April Quilts 2025

Two more tops for April,

The first is this pineapple quilt and where a lot of my energy was going.  I found a brown plaid that had fallen next to lavender.  I knew I wanted to make a quilt from this color combo.  A friend sent me a whack of chocolate browns to go with what I already had.  I purchased a lavender that has sort of a watercolor look to it.  While I was working on it another friend gifted me with a piece of yardage that was brown and lavender.  I was awestruck by her generosity.

This is from a Fabric Cafe 3 yard quilt book.  I don’t recall the name but will search for it.  My daughter is a Hello Kitty fanatic.  I saw fabrics and sent her pictures.  After several text sessions fabrics and pattern were chosen.  I also made two matching pillowcases for her.  I mostly sewed this in a weekend while away at retreat.  When I finished it only lacked borders.  Those were added shortly after.

More to come!

February and March Quilts 2025

When I looked through photos I was surprised to see only two tops.  These are both from my Running Doe top-a-long with Villa Rosa patterns.

February’s entry is Lanterns

March’s entry was Transport.

I really thought back and wondered why I hadn’t produced more.  But when you see the upcoming finishes know that I was probably piecing those a good bit in these months!

i hope everyone that celebrates had a good thanksgiving holiday.  No one went away hungry!

Quilts from January 2025

I haven’t gotten any further on my quilting other than figuring out what not to do.  So I e decided to share what I HAVE been doing.

Here are my quilts from January.

This quilt is called Amelia and is a Running Doe pattern for Villa Rosa.  Catherine, the owner of the shop, hosts a top-a-long for 6 months.  This was the first for the first half of the year.

An io group that I’m on had a sew a long of half log cabin blocks.  This was one of the tops I made.  I love the secondary pattern and my quilt model Chip.

This is my second top for the HLC sew a long.  I wanted to use up that cow print and had the denim blue.  I got the red bandana fabric from my friend.  This one is smaller than the first but still a good throw size.

This is a flannel quilt kit I was gifted in September but intended as my Christmas Gift,  I was in town and it was easier for her to hand me the kit to carry home.  The pattern is Ride ‘‘em Cowboy by Marti Mitchell.

For the Running Doe top-a-long I decided to make them red, white and blue and bring them as close to 60x80 so they could be donated as a QOV.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  We have lost two good friends this week.  Mend any broken fences.  Hold your loved ones close.

The Big Sort and Quilting

Part of my big sort was purging.  Those things that I could not throw away, give away or return to their owner are things that I deemed as a keeper, a project (it needs deeper attention.  Think photos) or things that I made a commitment to do something with before returning it.  The one item I have a lot of are charity tops.  There are those that I accepted to complete and those that others accepted but asked me to finish.  I also have lots of tops intended as gifts for family and friends.

This bounty has led me back to using my longarm.  It frustrates me because I tend to have tension issues.  I do silly things like trying different types and weights of threads.  I recently tried a bigger needle in anticipation of quilting through some heavy stabilizer.  I even lost my mind and over adjusted my upper tension after knowing my tension was near perfect.  I got halfway through quilting a quilt to find I had thread nests all across the back.  I realize that I need to not change so many factors with each quilt and just find what works and stick with it.  The other thing is to resist the urge to try a new design on every quilt.  Just get it done!  I went to a quilt show recently and guess what quilt design they used.  Wavy lines!

Here are some charity quilts I’ve done recently.

I Never Would Have Guessed!

Almost two years since I posted.  I was trying to find some balance between sewing and reading or writing about sewing.  Then I got hooked on purging.  I really dug in and touched almost everything in every room.  Exhausting and exhilarating at the same time!  That’s how it turned into a big break.

We went on a big vacation to Alaska.  We flew into Anchorage via Seattle.  We rented a car and proceeded to drive 2000 miles.  We had a list of things we were interested in doing and then flew by the seat of our pants.  We’d choose a destination and on several occasions drive up to the lodging and decided if we wanted to stay there or drive on.  We managed well on finding decent places.  Unfortunately on the way back I started up with a cough and felt blah for over three weeks.  Ray decided to join the party and is still working through it.  A lot of my coworkers reported being away for long vacations and also got sick.  Are we just burning the candle at both ends?

I’ve continued sewing in some way on a regular basis.  I joined the Running Doe Topalong.  It’s a six month program.  They offer 1 digital pattern a month x 6 for $10.  You finish the top in the month it is announced and you get entered into a prize drawing.  If you finish all 6 there is a grand prize.  There is a Facebook group and I’ve really enjoyed seeing all the inspiration.  There are a few I’d like to make again in an inspiring color way.

I’ll come back with more posts and pictures!  Watch this space.

Life Happenings

I didn’t mean to be away from the blog for so long.  I came to say I haven’t been sewing much.  But when I scrolled photos I discovered I was a fibber.  In addition to cleaning up bags of scraps by making bindings I’ve had three new starts!  Plus, I’ve made in excess of 15 bings.  I need to get busy quilting apparently.

I was sorting through kits and saw this one.  Got bit by a bug and decided to make it.  I still have to miter the borders.  I wanted to add another yellow and miscue a green so went to my newly organized stash and found exactly what I needed!

While sorting fabric I came across panels and coordinating yardage that I was not interested in using.  One set was hunting dogs.  My brother loved his Labrador.  I also wanted to make him a 60th birthday quilt.  Here it is!  To be quilted.

 

When I got these to this point I needed a piecing project for away from home.  Out came a FQ bundle I was gifted.  I’m short a few blocks but here’s a trial layout.  About half the needed blocks.  Cathedral Beads.

Time ran out on me before vacation.  We headed for Tennessee.  Duchess and Chip.  All the sites to see.  All the new smells!

Vacation without an issue wouldn’t be vacation for us.

Homemade water sprinkler!

When backing the trike out of the toy hauler someone buried a tail pipe.  It stalled immediately.  Luckily three gentlemen came to our rescue and it’s running fine!

Will share more vacation adventures soon.

Stay quilty my friends.

Cobbler’s Children

You know the story how the cobblers children don’t have shoes?  He was so busy making shoes for his customers he didn’t have time to make shoes for his family.

I found myself tightly ensconced in the role of a cobbler’s child.  I have time to repair quilts for others but not repair my own.  The very first quilt I made was given to my mother.  When it started to wear she put it away.  I inherited that quilt back when she passed away.  I always had intentions of fixing it but never seemed to get around to the task.

This past weekend I bundled it up and took it to the church.  I picked out all the quilting and hung it up to find the spots needing repair.  When you look at the picture you can see blue painters tape in two spots.  There are 5 spots in all.  Three need the seam resewn and the other two need a strip replaced.

Now that I have it to this point it will be a lot easier to work on it.  I made all the rookie mistakes.  Sewed with a 5/8” seam, not enough quilting for the batting.  Maybe not all but I hope I’ve improved.  In the process of my ongoing stash organization I came across the matching fabric!  Serendipity.

What are you putting off doing for yourself that you readily do for others?  Time to make yourself a priority!

Happy quilting.

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