A Final Entry to Finish It Up Friday!

A Final Finish for December!



Some finishes that I can finally show.   Our Loose Thread Challenges for 2018 were revealed at our Christmas party. We each drew from a brown paper bag -  a "shape", 2 colors and a "technique".  I selected  "Farm Animal", Red & Pink, and for a technique, Crazy Quilting.
This is the finished project:

Pink and Red Pig  with embroidered "parts names" and various stitches around the edges of each piece. It was very fun!  I did a small grid quilting in the background.

The backing was discovered at a quilt store about 2 hours from home, and there is a hidden zipper under the red heart piece.  I am happy with it. 


I did get 3 potato bags and 2 bowl cozies made for Christmas gifts. I will be adding in some packets of soup mix and a homemade tree ornament.

 Potato bags and the bowl cozies, upside down so you can see the outside. The teal colored one is for our daughter.

The same potato bags with the cozy turned right side up so you can see the inside. The one with the beer bottles is for our son.  It matches the backing in the quilt he got for his 50th Birthday!

I am linking this post up to Amanda Jean's final Finish It Up Friday!  I will miss reading her blog, seeing her amazing quilts and learning from her tutorials. I am glad the blog will remain up for reference. And I will continue to follow her on Instagram. 


I will continue to follow the bloggers I have discovered on Finish It Up Friday...you are bookmarked!  And I will post at Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, and a few others as I discover them.  Thanks to all quilt bloggers!  You make my early morning meanderings so enjoyable. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Finish It Up Friday and Finished Or Not Friday 11-2018

I am always glad to have a plan.  I was hoping to have lots of photos to show on this first Friday of the month post.  You know what they say about best laid plans.

We traveled the first part of October and visited our son and daughter. Our son had a milestone birthday and is by himself. So of course I made him a quilt. He lives in Phoenix, a may not really need a quilt.  But now he has one!

We were home for one week and I was planning lots of projects for a 4 day retreat in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming (it's my home state and only 60 miles from home). We always have lots of fun and usually accomplish a great deal. But the Friday before the Monday of our first day, they had a water well or water line problem and had to cancel. Because they also host hunters and hunting season is in full swing in this area, we could not reschedule right away.  Now we are looking at a couple of option in the coming 3 months..but driving is "iffy" in Dec and January.  It could be lovely, but it could also be treacherous. I am not sure what we will decide. We meet on Wed the 7th for our regular monthly get-together.

One of my project to do at the retreat was to have 8 blocks complete for CiL Block Drive.

These are Grown Up  I Spy blocks. You can read more about this project here and  here. They have been sent off to Kat.   The new block drive is in full swing and I am gathering fabric for it.

The last Friday of October, my sister lost her husband of 31 years. He had been failing for a while, but boy is it hard!  I want to "hover" and "be there", but she is 2 hours away and hates to be "hovered over"  So I will be available to talk, to text, to support her in any way I can.

And now it is November and there are lots of new challenges to keep me busy. My new One Monthly Goal is to get HALF of Rick Rack Nines put together.  You can see my post about that one HERE. 

I have a local challenge due to be revealed on the 18th of this month at our Quilt Chicks gathering.
It is this quilt and it is done.

The stripe binding is laying on the top in this photo but it is quilted and bound. I know I have a photo of it complete, but I can't find it this morning. I will take a picture at the reveal day and then I will have one.

binding the Magnolia Quilt

My project #4 for the All People Quilt UFO challenge is to make a heart shaped large pincushion. It is ready to go.  I have had this fabric for maybe 15 years, it's time to use it!

Sew it's time to get busy and finish up some projects. And Christmas is only 7 Fridays away.!!



Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I'm linking up with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday and 

Myra at Busy Hands Quilts, Finished or  Not Friday

OH, and I finished reading the Storyteller by Jodi Picoult and The Dry by Jane Harper.  Both really good. 

A Birthday Quilt Delivered

This is my finish for this month. A quilt for our son on his 50th birthday.

Pattern:  Intertwined by Cheryl Brickey from the book, Modern Plus Sign Quilts.

Fabric: B and W: Plus Signs = Tag by Cheryl Arkison from Connecting Threads

Green : Latifah Saarif's Graphics collection = Brick Wall

Border: White Out by Robert Kauffman

Backing: Cheers by Robert Kauffman

Binding: from my stash: Vintage Wheels, I have no idea who the designer is. 

Quilting:  Retro Graphics 2 done by my friend Marva Mooney on her long arm. 

We hand delivered it to Phoenix and he was pretty happy!  We had a great week there and now are on our way home. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I am linking up with Finish It Up Friday and Finished or Not Friday!

Pink Stuff

Not much happening that would qualify as a finish this week. The only real finish I had was to make a cute little "top" for my great granddaughter. I try to keep an extra top, bottom and socks here at our house for both grands!   A bit ago, we used the t-shirt that was here, for  Miss B.  It went home with her and the blue frilly tunic she had on that day has a whole other  backstory!

I had been wanting to try to make a pillowcase dress so this was the opportunity. The knit pants that reside here, have multicolored dots on a black background. Versatile, yes?  I had been working on my pink slab blocks for the RSC18 and came across a chunk of bright pink with lime green dots. I measured Miss B and it seemed the top should be 14" from shoulder to bum! Luckily the piece of fabric was about 19" by WOF. I perused the internet and Pinterest for patterns and ideas.  I settled on a tutorial from Melissa at Polka Dot Chair that she created for Bernina's WeAllSew blog. It is well written and worked well for me. There are lots of variations on Pinterest too.

I made a trip to JoAnns for the proper pink bias tape and some wide enough lime green ribbon. I did not add the bottom contrasting band, though I could always do that. I'll try the band technique if this one works well and make her a longer dress length for her birthday. She'll be two in July!

Nothing fancy about this dress!  I used the thread I had, and even two different colors in top and bobbin. But you can't tell. I like it a lot, we'll check it out on the "model" soon.

I also worked on my pink slab block, but they are still in construction.

Today these go in the box and I'll start the new color. It is an ongoing project for this year.

I did piece the wide borders for the plus quilt I showed last week and got the side borders added. With Mr. Busy's help, I will measure the width of the quilt top today and sew on the top and bottom borders. I have to lay it out on the family room floor and then can't hold the tape measure and crawl on my knees at the same time!  It's not easy being "old".

I'll be linking this post to Finish It Up Friday at Amanda Jean's blog and
Finished Or Not Friday at Myra's blog.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

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. 

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

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

Mid April Friday Finishes or not quite

I've been in my sewing room every day this week. Of course, there were beds to be made, suppers to be cooked, bathrooms to be scrubbed and book club selections to be finished, but I did sew most days. Some days I just petted fabric, looked at patterns and even did some regular ironing!

Last week I came across a post about another zipper bag. I wish I could remember whose blog had the link. I thought I could go right back to it, but I cannot. Luckily I clicked the link to the Moda Bake Shop site and printed the pattern.  It is Vinyl Project Pouch from March 9th. I have been wanting to make one of these for awhile now.  We have 2 small great grandchildren who spend lots of time with us. Of course, I keep spare socks, an extra t-shirt and pants for each of them at our house. The smaller of the two is going on two and just about ready to be potty trained. We keep wipes and diapers here too. And in the car, in the event we are at the playground and in need. So I had a reason for an extra zipper bag.

I knew I had some vinyl in my stash and started looking for some fabric. I found some that I probably would never use in a quilt.  It was just a fat quarter. It is pretty vivid colors and balls of yarn and hearts. Not the best quality, not sure where it came from. I looked for some contrasting fabric and a zipper.

I found this maroon dotty fabric. Perfect.  

I pieced some batting, then pulled my drawer of pre cut 2 1/2" squares and found some that I thought went well. I arranged the squares sort of in a diagonal and added 6 squares of the "yarn and hearts" fabric.  I continued with the instructions. 

I even found a new 16" barberry red all purpose zipper !  Yea!!

 I quilted it with wavy wonky lines using my walking foot and the #4 stitch on my Bernina, set at the longest and widest. I used a old spool of red,white and blue variegated thread because I need to use it up.

I added the contrast fabric to the vinyl. I love the fact that wonder clips work so well on vinyl and there are no pin holes. 

 I have an old rotary cutter that I purchased way back when I first started to quilt. I don't like the way it feels in my hand, and the way the blade collapses , so I keep a used blade in it  just for cutting paper or in this case vinyl.

 Finished!  Isn't it cute?

 Here is the back. I wanted to try binding by machine and decided this was the perfect project to practice. Maybe not, because of the vinyl. I had to use the paper that came with the vinyl, between it and the machine bed. Then of course it had to be torn away from the seam.  It is not perfect, but it is cute and serviceable. When Miss B doesn't need extra diapers in Gwama and Pa's car, I will take it back and keep something else in it.

I found this cute little felt star on a string in my stash, it makes a perfect zipper pull.  It is packed now, with a 1/2 pack of wipes, 2 diapers and a square of plush fabric to put under her "bum". 

A Finish It Up Friday entry at Crazy Mom Quilts link up party!

and a Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy