the 9 EPP blocks quilted, I can start working on the flower borders :)

SunBonnet Sue - Block 1

 I finished the first block and really had fun doing this.  So here she is.......

The Ultimate Sunbonnet Sue Collection

Never let it said that I let a stack of UFO's stop me from starting another.  I have always wanted to make a Sunbonnet Sue quilt, but had looked for patterns that had various Sue's doing different things.  Never found one that struck my fancy, until I found this book at a second hand store that sold quilting supplies and fabrics.  The quilter had made a couple blocks, but the fabric she used was bright bold colors, and not to my liking.   So I set it aside until I found fabric that I thought would look nice.  Since I finished the center of the Insanity Quilt (previous post) and need to cover several hundred hexies for the flower border, I decided to start another project!  haha, that makes insane sense.

The book is called "The Ultimate Sunbonnet Sue Collection" published by Leisure Arts.  I could not find an author's name.  It has 24 of the cutest Sunbonnet Sues and I just could not resist.  Publshed in 2000 and I don't think it is still being published.  Several in my quilt club love it too, so through Thriftbooks, Amazon, Etsy and Ebay they found old copies at great prices.  

 

The fabric line I chose is Cottage Charm by Moda.  I bought a pack of 1/8" inch strips that had all 34 pieces in the fabric line.  I have had to add a couple other fabrics so far - one a brown for the shoes and other various items the pattern used black  but I think the black is too "strong" for the other fabrics.  Also bought some "flesh" tone fabric for arms.

There is also one print in three colors that I am going to use for corner stones - at least that is the plan now.  I am considering embroidering a little flower in each cornerstone.  I am going to use 1 1/2" sashing strips which is just the right size for the fabric block below.  I chose a butter cream kona solid or the background and a light blue for the sashing.

This morning I got the pieces prepped for the first block - a Sunbonnet Sue  with Butterfly Net.  I am keeping a list of the embroidery and embellishments to be added to each block and therefore have to number the blocks and identify them with a name.  Some embellishments, like buttons, will have to be added after the quilt is quilted.

I am doing prepared edge applique technique that I learned from Katrina Hadjimichael, but some small appliques with lots of  points are with needle turn.  That is why the bow is set off to the side.  I drew the embroidery on with a brown ink pigment pen and will do the butterflies and net  by embroidery.

Well that is my kickoff for this project.  Hopefully this week I will have a finished block to share.

 

 

Insanity Quilt - Center completed

 Today I completed the center top of the Insanity Quilt.  There are 3,480 hexies in the center and I am approx 33% done on the quilt.  My next step will be the flower border and I can hardly wait to get started.  Before I can start that border, I need to cover a several hundred white hexies and the green border hexies.

Jasmine Bag - Finished!

 Today I completed the Jasmine Bag by Katrina Hadjimichael.  Its a nice big bag for toting a quilt or other project to guild or a friends house.