Quilting

Since pink is the color for February, I happen to have a pink project here in the apartment. I made a breast cancer awareness quilt in 2021 to save until it was needed. Last year I gave it away to friend who was diagnosed, so when the new line from Riley Blake came out in October, I bought a layer cake of Strength in Pink. I didn’t get it put together in October because I was still recovering & not sewing, so now I’m doing the blocks as L&E’s this month. So far I have 13. I’m making “Square Dance” by Material Girl Quilts, a free pattern that shows off the fabrics nicely with the large pieces & uses only a layer cake with no waste.

This week’s North Stars blocks by Elizabeth Hartman update: they still take forever to cut & sew. But so cute! Here is the seal, so that’s 3 of the 4 done!

And in my quilt group, we finished Cascade last week, so here’s our new project! We’ve decided to make the Fat Quarter Shop Sewcialites2 quilt. It started in October so there’s already 14 blocks out, but we’ll just plug along each week. This is #1 Perennial by Bev McCullough, made in the 6″ size. I got to go shopping & bought enough of this darling postal cancellation background for the whole quilt. Then I’m going to use up the leftovers from my Songbook kit, plus shop my partners’ stash for small pieces to complement. Turns out you can still be scrappy even if all your boxes of scraps are in the storage unit!!

I finished my “blue” project for January which was to get the last of these three Quilts for Kids kits done, so now I can turn them in at next month’s workshop. I feel so good to finally get them finished.

I made the second 24″ Elizabeth Hartman block for North Stars. Since I’m only doing a small 4-block quilt, the blocks are now half-done! They take a long time to cut & sew, so one a week is good progress.

In weekly quilt group, we finished our Cascade quilt tops this week. We all made the same pattern but challenged ourselves to use patterned fabric we had on hand. We started these before my accident & the move, when I had access to all my fabric. LOL I had these fat quarters of Hawaiian fabric that a friend brought me from Hawaii several years ago for my birthday & they’ve been waiting for the “perfect” project. There weren’t enough for all the diamonds, so I broke into a solid fat quarter pack I had, thus keeping with the challenge & only purchasing background.

My January “blue” project is to get the last of these three Quilts for Kids done, since I’ve had them checked out since before my accident. This week I got all the zipper blocks sewed together so next week will be putting together the top & adding the borders for the win!

My other project this week was to start my first ever Elizabeth Hartman pattern. Everything for the 4-block quilt was in the bag, so I brought it to the apt. as a good project to work on here. The pattern & fabric were all still tied up in the plastic bag from the quilt store, so I opened it up this week to sort it all & figure out what I’d been thinking when I purchased all the fabrics. Great question! First off, I looked at the receipt & this was all purchased in August 2018. Sheesh! It’s been in my studio closet for 4 1/2 years waiting for me to sew it up!! Her instructions are to get FQ in various colors, so I did that based on what the picture looked like. As I got into the nitty-gritty instructions for cutting, I realized that the only FQ I had that would work for an animal was the off-white for the seal, but I had a weird woven blueish color that I guess was supposed to be for the other three animals, but it didn’t match well. Also, I needed a FQ for each. So no, I didn’t have everything I needed & a trip to the quilt store was in order. Because you know, my scraps are all packed up! Armed with a detailed list plus swatches for matching, I got this walrus fabric, plus enough for the otters & the narwhal. Then I started cutting & sewing. Ended up with a little wonkiness with all those tiny pieces, but overall, my first EH block is a success. And I did a blue one for January!

How’s this for some January blue sewing? I processed a ginormous pile of jeans a couple of years ago into bags of different sized strips so they were ready to make into quilt tops. And they sat in my studio closet until the great pack-up. I decided to bring them to the apartment because it seemed like relaxing sewing, plus an old project that could get finished up. These are strips being sewn end-to-end in a giant chain piecing stream.

I got top #1 made this week from those strips. It will be a donation quilt & since my quilting partner got a long-arm for her December birthday & needs practice quilts, I got some backing & batting & will let her do the quilting rather than send in the top & let other volunteers do the quilting. So wins all around! (Evening in the apt for photo shoot so the colors are muted-there’s much more blue like in the first shot!)

This is what’s left after making the first top. How many quilts do you think I can make from these strips???

The list!

I didn’t take a photo of Songbook before taking it to the quilter last week, but that was my first apartment finish. The kit was a Mother’s Day gift in 2021 from my hubby, but because of supply chain issues, it didn’t arrive until the fall. I was heavy into finishing Christmas gifts & let it lapse. I started sewing the stars in July 2022 just before surgery & the Great Fall stopped all sewing for months. So in November when I could sew again, I started slowly working on it as therapy from the stress of packing & got the blocks done & sewed together before the move. My hubby gave me a coupon for Christmas that said I could go get it quilted, so I got the borders on after Christmas & got it to the quilter! (We have a moratorium on getting things quilted during this period, but he was sweet. This quilt is for me to keep, so he decided to just do it.) I also made the binding & that’s blue for the month!

I’ve been doing this relaxing string piecing for Bonnie Hunter’s Cherry Crunch & have all 448 little blocks made. They get red corners so I’m going to put them away for the red month. Then I can play along with y’all.

My “blue” project for January is to finish the Quilts for Kids kits I checked out before the accident. I’ve had them for months now & feel guilty, so they are my priority. I got #1 done previously, but I finished #2 this week. #3 has the blocks in progress.

I finished the last of the Sweet Kisses blocks (in green), then started putting together the top for this RSC2022 project that I brought with me. I don’t love sewing big rows together, so I’ll probably do a row here & there until it’s done. But I adore it so far.