May Finish ~ One Monthly Goal

My OMG for May was to find background fabric, and cut the pieces for our son's birthday quilt. You can read more about that at this post.

Well, I traveled to our LQS, 20 miles from my front door and selected a fabric. So the pieces were cut and put on my design wall. I decided that one of the light fabrics was too light. So I  cut 3 different darker squares and rectangles. Not a problem, I had lots of fat quarters to chose from.
I liked the layout now, so decided to sew it together. Normally I would web the blocks, but this design does not lend itself to that technique. I made some marking tabs, some marking pins for the end of each row and got started. First I sewed each row together. Then I sewed in set of 2 rows each. Two rows became 4 rows at the top, and I repeated the process from the bottom up. My plan was to end up sewing the 2 sections together in the middle. That helps me manage the bulk to the left of my machine. It worked out great.

There are still borders to be added, but then it will be ready to have backing purchased and off the the longarm quilter!  I have a piece of black and gray fabric picked for the binding. I think it will be perfect, but I will not know for sure until I decide on the backing fabric.

Here are some close ups of the fabric.  It is almost all from the Tag collection by Cheryl Arkinson,

I am a push over for text fabric!

Don't you just love the tic tac toe and the fingerprints?

but the Sulfur green brick print is from Latifah Saafir's Grafic line and the borders and fill in fabric is from Kanvas Studios Bernatex, Swirling Leaf pattern designed by Maria Kalinowski called White Out!  I hope it looks like pebbles or rocks, more urban in feel than leaves! 

So my May OMG is met, and then some!   

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal - May Finish Link-up


Stay Busy and Stay Happy!    Now I'm off to help Mr Busy complete the filling of the raised bed he made for me this week. I may try to put some tomatoes and peppers in addition to some herbs and some hostas, and some other filler plants. Wish me luck there too!!!

Cutting, decisions, graduations and some mending!

This week was a working week. 

I began cutting the fabric for the Plus Blocks for a quilt for our son. His 50th birthday is the end of September and it's about time he had a quilt. Cutting the fabric is my OMG  for May.  Accomplished!  I also purchased some background fabric. Originally, I was thinking a light to medium light gray, but my local quilt store is tiny and the next closest one is 100 miles away. So I chose a white with a tiny bit of gray. The shop owner said it was "pebbles" and that is what I hope it looks like, but the selvage says Swirling Leaf pattern. The selvage also says White-Out and that says surfing to me, so we are going to go with an Urban Street Surfing vibe!

All the squares and rectangles are cut out and in the process of being assembled in rows. I downloaded a pdf from a blogger's page that had printed Letter/Number squares for marking blocks to keep them in order.  Do you think I can find my printouts?  Nope!!  Can I go back to the source?  Nope, no luck there either, so I made my own out of blue post-it-notes!  If you know who shared that pdf file, could you please let me know???

Sorry about my messy sewing space!  I have outgrown it!!

I have since this picture was taken, pulled the fabric on the plus sign just under the upper left hand sulfur green brick print. It seemed too light. I love the brick print, it is from Latifah Saafir's Grafic collection.  The other fabric is Tag by Cheryl Arkison from Connecting Threads. I should have the rows all sewn together by next Friday. Then I have to take a road trip to get fabric for the back. I saw a beer print in a store in Rapid City SD , 150 miles from here. But Mr Busy wants to go to the hobby shop there and maybe I'll get to see my sister and her husband for a little bit.  Fingers crossed. 

This week, our great grandson graduated from pre-school. His teacher is a gem and gave out award to each child. J got the "Most Curious" award. It is so true, he always wants to know "why?', "how?", "what is that for?" Questions, questions, questions!  His gramma calls him her "little engineer"!

I caught him "off guard" just before he had to turn in his cap and gown. I may not be around when he graduates from high school in 19 years. So I needed this photo. 

I also did a bit of mending for his baby sister, B.  She had a pretty dress, turned tunic because she is growing so fast.  But it itched and she didn't like it.  Her mom thought I could, maybe, fix it. She thought it was the inside of the bodice that had stitching . So I found a well worn t-shirt of Grandpa's and cut a piece of the back to the shape of the bodice. It rolled nicely and I just hand stitched it to the neckline and armholes and loosely basted the waistline. 

We put it on her. It seemed fine for about an hour and then she started tugging at it again. It has sequins that extend to the edges of the armholes and the neckline. I think they were the problem. 

It is a beautiful dress, but it is going in the "give-away" box. Maybe some one else won't be so sensitive. She is a fair skinned, red haired beauty, but she'd rather have on pants and play in the dirt. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I'll be linking to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

and Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts. 

ScrapHappy Saturday 5-11

May's RSC18 color is pink and rose.  Some of you may remember I participated in Carla's 30 Blocks in 30 Days  in April. I originally started to make the blocks in the order Carla presented them, but using the color order from So Scrappy's Rainbow Challenge.  Of course, I did not know in what order the rainbow colors would be selected. I did know what the colors might be and finally I decided to just make the colors willy nilly, but following Carla's Rainbow layout. (I hope you could follow that bit of rambling.)

The beginning of May, when pink and rose was chosen, I gathered the rest of my chunks and scraps of pink and darker other pink. I made slab blocks to go with the other slab blocks from the previous months. I think I need one more for six total.

They are odd varied sizes as of now. I will add more as the month goes one. One of my other challenges for May (One Monthly Goal) is taking some time too. I'll post about that later, but I will tell you it is definitely NOT pink.

I decided to pull the pink block from 30 Block challenge to show you here too.

There is lots of white on white negative space in those large blocks. I am sort of anxious to put these blocks together. This one is way outside my box..really pushing my envelope. Not the piecing of the blocks, they are super easy and super fun. But the modern look with all the negative space and the rainbow look is definitely different for me.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I'll be linking up with Angela at SoScrappy! 

CiL Blocks via A Substitute Blog

At the beginning of 2018 I made a promise to myself, that in addition to all the challenges that I had signed up for, I would commit to sending at least 6 blocks to Kat's CiL Block Drive every two months. You can read about Kat's wonderful event here. In Jan-Feb, I sent string blocks.

 Then for March -April, I made blue Hunter's Star blocks.

 May 1st I clicked on Kat's blog and read about all the quilts she and her helpers are putting together from the string blocks. At the end of the blog she stated that she was taking May and June off to finish up all the quilts and asked that we support Briawna at Purple Poppy Quilts efforts to collect blocks for her charity. She is collecting Cross Plus blocks with a few size and color limits. Read about it here.  

Well, I committed to supporting Kat, so if Kat wants me to make blocks for Briawna, then that is what I will do.
I made these 7 blocks

and will get them in the mail next week after my out of town company leaves. These blocks were more challenging for me, but after a few times with the seam ripper, I think the angles are pretty good. Pulling from my stash was a bit of a challenge. I am drawn to fall-like colors, greens, browns, dark blues. I hope Purple Poppy Quilts can incorporate these blocks with the others. It is always amazing to me, when I look at blocks made by many, how often they work together. How varied and different colors really do look good.

I continue to work on all my WIPs. Rainbow slab blocks, strips of bits and pieces for Colorful Birches, a crochet rug of scrappy strips, and of course my embroidered Calendar Girls.

So.... I am linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts: Finish It Up Friday
            and Busy Hands Quilts:  Finished or Not Friday

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Starts and a sort of Finish

This week, I got nothing completed. Unless you count getting mostly caught up on my home office stuff!  You know, filing, shredding, reorganizing for the new year!

I did work on 30 Blocks in 30 Days at Carla's blog, Creatin' in the Sticks. I mostly did one block each day according to her tutorials, but I did not read that she was presenting them in column order for layout. I just did my own thing for a week using the RSC 18 colors as my choices. Then I "woke up" and decided maybe I should have a plan. I liked the Rainbow layout, so I printed her EQ photo and put the blocks on my design wall to sort of replicate her color layout.

