Sprouts

It's a finish!

Sprouts

64 x 72

This was a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project started way back in March of 2016.    I finished the flimsy in February of this year. 

I quilted it on my DSM. First I did straight line stitching in green down the length of all the stems.  Then I switched to a neutral thread and free motion quilted flowers and leaves in the background. I left the sprout leaves without quilting so they stand out from the background somewhat. 

The binding is also scrappy. 

Lots of scraps were used in this one! 

I thought the backing fabric looked like a garden of pink sprouts. 

From far away you can see the impression of sprouts in the backing. 

This is now in the stack of hugs to be given as needed.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

It's a Finish! Roy G Biv's Coin Purse

Roy G Biv's Coin Purse

63 x 77

Hand quilted

I made this in response to an AdHoc Improv challenge in Jan 2017 to make a Chinese Coin quilt.  I'd made a couple of them ages ago (about 2008?) with Halloween fabrics for my granddaughters but that was it. 

Well, I like challenges but I didn't have any fabrics I really wanted to cut up and use in a Chinese Coin quilt.  So I hit the "Parts Department" looking for bits and pieces in rainbow colors.  Who doesn't love a rainbow? 

I had a few green postage stamp blocks, some blue four inch orphan blocks...

...red rails left over from a kaleidoscope quilt, orange ends I had sewn together into a strip from the ends of 2.5 inch scraps...

...green 2.5 inch strip pieces (yummy broccoli and cupcakes), blue crumb blocks...

...orange four patches, yellow crumb block stars, blue rails...you get the picture.   I used blue for the separator between colors and columns because rainbows go with blue skies. 

I hand quilted with perle #5 in variegated colors of the rainbow that I had on hand.  I stitched vertical lines without marking in rainbow color order.  I enjoyed a visit with all those bits and pieces of fabric as I stitched.  A lot of them made me smile.  

I used a light variegated gray fabric for the background so the rainbow stitching would show up on the back.  Solid colors of the rainbow served as binding. How about that...one strip of each color was the perfect amount. 

This was my goal #11 

for 

Q1 Finish-Along

and 

18 in 2018

I spent a lot of time Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts and 

Oh Scrap! the scraps I used!  Quilting is More Fun than Housework. 

Getting Ready for the Hoop

I'm having a bit of carpal tunnel flareup these days so haven't been able to do hand quilting on the current quilt in the hoop and, darn it, I don't have much left to do.   So I decided to plan ahead and get the next quilt in the queue pin basted. Luckily I don't put many pins in when I pin baste because closing up all those safety pins isn't much easier to deal with when carpal tunnel comes around.  

 Anyway... this is Coin Toss (maybe Roy G. Biv's Coin Purse would be a better name?)  - 63 x 77 and ready for some hand quilting sometime soon.  It's a Chinese Coin quilt made from scraps and bits and pieces from the Parts Department. 

I pieced together some gray fabric I had on hand because I figured the rainbows I'm going to hand quilt into this quilt will show up on the back.   I'm going to use a variety of threads to do some big stitching. I'm planning to start in the middle and quilt some vertical lines in variegated colors of the rainbow. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts 

Into Every Rainbow Some Life Must Fall

Coin Toss

It's a top! 

63 x 77

It started in January as an Ad Hoc Improv Challenge to make a Chinese Coin quilt. 

I knew immediately I was going to make a rainbow, use bits and pieces from the "parts department" and make it approximately 60 x 80 and when finished it would go into a pile for donation to someone who needed some rainbow cheer. 

I first gathered together bits and pieces I had laying around here in one color.  That included some four patches, crumb blocks, miscellaneous four inch blocks, postage stamp blocks, leftover rail fence type pieces, ends of 2.5 inch scraps I had sewn together into strips.   I made some stars out of crumb blocks to get bigger blocks and I made some red flying geese but other than that I basically just had to sew a few four patches, postage stamp and crumb blocks together into strips measuring 20.5 inches.   

Rows and columns are separated by 1.5 inch blue (sky behind the rainbow) strips. 

When the three columns were all sewn together I had an almost squarish quilt at 63 inches in width and 65 inches in length.   That was a little off my goal of 80 inches in length so I raided my chunks milk crate for some 6.5 inch pieces in rainbow colors and made some six inch HSTs for the top and bottom - arranging HSTs in rainbow order.  I think I intended the color side of the HST to be next to the main body of the quilt with the blue on the outside but sewed them all together in reverse order so that's how it goes. 

At The End of the Rainbow

At The End of the Rainbow

56 x 63

Inspired by Red Centre in Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty

This was one of last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. I made a few of the blocks (well, not really blocks - maybe call them units?) each month from 4.5 inch scraps. 

I didn't have much of anything in my stash that looked right for border pieces so did purchase a little fabric that seemed to go with a rainbow quilt - birds against a rainbow sky and a rainbow of paw prints.   I had some rainbow looking stripe fabric that I used for the binding but didn't have enough so used what was left of the birds to add the necessary length. 

I had enough machine quilting thread in all colors of the rainbow to use to straight stitch along the straight sides of the blocks and then also used white to stitch along each straight side of the white sections.   BUT I hand quilted in perle #12 along each zig zaggy sides of the colored sections in the neutral areas.  I really didn't want to have turn the quilt on my DSM in order to stitch along the zig and zags and found big stitching to actually be quicker and easier. 

I had this rick rack fabric in my stash meaning to use it with some 30s repro quilts but decided this was the right place for it.   BUT I didn't have enough after I so carefully matched the rick rack when stitching up the fabric to be wide enough (or was it to be long enough?)...anyway I had to cut a piece off one side to add to the back but still didn't have enough so those birds came out to play again on the backing.  And that's the way it goes...

Now I'll mail this(after I find the right box) to my youngest brother, Steve,  who lives far far away in a land called Florida. I hope it's a pleasant surprise to say I love you, I'm thinking of you and take care of yourself and your heart.    He unexpectedly had quadruple bypass surgery last year around Easter after he suffered two heart attacks.   

This was my March OMG (One Monthly Goal) linked up at Elm Street Quilts

This was also goal #9    for 2017 Finish-A-Long Quarter 1

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

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 

Nifty Thrifties

I have finally finished another UFO.  

72x84

Thrifty Blocks

We swapped these blocks with ladies of a Yahoo Group that no longer exists. We swapped blocks in a different color each month during 2009 after the block pattern came out in March 2009. 

The blocks have been sitting in a bin for years.  I have almost enough pink blocks for another quilt this size. 

No fancy quilting on this one. I just sewed on the diagonal through the black squares. I didn't notice while sewing the blocks together that a few of them have the black squares in the corner oriented the wrong way. I only noticed while quilting and left them that way.  I think the purpose of a quilt is to keep someone warm and pieces going the wrong direction won't change that. 

The backing fabric I wanted to use wasn't large enough so I used some swapped violet blocks. If  I use more of the violet blocks in another quilt then I won't have anything left in the violet block UFO bin and that's fine with me.  I swapped the violet blocks with ladies of the Block_swappers Yahoo group and the pattern is another one of Sophie's Block Lotto blocks. 

I think the violets go well with the background fabric. 

And it feels good to have another UFO finished! 

Whooping it up at Confessions of a Fabric Addict 

and linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts. 

This was also my November goal for Lovely Year of Finishes. And it is indeed a Lovely Finish.