Under the Needle

Almost done!

I'm way ahead of schedule, this will be a Christmas gift for a relative later this year.

Miniature Quilt Finish

 

It's about 16 x 21, a little something I pieced in a fugue state one day for some reason. Machine pieced and machine quilted with scrap batting and Aurifil monofilament thread.

I spray basted it which I often do for wallhangings and smalls. I haven't finished a miniature quilt in a long time but I found this in a scrap pile and felt like it was time.

To finish it, I used a facing with scraps from my 2 1/2 inch strip roll. I think it came out cute! It will be great for the Fourth of July.

One Quilt Three Ways: Lone Star Baby Quilt

The pattern comes from Diary of A Quilter and is very fat-quarter and layer-cake friendly. I won't go into fabric requirements but it's just a few fats or a handful of layer cake pieces. The first quilt is actually the last one I did, starting with some fabric a friend gave me after she decided she didn't want it. I gave her the finished quilt.

This quilt was made with French fabric I got at the Lancaster American Quilters' Society show in 2018. Without additional borders this pattern finishes at around 39x39 inches.

I find it's a great baby, charity or lap size for a lot of adults.

This particular quilt was a gift for my cousin.

This was actually the first one I made, with French fabrics I bought on the island of Nantucket at a fabric shop. I had the fabrics for years before I decided what to do. This one is mine!

This pattern is super fast to whip up, a true weekend quilt including quilting and binding. I love how different they all look and how fun and easy they are to make. Very satisfying!
 

One Quilt Three Ways: Charm Pack Baby Quilt

 

Made with a charm pack, some background yardage and a Tula Pink matching border. Charity quilt for quilt guild drive.

Scraps of yellow and blue made for Ukrainian refugees as part of a quilt guild drive.

Made with a charm pack and black background yardage. Likely charity drive future donation.

All of these quilts took just a few hours to piece and will take or did take very little time to quilt and bind. They make great charity projects or baby quilts because they finish up around 38x42ish or larger if you add borders like I did on the first two.

With the third quilt, a yard of fabric was enough to back it. You'd need slightly more for the other two. It would make a great beginner project.

They use up a charm pack completely which is nice. Cute quilt, no waste, no scraps!

Pattern is here on Sew Me, a sewing blog with a better title than mine.

New Shelf!

My husband came up with the idea of getting me a little shelf unit to display my quilts and this afternoon we spent a few minutes assembling it and now look! It's so cute!

And now my quilts don't have to be piled up in a basket but you can see them and pick out which one you want to snuggle under. Christmas quilts go on the bottom shelf and my faves are on top.

There is even a little cabinet on the bottom to stash things like game controls and other things that we need or like to have around but don't want to see. Fun!!
 

Monday Making!

This week has been pretty productive.

I got all my gift blocks done on my newest Christmas scrap quilt (no name for it yet) and started on the nine patches that make up the Irish chain variation that will make up the rest of the blocks.

Irish Chain variation

The basis for the colors was a collection of leftovers from a kit I completed several years ago. The quilt that came from that kit wound up being a gift but since then I've made two projects with the leftovers- my tree skirt and a version of the tree wallhanging I've now made twice.

I pulled from my Christmas scrap bag for the rest of the fabrics to coordinate.

Gift block

I've now made a pretty sizeable dent in the scrap bag and used up most of the scraps from the kit. This will be a quilt that I will keep since it coordinates with other Christmas decorations.

The pattern comes from Cluck Cluck Sew. They have several versions of what is essentially the same pattern. I bought a copy of the one with pumpkins and just subbed in a gift block for the pumpkin.

Lastly I took a little time to start piecing together rows from the partial seam herringbone I started at the retreat. I used a half-jellyroll from the free table and it looks like it will make a cute sized throw that someone I know will wind up getting as a gift next year. Who will that unfortunate person be? Only time will tell.

Partial seam herringbone partially pieced

It's cute, fun and bright. And I will probably throw a border on it to bring it up to a good size.

What are you sewing today?

Winter Retreat!

So last weekend I got to go to a three-day retreat in suburban New York City with my guild, the New York City Metro Mod guild. People come from all over New York City, Long Island and New Jersey- last spring a member flew in from San Francisco, and this year our Boston guy showed up too. That's how great our community is and how committed our members are. 

Anyway I was debating what project to bring, and I settled on my crumb project. At home, I can do a crumb block in about an hour. I had 19 crumb blocks to make to complete the quilt and I thought I could at least get a start on it over the weekend. At the retreat, I was making three blocks an hour and I had all of my blocks completed before lunch on Saturday.

I did bring a backup project- this little charm pack quilt- but I was done with that by dinnertime on Saturday.

The fabric was a charm pack I picked up in the Berkshires last year and the pattern is here if you want to check it out on the SewMeBlog.

I was lucky enough to find a half-jelly-roll of Christmas fabric at the giveaway table Friday night and so I started a partial-seam herringbone just before dinner on Saturday.  I got all of the pieces sewn into four long strips by bedtime. Which is whenever you want at retreat but for me was around 10pm.

My husband often comes with me to retreats because he can do work or read with no distractions and it's a great break from the routine for him. This time he worked on a big project for his job in between saying hi to my pals and relaxing.

But unfortunately we had to leave first thing on Sunday so I cleaned up my machine and doodads on Saturday evening and we headed out right after breakfast. We had a death in the family on New Year's Day and needed to do some family stuff. 

Despite everything I had a truly wonderful time with old friends and new ones, and got so much done. It was a great weekend and I can't wait for the next retreat!

A Very Quilty Christmas

 

My Christmas quilting gifts:

• Tinsel Town layer cake- Christmas fabrics, of course,
•  Riley Blake's All About Christmas jelly roll,
• Robert Kaufman's Kasuri blue and white Japanese fabric jelly roll,
• Charming Baby Quilts by Melissa Corry. This is a booklet of small quilts you can make with one to four charm packs.

The last two items are things I heard about on the YouTube channel Just Get It Done Quilts. The host, Karen Brown, did an episode on quilty gifts and gadgets and I found two things to ask Santa aka Jeff for:

• Quilted Heartz's Binding Ease, the big orange thing. This is a tool that is supposed to make it easier to make and press 2 1/2 inch fabric strips into binding.
• The Bobbinator! First of all that name. Second, this is a gadget to help take your bobbins and load them into a spool-like container such that you can use it as a top thread.

I also bought myself some secret chocolate which I've stashed somewhere for when I need a sweet break.

What did you get for quilting-related holiday gifts?

A Unicorn Needlepoint

I made this unicorn wallhanging from a kit by Sozodiy.com. I bought it at Gather Here, a quilting/knitting store in Cambridge, Mass., while I was back for the Christmas holidays. My friend lives nearby and I was staying with her for a few days because reasons.

It was really fun to do. I like doing needlepoint but I seldom do any because the kits and finishing tend to be really expensive. This clocked in around $30 and had everything I needed to finish it into a cute thing for the door of my sewing room. I bought it around the 20th of December and finished it up the second week of January. It was really nice to work on in the evenings and any time I had downtime. I did trim the fringe to be a little more even after I saw this picture.

I definitely want to do more of these projects and will keep my eye on the website for more kits. That lucky cat pillow looks so cute- maybe I'll do that one next.

A lot of Christmas Quilt-Giving

I gave three quilts this Christmas; the first was the Fractals quilt I finished a while ago, and the second was the Christmas tree quilt I finished last year. The third was this baby quilt:

which I finished just recently. It's based on the Fussy Gussy pattern and I used a fat quarter pack of unicorn fabrics I bought at Candy's Quilting, now closed, in Manhattan, along with white on whites from my stash. I opted for a scrappy back and used several fat quarters and a large piece of novelty fabric from my stash. Batting was some kind of cotton and I used long staple King Tut white 60wt for the quilting thread.

It's a cute quilt and the baby seemed to like it.

I've decided scrappy backs with novelty fabrics are a good thing; I love to buy novelty fat quarters because who doesn't, but when I'm making a quilt those are not usually the fabrics I reach for. Therefore I have accumulated a bit of a collection, shall we say. I used up several on this quilt and now the baby can have fun looking at them. And they are no longer sitting unused in my stash.

I prefer to use extra-wide backing in general but I didn't have anything on hand that worked and really didn't want to buy any additional fabric in the middle of Christmas stuff.

The baby's uncle received the Fractals and the tree went my inlaws. Happy Holidays.