Sue

I got this bound & finished this week for Christmas gifting. I’m calling it “Around the Neighborhood”. The pattern is from “Miss Rosie’s Farmhouse Favorites” & I varied it a bit. There are supposed to be 5 houses on each side of the courthouse steps center with sawtooth stars in the corners. But I swapped some houses for stars & did my borders & star points in grays rather than reds like the pattern. The top was made all from my stash so I’m happy about that scrappy accomplishment.

This flimsy happened this week. All the members of my (now virtual) quilt group bought this pattern when it first came out & we intended to do it as a group project. The other two members bought the Fig Tree Quilts fabric featured on the pattern at the same time but I said I would make it from my stash. Because I have stuff here. (wink) They were anxious & separately just made theirs on their own. I kept putting it off because I was trying to imagine it with my bright oranges. It never made me happy. Last week I had to run into my local quilt store for some backing & they had kits for this pattern with some of the Fig Tree fabrics & similar that matched. I just totally splurged, grabbed one, came home & got going. It’s going to the quilter this weekend & I’ll get it bound for me for this fall. So happy to make something for me!!

I’ve only tried one QAL & had to drop out because life got in the way, although I did eventually finish the quilt. So I’m giving it another go with the Clear Sky Quilt Along with Andy Knowlton of A Bright Corner. I love her patterns & figured this was a great way to make one & use an old Lori Holt print that has four “fat quarters” printed on a yard. I have 3 yards of the same aqua & brown print that I got on clearance when my local store went out of business, so will still have a bunch leftover with the other stash fabric I’m adding in. But it’s a start. These are the Week 1 blocks.

And these are the Week 2 blocks. So cute! But they are not that dark IRL.

And this week’s July-August Covered in Love block drive blocks include Block #2-Bulbs from Pat Sloan’s A Flower Bouquet free sew along. I’m finding stars wherever I see them in my patterns. Even though it’s a bit of a pinwheel, I think it still works as a star shape.

These are Split Star blocks from the free tutorial at blue feather quilt studio. That makes 15-12.5″ blocks I’ve made so far. Wow! I’ve been having so much fun making stars that I think I’ll see if I can get a couple more made next week, then ship them off.

OK, I just did it. Chaser is a flimsy. I’ve been working on these Chaser blocks from the Scrap Mixology pattern by Cynthia Brunz as a 2020 & 2021 RSC project. I finished them & then couldn’t resist just getting them sewed together. I can’t afford to send it to the quilter right now as I need to get some gift quilts done first, but it will get done maybe beginning of next year. In the meantime, it’s a finished flimsy that I love.

I’m in the middle of so many projects & since I don’t need any more aqua blocks for my RSC projects, I’m free to get some stuff done. I trimmed 2 quilts, sewed together the binding strips here & need to get them pressed & sewed onto the quilts so I can hand sew them down.

This is an old project that is now going to be a Christmas gift. It’s a Fat Quarter Shop Sew Sampler project called The Beehive that’s been sitting in a project box forever. I loved the Corey Yoder Pepper & Flax Jolly Bar that came in the box, as well as the pattern, so soon after it came I was shop-hopping with my quilt group & picked up more of the fabric for borders & backing, plus the background fabric. So everything for a quilt has been grouped together. I decided to make a quilt for a family member, went to my boxes, found this, knew it was perfect for her, & started it last week. All that’s left now is that final yellow border. Borders are my least favorite & take forever, so I’ve been doing them along with other stuff. But it’s so cute!

And these are pumpkin blocks for Hocus Pocus by The Pattern Basket. I’m making this for me & trying to get this done to take to quilter next week along with Beehive & the charity auction Oz quilt. I have to piece backings for those. See, lots of random stuff to finish!

Two dark blue scrappy friendship star blocks. I was inspired by Deb A. to make these cute & cheery little blocks & they have been so fun. Also they are whittling down my 2.5″ square stash. I almost have enough of these for a quilt. Yippee!

I’ve been working on these Chaser blocks from the Scrap Mixology pattern by Cynthia Brunz as a 2020 & 2021 RSC project. These are the last of the 63 blocks I need for a lap quilt, so I laid them all out in a spectrum order on my design wall & will sew them together in rows as L&E’s. Until I need my design wall for something else, then they will either get taken down & stacked, or sewed up in a blitz.

These are my plus blocks in medium blue. I didn’t want to go too dark because they don’t show up well against the dark gray background. I only have orange left for this quilt, so orange must be August’s color! Then I have to play with blocks & decide on a layout plan. I have an idea of what I want. We’ll see.

So busy around here that there hasn’t been much time or energy for sewing. But I have managed a little bit of blue stitching. Dark blue column done for the Brickyard quilt inspired by Julie of Me and My Quilts. Even though it’s a curvy line on the floor, it’s sewed straight! LOL

The dark blue chevron is complete for the zig-zag quilt from Diann at Little Penguin Quilts. I’m only planning to do one more row for this top, in orange, then lay out & see if I’m happy or need more rows. Yippee!

I actually made seven new blocks for the July-August Covered in Love block drive . This makes 12 for me & I still have more time next month to add to the pile. I continued my fun in making lots of different blocks. The top is Twinkle Lights from Pat Sloan’s current sew-along called Summer Soiree. The wonky star with the blue background is a tutorial from The Silly BooDilly. Sawtooth star with a blue string center. The bottom four are Whirlwind blocks I made from the same 3 fabrics as opposites. I used a free pdf of the Fabric Stash Block from the April/May 2011 issue of Quilt Magazine. I printed several of these patterns to use this month as I was looking for stars, but I literally can’t find them anywhere on the interwebs now. I thought I’d pinned them, but no, & Mr. Google isn’t helping me. So any basic Whirlwind block pattern you have will do the job.

Look at me! I randomly have another blue finish this week. Hilarious! This little shark quilt is from fabric purchased on sale several years ago. This was back when I thought it took a lot of fabric to make a quilt. Ha! I used this & have enough leftover for one or two more. But part of an old pile was conquered. I took this in to my quilter & she said she had done a custom pattern with the sharks in it back when this fabric was new & popular. So we used that & although it doesn’t show much on the busy front, it’s super cute on the minky backing.

Two more blocks for the July-August Covered in Love block drive . This is #4 & 5 for me. The top is 16 Patch Sawtooth Star from Delaware Quilts. The bottom is Day into Night Star from Pat Sloan.

And finally, I got some work done on one of my actual RSC projects. These are the 4 dark blue resized Cozy Stars from the Pat Sloan QAL called Cozy Things. Last month when I was looking at the purple ones on my wall, I thought maybe I should snowball the four inner squares to put a colored square on point there to add interest. Then 4 stars together make one big block with colored sashing between the blocks. Maybe?? Pretty soon I will have to start making some layout decisions for all these block projects I’ve got going.