The blocks have now been taken down and placed in a project box. I have my CiL blocks to do for this time, my OMG for May to get done, the RSC18 = Pink slab blocks to do. So these will have to wait. I have no real plan for them, but they were so fun to work at every day!. When I put them into a flimsy top with borders, I'll post again.


I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday 
and Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

OMG = One Monthly Goal - May

GET ON THE STICK!
That's something my mom would have said!

I was sort of stymied as to what should be my OMG for May!.  I have several Challenge groups but have been chipping away at them since the first of the year. But this one has not been started, except to "know that I want to do it", " purchased some fabric and a pattern", " then changed my pattern idea", omg......just get started, Judy!

Our son turns 50 this fall. He is the only one of my immediate family that I have not made a quilt for. And I have made several for nephews, nieces, nephew's and niece's kids, friend's babies and grandbabies, former co-worker's babies....you get the picture!

So I was smitten with fabric from Cheryl Arkison  called Tag. I purchased it from Connecting Threads. ( I have no affiliation with Cheryl, or Connecting Threads). I first came upon Cheryl's name, through Amanda Jean Nyberg. They co-authored "Sunday Morning Quilts"

I bought a kit for a quilt using a pattern called Arithmetic.  It is black, grey and white. Urban in feel. Our son has recently relocated to downtown Phoenix. He is an IT Department Manager for a large retail company, specializing in inventory control.

I liked the pop of color in this version of the pattern. I hoped it would not be too pink. But when I received it, it is definitely a pink-ish melon. So that sort of stopped me. What could I substitute?

 This copy of the pattern from Jeni Baker called Arithmetic, came with the kit. This original pattern is very busy!  Not usually my thing!  But I have been doing some "outside the box" projects lately.

I have used the pattern to make a baby quilt for my newest great nephew. You can read my post about that one here.

Recently, I began seeing blogs featuring quilts from Modern Plus Sign Quilts. When I saw Intertwined, I knew that was the pattern. I ordered the book. 

 

But now I need a light background, maybe a really light solid gray, or silver, or pewter. I don't have a lot of experience with solids, I will have to go to my little LQS and see what she has. And I need another contrast color, not pink!  This pattern shows a fabric called Grafic by Latifah Saafir. I love it. The green brick fabric is called Sulfur.


My OMG for May is to cut the blocks for this quilt, and purchase the fabric for the background. If I get it to the flimsy stage, so much the better.

I am linking this post up with Patty's May OMG Goal Setting link up


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Five more little finishes on a Friday

One of the groups I quilt with has a annual Christmas party and gift exchange.   I received a wonderful bag of goodies. One of the items was a pattern and some fat quarters. The pattern is from June Tailor  and includes a panel of 7 printed inspirational sayings.

 

 Right after Christmas I made two mug rugs with Christmas like fabrics. 

I used scraps from my scrap tub and they both have a gold scroll backing. I posted about these here and noted how I had to use scrap binding and the difficulty I had in joining the short pieces ending the binding.

In February I decided to work on the remaining 5 mug rugs. Using the fat quarters that were in my gift and some of my stash. I pieced this one.

And there it sat, layered but not quilted! As with UFO's, I packed it away in a project box, knowing it was on a UFO list and I would get back to it.

Enter several bags of scraps from some friends that saw me making strip blocks for Covered in Love for donation in February. See my post about these HERE.  I sorted through the bags and started to sort according to color. Then an idea popped into my head. I decided to use the scraps from the four friends to make them each a mug rug. After all it's fabric that they liked!  So I began.

One top pieced for Eileen

 A second one pieced for Carol.

 This little piece is needing some fabric selected from the bag from Lynn.

At my machine with pieces on my small design boards.   This one will be for Maggie

 And now they are finished!  Plus the blue, aqua and green one will go to the giver of the gift, Sandy.  I had so much fun doing these. They each have a backing from my stash and all the other fabric is from each scrap bag.

I am linking this post at Busy Hands Quilts Finished or Not Fridays and also to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. 


Stay Busy and Stay Happy