Finished Or Not Friday: A Whole Lot of Longarming Going On!

I'm pleased to join in this week at Quilty Girl Alycia's for Finished Or Not Friday!  

Some of these projects have been a long time coming so be warned in advance that this will be a very long post!

This past Sunday my DH and I returned from our annual winter trip to visit my MIL in North Carolina.  As always, since my MIL is also a quilter, these trips also function as a bit of a mini quilt retreat.  Even more so this year as my MIL has a new friend from her guild and also has a new "neighbor" who is a former co-worker of hers from here in NY who retired to my MIL's town last year.  I had taught both my MIL and her co-worker to quilt close to twenty years ago now and the woman still has the quilting bug big time!   So needless to say a few quilt shop excursions and a "sew together" session for the four of us happened during our week long stay.

The machines on break while we ate!

My MIL purchased a longarm during the 2023 All Carolinas Shop Hop so each time I visit it is also another chance for me to learn more about using it.  She has a Handi Quilter Moxie on an 8 ft frame with a Pro Stitcher tablet.  

This picture is from around the time she purchased it.

Each visit since she purchased it has presented a different "learning experience" (aka a need to solve problems, LOL!) for both of us.  This time, the big lessons were on achieving proper balanced tension and learning how to adjust both the bobbin and top tension.  

A very handy video on that topic can be seen on You Tube here.  At another point, a call to Handi Quilter's Customer Relations about the thread popping out of the upper tension disks resulted in a very simple solution:  check to see if you need to clean out accumulated lint between the disks!  The good news was that my reward for learning the lessons is that I managed to quilt three quilts!! 

A New Project For A Gift  

The first of those was not one of the aforementioned "old projects" but a new one that was a birthday gift for a friend of mine.  As I had noted in a "To Do Tuesday" post last month,  I owed this friend a memory quilt that we have collaborated on the planning of for a couple of years now and for which I have compiled a stash of fabric.  The problem has been that I consider this a very personal and important project so of course have been furiously procrastinating on getting it perfectly designed before starting it!  

However, my friend and her husband had visited us over the holidays and she offered an out of just making her any quilt since that is what she ultimately wants.  Now, it should be noted that I have made this friend a number of things but they have been smaller projects like a wall hanging to commemorate her cat that passed away, a jewelry roll, a desk mat and two mug rugs (seen here and here).  I had made her husband a quilt back in 2017 because we shared two interests and despite the many things I've made her, I think she was a little jealous of that.  

Since the request made over the holidays released me from the obligation of specifically making a memory quilt, clearly that tempted the Quilt Muses to provide an opening!  Two weeks before we were due to leave on our trip, I happened on the absolutely perfect line of fabric and even better it was on sale!

Image from Annie's Catalog now Annie's Attic

The Annie's Catalog site (recently renamed "Annie's Attic") had sent word of a big sale on Fat Quarter Bundles that they were having.   One of them was for a bundle of flannel FQs from the Henry Glass Fabrics "I Love Sn'Gnomies" line.  My friend is a huge fan of the Gnome decorating trend!  Of course the first thing I thought when I saw a bundle of six FQs was that it was the perfect start for my current favorite fast and easy 9 FQ Disappearing Nine Patch quilt design!  It also doesn't hurt that I also love working with flannel for quilts.  Annie's also had a panel from the line so I picked that up too (the last one they had!)  to start off the backing so now I had the prospect of giving her a two sided quilt!  

Then I found an Etsy vendor with another of the prints from the line deeply discounted and they had just enough to help fill out more of the back and provide another FQ.  Another Etsy vendor carried a number of the prints from the line so I was able to order two more FQs to round out the nine I needed and some yardage to fill out the rest of the backing and for the binding and to have a little extra for stash.

Both my friend and her husband had birthdays (a day apart) coming up while we would be away so with the clock ticking, the plan was to hope everything would arrive quickly enough that I could get this easy to piece quilt done and in the mail before we had to leave.  

Well, at first that was challenged when I realized after I put in the first Etsy order that it wouldn't arrive until we got back from our trip as the vendor was away.  However as luck would have it, an alternate option turned up!  One of the fabrics I had ordered to round out the nine FQ set turned out to be very directional and was cut as a traditional FQ (18" along the lengthwise grain and 22" along the crosswise) but that didn't work for how I wanted to place it in this design.  

Not exactly to scale but how it came vs how I needed it.

This is another lesson I have learned as I have made this simple quilt design:  you have to pay attention to directional fabrics in relation to where you want to use them when the nine patch is split.  So I had to go back and order more of that particular fabric.  The vendor only had a one yard cut left and it was already in a lot of peoples carts so I snapped it up immediately even though it was way more than I needed.  When it arrived, it turned out the vendor gave me the "End of the Bolt" so a little more than a yard which was great as I was able to both cut the FQ in the orientation I needed and provide enough extra fabric to help fill out the back in place of the first print I ordered that wouldn't arrive in time.

I did get the top and back pieced the day before we left and had then hoped I'd get it quilted right after we arrived in NC so I could mail it from my MIL's and have it arrive at most just a day or two after their birthdays (I had also brought the gift I had for her husband down with me so they could be mailed back together).  Well that didn't happen either due to the aforementioned "tension lessons" I needed to learn.  However, eventually they got resolved and I got the quilt quilted!

I used a "Snowflake" design to quilt this that came in Pro-Stitcher.  

Since I didn't finish everything up until the day before their birthdays and since they live in New Jersey so are actually on the route of our drive back home, I called to ask if they would be home the day we returned and we ended up dropping their gifts off to them as we passed through the state on the way back to The Bronx.  She absolutely loved the quilt so Mission Accomplished!! 

** Now for the "Old Projects" and feel free to take a break or grab a cuppa before continuing! **

Old Project #1:  Beth's Yellowstone Quilt  

I am thrilled to say that I have finally finished my re-creation of the quilt I was immediately taken with after seeing it in the Yellowstone TV show!

If you watched the show, you will remember when Beth Dutton wrapped herself up in it while staying in the homestead cabin with Rip.  It can be seen in the Season 2 Episode 7 called "Resurrection Day" and again in the Season 3 Episode 3 called "An Acceptable Surrender" which is the image I worked from.  If you've never seen the show, you can check out the scene with the quilt  @10:32 in this "Best of Beth & Rip" video on You Tube.  

I soon learned that I wasn't the only one that loved it because there are many, many people on Etsy offering patterns and/or kits for it (just search for "Beth Dutton Yellowstone Quilt"),  people selling finished quilts like it and at least one You Tuber that had hers hanging in the background of her video!  

It's a pretty simple design that I was able to easily draft up in EQ8 to get the fabric requirements for it.  

I had a leg up once I decided to make it since I had stocked a lot of red prints early in 2022 for making a bunch of Red & White Christmas quilts.  The leftovers of that stash provided all that I needed for this one.  Next I found what would ultimately become the backing fabric for it in October that year when my DH and I went camping on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the western part of NC.  We did a portion of the All Carolinas Shop Hop while there since it was an opportunity to go to stores I wouldn't normally get to visit.  

When we visited my MIL for the second half of that trip, I found the perfect fabric for the alternate squares in the "by the pound" sale cubes at the Keepsake Quilting/Pineapple Fabrics outlet as she and I Shop Hopped in the eastern part of the state near her (and unfortunately that outlet has since closed!).  A month later,  I picked a few of the black and white fabrics out of my stash at home and purchased the rest from Etsy vendors.   

When we visited my MIL again in March of 2023 I brought my accumulated "kit" for this along and managed to cut everything out and sew the top together while there.  

On my design wall after I got back home.

At that time, my MIL hadn't seen the show but when she saw my blocks laid out she wanted to make one too, LOL!!  She has since watched the show as well and on our trip there this month and seeing my finished quilt, finally gathered together fabrics for the nine patches for hers.  She had about half of the blocks made up before we left Sunday but still needs to source the fabric she will use for the alternate squares.

 I also always envisioned binding this with a "ticking stripe" and found what I was looking for -- once again from an Etsy source -- later in the year after I had pieced the top.  I debated for a long time after that about how I wanted to quilt this so it never got to the top of the "To Do" pile during the intervening period.  When we began preparing for the trip down this year, I sorted through my projects to consider what to bring with me.  I thought it would be great if I could quilt this in the same place it was pieced and so packed it up to go.  

I wasn't loving any of the pre-programmed stitch patterns in Pro-Stitcher for this and haven't yet had a chance to try doing free-motion on this machine.  So another new longarm lesson happened when I purchased and downloaded a stitch pattern and loaded it onto the Pro-Stitcher tablet.  I found this one that I thought was perfect given the provenance of the quilt:

It loaded up and stitched out without a hitch!

The only issue I had was that I think I should have sized the pattern to stitch out smaller than I did.  I also could have lined up the pattern better by offsetting the alternate rows so it would have not left as large a gap between the row repeats.  The good news is that I can go back in and fill in those spots with a "barbed wire" motif using my DSM if it really bothers me after I wash the quilt.  But for now, once again "Mission Accomplished"!

Okay (finally) the last one:  Old Project #2: "Dominique" 3 Yard Quilt   

Cool, reporting on this is a two for one!  The quilt pictured below was made pre-blogging so I've never had a chance to share it before.  All the way back in 2008, I made this baby quilt for the then President of the Parent Association in my kids elementary school who gave birth to her third daughter at the end of 2007.  

Apologies for the picture quality these are pre-digital printed pictures.

The other old project I'm sharing today began when I re-organized my stash in the  Summer of 2023 and found a little more than a yard remnant of the yellow fabric used in the border of that baby quilt.  By that year I was a big fan of the Fabric Cafe's "3 Yard Quilt" concept so I immediately wondered if I might find a way to use this "found fabric" to make one.  That opportunity came when a pink fabric I had actually purchased to use to make a 3YQ didn't go as well as I thought with the fabrics I had coordinated it with when I ordered them.  However, when I sat it with the yellow print, I thought there was something there --- a bit busy but there was something!

I took the two fabrics and went shopping in person for something that might work.  It wasn't easy (did I mention these fabrics are a bit "busy"?)!  Eventually I found a floral print I thought I liked.  Okay, it too was really busy but again there was something appealing to me about the three together.  I think it was that each picked up a color of the other, the white background of the floral was a perfect contrast to the other two more medium value prints with bright highlights and each print had a different scale (size and density) of print.  I figured what the heck, why not try it!  

Although Donna Roberts and her daughter Fran Morgan who design the 3YQ patterns always say "any three yards of fabric can make any 3 Yard Quilt",  I am not always convinced that is true.  I do however love watching all of their videos to see what fabrics they combine together.   I will admit though that I don't always think all of their combinations make the most of the design they are applied to.  They are never bad but not always "Wow"!  

So needless to say it took me a long time to choose one of their designs for this busy looking bunch!  Eventually I settled on the "Dominique" pattern from their book "Modern Views" (and note both are also available in digital form).  It was the one design that provided separation between the placement of the floral and the yellow print and I liked that the yellow would be in the outer border like in the original quilt it was used in.  

The top and the perfectly coordinating backing!

This was another quilt top that was made while visiting my MIL and one of two 3 Yard Quilt tops made on our trip there in October 2023.  This is also another quilt where I found the backing during the All Carolina Shop Hop that year!  I brought this back down to NC twice in 2024 but never got to quilt it.  I guess three times is the charm!

Originally I had thought about trying to stitch a block sized pattern in the pink centers and do a border design surrounding them and in the borders.  Yeah right, my longarm skills are no where up to that level of pattern placement yet, LOL!  So I settled for a simple all over pattern.  

And so now another old project has been completed!

Front and back with the label area pieced in.

Now that my looong story is done, I can head back over to Alycia's and see what others have to show for their "Finished Or Not Friday" efforts this week!

Finished Or Not Fridays: Embarking on a "NewFO"

Linking up to another edition of "Finish Or Not Fridays" hosted by the "Hostess with the QOV Mostess" Alycia of the Alycia Quilts - Quiltygirl blog!  This time I've got one for the "...Or Not!" category although I will link back in a few weeks with the finish.

Years ago, Barbara Stanbro of the Cat Patches blog used to host a monthly linkup called "NewFo" which challenged you to share a new project that you started.  It was an interesting twist on the linkups that focus on sharing UFOs that you have finished up.  Despite having the usual multitude of projects in the hopper right now, I did have a very good reason to start yet another one.

I have my MIL, a fellow quilter, for my Christmas Kringle giftee again this year.  Last year I got her a quilt kit, a quilty mug and made a mug rug to go with it.  This year she asked for some notions which have already been purchased:

This is just a peek since I'm not sure if she has figured out how to read my blog!

When we visited her back in October, she and I had a conversation about "scrappy quilting".  I taught my MIL how to quilt and she has always perferred working with "big pieces" (nothing smaller than a 5" charm square) and in a controlled pallette.  She generally gravitates towards projects that call for only a few colors and then uses one fabric in each of the required colors.  However, she had worked on two projects in recent months that have pushed her a bit past her controlled fabric boundaries.

She is a huge fan of Jenny Doan and the Missouri Star Quilt Co. YouTube projects and has made a few of them already.  Back in August, she fell in love with Jenny's "The Big Star" project and made that one up.

My MIL has been trying to focus on working solely from her stash and this was the first time she had to challenge herself to start a project by figuring out what pieces she had in the amounts required and then make choices to coordinate unique pairs of fabrics together for each star and balance those choices and their placement in the quilt as a whole.  It was a real challenge for her but with a little help from me, she picked her fabrics and got the top pieced together and was reasonably happy with the outcome.  I think she'll like it even more once it's quilted --- complete finishes always tend to look even better than they did as just tops (IMHO)! 

She is also a member of a guild and in a "destash swap" got a few Block of the Month blocks already pieced along with the complete set of the BOM patterns.  She will have to make up the rest of the blocks to have enough for a completed project.  One of the rulers I bought for her Kringle gift is a specialty one that will help her make the pieced units for one of the remaining blocks.  The blocks that are already done were made up in a controlled pallette of Black, Navy, Gray, Dark Tans, Gold and Cream but with all the fabrics a scrappy mix within those colors.  During our visit, we shopped for more fabrics within the color pallette  (not her usual colors so none except the Gray and the Cream were in her stash) and that will add even more "scrappiness" to the finished set of blocks.

So project by project, she is getting more comfortable with the idea of "working scrappy".  She has often liked the quilts I have made and especially liked the Bonnie Hunter "En Provence" top I finished.  She doesn't think she'll ever be able to work that scrappy though!   I, on the other hand, have always loved the "everything but the kitchen sink" variety of scrap quilt so working scrappy was "in my blood" so to speak.  When I look at quilt designs, if they are not already scrappy, I think about whether they would work that way either with a scrappy mix of fabics within the colorway or if they would still work taking the "kitchen sink" route.

Recently I happened on an old Moda Bake Shop "recipe" from back in 2016 and saw an opportunity to make a quilted comment on the topic for both of us.  Even better, it was designed by Vanessa Goertzen of Lella Boutique, a pattern and fabric designer I really like for the color pallettes she uses.  I have her Frivols tin (#9) that I hope to make up one of these days --- or maybe not since like Jelly Rolls and Fat Quarter bundles, these are just so cute staying displayed as they are!

The Bake Shop recipe as offered is for a lap quilt which is what I'll make for me.  For my MIL, I plan to make the same quilt but half size to give her as a wallhanging for her sewing room as the final piece of her Kringle gift.  I made her a walhanging all the way back in 2008 when she still lived here in New York and she still has it hanging in her sewing room today!

The pattern and the only pictures I still have of it which are in my journal.

I'm hoping this new wallhanging will inspire her as she continues to try working on scrappy projects in the future.

Of course, "S" is for Scrappy!

