This has been a good week.  I finished two UFO projects.  Does that make me one week ahead of my weekly challenge to finish one UFO a week?  Probably not.

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The first UFO project was a stack of squares.  They were cut from fabric that I received when another quilter cleaned out her sewing room.  There were enough squares to make two charity quilts and four placemats.

 

 

 

 

I backed the placemats with some Asian fabric,  I seem to have a lot of that type of fabric in my stash and hate to cut it up.  It usually has  a big repeat.  I do have a pattern that uses Asian fabric.  I bought it years ago at Keepsake Quilting.  It was a  “I just have to have that pattern” moment.  I seem to have a lot of those patterns in my pattern drawer.  I should think about making that quilt and use up the fabric.  It will be in the line of my “to do someday” quilts.

 

 

 

The second UFO project is the prototype of the Circle of Friends quilts.  I made it in pastel colors which is not at all like the colors in the other two quilts that I made.  I did learn a lot by making a prototype.  It helped me figure out how big to cut the strips and how to sew it together.  It also helped me design the quilting.  The other two quilts will be quilted differently.   It makes a very nice table topper or wall hanging.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

Last January, I went to the Dear Jane Club at the Quilt Shop.  A quilter in another group was making a Temperature Quilt and it was fascinating.  Each block was a flying geese. The goose was the warmest temperature of the day and the sky was the coldest. How hard could that be, making one flying geese a day.

Temperatures were charted in 5 degree increments and a fabric assigned to each 5 degrees. The temperatures were written on baggies and a fabric inserted in each baggie.  I had a lot of batique scraps  and put a different color in each baggie.

 

The baggies are kept in order in a bin.

Each morning, I check the temperatures on my I phone and pull the correct baggies from the bin.  It takes one minute to cut the three pieces with Kimberly Einmo’s Flying geese ruler.  Her method uses 2 1/2″ strips, so if I had used that temperature before, there is usually a 2 1/2″ strip already cut  in the bag.  Sometime during the day , when I am sewing, I sew the one flying geese.  It is a beginner and ender block.  There are just three seams,  Two to add the sky and one to place it on the strip.  I press the seams when I’m pressing something else.  It’s like making a quilt and not knowing it.  The joining seams are pressed open.

This is a year long project. If I’m not near my sewing room,  I can keep the temperatures in the message app in my phone and make the geese later.  If I forget to do this, there is a temperature app online that tells me the information that I need.

I have the temperatures of five different states in my phone.  Utah, California, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Maine. If a Temperature Quilt was made for each city, they would all be different, even if the fabric was the same.

The quilt is very busy,  Some of the fabrics don’t play well with the adjoining fabric, so I’m thinking of making a 1″ black Kona sashing between the months just to rest the eyes.  If I add the sashing each month, it will keep the months in order.   On the months that do not have 31 days, I can add rectangles of black at the end of the month.  The center of the quilt would be 62 1/2″ L x 59″ wide.   The geese are 2″ x 4″ finished.    (12 x 4″ = 48″  & 11 1″ sashing  11″  = 59″)

It will be interesting to see the colors change to summer colors and then  back to winter colors.  The sides of the quilt should be about the same colors.

Have a great day and happy quilting

Several of my wall hangings are on my walls.  The are rotated from time to time so that I can have a new look in the house.  Some are there forever because I enjoy them or they bring memories .

My welcome wall hanging is by my front door.  It is the only pattern that I repeated as it make a great gift.  I appliqued the pineapple and ribbons before I had an applique class with Nancy Pearson.  The later welcome wall hangings were much better, but we do get better with practice and knowing the right techniques.

 

My granddaughter gave me the lovely depression ware wind chime.  My kitchen walls are green and it didn’t show it’s beauty.  I made a wall hanging to go behind it.  Silver Angelina fibers are stipple quilted on the border to bring out the silver in the glass piece.

 

 

I found the pattern for the wire fox terrier at a quilt show.  The body of the dog was fussy cut from fabric that had several different dogs.  I still have that fabric but it has holes.  Maybe I will need more fur for another piece sometime.  The hair is placed going the right way so the dog looks real.  I machine quilted around the dog and then quilted the background from the back.  The backing fabric had a wavy pattern and I machine quilted the waves up to the stitching around the dog. When shopping for new fabric, I often look for fabric that can be quilted upside down.

Have a great and happy quilting.

 

Gaa-barge #3

I do a lot of machine embroidery and sometimes the thread falls off the big cones of thread.  Once it does that, it can not be used in the sewing machine.  What a waste! It goes into the trash can.  That is where gaa-barge comes in.  From garbage to Gaa-barge.

On this piece I laid the thread, then fussy cut flowers from fabric that was in the trash can and made  a picture.  It looks like an abstract painting.

 

 

 

 

The picture was covered with tulle from the tulle box.  The box contains different colors of tulle.  Each one is placed on the piece and somehow, when the right one is there,  it makes itself known. Most of the Gaa-Barge designs itself.

After the tulle is chosen,  the whole piece was stippled quilted.  A border was added and bound.

Some of the Gaa-Barge was very interesting when finished.  I never knew which direction it would go.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

I’ve never met a challenge or round robin that I didn’t like.  A round robin is a quilt that is made by a group of quilters,  There are usually four to six people that will work on the quilt.  Each person makes the center of the quilt.  It is placed in a bag with fabric for the other quilters to use.  The other quilters may also add their own fabric. The bag is passed to the other quilters in order.  There is a time deadline for making the next border, usually one month.   Some round robins have themes such as holidays, seasons or fabric types.  Other round robins have criteria such as shapes, colors size, etc. When all the borders are made, the quilt goes back to the original quilter to quilt and it is theirs.

Several years ago, I belonged to a group known as the Tuesday night quilters.  We made a round robin using the following criteria,  Triangles, applique, squares or rectangles, curves, and anything goes for the last border.  I wondered how it would be if I made two centers, passed one on to the other quilters and pieced the other with my ideas.

 

The quilt that was made by others turned out to be a very light quilt.  It is about one inch smaller that the other.  I liked the added buttons,.  The light blue fabric must have been what I included in the bag as it showed up again in both outer borders.

 

The quilt that I made, is much darker and the applique is not in the right sequence.

 

It’s amazing how different a quilt will be with different designers starting at the same place.

Have a great day and happy quilting

 

A quick breakfast for one usually is an English muffin or a bowl of cereal.  Here is a recipe for a different breakfast.  It does take a little longer to make, but is worth it.

French Toast Casserole – Butter a small casserole dish.  Add 1  Tbsp.. butter and 2 Tbsp. brown sugar,  Microwave for 20 seconds or until butter is melted and sugar is dissolver.  Cut two slices of bread into one inch cubes and place on top of melted butter and sugar.  In a bowl, mix 1/4 cup milk, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Pour mixture over bread crumbs, pressing pieces to help absorb liquid.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Drizzle maple syrup over casserole.   Cover and refrigerate over night.  In the morning, preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Bake for 30 minutes.   Drizzle a small amount of maple syrup over casserole before eating.

While casserole is baking,  brew coffee and cook bacon.  Do you want crispy bacon?  After placing in pan and turning heat on, pour a little less than 1/4″ of water into pan.  Cover for a few minutes.  After taking cover off, fry bacon, turning occasionally,  until it is lightly brown and the water is gone.  It will be crispy and delicious. I usually cook double the amount of bacon and use half in another recipe.

If you use bacon only on occasion, divide the remaining bacon in package into single servings.  Place in snack baggies and place snack baggies in a freezer bag.  Label it with the date and place in the freezer.  If you want bacon at a later date, take out one small package and thaw.  If you have company, take out two packages.

 

 

Remember to use your best dishes, silver and glassware.  What are you saving them for?  Have a great day and keep quilting

I wonder why I have so many UFOs.  There has to be a reason.  This week, I made a table runner from a stripped piece that I had spiraled.  I learned this technique in a pocket book class in Vermont.  I’m not sure why we did this.  I never did make a pocket book from that class.

 

This is how to spiral.  Fold a piece of fabric down at a 45 degree angle.  Place the machine needle 1/4″ from all sides at the point of the top fabric.

 

 

turn fabric so sides meet and sew to the end.

Press the tube flat.

 

 

 

cut up one side and the fabric will now be on a diagonal.

 

 

 

Now I know why I did not finish the UFO.  Stripes do not line up when doing this.  Some UFOs should be “left of the back seat of a bus” or at least tossed into the mile a minute bin,  I will be more careful in choosing UFOs in the future.  Some are not worth finishing.

Happy quilting.

At this time of year, there are only thoughts about gardening.  Spring is not far away when we can put our thoughts in action.

One of my favorite spring flowers is the poppy.  The colors are so beautiful.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t last too long.  But, there are other beauties that follow.

The bud of the poppy is exceptionally beautiful.  It looks like a quilted picture.  On the theme of choosing flower colors for quilts, these are some of the fabrics that I pulled from my stash to make a block.  Maybe, by next week, I can show the block made with these colors.

When the poppy bud opens, it is a brilliant orange with a very deep purple center. I would never think to put these two colors into a block.   These colors, along with a multitude of greens makes a very different block than the bud block.  

 

 

If I make flower blocks each week, I would eventually have a very pretty sampler quilt.  Do I really need another long term quilt?   Now that I have this thought is in my head, I probably will.  I could put it together with making all the blocks in Kimberly Einmo’s book.  I need to stop thinking and get to quilting.

Have a happy quilting day.

Kimberly Einmo is my favorite teacher.  I use her flying geese and jelly roll ruler in a lot of my quilts.  She also writes an article for the AQS magazine.  Someday, I intend to make all of the blocks in Kimberly’s book.  The blocks are different sizes and use her rulers to make them.  I wonder how many quilts I can make when I make all the blocks.  It would use up a lot of scraps.  This would probably be my next long term quilt.

This quilt was made in a class at the Vermont Quilt Festival.  Dave LaValley from the Bittersweet Fabric Shop provides Janome machine for the class.  It is much easier to sew in a class with a machine that you are familiar with.  There is a lot of twisting and turning of the blocks in this quilt.  A design wall was definitely needed to arrange it.

Kimberly designed this row of the month wall hanging for AQS magazine.  I didn’t use her colors and it is a much different quilt than hers.  It was necessary to have an accurate 1/4″ seam as the block sizes were different.   If the measurement was off, the rows would not be the same length.

I do have another wall hanging from a class with Kimberly.  It is in my stash of UFOs and will be finished someday.

Happy quilting

Good afternoon

Gaa-Barge #2

I first make fabric with tiny bits of scrap fabric.  After laying the scraps on a base,  I overlaid it with tulle.  I auditioned several colors of tulle until I found the right one.  Then I free motioned black leaves over the made fabric.  I cut the new fabric into circles and cut the circles in quarters.  Laying the quarter circles on a square of blue, I stitched it down.  After sewing the squares in a sixteen patch, I sewed around the made fabric with a close, black zig zag.  The whole piece was then stippled quilted with silver thread.  It looks like a church window.  It’s amazing what can be done with very tiny scraps that should be thrown away.

Happy quilting