It''s a Finish! School of Fish

School of Fish

40 x 60

It's a finish and ready to be gifted or given! 

I used lots of different gray scraps and some school themed novelties that were leftover from making a school themed Happy Block quilt. 

 I quilted in some waves and bubbles on my DSM. 

I pieced together several small pieces of batting, used some leftover gray binding leftovers from the binding box and supplemented with more scraps and I had a nautical themed piece just big enough for the backing. 

Life is Good

 I've been machine quilting off and on for a few days.  

And I've been doing some gardening in between. 

Life is good. 

It's a Finish! Down the Beaten Path

Down the Beaten Path

84 x 96

Machine quilted

I started this in 2014 as a Quilt Along where everyone chose their own version of Drunkard's Path,  fabrics, size, etc.    I used a paper template and cut by hand the pieces for my six inch blocks because curves and a rotary cutter in my hands don't get along.  I chose polka dots and stripes for my fabrics because I had made a much loved Shoofly quilt using the same which started with swapped blocks. 

 Back in 2014 I made about 30 blocks and quit.   Fast forward to 2017 and I decided to move forward and make 224 blocks for a big quilt (14 x 16 layout). I made it my goal to make 12 blocks a week for however many weeks it took.  In March 2018 it became a flimsy. 

I took advantage of some cooler weather to work on finishing this big quilt on my DSM in the house with no a/c.   I used the Wayward quilting design found at Christina Cameli's blog, A Few Scraps. 

It was a lot of fun and pretty easy to do on my DSM with the dinky throat - far less boring than straight line quilting on a big quilt. 

I used a polka dot and a stripe fabric from stash on the back. I meant to make it into a four patch but never got that far when I got everything out to pin baste.  And so it goes... 

This was my goal #6

for 

Q3 Finish-Along

It's a Mysterious Finish!

 I guess I don't need to name a quilt I'm donating. 

This is the result of a magical mystery quilt along with Libby who blogs at Life on the Hill. 

48 x 48

This is a Hands2Help Quilty Hug for Happy Chemo

I used up some old floral bits and pieces and chunky scraps  - a lot of them daisies - and had some fun doing it. 

There were several ways to layout the mystery blocks. I chose fields and furrows. 

 I quilted it on my DSM with some very free form daisies. 

The backing and binding are full of roses. 

And those scraps were sure put to good use. 

Oh Scrap! Quilting is More Fun Than Housework

It's a Finish! Burgoyne Surrounded

 Burgoyne Surrounded

93 x 93

Quilted on my DSM

 The free pattern for this can be found at Quilted Twins

I started this as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project in 2017. I wanted to use up some miscellaneous scrap chunks of fabric so made blocks each month that primarily used the color of the month.  For instance this block used up some blue chunks. 

This block used up some pink scraps.  

You can kind of see how I very simply quilted it on my DSM - first I quilted diagonally along the chains Then I quilted horizontally and vertically along the sides of the sashing and through the middle of each block. 

 Then since batting (pellon nature's touch 80/20) instructions require quilting no farther than four inches apart I added more vertical and horizontal lines through each block. 

I did minimal quilting - it's difficult to wrestle a quilt this big through a DSM with a small harp. 

I used wide bleached muslin for the backing and neutral scraps for the binding. 

And I can mark another UFO off the list!

This was my goal #10 

for 

Q1 Finish-Along

and 

18 in 2018

Gone Quilting: What's In the Hoop and on the Sewing Machine?

Pumpkin Peel is in the hoop. 

If I remember correctly this is 80 x 80.

Hand quilting with perle #8. 

Burgoyne Surrounded is being quilted on the sewing machine.  Today will be day 3 of being surrounded by Burgoyne Surrounded while quilting.  It's a BIG quilt.  I think it's 93 x 93.  I have to take lots of breaks. 

Sew, Stitch, Snap, Share

A Finish: Homespun Fun!

