String Star

 

It's a top!

String Star

40 x 40

Someone gave me 12 of those gray floral triangles of fabric. Last month I decided to use them as a background to a String Star. I used some strings from the string bin that were in some of the colors in the floral.  Then when I went to assemble the blocks two of them went missing..  What was lost has now been found and assembly is complete. 

The four center blocks are all strings with a different gray floral used as the center string. 

And sew on...

***

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die..."

My sister-in-law Suzy passed away December 26, 2024.
My grand nephew George was born January 5, 2025

Boho Dandies

 

Boho Dandies

Blocks 73-108

Goal 108. Goal met!

Traditional block: The Dandy Quilt

Six inch blocks

Started Jan. 2024

Color scheme: scraps of grays, browns, electric oranges, sky blues and saturated purples.

And sew on...

***

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."...C.S. Lewis

Little Baskets

 

Little Baskets

4 inch finished

Blocks 62 - 73 of goal of 110

Started in Feb. 2023

The theme this month in my sewing space to move UFOs forward is "Itty Bits, Fiddly Bits". 

And sew on...

***

The sky at sunset the last few days was painted with pinks, yellows and oranges. Oh, what beauty! And the Wolf Supermoon has been casting a glow over the land at night.

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Oh joy! I recently received a package of backing fabrics for comfort quilts from Barbara and scraps from Virginia. 

What's In The Hoop?

 

I have been trying to get a quilt in the hoop so I can do some big stitch hand quilting but I keep procrastinating. In the meantime I have been doing some vessel embroidery. 

A couple of months ago I dug into a bin of items I picked up from thrift stores over a number of years before I retired over 8 years ago. Last month I worked on a lot of little cross stitch ornaments. This month I pulled out a crewel embroidery pillow kit that had never even been opened to work on.

This is the kit I purchased for 95 cents. I can still see the price up in the corner written in marker over the cardinal on the outside plastic. The kit comes complete with everything to finish except for the pillow form and I will make that with muslin and cut up batting pieces. I guess I was lucky to find this kit at that price oh so long ago. When I was researching it I found someone selling it on Etsy for $73.00! 🤔

Well, this is my stitching to date.

And sew on...

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

From The 3.5 Inch Width Scrap Box

 

The other day I posted about digging into my 2 inch scrap bin with a plan to empty it by year end. I left off with four patches for Buckeye Beauty blocks. So, now I am continuing on into the 3.5 inch width scrap bin. I have pulled out the blues and used pieces long enough to cut and make HSTs to finish up Buckeye Beauty blocks. I have been making them from scraps since last year.

Then I dug into the blue 3.5 inch squares. Sets of four went into uneven 9 Patches with the center strips pulled out of the 1.5 inch width scrap bin. This is a new start. I will just make them all year and put them into comfort quilts at year end.

Sets of two squares went into Four Patches. This is a new start and I have no plan for them right now. At year end I will decide what to do with them. Quite possibly they may be used as an alternate block.

I made Hollow Nine Patches with novelty squares. This is another new start and will make a cute comfort quilt for a child.

Then I made Nine Patch Snowball blocks. I started making these back in 2023 According yo my UFO list; however, I did not get very far and only have nine blocks not counting these. I think I ran out of 3.5 inch width scraps and squares and have not worked on them since 2023. My goal is 48 blocks for a quilt like the one I made back in 2018. I think I will make goal this year!

Oh, and one other thing...I made a few more Streak of Lightning blocks from 2 inch width scraps. In my blog post the other day I mentioned I needed to make A and B blocks in order for my diagonal streak to appear. So I made B blocks...

...So now with A and B blocks I am streaking! 😉

I have a lot of longer blue 3.5 inch width scraps so will be working with those for awhile.

And sew on...

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

It's A Finish!

 

It's a finish!

A quilt with no name because "big rose print surrounded by rose print Snowballs and Nine Patches" is too long and not very inspiring. How about "Snowball and Nine Patch Plus"? Ugh, not very creative, is it?

How about "Roses for Cathy"? After all, this quilt is for me!

54 x 72

That is the size I like for my lap quilt on those days when the house won't get warmer than 67 and I feel cold when just sitting doing hand work and watching TV with hubby John. Oh, and I just love being covered in roses! Now if they just made scratch and sniff fabric...

This is the center piece. One little corner of it was missing. I think I used that to make a six inch hexie a long time ago. That hexie is in my 2013 finish Rainbow of Favorite Things. Well, I just extended the 9P/ Snowball border into that big print center.

I used the same rose print fabric for all of the Snowball and Nine Patch corners. 

The rest of the Nine Patches and Snowballs were made with rose print scraps in warm colors. I quilted the Snowball/ 9P border with some four petal wild roses and some leaves.

In the center I quilted following along some of the lines in the motifs.

There are more roses on the back and the binding is a stripe with tiny roses. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alicia Quilts

***

Happy New Year!

From The Two Inch Width Scrap Bin

 

It's a top!

Courthouse Steps

40.5 x 54

Whenever I am blessed with a box of scraps I go through them with my little ruler in hand and measure the width. Scraps less than 6 inches in width get sorted by scrap width. Any scrap greater than a six inch square gets sorted by color and I call those scrap chunks. 

I was looking at my overflowing 2 inch width scrap bin and decided to make a plan to try to empty it.

The first thing I did was pull out all the longest strips. Most of those were greens and browns. I used the greens and some of the other colors of scraps to make 14 inch unfinished Courthouse Steps blocks. 

12 blocks made a nice sized child's comfort quilt. 

I started some 11 inch unfinished Courthouse Steps blocks with brown and cream scraps. 

I have made the first round on 35 blocks. 

Right now they measure 5 inches. I think I pulled enough brown scraps out of the bin to finish the blocks. If not I will cut 2 inch width strips from brown scrap chunks. 

When I saw the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color for January is blue I pulled out all of the blue 2 inch width scraps. I decided to make 8 inch unfinished Courthouse Steps in blue and light neutral scraps. I will make as many blocks as I can each month in the RSC color. 

Before the RSC color was called I played around with some gray scraps. I have seen two different blocks called Streak Of Lightning. One uses squares and 2x 3.5 rectangles and finishes st 9 inches. The other uses 2 inch squares and finishes at 6 inches. I decided they would make good use of some smaller scraps on the bins do added them to my list of RSC projects.

So...with the blue scraps and white and black squares for the "streak" I made 6 blocks.

This is the scrap with my scribbled instructions for the other Streak of Lightning block I saw several places online.

I made four blocks. When I put them up to take a photo I quickly realized a streak was not going to form. I think I need A and B blocks. B needs to be the same configuration but with darks in the light position and vice versa. 

I made a few Easy Breezy blocks. This is an RSC project from last year. I only need a few more blocks to meet my goal. 

I also made some Four Patches with the blue scraps and black. That is in prep for Buckeye Beauty blocks. I need to make some HSTs from blue 3.5 inch scraps so maybe that is the scrap box I will tackle next. The Buckeye Beauty blocks were a RSC project started last year and I think I am only half way to my goal so I will continue to make these from scraps in 2026.

Oh...one last thing with blue 2 inch scraps..I put some aside to make 25 patch blocks. A few months ago when I was working with orphan blocks I noticed I had thirty 25 patch blocks in the red,white and blue orphanage. I made those blocks several times when I had blue scraps leftover from making patriotic quilts. I decided to pull those out and make more blocks and add sashings for a comfort quilt. 

And sew on...

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I have been feeling dizzy the last few days do I have been taking it easy and napping a lot. I finally feel a little better today. Not sure what that was all about!