Take the Cure

I only have two more feathers to quilt with perle #8...

...and then I have to decide what to quilt in between all of those feathers.  I've had lots of great suggestions. 

I haven't had much quilting time lately. My husband had major surgery on Sep 29 which left him unable to walk, eat or talk for awhile (they replaced his mandible with his fibula) but is recovering nicely.  I took a week off of work to nurse him through that first week and while he was sleeping I sat near him and did a little hand quilting to bide my time.  When I went back to work I found that the nuts in charge had gone completely mad so when I got home from work I tried to pick up a little hand quilting to keep from going mad myself.   I have had to do my husband's chores around the house now  on the weekends and after work (he's retired and pretty much does the cooking and cleaning and laundry, etc) so I sneak in a little hand quilting at day end to keep myself from falling asleep before it's bedtime.   I'm still cleaning up the gardens without my husband's help and processing the last of the brussel sprouts and broccoli (yum...broccoli cheese soup), picking the last of the squash and pumpkins, peppers and tomatoes...and to me that is as much fun as hand quilting! 

So although my life seems nothing but slow these days I make sure to take time for myself and do a little hand stitching to keep myself sane and healthy and calm and rested (and I might have something to show for it one of these days). 

Take the cure!

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts  

Yellow

Yellow Flying Geese from 4.5 inch scraps.  

Looks kind of like a hidden object game this month.

If the RSC color is a primary color I use secondaries for the geese sides and vice versa.    This project will continue next year. I have about 58 blocks and that's not near enough for a big, colorful, fun, cozy, scrappy quilt. 

Interlocking Chains

14 inch blocks from 2.5 inch scraps. 

By the end of the year I should have enough for a quilt

ScrapHappy Saturday...a division of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

For Tom

Quilt of Valor for my brother-in-law, Tom. 

54 x 72

It's the third of three QOV quilts for family members who are veterans. I want to surprise them on Veteran's Day. Now I just need to remember to get them in the mail. 

I was going to make a Disappearing Four Patch for Tom's quilt but when Alycia posted a block for this year's QOV block drive designed by Jan O of  The Colorful Fabriholic I made a few of these nine inch blocks for the drive (speaking of getting things mailed...yikes, I see the envelope of them still sitting here) and decided to make lots more for Tom's quilt. 

These blocks are quick, easy and fun and I love the layout although I think there are endless possibilities for these blocks. 

I quilted it with loops and stars on my DSM using blue thread in the dark sections and white thread in the light sections of the quilt. 

Bound and washed it is oh so crinkly and soft. 

The back is a 100% silky cotton with stars - a sheet from the thrift store that was in excellent condition.   (Oh,, what sheets these people must have at home to sleep on if these are what they take to the thrift store). 

You can see the pattern on the back too since I used blue thread in sections and white thread in others. 

A big thank you to all of our Veterans! 

This was my goal #2

for Q4 Finish-A-Long

Today I'm linking to:

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Stacking and Whacking

Improv circles or bulls eyes. 

In June we made some Block Lotto Bulls Eye blocks using this similar method and I really liked how they turned out and had fun doing them.   So I decided start these as another new RSC project using the color(s) of the month and red and brown as my "neutrals".  I'm using chunk scraps for these. 

I fooled around a little with mixing and matching these, separating them by a thin sashing, etc. but in the end I think I liked the four fabrics stacked and whacked all together in one block.  I started with 8.5 squares of fabric and squared them up to 6.5 inch finished blocks. Four of them together will make a 12 inch block and use up a lot of those chunks of fabric. 

I made enough of these units so now I have (sans border units which are a different size) enough colors of the rainbow to make...

...a quilt similar to this one called Red Centre from Kathy Doughty's book Making Quilts. 

FYI - believe it or not both of these blocks use a similar method of construction called Stack and Whack - stack up pieces of fabric, whack through them, swap out a few pieces in the stack and then sew the whacked pieces all back together again. You get multiple blocks from each stack you whack. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

Zig Zag Rainbow

Zig Zag Rainbow

or Chevron Rainbow if you prefer. 

64 x 80

I've been making these blocks from scraps since, according to my blog, August 2014 as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project.  I guess it took me that long to come up with 4.5 inch scraps to use but now I have a whole box of scraps that size. 

This quilt is an eclectic mix of fabrics. I like that art deco lady with the poppy hat smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder.  How often do you see someone smoking these days let alone a smoker depicted in fabric? 

In Zig Zag Rainbow Land Mickey Mouse and Santa mix with spiders and fruits and veggies...

...and cats with hats, owls and rabbits.   The fun part is that you can't tell what all is in the quilt from afar but up close you can find lots of treasures to smile about. 

I quilted it on my DSM (yes, lots of starts and stops to do pivoting and to force the darned quilt through the small harp on my machine) following the zig zags. I used white thread in the neutral areas and used up old bobbins of thread in all the colors of the rainbow in the colored sections. 

Don't look at the back for too long...you may get dizzy. 

Don't know what I'm going to do with this quilt. For now it will sit on a shelf. 

This was my goal #3     for   Q4 Finish-A-Long

This was also my OMG (one monthly goal) for October 

 OMG at Red Letter Quilts

Also linking up to: 

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework 

Put on Your Sunglasses and Come On, Come On Get Happy

For this month's star I didn't have enough yellow miscellaneous sized scraps to cut for the triangles so I mixed it up with the accent color of orange.  But I usually use the accent color for the background so I threw in some red for the background on this one.  

These blocks finish at 18 3/4 inches so after I make two more I will be ready to assemble (as opposed to ready to rumble). 

I used the Triangle Star Pattern from AllPeopleQuilt. 

After I finish this one I'm going to make another with my civil war repro scraps.  These are easier to make than they look. 

From my 2.5 inch yellow and neutral scraps I made some pyramid units following the tutorial on Molly Flanders blog.  I need to see how many of these little guys I have because I'm ready for a BIG pyramid quilt.  They get assembled on the diagonal so I'm not even sure I know how many of these I need for a big quilt.  

Snakes. I have all of the colors of the rainbow made now (except the red ones that are half assembled) so I need to see what kind of rainbow snake layout looks good and go from there as far as what I still need to make.  I usually cut these from the bigger "crumb bag" scraps but sometimes from 2.5 inch scraps width wise because they are a little big longer than 2.5 inches but about 2.5 inches wide.  I'm using the pattern and templates from the book Denyse Schmidt: Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration.   And for the background I've been using different browns that look a little like the dirt where a snake that is not a snake in the grass might be found. 

THEN...

I found a shoe box of 3.5 inch scraps. I usually don't have many of those for some reason. But I do see a variety of colors in that box so I decided one of my RSC projects for next year will be little 3 inch snowballs with neutral 1.5 inch corners because I also have a whole lot of...

...bright 3 inch nine patches to mix in with those snowballs some day.  I've been swapping 29Ps for a long time so have quite the stash of them despite making two quilts with them already. (The darker 39Ps I have set aside for my neutral/dark Jack's Chain quilt which is a UFO I work on from time to time). 

And I've been watching Sally and Inspector Molly make a bow tie quilt and was inspired to make a few blocks (larger than Sally's) from the newly found 3.5 inch yellow and neutral scraps.  I like the vintage look of a simple block and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge keeps me making a few each month so I don't get bored making enough for a quilt all at one time.  (I like BIG quilts).  So mark this as another RSC project for next year. 

(I feel a little itchy after looking at these.) 

And speaking of simple blocks...here's another project for next year...3 inch rails from the 1.5 inch scrap box. 

Ok. that leaves 2.5 inch scraps for next year's projects (also leaves 4.5 inch scraps but I haven't gotten that far yet) so...

...I love HSTs in a quilt and I've been eyeing Lady of the Lake quilts for a long time so decided to try four  10 inch Lady of the Lake blocks in this month's RSC colors.  And that used up most of my yellow 2.5 inch scraps  These are pretty wild but mixed up with other colors of blocks they should be fine. So...with 2.5 scraps I'll be making some Lady of the Lake blocks next year.. Can't wait. 

Oh, and I don't want to forget to make a Tall Ship in each of the colors of the rainbow (using 2.5 inch scraps for the sails). 

I belong to an online "birthday club".  Each year everyone in the group chooses a block in colors of their choice and we all make the block and sent it to the birthday girl in her birthday month.   This month the birthday girl picked the Tall Ship block with sky or sea background colors, brown hull and scrappy sails.  I had my orange 2.5 scraps out so made the HSTs sails for her block plus a few extra for my block.   Twelve of these will make a nice little quilt and I have the perfect backing in my stash set aside for it. 

And finally...this month's Block Lotto block is a six inch fan block but when you put four of them together you get a Sunflower.  (I might have to make a few of these to go with my Sprout blocks). 

Well, that sure used a lot of yellow and orange scraps.  I didn't even realize I used that much yellow and orange. 

Got Scraps? 

Find inspiration each ScrapHappy Saturday. 

In The Hoop

I've been off work this week to take care of my husband post surgery (they took out his fibula and made it into his mandible to fix a jaw that broke due to osteoradionecrosis which means, I think, bone death due to radiation when he had cancer years ago).  During this time t's nice and relaxing to just sit, de-stress and hand quilt in between changing his dressings, packing his drains,  grinding his medications to dust and filling his "feed bag". 

These colors are definitely sunshine on a rainy day! (Bring on the sunglasses). 

As you can see I'm using perle #8 - odds and ends - different colors leftover from other projects - to stitch around the feathers and on the feathers themselves. 

(Yes, I'm a thread slob). 

Feather Bed is a free Anna Maria Horner pattern 

I used all the bright and long string scraps leftover, for the most part, from quilt backing trimmings.  Some of the scraps that are smaller in width were leftovers from the very end of a piece of fabric. If the fabric end pieces are smaller than 1.5 inches I throw them into the long string mishmash of scraps otherwise they go into the 1.5, 2.5 or 4.5 scraps.  

After I get the feathers all quilted I have no idea how or what I'm going to do with the empty space between the feathers.  Suggestions? (Easy ones, please). 

Got scraps? 

You need a Scraptastic Tuesday fix. 

Fourth Quarter Finish-A-Long Goals

It's time to declare some goals for the Q4 Finish-A-Long. 

1. Feather Bed. I'm in the process of hand quilting it now.

2. A Quilt of Valor surprise for my brother-in-law on Veteran's Day. 

3. Rainbow Chevrons. It's in the process of being machine quilted. 

4. An old, old, old, old Mystery Quilt. I think this will be one of the car quilts for a Car survival kit Christmas gift. 

5. Spools. A big quilt and these 3 inch spools aren't even sewn together yet. 

6. Twinklers. Another large quilt but these six inch blocks aren't sewn together yet. 

7. Fractured. I call it Frazzled. I am stalled on this one because I don't like that middle column. It just doesn't seem to fit.  This is made from scraps so maybe it doesn't matter...or maybe it does. 

8. Wild Kingdom (Jacob's Ladder). It looks kind of yucky in this configuration. This is another one I'm sticking in a Car Survival Kit gift for Christmas. 

9. Kaleidoscope of Butterflies - Some rows are sewn together!

10. Dresdens. Not sewn together yet. And I will be hand quilting. Good luck to me on a finish for this one! 

11. Vintage Butterflies (aka Beggar's Blocks). I was thinking of hand quilting but now I don't know. Hmmmm......

12. Rosebuds

13. Emerald Isle. Need the nine patch emerald isle part. 

14. Starz.  Another really old UFO and another one for the Car Survival Kit Christmas gift. 

15. Donation quilt

16. Donation quilt

17.  Another hat like this for other granddaughter (Christmas gifts). 

18. Another hat like this for other granddaughter but in different colors (Christmas gifts). 

19. Another hat like this for other granddaughter. (Christmas gifts). 

20. Two pillowcases (Christmas gift) for my Flamingo-loving sister. 

21. and 22.   Two clutch purses - one for each of the granddaughters. 

23. Purse for me

24.  and 25.  Glow in the dark skull bag or backpack - one for each granddaughter. 

Can't decide if I will use the Grab Bag pattern or Backpack pattern  from AllPeopleQuilt

26.   and 27.   Pillows.  Probably from orphan blocks. for Christmas gifts.