Once again, this is just a peek of what I've got so far.  I'll share more of it and the link to the recipe once I've got the whole thing made up and in the mail.  I'm hoping to make the U.S. Postal Service early mailing deadline on the 14th so I'm going to have to really focus to get this done!

Don't forget to go over to Alycia's to see what everyone else either got started, worked on or finished this week! 

Yet Another New Tuesday Archive Post - Crazy Quilts

Val over at Val's Quilting Studio hosts a weekly Tuesday Archive Linky Party.

She announces that week's themes and people can link up an old post about projects they have done for one or both themes. Quilters can also link up a new post for a "pre-blogging" project about the themes.  This week's themes are Color Wheels, Crafty Projects and Crazy Quilts.  This post is for another of my pre-blogging projects, this time in the "Crazy Quilts" category.

These pillows were made back in 2008 to go in a recliner chair I had at the time.  I had wanted to try a crazy quilt project and was also looking to do an "all neutrals" project as well.  The recliner was beige and so was the perfect background and color inspiration.  I pulled all the fabrics from the scrap stash.  Some of the trims and buttons used were from stash, some were purchased to help fill out this project.

In the left pillow, see that black and beige "jaguar" print?  It's from some shoulder pad covers from an old favorite blouse!  The covers just happened to be laying around the quilt studio and was a nice spark when put with the other fabrics (when the color is right we quilters make do)!  I got the idea of doing the quadrant format separated by trim from a Joann's online project sheet. It may be hard to see in the picture, but I couched my initials with a fuzzy cream colored decorative thread in the bottom right quadrant.

 On the right pillow, I felt that the area in the bottom left needed something.  I wanted to buy a embroidered decal to put there but I was close to finishing and didn't want to have to go out and shop for one.  Then I got the idea to make something to put there -- in this case it was a crocheted and beaded flower doily motif.  The motif was patterned in an old crochet booklet of my mother's that I had.  The beads were actually from a bracelet that had recently broken.  I liked the colors of the beads and had saved them, thank goodness!  

I still want to do a big Crazy quilt project one day but little projects like these are a great way to play and experiment!  If you want to see more quilty-crafty goodness, head back over to Val's and see what everyone else has posted this week!

Another New Tuesday Archive Post - Craft Projects

Val over at Val's Quilting Studio hosts a weekly Tuesday Archive Linky Party.

She announces that week's themes and people can link up an old post about projects they have done for one or both themes. Quilters can also link up a new post for a "pre-blogging" project about the themes. I've linked up one "old" post this week (although it's not that old having only been posted back in March) but this week  I had a projects for the subjects that were from the early days before blogging so gives me an opportunity to get them posted to the blog.

This week's themes are Color Wheels, Crafty Projects and Crazy Quilts.  I haven't done any Color Wheel quilts but do have some projects for the other catagories.   I've already linked up my post on the jewelry pouches I've made so now need to do a post on a pre-blogging Crafty project.

When my sons were in elementary school, the school had an incentive program where the teachers could recognize  a student in their class each month who set the example for being a "good citizen".  The school would hold a small monthly breakfast that parents could attend to see all the "Citizens of the Month" from each grade honored and receive a pin and certificate acknowledging the honor.

Over the years each of my sons won the award a few times and I liked to display them.  In our old apartment I had an area in our front foyer where I displayed all of our awards and diplomas.  I would put all the acumulated pins (as well as display the most recent certificate) on a shelf but at some point realized it would be nice to have a banner to display all the pins together.  Well you know us quilters, if there is a need, there must be a way to meet it by making a quilt!

This was the result of that brainstorm.  It was a simple project made from some stash fabrics that were from an interesting source.  In my early days as a quilter, I had once bought a five pound bag of fabric samples off of Ebay!  They were mostly older samples and I believe the seller originally owned a quilt shop.  I will say I've started or filled in a lot of projects from that bag!  The samples came in varying sizes from about a layer cake sized square to sometimes a quarter yard cut. The different prints or colorways (if it was all the same print) of each line would be stapled together with a header card with the fabric line and designer's name on it.

All the fabrics for this project, front and back (with the execption of the binding), came from the sample bag.  On the front, the black background and schoolhouse at the bottom was a border print from a Debbie Mum fabric line called "Mums the Word" and the green and yellow horizontal schoolbuses and supplies stripe print at the top was another fabric from the same line.

                   Front

 

                       Back

On the back, the top most print was also from the Debbie Mum line while the bottom two fabrics were samples from Leanne Anderson's "One Room School House" line.  I couldn't have put together better or more appropiate coordinates if I had shopped for them in person!

I haven't had the chance to set up the display area in our new home but when I do I look forward to hanging this one back up even though the boys are long out of elementary school (one's a first year college student and the other's a high school sophomore). 

Click back over to Val's and see all the other quilty-crafty goodness that others have concocted too!

A New Post for the Tuesday Archives

Val over at Val's Quilting Studio hosts a weekly Tuesday Archive Linky Party.

She announces that week's two themes and people can link up an old post about projects they have done for one or both themes.  Quilters can also link up a new post for a "pre-blogging" project about the themes.  I've linked up a few old posts posts in the past month but this week's subject was one that I had a project for but didn't have a detailed post for.  So now I will!

This week's themes are "Chevron and Christmas Quilts".  I haven't made a chevron quilt yet but I have made a Christmas quilt.  Actually, I have made two but the second one was more of a quilt made from Christmas-style fabrics and can be seen here.  The one I want to highlight today is one made pre-blogging.  It was mentioned briefly as part of an early post but no real details were provided there.  Since it may be a while before I make another Christmas quilt, I figured I'd shake this one out and give it an airing!

 My Christmas quilt is "A Christmas Wish For A Happy Holiday" made in 2008:

I apologize for the not so hot picture, it's rainy today and this quilt has been folded up since after Xmas 2012 because the only place I can display it was occupied this past Christmas.  This project was a free Block Of the Month offered by Debbie Mumm -- one of the early icons of the quilt industry -- on her website that year and is still available in her Free Pattern Archives here.    

As quilters we are often drawn to the concept of the BOM.  It always seems so simple:  you get a pattern and possibly fabrics to make one block each month and then at the end of the year you have a quilt.   I say it "seems" simple because even from the beginning, I've yet to do a BOM this way!  This was the first Block of the Month I ever did.  Debbie put out the patterns each month and I dutifully picked them up and saved them on my computer, swearing I would make them each month.  But I wound up not even starting this project until October!  So instead of making a block a month, I had to make two blocks a week in order to have them ready when the last (the big center) block and quilt assembly instructions came out at the beginning of December and had to hope I would be able to keep up the steady work on the quilt so I could display it for the holidays.

Despite that it was fun.  The best part was that I was able to make all the blocks from the stash I had at the time and I took all the color cues from Debbie's pattern.  In fact the border fabric was one of the first prints I bought when I started quilting in 2002.  I only had three fat quarters of it (all they had on display at the store at the time) and was lucky that it was almost enough to make the border and binding for this quilt (although I had to piece another fabric into the binding to complete it).  One of the block fabrics used was even from my old clothing sewing days!

I admit it's not too heavily quilted, just stitched in the ditch around the blocks.  Back then I was still pretty nervous about quilting my projects even though I had set out from the beginning to be a machine quilter.  I was so nervous that I didn't finish up the quilting of it until Christmas Eve!  But there is another reason it's not too heavily quilted and that would be the back label:

This label is centered in the back under the center block.  I've always liked the idea of including a "fun" label in every project if I can.  I had collected Christmas quilt ideas for a long time before I saw Debbie's BOM project.  One of them was this pieced picture from the December 1997 (#298) issue of Quilter's Newsletter magazine.  It's called "Partridge & Pears" and was designed by Deborah Moffett-Hall.  It was designed to be a stand alone wall hanging to finish at 29" x 18-1/2" using squares that finish to 1-1/2".  I liked it but not having anywhere to display a quilt that size,  I thought it could instead make a cute label for the BOM quilt (which finishes at 47" square) if I made it smaller.  So I made my squares to finish at 1" so the pieced portion wound up at an unfnished 14-1/4 x 7-1/2" before adding the lower label area and the border around it.  And yes I did hang it up for Christmas Day that year!

