Friendly Friday Finish

The Friendship Star quilt is done. Most of the blocks were collected in block swaps with two guilds: Ninigret Quilters and RI Modern Quilt Guild. It makes me so happy to have new and old friends represented in one quilt.

The Ninigret swap was a 3-month activity that started in January 2014. At the end of the year, it was my turn to gather blocks in the RIMQG bee. I started assembling the top at the end of this January. The little stars in the sashing were made from 2" squares that had been cut years ago.

I had about half of the quilting done when I ran out of thread! My Superior order arrived Tuesday, so I was able to finish the quilting yesterday. I'm really not a fan of stippling, but it works with this quilt. I like the loops in the star points and that the design in the center square looks like hearts.

The backing was pieced from some stash-busting blues and greens.

 

I love the texture of the quilting on the back.

 

To continue with the scrappy theme, the binding came out of my leftover binding bin. 

I tried to get a glamor shot on the railing with our cool window in the background, but I couldn't get the lighting right.

 

I'll have to design a quilt based on this window someday.

 

Friendship Stars

64" X 85"

Started January 2014

Completed February 2015

Blocks swapped with Ninigret Quilters and RIMQG

Scraptastic Tuesday

 It has certainly been scrappy around here lately! It all started two weeks ago when I had everything out to finish up my Farmer's Wife blocks. I needed a plan for tackling the scraps, and I finally feel like I'm making progress.

The top of my selvage log cabin has been assembled. (I highly recommend this pattern by Karen Griska!) I'm trying to decide if I want to add borders. It is already 45" square, which is a nice size for a wall hanging. If I make it much bigger, it limits where I can hang it. OK. No borders. How should I quilt it? Organic vertical lines or free motion swirls? I'm thinking about using red thread.

I had a couple of blocks leftover, so I made a pillow cover for the couch. (More about it here.)

I had not done much improv piecing in my 24 years of quilting. I fixed that yesterday! This little quilt top was made in about 4 hours! Twenty five 6.5" squares came directly out of my bin of cool (not warm) modern scraps. Why have I not done this before? Liberating is definitely the right word for it!

I wanted to see it on the wall, so I pinned it to the back of the wall hanging that was on display in the kitchen. We really like it with the pale yellow "borders." It pains me that I'll have to buy some fresh yellow to finish this.

It seems like this bin is still full, but I really did use a lot. 

 Wild & Goosey is coming along (pattern info here). I've been mostly using these as leaders/enders, but I do sit and sew a few units when I have a bit of free time.

Thirteen blocks to go...

I pulled some 2.5" strips of red and pink to make two of these mug mats. One will be a gift tonight at our guild meeting. This one is mine! Happy Valentine's Day to me! Looking back, the one I made for my mother last year has more quilting.

Mrs. Sew and Sow is hosting the Scraptastic Tuesday link up this month. Head on over for lots of scrappy inspiration!

Selvage Finish

 I needed to finish something today, purely for the satisfaction of getting it done. I had two spare selvage log cabin blocks, so I made two more last night. They became the front of a pillow cover. The rounded corners remind me of red heel socks!

The dates range from 1995 to 2014.

 

For the back, I pulled some long pieces of selvage to create this 20" square. I might like it better than the front!

 

It just so happens that the throw pillows that came with the couch are 20" square, so I shoved one inside my new selvage pillow cover. It's a little lumpy and not as full as I'd like, but it's done!

 

This cutie empties out the bird feeder as soon as Bill fills it. He trudges out through the snow a couple of times a week.

My quilting mojo may be waning, so I'm going to take a break for some desk work. I'll get back to the machine soon!

Two at a Time

I'm having so much fun working on these two projects this week! The selvage log cabins are coming along nicely. I need to make six more blocks for the layout I have planned. I was hoping to get them done today, but it is not looking promising. 

 

I have discovered that the process goes more quickly if I plan out the selvages before I sit down to sew. Here are my piles waiting to go. 

 

I'm using the Wild & Goosey blocks as leaders/enders and it is working like a charm!

 

I don't have enough variety to be truly random, so I dealt out the pieces last night while I was watching TV. Nineteen blocks ready to go! 

 

In about 40 minutes, I can sew a log cabin block and two goosey units. My Featherweight is getting a workout this week! I'm trying to take good care of her with lots of TLC and oil.

Have a great weekend!

Scrappy WIP Wednesday

 I've been obsessively stitching for weeks now. The plus side of all this productivity is that I don't snack when I'm sewing so much, so I've lost a few pounds. Win-Win! Here's what I've been up to.

Farmer's Engineer's Wife: All 111 blocks are now done! I'm a little sick of looking at them, as cute as they are, so we're going to take a little break.

RIMQG Bee blocks for Jackie: Jackie provided the blue for her log cabins. These went in the mail today.

Wild & Goosey: Oh, how I love these blocks! Learn more about Bonnie Hunter's pattern here.

Selvage Log Cabins: This will be my entry in the RIMQG Log Cabin challenge, due in March. These blocks are really time consuming, but so worth it! Karen Griska's pattern is only $5 on Etsy. It's worth every penny!

I'm planning to set them on point. Don't mind my thready socks.

Friendship Star Swap: I quilted half of this last week before I ran out of thread. As soon as my order arrives from Superior, I'll get this finished.

Scrappy Mountain Majesties: When all the scraps were out, I cut some big squares for this project. Can't wait to get back to this one!

It's time to surf...

111 Blocks

My Farmer's Engineer's Wife blocks are done!

I powered through and finished sewing the last 21 blocks yesterday. I had cut them out on Saturday thinking I'd sew through the big game, but I needed to take a break. Honestly, I was getting sick of looking at them!

 Blocks 91-99 (above) were done by lunchtime. Blocks 100-111 (below) were finished by 8:15pm. That's a full day of piecing! (I love days that I don't need to leave the house!)

This lucky ladybug was hiding under the blocks this morning.

 

Since I don't have a design wall big enough to show you all the blocks at once, here are the rest of them. Blocks 61-80 from last week:

Blocks 1-60,  Feb 17 - Aug 5, 2014:

I'm so proud of myself for following through on this challenge and getting all the blocks done. On to the setting!

Drowning in Scraps

 So... 

I might have a scrappy little problem. I'm obsessed with scraps!

This is what my dining room looked like yesterday as I cut out the last 21 Farmer's Wife blocks. I was using mostly modern scraps and Kona white. Anything smaller than a fat quarter was up for grabs, which means every bin and box and pile came out to play. Once I finished cutting out the blocks, I kept cutting! All the smaller pieces were cut into useful sizes: 5", 3.5", 2.5" and 2" squares, and 2.5" and 2" strips. I feel so much better now!

When I brought all the bins back downstairs, I came across my selvedge basket. I hopped over to my Pinterest scrap quilts board and found this awesome pattern by Karen Griska. It took me a couple of hours to sew these two blocks last night. I love them! I have some Kona Tomato coming from Fabric.com tomorrow, so I can continue this new project. It will be my entry in the RIMQG Log Cabin Challenge.

Then there is Wild & Goosey. I follow the Quiltville Open Studio page on facebook and it seems like everyone is working on these blocks. I'm going to make mine with batiks. I feel the need to control the scrappiness, so I'm alternating the warm and cool colors. I just had to piece two sections before we left for church this morning.

 I spent the entire afternoon cutting out enough pieces (1425!) for 25 blocks which will make a sweet wall hanging. And, no. I didn't make a dent in my scraps!

I'm ready to sew my way through the big game!

I'll be linking up my scrappy projects here: