In The Hoop: I Love Cherry Pie

I Love Cherry Pie is in the hoop now. 

Hand quilting in perle #8, size 4 needle. Sometimes called big stitching. 

It's a queen-size; close to king sized. 

Another UFO.  Hopefully not for long. 

It's a Flowering Snowball.  Do you see flowers or snowballs? 

I'm quilting as you see in all the solid red/pink (cherry colored) sections and will quilt some circles in the cherries later on.  I'm not quite sure yet if I am going to quilt concentric circles or interlocking circles. 

I work on it a little each evening after work and quilt along in blog land at Kathy's Quilts for some 

Slow Sunday Stitching. 

Planning Ahead

Green is the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

I made almost all of my light green/bright green/dark green blocks for all of my RSC projects back in May. I just need to make some Dresdens this month. I have those pieces cut. 

So, I started planning some RSC projects for next year because I still have lots of scraps! 

First up is Snake Trail.   I'm going to use browns for the background and scraps for the snake. 

I think my grandson will like this quilt because he LOVES playing a game called Hissssssssss - a snake making tile game (although at age 6 he's a little old for it now but this quilt might trigger memories later on in life of playing Hissssss with grandma.)

The pattern  is from Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration by Denyse Schmidt. 

The other project will use 4.5 inch scraps in color of the month and neutrals.  I'll just make some of these easy/peasy units each month. Not sure how I will lay them out at the end of the year but I'll probably end up with a couple of quilts. 

The method and inspiration came from Kathy Doughty's book Making Quilts. 

I'll probably make two quilts for my granddaughters and swap out that "Red Center" (the name of Kathy Doughty's quilt) and replace it with a little heart block and think of some sappy name for the quilt that reminds them how much I love them.  

Will you join us for RSC 2016? (No purchase necessary)!!!!!!

Join us each ScrapHappy Saturday and show us your scrappy rainbow projects. 

56 Shades of Envy: Final Chapter

It's Finished! 

56 Shades of Envy

84 x 96

I started making these 12 Dandy Quilt blocks way back in 2014 when green was the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I then made more this year in May when green was the color of the month for the 2015 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I found I had a lot of small green scrap chunks so stars were born.  I figured 56 Shades of Envy was a better name for the quilt than Spewing Green Chunks. 

I arranged them from the lightest up in the upper left corner...

...to the darkest in the lower right corner. 

There were lots of shades in between. 

Most of the blocks look like this. 

But in a few blocks I didn't have quite enough of the green chunk so the star is all made in the background fabric. 

I quilted it on my DSM with straight and diagonal lines. I used variegated green thread on top and light green thread on the bottom.  I had to do some quilting in the ditch and I really don't see well enough to stay in the ditch but I try.  

The back is a wide dark green solid.   The binding is made of more green scraps. 

I listed this as my #5 -Q4 2015 Finish Along Goal  with  Adrianne of On the Windy Side. 

Take another UFO off the list!

Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

One More Will Fit in the Box. Now I Just Need to Make It.

I can squeeze one more quilt into the box before I mail it to Quilts Beyond Borders. 

Now I just need to make it. 

I think I have enough orphan blocks and scraps that follow a fall type theme. 

So one more quilt for the box is my November goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  

And then getting the box mailed is my other goal. 

Another Flimsy: Jack's Chain

Jack's Chain

It's just a top right now and measures about 70 x 80 more or less. 

I might end up calling it Jacob's Chain since this is another one for the hope chest...a wedding quilt for my grandson, Jacob, who is six.  

It's been in the works for a long time. There's lots of fun little 3 inch 9 patches and lots of Y seams. 

And I hope there will be lots of hand quilting going on one of these days.  No hurry to get it completed, though. I don't think my grandson is going to get married any time soon.  

Linking to:

WOW= WIPs on Wednesday at Esther's Quilt Blog. 

Bird Brains

Bird Brains

91 x 111

I started it in 2012. 

I usually don't border quilts but I wanted to try some prairie points so I added them to this quilt thinking they would look kind of like leaves. 

The body of the quilt is actually a simple snowball/nine patch. Lots of them.

I used a lot of bird fabrics and garden fabrics.  If I were to make it over today I wouldn't use so many fabrics with neutral backgrounds.  But back when I made this I thought I had read somewhere that when you use a lot of color your eyes need somewhere to rest.    Well, not my eyes as I have since found out. 

The whole thing is hand quilted.  I wasn't sure what to do about those loose and flapping prairie points so I found a leaf stencil and hand quilted leaves in that purple and lime border and then out into the prairie points.  Although that was a heck of a lot more work than just tacking at the points I like my decision.  But, it took a whole bunch of stab stitching through numerous layers of fabric in places. Sometimes, depending upon where the leaf stencil ended up there were 10 layers of fabric. 

The snowballs were hand stitched in a sort of flower shape. Again I used a stencil and if the fabric was light colored I marked with mechanical pencil. If fabric was dark I used chalk.  I tried using a mechanical pencil with white lead but the leads kept breaking. 

Here you can kind of see the leaves around in the border and another hand quilted flower. 

In the nine patches I just quilted diagonal lines.  It reminds me of a trellis. 

I just finished up the binding early this morning. I normally get up at 4:00 am to get ready for work but for some darned reason I was up at 3:00 a.m this morning so I made some coffee then got stitching.  (I hate time changes. I'll probably be ready for bed at 7:30 p.m.)  Then I threw it in the washer with a couple of color catchers and then into the dryer. It wasn't quite dry when I took it outside to take photos but I had to get out there while the sun was in the right spot. 

The binding finish was my Slow Sunday Stitching today.  I have another machine quilted quilt to bind later on this evening and then I will pin baste another quilt and get it ready for the hoop. Hmmm...which one? 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun than Housework

This was my goal #3  (see post)

for the 2015 Finish Along with Adrianne of On the Windy Side

Dresdens - the Brown Addition

I'm winding up the brown RSC color of the month with some brown Dresdens.  

These use 4.5 inch scraps and are appliqued to 13 inch backgrounds. 

Each month I usually make 4 but this month the color complement for brown is unclear to me since it is not on most color wheels.  Some searches say something like cyan. Rather than worry about it I only made 3 Dresdens. 

My rules for Dresdens this year:

1. gray background fabrics

2. polka dot centers

3. gray rick rack around centers

4. one block entirely in the color of the month

5. one block in the color of the month plus black/white fabric

6. one block in the color of the month plus white/black fabric

7. one block in color of the month plus the color complement

Got Scraps?

Use them. Share your progress each ScrapHappy Saturday.