January Jumble

Prairie Quilt Guild's tradition is that the immediate Past President may ask the membership to make a quilt block of her choosing. She then puts together the quilt as a remembrance of guild members. I took a little different path and asked for orphan blocks. One guild member gave me all of these vintage quilt blocks!

It took a bit of pondering but I decided on a layout after carefully measuring and trimming the blocks. Yes, quite a few points got chopped off and nothing is even. Some of the blocks weren't the right size so I added an extra strip of fabric. Do you see my little mistake? I didn't calculate the correct amount for the inner spacer border and had to add a narrow purple and gray strip under the red border. I like it just as it is and someday will have it quilted with a Baptist Fan design.

I'm guessing most of the fabrics are from the '60's, the era I grew up. They remind me of my Grandma Goossen's aprons. She was a great influence in my life and I miss her very much. She liked to crochet and tat but I didn't know until after her death that she had also quilted for a short time. The quilt she made was used up and gone before I came along.

On to another subject, Quilty 365. I told myself I wasn't going to get involved with this but I did anyway. The idea, which I think is a great idea, is to make a block a day in 2016. Here's the link if you want to play along:

January 1 - I made a block

January 2 - I made a block

January 3 - I forgot to make a block

One day, I remember I was supposed to make a block a day so I make 5 more to catch up.

I forgot again and again and again.

I think I'm going to make and applique the circles for the rest of the background blocks, stitch the blocks together, add borders and call it something like "Twenty-seven days in Winter" (if I make it to 27). I'm anticipating my kids cleaning out my sewing room someday and wondering why 27 days?!?

What's this mess? These are the bits and pieces for Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery quilt, Allietare. I wasn't going to do this one either but I decided it would help me improve my piecing skills. Allietare is Italian for gladden, rejoice, become cheerful! 

For some reason, this project didn't have that effect on me and one day I decided my attitude would greatly improve if I put all the bits and pieces away. All the units are finished, some need trimming before they're sewn into blocks. I think I was just so disappointed with my piecing skills that I needed a break from this project. Maybe a quilt top will happen in the future.

I started working on Love Entwined again! Most of the little pieces in the flower arrangement are glue basted and waiting to be stitched. Do you see the red tulip on the left side of the pot of flowers? I got it all stitched down and realized the petals don't cover the stem, they just barely meet it. At first I thought I'd just applique a small circle at the base of the flower to cover my mistake but as time went on, I realized I'd always remember that it wasn't appliqued correctly. I made up my mind to take the flower completely apart and reposition it. 

However today at my Applique Group meeting, one of the ladies suggested that if I just move the lower red petals down I wouldn't have to take all those tiny petals off. Sometimes solutions are so obvious I don't recognize them!

Now this is totally different for me. I'm taking part in a color challenge and the first assignment is neutrals with only one (maybe two) accent colors. No patterns, has to be original work. Ordinarily, I would never choose gray and peach but it is a challenge so a challenge it will be. Its supposed to be finished in three weeks but I'm not even sure what finished will look like! Lots more work to do on it.

There's some play going on too! While in Houston at the International Quilt Festival last fall, I took two classes with Kaffe Fassett. This is one of the classes, Bright Squares from his book, Heritage Quilts. I haven't always followed the light, dark, light layout but I'm still playing and enjoying it.The colors are so much better in real life! 

I chose polka dots because, even though I seem to have quite a few polka dot fabrics, I rarely use them. Suddenly there seemed to be polka dot fabric in each quilt shop I went to and I ended up buying "a few more" fat quarters of fabric. Now I have more polka dot fabric than when I started!

One more row of three blocks to go and these are the squares I have left. At first I was going to use what I had left and discover new exciting color combinations. That's not working and I'm going to have to cut more. I was surprised which colors do not play well with others. I can't keep that bright yellow Aboriginal Dot from trying to steal the show.

Leftover squares are going to be made into a doll quilt for our granddaughter, Elizabeth. I hope she likes bright yellow and peach with pink polka dots!

 I'm learning how easy it is to make a Dresden Plate and what fabrics not to select.

Leo the Lion was delivered to our grandson, Ethan, during January. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a full photo of it. Just recently, the weather was 70 degrees where he lives so I don't know if he's able to enjoy this very warm quilt. However, winter's not over yet.

Mediterranean Hexagons was the other class I took from Kaffe Fassett and Liza Prior Lucy at Houston. Last week, it went to the machine quilter. Since she's going to be closing her customer machine quilting business, this will be the last quilt she quilts for me. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out! 

This quilt will hang in the Common Thread's quilt show this June. If you're anywhere near Wichita, Kansas June 16 - 18, please come to our show!

This is the backing of my Mediterranean Hexagon quilt. A little out of my comfort zone but I like it. How far would you drive for a certain kind of fabric? Unfortunately, my local quilt shop didn't carry a Kaffe fabric which would work for the Mediterranean Hexagon backing. I purchased "Brandon's Brocade" from Material Girl in Grand Island, Nebraska which was at least a 5 hour drive one way for us, regardless of what Google predicted. Its not what I thought I'd buy but its what the quilt needs.

That was January for me. It started out dreary but ended well. I had a finish, a few quilts put on hold but am looking forward to a finish or two in February!

Until next time, Mayleen

Simply Needle and Thread Challenge

I'm checking in after one week of Bonnie Hunter's One Hour a Day of Simply Needle & Thread Challenge!

I thought you might like to see some of the fabric I used. Bugs seem very appropriate to include in my garden quilt as there seem to be a lot of grasshoppers in my flowerbed, on the deck, the front porch, in the garage ... well, just about everywhere except in the house (yet). Not sure when I bought that fabric or for which project but like I said, its appropriate. By the way, the top middle fabric reminds me of bindweed which is also very present in my garden. Grrrr.
In last week's post we were supposed to tell about things like where we quilt. I didn't do that so here it is this week.
This is one of my unglamorous hard working sewing areas. I use my ironing board as a table and pin cushion. Everything is close by including lots of other projects in the works! Those neat stacks of narrow strips of fabric on my cutting mat are for the Pumpkin Peel arcs I'm also working on. I usually have several projects going at one time so if I'm not happy with how something is turning out, it gets put on hold while I work on another project. It works for me!

Here's something else we were supposed to post about - our calendar to keep track of time spent. My total last week was 10 hours. I skipped Friday but since I had put in 4 hours on Thursday, I didn't feel too guilty! However, what do you think? Does time spent picking out count?

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you probably read about my crooked initial M. I very carefully picked it out but still need to embroider another M in its place.

So, here we have it. This is how far I am with my Jubilee+5 Garden wallhanging as of noon today. I've already worked on it an hour piecing in some of the side triangles and I hope to work on it another hour before my fingers get too sore from needle pokes.

I met my goal for this week except for my embroidered initial. By next week Monday, I'd like to have the wallhanging sandwiched and maybe even have begun big stitching it. Still thinking about which color perle cotton to use but reddish orange is a strong possibility.

Until next time, Mayleen

Here's where it started: http://qisforquilt.blogspot.com/2012/09/one-hour-day.html

One Hour a Day

Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville challenged her blog readers to join her in working on hand stitching projects for one hour a day. Since I have several hand projects in the works right now, I'm joining in! If you've come from Bonnie's blog, that means I've figured out how to do her Linkie.

Here's my hand project - I'm calling it my Jubilee+5 Garden Quilt for now. Go to this blog to find out more about our Jubilee quilts. We're a group of quilters making quilts to celebrate our 50th or other significant number birthdays. I'm late working on my quilt because my birthday was back in July.

My quilt is a wallhanging version of a quilt seen on Quiltsalott's blog. I admire her quilts very much. Mine includes fabric about things I might see in my flower garden.
There have been a few bumps along the way. Like stitching the blocks together wrong but all that's been fixed now and below is what my quilt looks like as of last night.

I plan to embroider my initial "M" on the middle block and am trying out a paper "M" to see if its the right size. I'm still thinking its too large.


This week, I hope to finish piecing the square gray polka dot insets in between the blocks. I would also like to begin embroidering my initial because I can't join it all together until that's done.


Its going to be a very hot day here - 105 degrees last I checked. We're grilling tonight and I plan to bake an apple pie for dessert. Its already 76 degrees outside so I better start in on baking now during the "cool" of the day!

Was Granny Smith really a Northern Spy?

It's been a bed sized quilt year for me!

Here are a few blocks from the next bed sized quilt I'm planning to finish. The blocks will all be red and green and after being trimmed and sewn together, the red diamonds should match at the points. I started it months ago but got a little bored with making the same block over and over again so I set a goal of 20 blocks a week. Very do-able and I have only 30-ish blocks left to cut and piece before piecing the top!

This pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's book, Scraps & Shirttails II. She calls it "Criss-Cross Applesauce". I wanted a name with a little more personality so in keeping with the apple theme and with a nod to the Civil War, I'm calling it "Was Granny Smith really a Northern Spy?" Both names will be on the quilt label along with giving Bonnie credit as the designer.

Here's a picture of her version from the book. By the way, I recommend this book for anyone who likes scrap quilts. I try not to buy a quilting book or magazine unless there are 3 or more quilts I want to make in it. This book definitely qualifies!

Scrappy Tripping Around the World!

Monday evening, I went to hear Quiltville's Bonnie Hunter speak at the Walnut Valley Quilter's Guild in Winfield, Kansas. She's a great speaker and I loved her Fabric Food Chain quilt since I'm really trying to use up 30 years worth of fabric!

Here's Bonnie with her Virginia Bound quilt which is another quilt I'd like to make "someday". In fact, I'd like to make 3/4 of the quilts in her latest book Scraps & Shirtails II.
Here's her version of Scrappy Trip Around the World. I got to take her workshop for this quilt on Tuesday! She's a great teacher so if you have a chance to hear her speak or take a workshop with her, be sure you do so!
Below you can see the blocks I finished in class. I made mine with 2 inch strips and set 9 strips in a row.

Its a lot brighter than I thought it would be and I'm not so sure I like it. What do you think I should add? More prints or more greens or blues? Can you tell I have a lot of pink and red fabric to use up? I'm working entirely from my stash so I'm somewhat limited. A big problem I'm having is that the strips need to be 18 inches long. Quite a bit of my fabric stash is not that long or is yardage I'd like to keep for backings. Any suggestions?

Is it really "finished"?!?

That's what I'm asking myself. Am I sure its really "done"???

It seems like so long ago when I started with this stack of scrap fabrics. I believe it was only back in December but it seems like much, much longer.

This was the beginning of my version of Bonnie Hunter's 2010 mystery quilt, Roll, Roll Cotton Boll! (AKA Peppermint Hot Fudge Brownie Delight and today I feel like I really need one of those even though its chilly out!)

I sure went through a lot of learning experiences working on this quilt. Let's just say that my new seam ripper got a good work out. I remember nearly giving up when I found out shortly before Christmas that the quilt needed 600 HSTs! When I finally had it all pieced together, I didn't think it was big enough for our bed so I added another narrow green border and a brown border too. I was concerned there'd be some shrinkage because of the machine quilting but I don't think it would have been a problem.

Here's the quilt on our extra bed. My bed has a taller mattress so the quilt won't seem quite so large on it. So ... I thought my version of Bonnie Hunter's RRCB was finished. I even made a quilt label for it and hand stitched it on. I should have known that it couldn't have really been over. Unfortunately, the quilt had to go back to the machine quilter for some touch ups. These were done quite quickly and now ...

I'm happy (very) to say that RRCB/AKA Peppermint Hot Fudge Browne Delight is done, done and done! Time to move on to some of my Works In Progress of which there are many.

Full Steam Ahead!

Progress on Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery quilt,

"Roll Roll Cotton Boll"!

All of the blocks are pieced and this afternoon I started sewing the rows together. Since the quilt is large, it needs a lot of space and so here it is laid out on our living room floor.

I'd like to get the rows sewn together tomorrow, square the top and start looking through my stash of green fabrics for possible border fabrics. I may not have enough of one fabric so do you think a scrappy narrow border would look good? No problem if I have to go to the quilt store as I need backing fabric for it anyway. I'll brave the really cold wind chills we're having for a trip to the LQS for some show and tell and shopping therapy!

Of course, there's one more step to this mystery quilt - the pieced final border. Its definitely going to take me some time but if I'm really dilligent and nothing happens to keep me from my sewing machine, I might be able to finish the quilt top by the end of the week. I am certainly hoping so anyway!

Bonnie Hunter has named this quilt "Roll Roll Cotton Boll" but today whenever I looked at the colors, I kept thinking "Peppermint Hot Fudge Brownie Delight", a hot fudge sundae made with peppermint ice cream served on a warm brownie. Mmmmmm, my favorite! I think I can identify better with a hot fudge sundae than a cotton boll so maybe a name change is in the works for my version!