Hand quilting begins - first block quilted

 Oh the joy of hand quilting.  I am so happy to have another quilt in the hoop.  I chose vertical and horizontal lines for the background quilting, and will alternal them with each block.  I debated on how to do the sashing and decided to use scallops for the sweet Susannas.  

September 3 updates

Its been over a month and I have managed to accomplish a lot during August to report on. 

Insanity Quilt - I completed my right flower border row, but then maybe not totally completed.  I have not attached it to the quilt top as I am considering making a few changes.  After the flower border, there is an even wider border that I am not all that interested in doing.  So I am thinking of adding two more rows of the dark green along all the outer edges and calling it DONE.  So I may add those two more green hexies to the right border before I sew it to the quilt top, and then also do the same to the left side that is already attached to the top.   This project will be set aside for a couple months as I quilt my Sun Bonnet Sue (see below) 

Alice Country Diary Quilt:   This has been an interesting project to undertake.  My friend, Martee, is heading up a Sew-Along with our guild starting in January, and I am assisting her.  It has been a bear to get organized, but I believe I am finally there and we are both trying to get some blocks together before November.  In November we will have an orientation session for all interested in making the quilt and the kick off will be in January with a workshop to get all started.  At the orientation we plan to discus fabric requirements and threads for the embroidery, and other necessary supplies.    We are both learning lessons as we make our blocks that will hopefully be helpful to those signing up to make the quilt.

Here are the blocks I have made so far:

I am finding the embroidery challenging and enjoying the challenge.

Gather Round the Seasons:   This is a project that is fairly simple and relaxing.  The block for September is a cute squirrel, but those squirrels can be real pests around my pecan trees.    My neighbor has uninvited hawks roosting in the trees behind her house, and they do a lot of squirrel hunting in our neighborhood.  

Backyard Birds:  I have completed this quilt.  Once again it it the 2026 BOM for my guild that I am in charge of.  I am trying to develop a label to give to all participants at the October guild meeting.

Blackberries, Brambles and Blossoms: This is a small embroidery block designed by Mary Corbet and as one of her patreons I receive a .pdf lesson for making the block.  I am learning new stitches and plan to use this one as my October block in the Gather Round the Seasons.  The October block in the BOM is a cat wearing a witch's hat and since I am not fond of Halloween decorations I choose to do an a different block.  I have completed Lessons 1 -3 and anxious to get lesson 4 as it will be blackberries done with beading.  I do love to combine beading with embroidery.

SunBonnet Sue:  She's in the hoop!  I have named my quilt Oh Susanna and have told my grandkids that the first to give me a great granddaughter named Susanna gets the quilt.  They are not to happy about that, but I said it does have to be her first name - still I may end just giving to my first great granddaughter.  We will see how it goes.

Well, that's it for now.  

Gather Round the Seasons - August Block

 Finished the block for August today, just in time to display tomorrow.  I love the little birdie (Robin?) sittin on the bird bath.

I have made some progress on my Sunbonnet Sue quilt, completing the top and now adding the borders.  I am using the blue/green "checkered" sashing look for the border as well.  One side completed and three to go.  It takes a while to sew all these little squares together and then sew the border to the quilt, but it fun to have a machine project too.

I also completed a hexagon table topper that I donated to my guild.  The EPP blocks were gifted to the guild and I was asked to do something with them.  I made a table topper, and used beading to embellish the binding.

Also still working on my Insanity quilt.  Working on the flower border on the right side.  Pictures to follow another time.

Gather Round the Seasons

 This is the BOM by Kathy Schmidt and this is the July block I just finished this morning.  I also antiqued my frame as it was a chalky white which was just too bright.  I have included the May and June blocks so you can see the difference.

July

May

June

Alice's Country Diary Quilt

This quilt is so exciting to me - but I keep setting it aside until I finish Oh Susanna.   I did complete one of the 25 blocks just to see how my fabrics will look - and so tempting to go ahead and do another with the cone shape epp pieces rather than the kite shape in this picture.  My friend, Martee, is going to head-up a 2027 Sew-Along for our guild and I will "serve" as her assistant.  We already have 10 people who are ordering the book and planning on participating in the Sew-Along, but will not have the kickoff until January 2027.  Right now, we are finishing up our 2026 BOM, which has58 participants (a few counted twice as they signed up for both BOM's).

Here is the book we will be using.  Of course we are requiring all participant to purchase the book.  It combines the art of EPP and Embroidery, both of which are favorites of mine.  

This is the block I recently finished:  The blocks are set on the diagonal which is why there is a little of my design board showing. The designer recommends a rainbow color setting with the EPP pieces arranged as Red-Pink-Orange-Yellow-Green-Teal-Blue-Purple.  When you applique the wreath to the background fabric, you just rotate it a little to balance the colors in the quilt.  Such fun!

I would love to show you some of the pages in the book, which are just beautiful, but concerned about copyright issues.  It also has heat transfers for the embroidery, which I prefer to use Sulky Stick & Stitch. Some ladies are choosing to do some type of machine embroidery in the center of their wreaths, while other are choosing to do a smaller EPP block to go in the center.  Some may just leave the center blank and do some custom quilting there.  So many choices, and hopefully many will enjoy this Sew-Along.

 

Sunbonnet Sue - Oh Susanna

 I have been working on my Sunbonnet Sue quilt this past month and decided to call it "Oh Susanna!".  My grand daughter asked me who I was making this quilt for, and I told her the first grandchild that gives he a great-grand-daughter named Susanna gets this quilt.

I now have 17 blocks made - and 7 to go.  I am having so much fun "dressing" all my little Susannas and have decided on the layout shown below using a Sweet Daisy english paper pieced block.

I am including some more pictures a little closer up - 4 blocks at a time.  The sashing is actually a blue/green patchwork with little postage stamps used in the corner stones.  Right now I am thinking of adding three rows of the blue/green patches (without cornerstones) around all four sides to make a border which I might cut into scallops.  Still thinking about that.

I do not have all the embellishments (like buttons, cording, lace, etc) yet as I want to get it basted by a long-armer for hand quilting.  I am keeping little jewelry size zip bags with the embellishments for each block to add after the quilting is finished.

Gather Round Seasons - June

Completed my June block this morning and got it in the frame.....maybe a little bit cockeyed, but it will stay that way until it starts driving me crazy.

 

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.

Jasmine Bag - Katrina Hadjimichael pattern

 Last night I completed the applique panels on my Jasmine Bag by Katrina Hadjimichael.  On to the quilting step next.  This was a project I took to my Stitchin Friends quilt retreat and so excited to be working on it again after over a year, I think,