Show and Tell :: Quilts for Oncology (Part 2)

These quilts were all given to me at our December guild meeting.

I don't remember who made this first one.

This one was made by Bev. She cut up a panel.

These last two were made by Judy. Again, she is using her scraps and making up patterns she has wanted to do but didn't have a reason to make them up until now.

I absolutely love this one above! I may need to make one of these too some time.

Show and Tell :: Quilts for Oncology (Part 1)

These four were donated last month but I didn't get pictures of them due to my camera woes.

These first two were made by Judy. She is using scraps and working through some patterns she has wanted to make but didn't have a reason to make them.

This one was made by Barb. It's a Yellow Brick Road using western themed fabrics.

And this last one was made by Peg.

Finish :: Half Square Triangle Sampler

I finished this before Christmas, but haven't had time to edit the photo until today.

I still need to make the bag for it before it can be donated to my local hospital for an oncology patient. I have quite a few more quilts for oncology that were given to me at our last guild meeting to share with you later this week.

Felted Pincushions

A couple months ago one of the blogs I follow posted a video tutorial of how to make felted pincushions. The link will take you to that post where you can see the beautiful pincushions she made. Click here to see her second batch. I've embedded the video for you below.



 I love pincushions. I've always thought it would be fun to make felted wool pincushions. AND during the going out of business sale at my LQS I was able to buy a bunch of little bits of wool roving. I needed an activity for us on Sunday so I showed the video to my son. He said it looked like fun. So I got everything out and we each made one to test the process.

The boy is much faster than I am so to keep him occupied while I continued I asked him to take some pictures.

Here is his pincushion before we put it in the dryer.

And here is mine after it went through the dryer.

They both turned out nice! We will definitely make more. I have enough wool roving to make several more. I need to get some bases for them though. I prefer the dishes like Luann uses rather than little pieces of wood like Patsy uses in the video. We'll make a thrift store run one of these days to see what we can find.

Ours spent about an hour in the dryer since 30 minutes didn't seem like enough in our dryer. I can tell that they are still damp in the center. So we will let them sit out and dry completely for a few days before using them.

A Pieced Back

I took the Christmas Quilt to show to my art group. They all said that additional borders were unnecessary. Which confirmed my feelings on the matter. So I've made a back for it.

Then I basted it and have begun quilting it. I asked for quilting suggestions from my art group too and got some good advice. When I have time to work more on this, it is ready to go.

Binding

This is the plan for today.

Hand sewing the binding to the back.

I've also been enjoying season two of Mr. Selfridge. I watch it through my Amazon Instant Video app on my iPad while hand sewing. It isn't the kind of show the rest of my family would enjoy. It was recommended based on my "liking" of Downton Abbey. It's set in the same time period and also takes place in England, specifically London. You might enjoy it too if you also like Downton Abbey.

Snowy Day Plan

Yesterday it was snowy and gray. I had dinner going in the crock pot before 9 am. After wrapping some packages I decided to that I needed to quilt something, anything. I had a quilt already basted, this quilt, which I basted back in October.

I didn't do anything fancy, just an all-over meander.

This will be a quilt for oncology when finished.

I haven't share of photo of Spooky lately. She has gotten big! She weighs 12 lbs now.

She looked so cute laying under the Christmas tree. She has a "you aren't going to make me move?" look.

Pinwheel Blocks

I don't have much to show today, just these two pinwheel blocks.

These blocks will become part of my guild's 2015 raffle quilt. We purchased a packet of brightly colored 10" batik squares and some Kona white. The blocks will all be pinwheels. I think we need 48 pinwheel blocks. Then there will be some applique as a border or the center or both. I'm not exactly sure.

The rest of my sewing time has been spent working on my In Full Bloom, the 2014 Sue Spargo BOM. I'm still not able to post any photos of it but it is looking good, if I do say so myself. I'm finishing up the embroidery on the last block. Then I will be able to sew all the blocks together. My packet with the border fabrics and instructions is already here. My last packet with the backing, binding and a label is on it's way. It has been a fun year working on this project!

Baa, baa Black Sheep ...

have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, two big honkin' bags full!

Yesterday my friend Debbie asked if I had time to stop by because she was given four big bags full of fabric, some of it wool. So I stopped by. And then left with the above bags of mostly wool. There are a few pieces of cotton I pulled out for specific projects in progress and a few pieces of silk. I also pulled out a couple of kits thinking I might do a giveaway here soon.

These things all came from a relative who passed away recently. She was a quilter and even worked at her LQS for many years. She was very talented. Debbie has been rescuing some of her unfinished projects by bringing them home and finishing them. We think many of the unfinished tops she had were originally store samples that she never got around to finishing once they were no longer hanging at her LQS. I can identify, as I have several of those types of UFOs at my house.

My art group is starting a new group project. One of the requirements is to use wool. A few of the group members don't have any wool in their stashes. Well ... they have no excuse now! I will be taking these bags with me to our next meeting. Hopefully I will have time to sort through it first and organize it a bit. If not, we can do it together.

Thank you Debbie!!

Gift Sewing

'Tis the season for gift making. I've been making ornaments and dishrags.

Well, the ornaments were made last weekend. I started on the dishrags in September when I was still working at my LQS as something to do during the brief lulls in the going out of business sale. Initially, there was no time to do anything other than store business. After a couple of weeks there would be little windows of time during the afternoon when I had nothing to do. There is only so much shelf straightening I can handle, so I started bringing my crochet hook and some yarn.

My guild is doing a potholder exchange this year. Below is what I made.

front

back

We were given a pattern to use so everyone's potholder will be the same block, with different fabrics.

Christmas Quilt Center Finished

I finished the last block, added all the embroidery and buttons to the blocks that needed them, and assembled the blocks over the weekend.

At the moment, this will finish at 48" by 48". The pattern calls for a small inner border and a larger outer border. If I add these it will finish at about 60" by 60". I'm undecided as to whether or not I want to add these. The best fabric I have in my stash for the wider outer border is a dark green tone-on-tone very similar to fabrics already used in the center. It will look nice but I'm not sure it will really add anything to the design. It will just make this bigger. I've emailed the folks I'm making this for to see what they want me to do. Until I hear back it will wait.

Christmas Quilt Progress Report

As you can see below, eleven of the twelve blocks are done except for some embroidery and embellishments.

I realized after taking the photo above that I neglected to sew on the decapitated snowman's second arm (block directly above my blog address in the photo above)! I have fixed that and have a good start on the last block.

This last block is a "snoozing" Santa. I might actually meet my personal deadline to have the top together before Christmas this year! I'm also pleasantly surprised to see that all of the blocks seem to be the correct size and should go together fairly easily.

The pattern calls for a narrow light colored inner border and a wider outer border. I believe I have a good fabric in my stash for the inner border. I haven't started looking for an outer border yet.

Angel Project Quilt Done

My Film at Five quilt is finished and on it's way to Gene for his Angel Project.

I love how this turned out! I did the "tube method" for my 25 patch blocks which made this go together much faster. I have been aware of the method for some time but this is the first time I have had a chance to use it. It worked well.

I spent a little extra time on the quilting for this one, just because.

The quilting pattern is a traditional sashiko pattern and pretty easy to do on an already gridded top. I've done it before on larger squares. I think it looks better on these smaller, 2" finished, squares.

The finished quilt measures 54" by 70". I used 30 2.5" strips of print fabrics and Kona Ash for the background. The binding is Kona Navy. The pattern is called Film at Five by Deanna of Wedding Dress Blue. Click here to go to Deanna's excellent tutorial. I quilted it with Signature 40 wt. cotton in Ivory. Strangely, the ivory colored thread is pretty close match to the Kona Ash, which is a gray fabric.

Sewing with Mom, Part 2

Mom brought a couple of projects to work on.

First, she brought a stack of completed blocks. She asked my son to arrange them for her on my design wall, then she sewed them together. This is what he came up with.

She plans to add a border, maybe two. We discussed doing a thin solid black border then following it up with a multi-colored batik that pulls colors from the center. She will look through her stash to see what she has already before making a final decision.

She also brought a completed quilt that just needed the binding hand sewn to the back. Here it is all completed.

Sewing with Mom, Part 1

We got right to work shortly after she arrived on our first project, a Sew Together Bag. She picked out some fabric and zippers from my stash.

The bag took us two days to complete because (1) it is a pretty involved pattern and (2) we did other stuff besides sew.

Our next project was a little basket.

For the inside she used a mini charm pack of French General that I gave her for her birthday. I also gave her the Moda Candy pattern book that this pattern is in. The outside fabric she used was something from my stash. These fabrics will go nicely in her kitchen where she plans to use the basket.

Globetrotting Top Finished

With mom's help, I managed to beat the end of November deadline and get the top done. She cut a bunch of 2.5" squares for me and kept me company in my sewing room. I'll show you more of what we did last week throughout this week.

Here is my finished Globetrotting top.

It was even warm enough to get a picture of the completed top outside.

I added an extra sashing strip and a row of four patches to two sides to make the quilt rectangular since that makes it a better size for a Quilt of Valor. For the outer border I had to make do with various reds since I was working from a bag of gifted scraps for this quilt. I think it turned out okay. You probably didn't notice, but I switched out the background fabric for one of the blocks. I used a white fabric for it originally but I used more off-white and creams for all the other blocks. It stood out too much from the rest so mom ripped it apart for me so I could replace the white with a cream fabric.

This is a free pattern by Pat Sloan. Click here to go to the pattern page. Pat is getting ready to release another free mystery BOM for 2015. If you don't get her newsletter or follow her blog, you should. You can sign up for the newsletter from her blog. Click here to go to Pat's blog.