New Year and More Baby Quilts!

 

Not my usual clear fireworks shots because of a lot of fog!  Happy New Year though!  

This Snowy Egret was really posing for me one afternoon and may end up in a quilt!  I haven't done a Snowy Egret quilt yet.

These are two of the three baby quilts that I have made in recent days from leftovers from years past!  Of course, the reason I didn't finish them earlier was because I was short one or more of the components.  So cut I do and then I am short of some other component and I get bored, so the remaining pieces get stored away for another day when I rediscover them!

I don't usually promote products on my blog, but have to say that I love my Stripology XL ruler which is one of those slotted rulers for doing many cuts at once.  I have other rulers but like this one the best as it is extra wide and has a rough bottom so it doesn't slip.  I am in the process of making four-patches ind in this photo I have sewed many sets of scrappy combinations.  There are 11 strip sets overlapping in this picture, ready for the ruler.

Here I have done the cutting and now have 110 halves for the four patches.  I had another 8 strips to go so altogether have 190 halves which will make 95 four patches.  All this cutting took about five minutes and is  impossibly accurate!

I am auditioning sets here.  Altogether, there would be four of these to make up the baby quilt top.  (I do need to border these which I will do when I get the batting as they are only 36 inches square and need to be 40 inches square.)

As I have enough for six baby quilts, I am sure I will use this set for at least a couple and maybe turn the individual blocks around so that the darker ones are in the center!

This is another alternative which I have used before.  the blocks march in a diagonal across the quilt alternating between darker and lighter.  I have made this variation before.

I had a huge pile of the black and white fabrics stored away and hopefully these baby quilts will make a dent in that and also hopefully I won't have to cut more up!!

Happy Holidays and Some Charity Quilts

I have been busy finishing off some baby quilts and binding a slew of larger quilts for our Sweet Charity group.  This and the next quilt are from a pattern from our Guild neonatal group.  It was not tricky to make but I did change the instructions a bit to make it easier (and it didn't require any more fabric just a redistribution of the strips).  The hardest part was putting it on the design wall and getting the blocks in the right order.  There are two different blocks in this quilt -- one with white in the corner and one with black in the corner.  I don't know how you could even get it right without a design wall!

The next two are from the pattern that a fellow Guild member had posted.  This onne is also a bit tricky in the cutting and really works well to have a design wall also!  It is a "disappearing rail fence".

This one is a little more planned as I used green consistently in the middle and blue as the "dark".  Still haven't decided whether I like the slightly more planned or the more random placing of the colored pieces.

This is a very large pile of larger quilts that are donated to a variety of places.  I only made a couple of the tops and my friend Dianne did all the machine quilting.  I then did the binding on all of them -- 12 by machine and 4 by hand.  I have gotten really good at machine binding but still like to sit and do the binding by hand in the evenings.  I only have one more to do the hand binding on and I will be done for now -- time to clean up my sewing room a bit -- a chore I do whenever I finish a bunch of projects.  This includes cutting random batting pieces into  narrow strips (for rugs or purses) and cutting leftover pieces of backs into strips and squares.

Happy Holidays to all my friends and followers!!!

 

DJ Quilt Almost Finished and a Few Birds for Your Viewing Pleasure!

Well, birds first!  This is a Clapper Rail which is an  infrequent visitor and very shy.  He hid out awhile and then came back out.

This is an Eastern Phoebe, a frequent visitor to my daughter's back yard fence.

This is a Forster's Tern and there were a lot of them visiting down at Ft. Fisher.

This is a Kildeer which is a frequent visitor down here!

Another shot of the Clapper Rail.

This was  my second audition.  The first which is what I thought I would use was inserting a white piece before this darker piece but I just didn't like the look

Auditioning borders and this was the final decision.

It's all together except for the binding which I am in  the process of sewing down now.  I am very happy with sewing it in quarters despite the fact that this was a very difficult quilt to do this with because of stitching close to the edge.  I made a few mistakes and it is a little wonky in places but overall the picture doesn't do it justice!  I used a dark brown batik for the binding and hopefully, I will get it in the mail by the end of this week.  This will be the last picture!


 

Making Progress!!

Well, the main  part of the La Passacaglia is all sewn together.  I have already added some pieces not in the pattern and still want to add a larger chunk on the right hand side and on the bottom.  Know what I am going to do but just have to do it!

Then I have to dye some background which is now complicated by the fact that our washer doesn't work and I need that for washing out the dyed fabric!!  I want to test doing applique with the papers and glue still in to see whether I have to do the washing of the piece before or after applique.

This is the first quarter of what I am calling DJ4 all machine quilted.  I have since finished the machine quilting on all four quarters.

This is a closeup of the stitching that I am doing in the whitish areas -- it is a double arc.  I have decided not to do it in the green.  I have done a lot of outline stitching in all the little blocks which is mostly invisible as I used matching thread as often as I could.  Quilting this in quarters made the job much much easier!  

Here is the right half of the quilt sewn together.  I messed up a number of times and thankfully the back is a very busy batik which hides some of the extra seams I had to do.  I was in a hurry and it was the end of the day -- big mistake but correctible.  It was very difficult to sew the sections together as there was so much quilting fairly close to the edge where you sew them together.  Lots of pins held it together and it mostly lined up.  I didn't make that mistake today.  I finished machine quilting the other two quarters and will wait until Friday to attempt to sew them together and then sew the two large sections together.  Then all I will have to do is the borders and binding.  It will be a decent sized quilt when done!

 

November QBTS Meeting

We had a great time in our inside November meeting.  Everyone had on their masks and we indulged in some pure play!  We were asked to bring one fabric that expressed ourselves plus scraps of six other fabrics and we weren't supposed to try to match.  I certainly didn't have anything that remotely matched!

We were then given Modge Podge for glue, canvas board and a brush.  We had been instructed bring scissors and trims as well and there was a bag of trims on the table.  We were then told to just collage!  Every once in a while, we had to pass a small piece of our fabric to someone else at the table.  This is just a very few of the 43 creations made in about 3/4 of an hour on a 12 x 12 inch canvas.  It was great fun!

This was mine which is not nearly as neat as some of the above!  The marbled pink fabric was my expression.  I used pieces of the fabrics that were passed to me from fellow table members as well as what I had brought which was truly random!  The comment was that it looked like a quilt block!!  Can't get away from what I am familiar with I guess!

We had quite a few quilts for show and tell but as usual, I don't have names for most and am afraid I will get wrong the ones I think I have!!

This is the back of the next quilt which was made for a much anticipated baby named Alice!

This was entirely made by hand using English Paper Piecing which of course is how I am doing the La Passacaglia!  Beautiful use of colors as well. I believe she said she had it machine quilted which I what I plan to do as my pieces are so small, hand quilting would drive me over the edge.

This and the next picture are the back and front of a quilt by Ann Millard using a quilt as you go method of construction which I may try myself one of these days!

This was a huge quilt done by Anne Hope Marvin from several Dresden plate squares she was given.  I believe she said it was all hand quited as well.  There was a beautiful whole cloth quilt done by June Bell which I was not able to get a good photo of.  Pandemic seems to have inspired a lot of people to do hand work as a stress reliever.

A Quilts of Valor top ready to be quilted!

A really cute baby quilt inspired by last month's half square triangle workshop!!  Really nice!

There were three Habitat for Humanity quilts turned in but I could only get pictures of one of them!  I have to get back to doing a couple of those!


 

Baby Quilts Finished!

I finally finished up three baby quilts and handed them in yesterday.  This was inspired by a quilt one of my guild friends posted.  I did it on point rather than the traditional way as I thought I would like it better.  I didn't!!

This was the original layout which I do like better.  I have several ideas on color combinations etc.  I have been trying to do 4 baby quilts a month.  It is a great way to try out different blocks, settings and arrangements before you commit to a big quilt!

I 

I finally finished this one also and still have enough blocks for another one!!  I think this will make five quilts I have made from this fabric and i have enough more different sized blocks to make a couple of more!!  To say I am sick of looking at it, is an understatement!!  It makes great stack and whack blocks but the fabric itself is boring!
 

Real Progress on Passacaglia Quilt and the Newest Dear Jane!

I always take pictures along the way for a good reason!  I can many times spot a booboo before it gets any further and it certainly was the case with this one although I got along further than usual!

This is the third quarter of the quilt with the correct orientation of the naughty block!

Each of the quarters is now done.  The batting arrived today so I will contemplate starting the quilting soon!  I am doing it in four separate sections so I will have to divide up the batting accordingly

The four quarters are mostly done and I only have to stitch the top and bottom together and add a couple of more rosettes to round things out.  I had to get it on the design wall to make sure things were properly aligned.

Here I was testing out a potential background color.  I haven't yet decided when to wash out the papers and fabric glue.  I also haven't decided whether to include the star points on the outside or not as they will be very difficult to applique down.

I am still finding blocks I made last summer while being laid up and this is the latest baby quilt incarnation!  I am going to put a medium blue border and then a dark blue binding to calm it down a bit.  I have made so many tops with this fabric which I picked up very cheaply in a Joann's sale!  It is perfect for stack and whacks.