Finish-A-Long Quarter 2 Goals

It's time to declare some goals for the second quarter of Finish-A-Long.  Last quarter I finished up 6 out of my 14 goals but I did get farther along on some goals I'm carrying over to this quarter.  I probably would have finished more if I did more FMQ instead of hand quilting but I do love hand quilting. 

1.  Rolling Stones (birthday blocks) - have enough blocks for a quilt and I didn't make any of them. I'm thinking I'll add a thin cream sashing.  

2. Dresdens - have enough blocks for a quilt.

3. Twinklers - have enough blocks for a quilt.

4. Kaleidoscopes - have enough blocks for a quilt. 

5. STARZ - have enough blocks for a top.

6. Feathers - it's a top. Needs some hand quilting. 

7. Pale strings - pieced batting and backing ready. Needs pin basting and FMQ.

8. Happy Butterflies - batting and backing is pieced. Needs pin basting and FMQ. 

9. Butterflies - Can't decide whether to hand or machine quilt. 

10. Mystery - really, really, really old mystery quilt needs some quilting so it can be donated. 

11. Velveteen Rabbit.   Ready for some hand quilting. 

12. Butterfly Garden - in the hoop. 

13. Vintage Tulips - It's just waiting for some hand quilting. 

14. String Star - have all star points made. 

15. Wild Kingdom Jacob's Ladder - Need more blocks. 

16.  Fractured - leftover fabric pieces from Petunias leftover from Pickle Dish. Need more blocks. 

17. Flying Geese - leftover fabric pieces from Vintage Spin. Not sure of layout. 

18. Patriotic Chunky Churn Dashes - need more blocks for Quilt of Valor. 

19. One of my granddaughters has an obsession with hats so for Christmas I'm going to crochet her a box of hats. My other granddaughter will probably want the same. 

20. Crochet hat

21.  Crochet hat - reflective yarn! This is the one Isabelle picked out of the book as her fav.  And I guessed it would be her fav.

22. And I still haven't made that darned purse! 

I have high hopes. High apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes. 

2016 Finish-A-Long

Orange

Orange is the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I've been making these stars each month from miscellaneous scrap pieces.  I found I was very low on light orange but made it work best I could. I'm challenging myself to actually use scraps and nut cut into anything except for the background.   The background was in my brown stash but with the oranges it sure looks dark orange now.  

The rest of this week's blocks are from the 4.5 inch scraps. 

I made a chevron block plus had some leftover 4.5 HSTs for the "kitchen sink" pile.  I only needed one more orange chevron for my yellow and orange row. 

I made some of these 4.5 inch "things" which seem to have a lot of different layout possibilities from what I've seen in books and in blog land.  At the end of the year I will have a rainbow of them and decide what to do with them then.

And finally from the 4.5 scraps I made some Flying Geese.  If the color of the month is a secondary color I use primary colors for the sides - also from the 4.5 scrap box. 

Got scraps?

Use them up and join us each ScrapHappy Saturday. 

OMG: Rosebuds

I just found out about OMG (One Monthly Goal) over at Red Letter Quilts.  It's time to set a goal, I guess.  By the end of April I hope to finish 28 more 12 inch Rosebud quilt blocks to add to the 28 already made for a grand total of 56 blocks. 

In the Hoop: Butterfly Garden

Butterfly Garden is in the hoop. It is based on a Kathy Doughty (of Material Obsession) design called "Follow the Sun" found in her book "Adding Layers". 

Right now I'm using navy perle #8 to quilt around the "sun rays".  I'm not sure what I'm going to do after that. In the centers I'm contemplating using regular hand stitching thread to quilt around some of the butterfly shapes. And then there's the sashing...

Slow Sunday Stitching with lots of others at Kathy's Quilts

Also, because there's butterflies involved here...linking up to Kaleidoscope of Butterflies. 

Orange 1.5 and Crumbs

Crumb Butterflies

using Ghost Moth for a pattern 

A few orange 3 inch spools plus a stray dark purple I forgot to make last month. 

A couple of whatever this block happens to be - made of 1.5 postage stamps and muslin strips.  I made the orange and black one yesterday but made the orange and blue one either last year or the year before.  I think I will use the plaid in the background for sashing. I saw a...

...vintage 30s quilt a couple of years ago on Ebay (above) and was inspired to make my own from scraps.   Seller called it "Vintage 30s Roman Stripe".  I know Roman Stripe as a different block. 

Got scraps? Orange ones? 

Orange is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month. 

April Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

76.5 x 85.5

Butterfly quilt top

I made the blocks over a period of years as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

I saw a vintage version of this and loved it so decided to make one for myself. 

The block is otherwise referred to as a Beggar Block. 

I'm not normally a border person or a sashing person.  I prefer to make LOTS of blocks instead. BUT sometimes a quilt just needs some sashing and/or a border. I should have used cornerstones instead of one long piece of sashing between rows. I think you can see why. 

Anyway...it's a quilt top and now I have to piece together some batting scraps, find a backing and decide how to quilt it - hand or machine? and what motif? 

The Happy Place

I am low on donation quilts plus I need a quilt to try out free motion quilting on my new sewing machine so I dug into my Happy Place. I used to use keep a bunch of 6.5 inch centers in different themes cut up and then I would surround them with 2.5 inch scraps whenever I had them.  These are usually referred to as Happy Blocks. 

I pulled out a pile of Butterfly Happies and sorted them into colors, trimmed them up and... 

...made a 50 x 50 Butterfly Happy Quilt top in the purples, blues and oranges I found in the Butterfly Happy pile.   

Again, I need to piece together some batting, find a backing and then quilt it and it will be ready for the donation pile.   I think I will quilt it with a flower motif. I'm a little nervous trying FMQ on my new DSM but I'll get through it.. 

I always try to stay caught up on my 4 inch waste triangle butterfly blocks.  All these brown ones are scraps from the making of my recent Velveteen Rabbit quilt.  I'm almost out of scraps to use for the blue backgrounds so not sure what I'll use next. 

And finally I started TWO new butterfly quilts based on the free quilt pattern Ghost Moth. 

The top one uses some pieces leftover from the Butterfly Kaleidoscope quilt I'm working on (but haven't worked on in March) and a floral background.  The second one will have crumb butterflies on a gray butterfly background. The second one is a new project for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

I have a butterfly quilt in the hoop right now but I'll wait until Slow Stitching Sunday to show you that one. 

Did you know a group of butterflies is called a Kaleidoscope? How appropriate. 

And in regard to real butterflies around here...it's too cold for them now.  But stay tuned to this space as it gets warmer.  That's a Buddleia (Butterfly Bush) sticking up out of those fabric scraps I used as mulch.  It's one of five I started from seed last spring and planted last fall.  I used to have a lot of them but over the years they have all died or disappeared so last year I started more for the flower gardens.  They are supposed to be deer resistant; however, I swear with my own eyes I've seen deer munching on them.  When I used to have Butterfly Bushes they were always covered with butterflies.  Hopefully I'll see a kaleidoscope or two of butterflies soon!

An InLinkz Link-up

Marginalia: Quilty 365 Circles

My March circles for Marginalia which is a Quilty 365 project - an idea of Audrey's who blogs at Quilty Folk.  The idea went viral and there's all kinds of circles out there in blog land now. 

I started my circles on Nov 4, 2015 and have made one every day since.  I don't know how many that happens to be but I need to start sewing them together. But first I need to make up some circles with the letters in MARGINALIA and then I will sew them together in date order in rows 18 x 21. 

I keep a note some highlight of the day on each 4 inch block with either a micron pen or permanent fine tipped marker.  I finished up March 31 last night while waiting to hear on my brother's quadruple bypass surgery.  He had a heart attack two days in a row which was a surprise to all of our family since he didn't even know he had any heart problems - he doesn't smoke, is not overweight, and doesn't drink or take any drugs.  He does love bacon, though. So no more bacon for Steve! It's difficult to be so far away (he's in FL and I'm in IA) and feeling helpless. 

When I went to take pictures of my circles I also noticed I forgot to make circles for two days (so maybe I fibbed a little when I just said I "have made one every day since"). Either I forgot or they got lost but anyway...I had some black fabric with eyes on it...those denote that either the block for that day fell into some black hole (or I was feeling like I was in a black hole). 

Other than that I celebrated a birthday, St. Patrick's Day (I'm of Irish ancestry on dad's side), first day of Spring, PI day and Easter.   I had crocus and species tulips in bloom. My granddaughter received a blue ribbon for her violin solo. I decided I will retire March 30, 2017. I finished the book "The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom ( a good book, btw).  I finished a Jack's Chain quilt and I ended my sewing machine tension problems (on Janome DC2010) and my tension headaches and bought a new  Brother SB3129. 

There's quite a variety of circles (and other shapes). Just look and see at the Quilty 365 linkup.