 Homespun Fun

54 x 78

Machine quilted and tied

 Most of the Friendship Stars made of homespun fabrics and muslin were swapped long ago.  When Bonnie Hunter was running her mystery this year I decided to make the units she gave in the clues to advance some of my UFOs forward and skip the mystery.    Around the same time the Stashbuster Yahoo group was talking about an Irish Chain Challenge to bust stash.   And so that's how I decided to make the nine patch units and add them to the Friendship Stars in an Irish Chain layout. 

I quilted it on the diagonal in the muslin areas which left the star and nine patch homespuns  without quilting. That was okay for the nine patch blocks but left a little less quilting in the star blocks so I tied them in the center with perle #8. 

This will be a donation quilt for a guy when the time is right. Seems like a lot of male family and friends were hit by prostate cancers and such last year so I'll be glad to have one handy for giving although I hope I don't have a need to give it away under such circumstances. 

And now that I see this picture up close it looks like I might wash it again. The Color Catcher came out just a little gray and dingy looking with no color. I thought the muslin looked a little dingy but I chalked that up to using a gray backing and it possibly showing through to the front.  But now that I see the photo it looks like there might be a little bit of bleeding like around the green/blue star.  I hope it's just an optical illusion. It's difficult to wash quilts by hand around here now that I have the wringer washer.  (Actually, if you asked any of the men in my life if they saw anything wrong with the quilt they wouldn't even notice a little bleeding or dingy muslin. They would think something was wrong if it wasn't long enough to cover them properly while in a reclining position.) 

This was my goal # 7

for 

2018 Finish-Along

and

18 in 2018

Today I'm linking up to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework. 

A Finish! Churns and Spools

Chunky Churns and Spools

30s reproductions meet calicoes

68 x 86

Machine quilted on my DSM

I can mark two UFOs off the list with this one.  I combined blocks from a calico on muslin Spool swap in 2010 and a Chunky Churn swap in 30s reproductions and a solid from 2015. 

There's no design wall here. It's usually my practice to randomly sew blocks together. That's what I did this time but of course alternated a spool and a churn.  I think if I did have a design wall I would spend too much time arranging and rearranging and rearranging and rearranging and never be satisfied.  How do I know?  That has happened when I have tried to lay out blocks on the floor.  Anyway...I'm usually satisfied with my random method and I've managed to skip the step that gives me grief. 

I usually don't add borders because I never know what kind of border to add. Plus I like piecing blocks so piece and piece until I have enough for a nice sized top which means I'm ready to sew a quilt top together. At that point I don't want to make a different block for a border. And I rarely buy large pieces of yardage to have enough on hand for a non-pieced border of fabric(s) and so I usually make quilts without borders.   

HOWEVER this time I did not want to make more Churns or Spools to make the quilt a little larger  so I decided to challenge myself to add a border.  I decided to try an easy zig zag or rick racky looking border.    And all went okay on the first corner BUT...

 ... only too late did I find out at the second corner that those rick racky ends did not meet up so nicely no matter how hard I tried. Maybe if I had laid out the border on the floor ahead of time I would have seen the problem but I didn't so I had to improvise what to do on opposite corners. It doesn't affect the warmth the quilt will bring someone so I'm all right with that. 

 I didn't take a picture of the backing because it was cold outside yesterday when I took these pics but it is a plain white 100% old muslin sheet that I found new in the package at the thrift store with a J.C. Penney logo on the front.   With the quilting I did the back looks like a mattress pad.   

You can kind of see the quilting on that black calico spool - a pattern of up and down loops using each 2 inch square as a guide (most of the time).  This was the first time I tried this. I found it pretty easy to do on these blocks laid out on a grid and may try it again.  This time I got a little confused every once in awhile when I hit the blank space on the spools. 

I participated in four different Chunky Churn Dash swaps with different themes - patriotic, 30s, fall, spring.  I decided to challenge myself with different alternate block layouts for each theme.  So far I finished the patriotic themed one - a Quilt of Valor for my brother-in-law and this one. 

This was my goal #6 

for Q4 Finish-Along

This will go into the twin sized donation quilt pile. 

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework