Batik Quilt Is Completed

At our fall retreat, I won a door prize that was kindly provided by Lorena. It was a basket of sewing notions and goodies, including a charm pack of batiks. Last month, I stumbled upon the charm pack in the sewing hole. I watched some YouTube videos to find inspiration to use five inch squares to make a quilt. One of them looked interesting- an inch and a half strip was cut off of each one, then the pieces were shuffled around and sewn back together. After that, a half inch was sliced off the unit to make it square. They were assembled into windmill type blocks. I didn't fancy the idea of discarding a half inch of fabric from each piece, so I contemplated a different layout that didn't have any waste. Fabric is much too expensive to be throwing it in the garbage. There was a major excavation in my batik fabric bins to find fabrics that were in the same colour family as the charm pack. The backing is muslin, but it wasn't wide enough for the quilt top. I added two rows of leftover batik segments to enlarge it. For the quilting, I tried out a free-motion woodgrain design, which I hadn't done before. The thread was Aurifil in a variegated pink/yellow/tan. I had that spool since 2012 but it never suited any of my other quilts. It worked well for this project. Now I better get busy and finish the Sasquatch quilt, it needs to be completed for our trip to the cabin in May.

Friday Finish: Ten Year Old UFO

I put the last stitches in the binding this morning. This quilt was made from a free tutorial on the Wedding Dress Blue blog. The pattern is called, "Film at Five". We are having a UFO completion challenge in our guild, this was one of the items on my list. I guess ten years from start to finish isn't too bad. :) I forgot how big this quilt was, it turned out to be queen size. I couldn't display the whole thing hanging straight on the photography frame, it went all the way to the ceiling with the bottom part resting on the floor. It's still too mucky outside to take a picture on the lawn. Normally, I don't like to use a pure white fabric for the backing, but I had a lot of it in my stash. It's good to use what we already have, considering the high cost of fabric these days. The quilting is a free-motion "Topographical Map" design.

Donation Quilt Completed

This was another variation of Potato Chip blocks. I made four giant ones, then added a different style of blocks on the top and bottom to make the quilt rectangular. The elephant print came from Thailand. Coralee's friend was there and brought fabric back to Canada. I attempted to make a flange binding by watching a YouTube video. The directions made an awfully narrow binding, I would do it differently next time. Lynda helped by sewing the binding onto the back. I thought I might have to stitch it around to the front by hand because it looked too narrow to sew by machine. The next day, I took a look at it and discovered that it could be sewn along the edge of the piping instead of in the ditch- yay! I fastened it down with Wonder Clips and sewed slowly to keep the stitches as close to the edge as possible. The backing is muslin and the quilting is simple free-motion loops. Marge insisted on being in the photos. I always wash a quilt just before I donate it to make sure there isn't any cat hair on it.

Day Three Of the February 28-March 2, 2025 Quilting Retreat

I finished the last few blocks that I was working on yesterday, then switched to a different project. These blocks are a variation of the Potato Chip block, I've been trying to do as many different configurations as possible. The Rubbermaid bin is packed with 2 1/2" X 4 1/2" pieces that I've been cutting for the past few years. Other people have their cut pieces all organized into colours neatly stacked. Not me, I have a chaotic mind. I just pluck what I want from the container and sew them together with wild abandon. I call it "Mindless Sewing". I do have a colour scheme going here- purples, blues and greens. They are going to be connected in an on point setting.

Day Two Of The February 28-March 2, 2025 Quilting Retreat

I would have accomplished more today, but one piece of fabric was cut the wrong size and the rest of it was at home. Also, I didn't cut enought of the small white squares for a block and the rest of that was also at home. Oh well. We had a great potluck lunch. Of course, I ate too much, everything was delicious. Lynda did a machine binding demo, which was excellent. A good time was had by all.

Day One Of The February 28-March 2, 2025 Quilting Retreat

Today we started at 6:00 PM and finished just before 9:00 PM, so we didn't accomplish too much. I'm working on the Stash Buster Challenge from a Facebook group. I've only got 6 blocks done so far, but the sashing is all cut out and I'm assembling some of the sections. Some people in that group have their quilts finished already. The challenge is supposed to go from January until the end of December, those quilters are extremely speedy! I'll just putter away at mine and it'll get done eventually.

A Quilt For Nathan

Our guild is having a UFO completion challenge this year. This one can be crossed off my list. I made these blocks a year ago for a "Beth Dutton" quilt. Many people were jumping on the bandwagon and making a quilt that was in the Yellowstone TV series. I never watched the show, but I saw pictures of the quilt. So of course, I had to be a copycat and join in. Monkey see, monkey do. I'm going to give this quilt to Nathan, a friend of Geo's son. Nathan came from a Hutterite colony in Manitoba. He said he regretted not being given a quilt when he left. Now he will get a quilt. It won't be from his relatives, but it'll have to do. I hope he likes it. I found some large pieces of black batting from twenty years ago in my closet. it has to be the nicest and fluffiest batting ever. I pieced it together to use in this quilt. It's too bad they don't make batting like that anymore. It's quilted with Baptist Fans in a light grey to black variegated thread. The quilt is in the washing machine right now because I spilled pickle juice on it- groan! If anything is going to get spilled, it'll be me that does it. After the laundering, I'll attach a label.

The Star Petals Quilt Is Completed

The pattern, "Star Petals" came from the book, Scrap Basket Bounty by Kim Brackett. I pulled squares from my 5" squares, 4 1/2" squares and 2 1/2" squares that are all sorted into bins to create this project. I added an extra row to the top and bottom so the quilt wasn't square like it was in the instructions. After making the quilt top, the bins were still full. I could probably make ten quilts and not see much reduction in the collection. I found a flat sheet for $2.00 at a thrift shop. After I laundered it and checked for quality, it became the backing for this quilt. With the price of fabric escalating, a person has to look for a bargain somewhere. This will most likely end up being a donation quilt.

Scrappy Crossroads Is Completed

The pattern for Scrappy Crossroads came from the book, "Scrappiness is Happiness" by Lori Holt. It's an old time pattern, otherwise known as "Arkansas Crossroads". I found wide backing fabric that I competely forgot about in a closet, so that became the back of the quilt. Also, in the same closet, I found several large pieces of Warm and White batting that I pieced together. That batting from from about 20 years ago. I noticed how much thicker and more substantial the batting used to be. Batting nowadays is a lot thinner and flimsier. Shrinkflation is everywhere, even in the quilting world! I used light green Onmi thread for the free-motion quilting. This thread didn't work for me the last time I used it, but this time I used the same in the top and bobbin. It worked like a charm. Omni doesn't like Bottom Line thread in the bobbin. I'll keep that in mind. Whenever I finish a quilt, Geo always asks me, "What are you going to do with that one?" I don't usually know, they get put away and the decision comes later. I always have a need to be creative, so I just constantly make things.

First Quilt Finish Of 2025

I dug around in my bin of 2 1/2" strips and pulled out all the blue ones. This is what I came up with. A 5" spacer strip was added between the units. For the quilting, I tried "Borders on a Roll". They were sitting in a cupboard for more than 20 years, so I though I should finally use them. They are long paper strips with a design printed on them. The back has some glue to stick them to the quilt. Stitching is done through the paper, following the design, then the paper is torn off. It wasn't the easiest thing to do on Matilda the longarm. There are wobbles here and there. At one point, a pleat was stitched into a row because the fabric stretched but the paper didn't. Jack the Seam Ripper had to come out and undo that blunder. The rest of the quilt was done with freeform wavy lines.

Throwback Thursday; Bug Village

I designed and made this silly little wall quilt back in the late 90s. Linda H came to visit and we had fun making wonky houses. There was never a place to hang it up so it was in storage for all those years. We got a new outside door in the kitchen that doesn't have a window. I bought a magnetic curtain rod so I can things on it. I'll have to make some seasonal wall quilts now.

Cross Stitch Pillows

My friend, Helga asked if I would make some pillows from a cross stitch blanket that she couldn't complete. She offered to pay me but I refuse to take payment from a lifelong friend! I ordered some pillow forms from Amazon and dug through my stash to find fabric for the borders. The zipper drawer produced some suitable ones but they had to be shortened. As soon as I cut the cross stitch panels from the blanket, they had to be serged to seal in the edges. My serger is from about 1990 and has turned a deep yellow with age. I keep it covered with a pillowcase to protect it from light but that didn't make any difference. There were seven completed cross stitch pictures. I made three pillows with a picture on each side. One pillow has plain cloth on the back. Helga had a great idea to repurpose her UFO. She did a wonderful job of her stitching. Look how cute the anaimals are!