I did go back in 2009 and add some more stitching in the borders using a very light gold metallic thread.  A little more confident in my free-motion skills at that point, I stitched a holly and berries motif in the corners and the quilt title in the top and bottom borders.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good shot of that but know that it's there!  I still want to "fill quilt" the blocks of  this one day but for now, I like to look at it and remember the green horn quilter I was back then!

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to go back and check out the other Archive links over at Val's!

My Quilting Bucket List

I love that all quilters tend to do and think about the same things even when we don't know each other. Last year, I read posts by Pam at the "Knitnoid" blog (note: the link is for her old blog on Blogger, her new blog is on Wordpress) and Jen at "A Quilting Jewel" about what quilts or techniques they have on that "list of quilts I want to/always wanted to make".  Most of the quilts on their lists were also on mine.  Now, we are not talking about the "latest love" projects -- these are the quilts you feel you must make to "really be considered a quilter".  

Of course, as we progress as quilters, things get added to the list as we become more confident about what we actually can accomplish.  After reading those posts I did a quick review of the quilts I've said I wanted to make since I started quilting and was surprised to find that many have already been done.  So here is a pictorial review of the Bucket List items I've already accomplished:

Irish Chain

This quilt is Eleanor Burn's "Quilt In A Day" version called "Bits 'N Pieces".  I finished this in 2008 and it was also my first bed sized quilt.  

I've always been attracted to the Irish Chain design and have seen many variations involving using two to four different blocks (one version called for some of the squares to be appliqued on!) to achieve the chain design.  I was attracted to this particular version because it only required one block (!) and the block was completely strip pieced which made them easy to construct.  

I really like this design and hope to make another one in a three color format with a seminole border, a design I saw in an old issue of QUILT Magazine.

Amish Quilt and Trip Around the World 

Sorry For Picture Quality:  For Some Reason This Picture Got Stretched Out in the Upload

Like many people, Amish quilts astounded me when I first heard about/saw them.  They seemed so simple yet were so graphic.  Also one of the things I've learned about my own quilt color preferences:  since I started quilting I've always been attracted to "shaded" color tones (colors mixed with black) so the darker palettes of Amish quilts also were a big draw for me.  My first in depth introduction to Amish quilts was Rachel Pellman's book "The World of Amish Quilts".  The "Trip Around The World" quilts in that book (especially the cover quilt) were beautiful in the way the colors in some of them radiated. 

Another reason I began quilting was when watching the old "Simply Quilts" episodes on HGTV, I learned from the beginning that there were shortcuts galore to achieving many "old-time" block patterns and I was always fascinated by that.  When I realized that "Trip" quilts could be strip pieced, it immediately became one of the must do's.  I also love when one project can check off two things on the Bucket List.  This was made in 2006.

Log Cabin (Courthouse Steps Variation) and Miniature Quilts

Once again an old picture that got messed up in the Upload.

Although I like all the variations of Log Cabins and do hope to make a few, doing a log cabin was not a must do until I saw a quilt done in this "Courthouse Steps" Log Cabin variation.  I was intrigued about how the little lantern like shapes were formed and when I found out (careful placement of colors in adjacent log cabin blocks), I really wanted to make one.  

I finally did so after my mother died and I took possession of a Featherweight machine that had been her boyfriend's (a tailor) who had died two years before her (and unfortunately I never got to have a conversation with her before she died about why she had it since she did not sew).  I had always dreamed of creating a sewing themed display in my quilt space and I was able to do so when I got the machine.  When I put the display together, I immediately realized that the machine would look even better with a quilt displayed on it (the old iron belonged to my great-grandmother).  

