When I made the Garbage to Gaa-barge series, I belonged to a group called the Tuesday night quilters. We had lessons and sewed challenges and round robins. At one meeting, a member was making a baby quilt. The fabric was unusual. It was not baby quilt fabric. When it was finished it was awesome. A baby would love to bright colors.
After the meeting, I robbed the wastebasket and took the scraps home. The bigger pieces were on an angle from straightening the fabric. I used them in the border, as is, so the border is not straight. The small strings were placed on a background and covered with tulle. It was stippled quilted.
Every time that I look at a Gaa-barge piece, I think that it is my favorite. Maybe, I just like them all.
Have a great day and happy quilting
My Christmas cactus has outdone itself this year. It has been blooming continually since Thanksgiving day. It must like how I care for it. It is in an east window. At night, I pull the insulated drapes around it, leaving it to the evening window chill. It apparently likes to be cold at night.
Basket is a Nancy Pearson pattern. It is hand appliqued and hand quilted. 25′ x 25″
Rose is also hand appliqued and hand quilted 18″ x 18″ It has a double row of piping on the border.
Stone Soup was made from a stone soup challenge. A bag was filled with different criteria from fabric stashes and then traded with other quilters. When I opened my bag, I found that there were two different colorways. One was red, white and blue, the other was pastel. They didn’t seem to fit in one quilt so I made two and joined them at the top. They fit over the back of a chair. 
We had already purchased the tulle and cut it into 10″ strips. 
The strips were rolled on a diagonal and the bottom stapled.
The rolled strips were stapled and glued to a circle that was made from a pizza box. Two holes were punched into one side of the circle for the wire to hang the finished wreath.
There were three rows of rolled strips. The middle was made from brown burlap that was glued onto a smaller circle.
Each of us had different color tulle and the sunflowers were very different. We had a great day with fun, laughter, and fellowship. Not to mention the most delicious lunch.
Several years ago, I demonstrated the Lazy Girl Flying Geese ruler It makes four geese at a time. Again, I did the demo five times. There were a lot of cut out pieces. Those pieces sat for a long time until a Guild challenge was to finish a UFO. I pulled the pieces out and finished the quilt. 
It looks as if one light green jumped from one fabric pile to another. It’s o.k. as that color is in both pictures.
The spiral runner was made with from a pattern “Spicy Spiral Table Runner” by School House Quilts. It is made with a 10 degree ruler. The fabric was strip pieced and cut and then sewn back together. Organization is the key to keeping the strips in order.
This table runner is made from a “Piecing with Poppers” pattern by Sharon Mayers. The poppers make a big difference in the piece. I pieced the back the regular way and the front with the poppers to show the difference. The “poppers” really do make the quilt “pop.”I have other Sharon Mayers patterns and will make them in the future.
I was having a dinner party the first part of March and thought a green table runner would be great to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. This pattern is a free download from Connecting Threads, I sewed it together a little different than the instructions. It called for cutting each piece separately, I sewed the sections in a strata and then cut the strips.
This runner was made with the flip and sew method. It was quilted as I pieced it. I’m not sure which pattern I used as I have many patterns with this runner.
This is another Connecting Threads pattern. It looks difficult to make, but in reality is very easy.
For the first wall hanging, I went to the back yard and picked up leaves, The leaves were used as patterns. Each leaf was fused together with a backing, making a double sided leaf. The piece was machine quilted before the leaves were attached, After stitching around the leaf shape with a zig zag stitch, they were attached to the piece with built in embroidery stitches, stitching down the center and leaving the leaves free standing. 
Moonlight is made with discharge dyeing. When you discharge dye, you never know what color will remain on a black piece of fabric Every black has a different base color. I picked leaves and branches from the yard. Using a foam brush, I painted the leaves and branches with bleach and pressed them on the black fabric with a brayer. It is important to have a bucket of vinegar and water prepared ahead of time so the fabric can be immersed as soon as the bleach has done its job. After the fabric had dried, I made the moon. A circle was cut out of freezer paper and the paper was pressed in the middle of the piece. Bleach was spritzed from a spray bottle. Again, the vinegar rinse is ready for use as soon as the discharge looks like you want it to look. Quilting with gold thread brought the leaves to life. 
I had a class with Sarah Ann Smith at the Vermont Quilt Festival. We painted the leaves with a metallic paint stick and then machine quilted around the with metallic thread.
For the first challenge, we were given a piece of striped fabric and instructed to make something from that fabric. We could add any other fabric that we wanted,
I made this little wall hanging. It is hand quilted. I only did hand quilting at that time.
There was fabric left, so I made a second wall hanging. It is very simple, just half square triangles. It does look as if I did a lot of piecing. I like this one because it is simple, yet very striking with the hand quilting.
How do you make a queen sized quilt from seven 12″ blocks? Check with Sharon Craigue’s book – Setting Solutions, It has a wealth of information. Sharon tells how to make blocks the same size, gives templates so that you can insert your blocks, and how to incorporate different blocks into a quilt. It’s an amazing book.
I had several orphan blocks which I made for examples of the block of the month. So far, I have made three quilts and have more to do. My block bin is still full.
The background didn’t look just right so I scribbled different colored circles all around the fish. It softened the look of the sea. The orange thread looks like coral.
This piece didn’t need netting as the scribbling held everything down.
Miss Molly quilts 