Still Stitching...

Well I am still puttering along with my stitching. I am working on this quilt, Prairie Burgoyne, that was a Block of the Month (BOM) from Temecula Quilt Company in 2015. I love the block, Burgoyne Surrounded, and this is the third quilt I have made with this pattern. You can see the many versions of this quilt on my Pinterest page. I think it will be really pretty. The beautiful fabric is a line from Pam Buda at Heartspun Quilts. Pam is amazing! You will love her website!

I made this blue version years ago. It is worn to shreds!

And this is the one I made in the 

APQ Quiltalong. I love it! The pattern was in their magazine and designed by "Moda Lissa", aka Lissa Alexander from Moda Fabrics.

So on the subject of APQ Quiltalongs, last year 

they had a 4-Patch quiltalong going on and I 

jumped into that one as well. Rather than use 

the options in the magazine, I came up with my

own plan and went to work. Below is the out-

come. As you well know by now, I love scrap 

quilts, and this has bits from all my favorite Civil 

War Repro designers. (I can't get rid of that white!)

Someone will ask what size the blocks are, so let me tell you that the 4-Patches are made with 1-1/2" squares, then combined with 2-1/2" plain squares to make the double 4-Patch. For the triangle corners cut two squares at 3-3/4" then cut in half diagonally. You may get by with 3-1/2" squares, I really can't remember, but try one if you like and see what works for you. You will then have to trim the block, leaving your 1/4" seams on each side. My whole block finished at about 5-1/2". Hope you like it!

Now to get a little sewing done!

BLUE X TWO

At long last I have completed these two baby quilt tops! Last post I showed a corner of the above quilt, but, as you can see I changed the corners. I loved the Friendship Stars so much, and I happened to have several, so I took the 4-patch blocks out of the corners of this quilt and added stars. It would have been fine if I hadn't seen the stars, but I am happier with this. What do you think? Oh, and humility blocks have been discovered and will remain as they are.

The second little quilt quickly became my favorite. Those darn little stars did the trick! Now for the quilting!

A side note to my last blog post, I received a comment from Karen Dianne who reminded me that she sews in her kitchen and has her fabric stored in the pantry! Go check out her blog and see her pretty pantry! (And her progress on her Indian Paintbrush quilt, which she re-named to suit herself. Imagine!)

Have a happy scrappy day!

QUILT CLUTTER

Well, it finally happened. My sewing room is such a mess that I can't work in it any longer, and I have moved my sewing machine to the kitchen. I have actually had it in the kitchen for a couple of weeks, and I keep saying that as soon as I finish this project I will clean up the kitchen table AND my sewing room! But, like the nervous tic that has developed in my husband's right eye, this project just won't go away! (Yes, he has been patient, but has trouble with clutter. How have we lasted 40 years together? He travels a lot!)

The project? Well, you may recall the 4-patch quilt I showed a while back. I decided that I wanted to do a cute little border to make it unique among 4-patch quilts. So on to EQ6 for a little design help. After auditioning borders, I decided to add a few flying geese. Have you ever tried the paper pieced flying geese? I bought these Sew and Fold on a Roll a while back, from the makers of Triangles on a Roll. You pre-cut all the pieces and just Sew and Fold! It is pretty slick.
The above photo shows one corner of the quilt with the flying geese. The opposite corner looks like this as well, and the other two just have 4-patches in the corners. This quilt is for my nephew's new baby boy, but his broher is also having a baby boy in September. So, since I already had all the scraps out for this quilt, I decided to make another 4-patch quilt for the next baby. The top went together quickly, since I had leftover pieces from quilt #1. I was pretty pleased with myself, feeling well ahead of the game. I went back to EQ6 for another border idea and decided on one that I liked. The second quilt will have little Friendship Stars in the border.

Since I am working in the kitchen, I snapped a photo of all the little stars in the cabinet with a few blue items that I display there. Now I am feeling so proud of myself for getting this far! I sew the little stars into strips for the border and lay them around the quilt. That is when I realize that I meant to have white stars with blue background. As you can see from the photo with the flying geese, the geese are white and the background is blue. It just flows better with the blue squares that make up the rest of the border. So AAAKKK!
More cutting, more sewing and more pressing and here come more stars. Only this time they are white with blue background. Yes, they are still in progress. Yes, the kitchen is still Sewing Central, and yes, I now feel it is necessary to increase the Prozac doses that I have been sprinkling on my husband's cereal each morning.

Will she ever get back to the sewing room? Well, I am not going to tell you to tune in next time, I am not that optimistic! But I will return with a report of something!

Have a happy scrappy day!

PUTTERING WITH PATCHES

My friend Pat, who lives in North Bend, WA, recently sent me a box of R-W-B scraps that she knew I would love. Pat is responsible for teaching me to make quilts. I always had the urge, but never the opportunity, until I met Pat. That was in the early 1990's when we lived in Issaquah, WA. The above photo was taken of us at the APNQ (Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters) in front of a quilt that neither of us made. It was in August of 2000, and happened to be the day the moving truck was at my house, packing us to leave for Virginia, where we now live. No way was I going to miss that event just because a moving van was parked in front of my house! That was eight years ago, and we have only grown more lovely with age. (Don't ask me to prove that).

So this box has been sitting on the floor of my sewing room for a few months at this point. I didn't want to split it up and put it away, because any minute I knew I would dive into it and make a quilt. Last week I had to empty the box onto the floor because I needed the box to send things to my son that he left while he was here. So now visualize all these scraps in a pile on the floor of my already disastrous sewing room. It is like playing hopscotch getting across the floor on any given day.

I had finished three aprons, and now I needed to work on a quilt. I should be completing one of the many UFOs that are hovering about, but luckily my Dad called with the news that my nephew (and his wife, of course) just had another baby boy. Yea! I get to make a baby quilt! My eyes settled on the pile of scraps on the floor, and I decided to spread them out and take inventory. Imagine finding quite a few strips of red, white and blue! You must know by now that this is my favorite color combination. So here I am with lots of two inch strips. What to do, what to do? I started looking for ideas. One of my best resources is YOU out there in Blogland! I just happen to have a few photos of quilts that you have shared. I saw one made from 4-patches and these colors recently. "Oh yeah! That is perfect for my new nephew", says I. Since I already have the two inch strips, it was an obvious decision to make the 4-patches from two inch strips. So zip, zip, and zip, and I have red and white 4-patches all over the place. The next day I cut up a bunch of 3.5 inch squares of various blues, and began sewing these pieces into strips.

Today I finished sewing the rows together, and voila, a quilt is entering the world. This is what I love about quiltmaking: you take a pile of untamed matter (or scraps, as we like to call them) and create something totally new and wonderful! Borders are in the works, and then the quilt will finish at about 42 inches square.

For your viewing pleasure, I included a little picture of my cute granddaughter from a few years ago on the 4th of July.

In actuality, I have made this design before, and love it. But this coloration was inspired by a fellow blogger. I normally include the quilt makers name when I save a photo, and, for whatever reason, I neglected to do that with this quilt. If you happen to read my blog, and you think I may have seen a similar quilt on your blog, let me know and I will happily mail you one of my own delightful, and original patterns! (Disclaimer: if I get too many claims, you may have to send proof)!

Well, that turned out to be the long version of the history of a small quilt! Now I am off to the border!