Petunias

Petunias

Four - 18 inch blocks to add to the pile

Design Wall Monday

1718 Coverlet Update

My version of the 1718 Coverlet so far:

Mosaic patchwork 

Completely hand stitched

Using solid fabrics.

A slowly moving summer project

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts. 

Happy Hearts

40 x 56

Happy Hearts

This will be donated to either Quilts Beyond Borders or Wrap a Smile. 

Years ago I used to participate in a Happy Block swap every month.  Each participant would send out 6 Happy Block centers (either 4.5 or 6.5) to each participant who would border 5 of them with 2.5 inch strips and keep one center.  Then the bordered blocks were all sent back to the originator.    It was a great use of scraps and you would then get a variety of  bordered blocks back to put into a quilt.  I quit signing up for the swap when some people failed to meet their commitments to return blocks to the owner.  

At any rate...I have a huge box of Happy Blocks (my Happy Place) waiting to be made into donation quilts. 

I found almost enough heart themed blocks for this one, made a few more and before you know it a quilt was born. 

I quilted it simply with five petaled flowers and loops and swirls. 

I'm not used to making machine binding but it is suggested by several places I donate quilts that the binding be machine stitched. I have found my machine's buttonhole stitch does about the best job. 

This was my goal #11 for the Q2 Finish Along      with Adrianne at On the Windy Side. (link also on the sidebar). 

At the end of the month I will link up to Julie's Binding Blitz.  

Today I will link up with Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housewwork. 

Scraps of Blue...Goodbye to You

Blue is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color this month. 

Four eight inch string blocks. 

Eight nine inch Wonky Log Cabin blocks. 

27 six inch Cracker Blocks from 2.5 inch scraps. 

Got Scraps?

Use them up and show us what you've done each ScrapHappy Saturday

Does Mother Goose Still Exist?

I've put together row one of a Mother Goose Quiltie. 

Martha at Q is for Quilter is releasing a pattern each Sunday.   These were originally published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1920.   Illustrations were by Ruby Short McKim.  

I'm stitching on 10 inch pieces of muslin like the original. As a side note...these were originally meant to be stitched by children as part of a contest.  

I've been thinking of making some hope chest quilts for descendants I may never even know - baby quilts paired with some of the old books I have around here. 

That got me to wondering if parents still read Mother Goose rhymes to their children. 

This Mother Goose book was a baby shower gift.   That "baby" of mine is now 41 years old.  If I remember correctly the person who gave me this book said she "purchased" it with several books of S&H Green Stamps.   Remember those? 

When I used to read nursery rhymes to the kids I would ask questions like: "Would you like to live in a shoe?" ,  "How many children do you think lived in there?", "What do you think she will live in when the shoe wears out?", "Have you ever seen a shoe as big as a house?"

"What were they going to do with the pail of water?", "What's a crown?", "Next time you fall down should I put some vinegar and brown paper on you?"

"What song do you think those fiddlers were fiddling?"

"What would you do if you were king for a day?"

What I didn't ask...

"What was he smoking in that pipe that made him such a merry old soul?"

A Quilting Reader's Garden - WIPs Be Gone

Confessions of a Fabric Addict - Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?

Which Way to the Chocolate?

Which way do I go to get to the chocolate? 

To Border or Not to Border. That is the Question.

I finished my Sister's Choice in Civil War reproductions top...or have I ?????

The blocks are 10 inches so as you can see..my top is now 60 x 80. 

But the more I looked at it the more I heard little voices calling...border, border, border.   I'm not a border person so either those little voices in my head are turning against me or trying to teach me new tricks.  BUT, I thought I read somewhere that civil war quilts were rarely bordered.  Or did I just imagine I read that? 

Anyway...should I add a border? If so what should it look like? I have an idea but not sure I actually like it enough (or am ambitious enough) to make it. 

Obviously I don't have a design wall.  I just randomly sewed blocks together. I don't think design walls were a thing back in the civil war days so I guess I'm really reproducing with my reproductions. 

Design Wall Monday 

for those who may or may not have design walls. 

August update:
To get this finished (borders or not) is my August goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes!

Bear Foot - a Finish

Bear Foot

82 x 98

Blocks finished at 14 inches and I used sashing that finished at 2 inches. 

Sometimes I've seen this block called Bear Paw but I think the Bear Paw block is different. 

I used some four patches I swapped with the Block Swappers Yahoo Group as well as some of my own I made from scraps. 

I matched up four patches in the same color way and then added HSTs in the same color and fabric. 

I quilted the whole thing on my Plain Jane Janome DSM. 

I freemotion quilted some leaves because I've heard bears poop in the woods where there are lots of leaves.  Someone suggested previously that I should quilt a bear paw.  I'm just not that free motion talented so leaves was as naturey as I get. 

The backing was a nice 100% cotton sheet in great condition from the thrift store. 

This was my June Goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes. I was #24 at goal setting party.  (See sidebar for link to ALYoF 2015)

This was also one of my Q2 Goals (#3) for 2015 Finish Along.  ( See sidebar for link to the 2015 Finish Along)

At the end of the month I will also link up to Julie's Binding Blitz. Also see sidebar for link. 

And today I will link up to Oh Scrap - also on the sidebar. 

Oh, and excuse me if I don't reply to a comment. It seems my email server (csteldridge.com)  is having a problem and I have been missing some emails since yesterday. 

Midnight in the Fairy Garden

I started Midnight in the Fairy Garden - a crazy quilt wall hanging with a lot of stitching with glow-in-the-dark threads - several years ago.   I've had a hankering to work on this once again this summer.  On these two blocks I outlined the fairy bodies with glow threads and then painted the body with glow paint. I just need to finish filling them in with some satin stitch.  I'm hoping to do that this afternoon (if I can find my glow threads) while enjoying cocktails on the deck with my husband who will hopefully be grilling spareribs.  But he had a root canal Friday and is not feeling all that well so we might just have homemade chicken soup for supper. 

Here's the rest of the blocks I have so far. All of them need a little work. On two of them (top and bottom right) I made the blocks and then stitched the fairies and the blocks were then stitched on by others in a round robin fashion.  I might redo some things on those blocks. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

Dresden Plates - the Blue Version

Each month I make four Dresdens in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  This month the color is light blue.  I make one with the RSC color plus b/w, one with the RSC color plus w/b, one with the RSC color and it's complement and one in just the RSC color.   All are on gray backgrounds and have gray rick rack around a polka dot center. 

A Quilting Reader's Garden

ScrapHappy Saturday 

Miscellany

The Block Swappers Yahoo Group, the swapping branch of the Stash Busters Yahoo Group, is celebrating a ten year anniversary.    Starting in July we will be swapping six inch Bonnie Hunter style Chunky Churn Dashes for a year with a different theme for each month.  The theme for July is red, white and blue and I've got some ready to swap.  I won't swap the ones on the right because I missed the part where the center should be light fabrics so I will use those in my own quilt. 

This block is a great use of 2.5 and 1.5 inch scraps! 

Interested? 

Anyone can join the group and swap. 

The block of the month for Block Lotto is a Nine Patch Plaid block. 

I hope I win this month!  

With these blocks I can say good bye to several little pieces of blue fabric that were in the scrap box. 

Again, if interested, join Block Lotto and play. 

Reproducing Old Things

Martha at Q is for Quilter is releasing a new Mother Goose Quiltie pattern each Sunday.  The illustrations are by Ruby Short McKim, 1920 and were originally printed in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 

I have stitched the first two Quiltie Patterns, Mother Goose (#1) and Old Woman in the Shoe (#2) on a ten inch piece of muslin in red (321) perle #8.   I'm waiting for #3 to be released today. Good thing I took a pic because I can see a few lines I missed stitching. 

I think it will make a cute baby quilt paired with a Mother Goose book. 

1718 Coverlet Progress

I prepped a lot of 4 inch blocks for my last vacation but only finished the four blocks in that center row.  I'm making the blocks all by hand in the traditional method used by the maker- mosaic patchwork.  My blocks will all be in solids fabrics. 

I've been having some problems with the next block on the top row. When I finish that middle block the bottom row will get added to the top row. 

These are a couple of my hand stitching projects for summer since I don't have air conditioning and it gets rather warm hand quilting a quilt. 

Hand stitching? 

Join us for Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts. 

Kaleidoscopes - Light Blue Version

 

Thirteen eight inch kaleidoscopes made from light blue 2.5 inch scrap pieces with corners in solid blues. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

Making Waves...Gulf Waves...not Ocean Waves

I've been in Florida on vacation so missed a post for Scraptastic Tuesday on Tuesday. But it's not too late. 

Today I used some waste triangles to make a modified and very scrappy Ocean Wave block I'll call Gulf Waves since we were on the Gulf Coast of Florida. 

I have a whole box of waste triangles that need to be used up so I just cut some 2.5 inch red solid squares and started chain sewing waste triangles to the corners of the red squares.  I usually try to make a couple of Quilts of Valor every year and at least a dozen quilts for Quilts Beyond Borders and Wrap a Smile so Gulf Waves will be a donation quilt when all is said and done. 

Speaking of Gulf waves...we took our two ten-year-old granddaughters with us to Florida and they found lots and lots of Starfish.  All of the persons visiting from foreign countries gathered around the granddaughters and the English speaking folks learned from them how to find their own Starfish in the Gulf. (The granddaughters are better public speakers than grandma).  Some people found their own Starfish, lots of people took photos of themselves with Starfish and all of the Starfish, as far as I could see, were returned to the Gulf to live another day. 

Scraptastic Tuesday

Twinklers in Blue

I'm on vacation but I made these Twinklers in blue before I left and scheduled this post. 

I don't want to miss ScrapHappy Saturday. 

I'll Be Missing You

On vacation June 3 - 10.

I'll be missing you! 

Bearfootin'

My June goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes 

My Big Bear Foot quilt is ready for some free motion quilting...leaves maybe?  

Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah

Three more blocks for 

Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah. 

I'm having fun with these.