A Month of Fnishes...

Whew, there's been a lot of sewing going on in my sewing room this month, and a whole lot of finishes! I'll note which projects include fabric from Island Batik as I go through them all.  First finish this year was the first Project Quilting challenge:  Hope Springs Eternal:

This quilt featured Island Batik fabrics, was cut with a GO! cutter from Accuquilt, and featured Aurifil Thread and Hobbs batting.

The next finish was my quilt for the Black and White blog hop:

Deonn at Quiltscapes was inspired by the same tile pattern as I was, but she made a different project!  This one also featured Island Batik fabric.  This quilt used up the last of my cone of Aurifil thread in white, and also used Hobbs batting.

I also quilted my Whimsical and Wonky top :

These are those fun Check it Out fabrics from Island Batik that I used for my December Challenge.  I used four of the blocks for the table runner, and made this fun lap quilt from the remaining 12 blocks that I made.  I used Aurifil thread and Hobbs Batting in this one as well!  

My next finish is my Project Quilting 10.2 challenge.  This one was made with assorted cotton fabrics from my stash.  I'm happy to say I used up a good amount of the patriotic fabric I've collected in this one!

Then I finished my blog hop project from the French Blue Collection.  You still have time to enter my giveaway by going and reading my blog post from Monday

This was also my OMG for the month!  I'm sure happy that I got it finished on schedule and was able to meet my final commitment for the 2018 Island Batik Ambassador program!

This weekend I finished the lap size quit made from baby clothes:

I also finished the twin size quilt today!

Isn't that robot quilt perfect?  Such a great little boy quilt!

I don't think I'll manage finishing 7 quilts every month, but it's a great way to start 2019!  I was so excited to finish the quilts, that I got busy and finished a couple blocks for different sewalongs.

This is my center for the Quilter's Planner's sewalong for this year!  Isn't that tree print pretty?  I'm going to do my quilt in blues with white background, and just use stash fabrics.

And here is my green block for Jen's 2019 Color Challenge!  I didn't think it was going to happen, but it did - love this block!  You should join in - it's going to be fun!

So, all in all a great month of quilting, lots of finished projects and I made progress on a few other items.  Now to make my list for February...

Memory quilt made from baby clothes

One of the last quilts on my list to finish this week is a memory quilt made from baby clothes.  I've been working all month, cutting cute baby outfits into squares and rectangles to make into a quilt, and I've got the top done now and it's ready for quilting.

This one is more "scrappy" looking than the other ones I've done, but I like it a lot!  I found a fun print to add a 4 inch border all the way around, it's bright green with gears in gray and blue.  Then the back has robots!  Very fun for a little boy quilt.  It will be a twin size when it is done.

Earlier this month I finished a lap quilt for the same customer.  This one is really bright and happy.  It has her favorite baby clothes from both her children.  I had a different idea to start with, but since most of the clothes were so light it really didn't work.  I'm happy I changed my idea.

It's such a cheerful quilt!


I don't have pictures of all the quilts I've made for this family, but here are some of them:

This is the star quit I made for the boy.

And the one for the girl!

This is my favorite - a Honey Bee quilt for the girl.  Just so much fun!  I have to say that I probably won't be making more of these unless it's for my own family.  They are so very time consuming and take a lot of work with all the cutting, adding fusible interfacing to the stretchy fabrics and are not easy to piece and quilt.  It has taken way to long for me to get around to doing these last ones because it's just not my favorite thing to work on anymore.   I am glad they are done now and I can work on other projects without feeling guilty.  I'm really happy with how they came out, and they were all interesting projects, but I feel like I am done with this type of quilt - at least for the present time.

Next on the agenda - finishing the borders on the Brothers and Sisters quilt!

I want to say thanks for all the great comments on my French Blue Interwoven quilt!  I am enjoying each one, and really appreciate them all!  Here's a picture of the scraps I am giving away:

It's a nice little bundle of goodies, so make sure you go to Monday's post and enter.

Linking up with Connie for Linky Tuesday.  Come share what you are working on, too!

Rainy Days are Quilting Days!

I'm glad we spent the last weekend up north instead of this weekend!  The weather today is very wet and chilly - perfect for staying indoors and quilting up a storm - or maybe doing some fun reading.  I was excited to win a $100.00 gift certificate from C&T publishing as part of the Christmas Caroling Row Along, and I just received my package:

I had a blast going through their online catalog trying to decide what to pick!  I started out by looking for Angela Walter's books - I have Free Motion Quilting and Shape by Shape Collection 2, but never got a copy of the first Shape by Shape book, so that was first on my list.  Then I was tempted to pick up Free Motion Meandering, but instead I got her Free Motion Quilting Workbook, thinking that would be nice to have to play with design ideas in the evenings when I'm not in my sewing room.

After that I checked out Bonnie Hunter books, can you believe that I don't own any?  I picked up Addicted to Scraps, because...scraps!  I have lots of those that need to used! 

After that I browsed around looking for something fun and inspiring and I found The Little Spark!  This one has been on my Amazon wish list for a while, so I was super excited to see it.  By this point, I just needed one more little thing to fill out my cart and found this interesting Trim-A-Tip tool so decided to give it a try.

My package just arrived on Thursday, so I am looking forward to going through my goodies this weekend and being inspired.  I don't purchase many books anymore because I've been quilting for so long that I have a very full library, so this is quite a treat for me!  I did notice that there are quite a few e-books available as well, so I will probably be purchasing some of those in the future - it's a great option and requires far less storage space, plus they are a bit less expensive.  Though I do have to say, I totally love print books and enjoy flipping through the pages as I relax in my chair - total bliss!

Here are a few pictures from last weekend, we had so much fun seeing our grand-kids and hanging out with their parents :)

Can you see Mount Hood in the distance?  Hard to capture it with a photo, but it was gorgeous!

You can see it peaking from behind the trees a bit here.  The day started out very cool and foggy, but once the sun came out it was perfect!  Layer by layer my outerwear came off until I just needed a light sweater in the warm sun!

One more shot of Mount Hood as we traveled north into Washington!  While we were there we had several lovely views of Mount Rainier, but I never got a picture of that one.  We enjoyed a sunny Sunday afternoon at a local pumpkin patch, but I guess I never took any picture there, either :(

Another foggy morning that turned into a beautiful day!  After dropping Emelia off at school on Monday we went out for breakfast, then spent an hour at Goodwill.  I found some good books for fall reading, a beautiful coral sweater, a new jigsaw puzzle and a pretty white tray for my sewing room.  I don't usually find that many goodies, I'm pretty picky when thrift shopping, so it was very fun to walk out with a nice pile of goodies.

Tuesday we got home mid-afternoon, and I got busy with laundry and planning out my week.  I got started on the next baby clothes quilt, this one is going to be stars:

I plan on having this ready for quilting next weekend so it can go out at the end of the month.  Lots of fun stripes in this one, it will be so cute!

I finished up this puzzle so I could start a new one - I find that I am sleeping a bit better by not being on my laptop or phone so much in the evenings.  Trying to stick to books and puzzles more, so am trying to find a better time in my day for writing patterns and blogging.

And Scamper had to go to the vet for shots and a check up.  He has a lot bare patches on his rear and belly.  We haven't found any fleas on him, but the vet says it's pretty classic flea allergy reaction.  So I am vacuuming and washing his blankets as well as ours.  Hopefully we can get this under control without having to give him a cortisone shot - seems like many people in this area are seeing this in their cats this fall.  We did have a very nice summer, I suppose the fleas like the warmer weather as well!  We are trying a new flea medication to see how that goes - we actually haven't had to use any for over a year, so hopefully this will be under control soon.

That's it for my week in a nut shell - it's good to be home with no travel plans in the near future.  I love visiting family, but truly feel there is no place like home.  I love my normal routine, and I have missed my fun sewing time as well as blogging regularly over the last couple of months and am happy to settle in for the rest of fall and enjoy doing my favorite things again.   I'll be working on the rest of the year's Quilter's Recipe blocks over the weekend and planning out some more fun projects for next year. 

Enjoy your weekend, too!

Pretty as Can Bee Baby Clothes Quilt

I just love how this project came out!  The colors in this set of baby clothes were a sunny yellow and pink, just so pretty - and there were bees on several of the outfits, so that just had to be the theme.  I wanted to do something different, but when it came time to actually start the cutting and sewing, I made a last minute judgement call and decided to go with the Honeybee block.  In order to make the best use of the baby outfits I decided to make the blocks over-sized at 15 inches so that the centers could be 9 inches square.  This allowed me to use up almost every last bit of those cute little outfits.

I decided to alternate the blocks with slightly different coloring to give the quilt a little more interest.  The pink fabric with big white polka dots was the perfect choice for sashing and border, plus I was able to use the last few scraps of baby clothes for the cornerstones!  The hardest part was cutting out the 144 teardrop shapes for the bees in the corners of the blocks - that was quite a task in itself.

 After putting the top together I decided to start out with just some stitch in the ditch quilting around the blocks to see how much more quilting I needed to do.  I really liked the soft feel of the quilt at that point, so finished it off by quilting the teardrops down (they are raw edge, so will fray a tiny bit after a few washes, but will stay put because of the quilting).  I love the white and yellow dot I found for the back - it looks a bit like a honeycomb!

I intended to add just loop the loops around the edges, but found this awesome tutorial to quilt a Honeybee  on The Inbox Jaunt - if you like free motion quilting, you have to check this blog!  Seriously, fun and easy to do because she shows the step by step process.  She also has a great set of doodle tutorials that I fully intend to work through someday.  So I ended up with bees and loops and added her name as well.

Now it's time to pack these beauties up and send them to their home.  

I've got more projects ready to be started!  It's just as much fun to start a new project as it is to finish one, I think!

Baby Stars

This quilt is made using pieces cut from baby clothes, thus I have named it Baby Stars. I love the bright, sweet feel of this quilt!  The color palette was chosen by the mom who sent the clothes, and it made it so easy to choose the fabrics to go with the clothes!

The teal dot I used for the inner border are also used for the back.  I love the way it sets off the colors in the stars.  The colorful elephant border was also a perfect addition, and I am thrilled with the results!

 I cut a 6 1/2 inch square from the outfits if I could.  There were some pieces that were smaller than that, so I bordered them to make a large enough square for the center.  From the leftover pieces after that, I cut pieces for star points.

 I chose a few bright prints that looked good with the center squares, and made 12 1/2 variable star blocks (24 in all)

I meander quilted the white backgrounds, then stitched around the centers, and added quilting around the motifs in the various centers.  For the plain centers I plan on adding hearts, and a few other special motifs to make sure everything is well secured.  I used Warm and Natural batting, Aurifil thread and lightweight stabilizer behind the knit baby outfits.  For the binding I used the fabric in the stars for a fun scrappy binding.  

I am excited to show you the project on my design wall today, but you'll have to wait until Feb. 15th!  My Island Batik quilt uses the Caribbean Splash line and it is amazing, if I do say so myself!  Make sure you check in that week - the Planes, Trains and Automobiles blog hop will be starting that Monday, and there are loads of great projects made from Island Batik that will be revealed!