After long debates about what would look good hanging on it when only about half the quilt would show, I saw an antique doll quilt made in this style hung from a shelf the way I planned to display a quilt from the machine.  BINGO!  When I measured the machine, I determined that I only needed a quilt about 12" square for this.  So this also became my first miniature quilt even though making one was not, per se, a must do for me.  This was made in 2006.

Strippy and Flying Geese Quilts

The details on this one were covered in this recent post so a picture here will have to be worth a thousand words!  This was another "two for one" on the Bucket List count down.

Bargello

Once again, sorry for picture quality, these are pictures of pictures taken BD, before digital 

This little project was made in 2004 as a gift for a friend.  It comes from Kim Ritter's "Quick Quilting" book.  I do hope to do a larger bargello project in the future and recently bought this book when Connecting Threads had a sale earlier this year.  But this gave me a nice taste of it and come to think of it, it was my first experience quilting clamshells.

Feathered Star

This was made in 2003.  I saw Marsha McClosky on "Simply Quilts" and she demonstrated the Radiant Star block.  It looked to me to be one of those blocks that looked a lot harder than it was to make.  

This is the "Joining Star" from her book "Feathered Star Quilts" a book that was really tough to get.  This was one of the easier blocks in the book (they are rated one, two and three stars for difficulty) and I was nervous about making it until putting it together.  Accurate cutting is the key -- if you cut right, the construction is a breeze.  

I originally made this to be a one-block wall hanging and hung it to go above a bookcase but then I wound up putting a chair where the bookcase was supposed to be so I added the bead fringe to fill in the blank space that was the difference in the heights of the two furniture pieces.  This was also a chance to try the "focus fabric color scheme" theory about choosing quilt colors, something that was a big concern for me back then.  All the colors in the center were picked out from the fabric in the prairie point border (and making those was also a first!).  

I hope to make a whole quilt of Feathered Stars and just this week purchased a set of Marti Michel's templates that were on sale at Keepsake Quilting (less than half price!) and also hope to get Marsha's new ruler in the future as well.

Still To Do......

So those are the Bucket List quilts I have done or at least "tasted".  But there are still some I haven't tackled (or at least finished) yet:

• Double Wedding Ring (in progress and blogged about here)
• DONE! String Quilt (also in progress and blogged about in the same post as the DWR above) Finished two Bonnie Hunter quilts here and here.  
• DONE! Lone Star Quilt (I have fabric already purchased for two different versions and had considered doing one for the Liberated Amish Challenge but I don't think that will didn't happen.  Started Finished a one block wall hanging in 2022 2024 
• DONE!  Dresden Plate quilt (already have fabric for one to be done in Civil War Repros was completed in 2013)
• A "complex" Applique Quilt (I've done a few simple appliques but a really complex one is still in the "dreaming of" stage)
• A Baltimore Album quilt (currently in the "collecting ideas and designs" stage)
• ....and the mother of them all -- to do a white whole cloth quilt to be quilted BY HAND!  I do have a quilt-as-you-go hand quilting project in process but and I think doing the wholecloth is still many years away was started in 2019.

So there you have it, my Bucket List.  So of course, I ask you, what's on your list?

Fall Bloggers Quilt Festival

Welcome again to all who are coming from the Park City Girl blog the host of the second Bloggers Quilt Festival! Amy came up with the idea to host the first event back in the Spring (and the links are still there so check them out here if you haven’t before) . I am glad to have an opportunity to participate again.

My entry this time is another of the quilts I completed in 2008. My quilting projects are usually driven by the chance to try out a new (or new for me) technique and that was the case with this quilt. I came across the book "Wonderful One Fabric Quilts" by Kay Nickols in a Hancock’s of Paducah catalogue. I thought that it was a novel idea and I loved the idea of being able to take one striped fabric and make a quilt from it that looked like it was made from multiple blocks (no shopping for coordinates!).

This is the finished quilt (front and back) that was made from only two fabrics:

The stripe that was used to make the front, center back and binding was Moda’s Red Harvest Bouquet Stripe designed by Deb Strain and the back border fabric was Marcus Bros. American Plains Large Floral both purchased on the internet from Allentown Sewing Center. Ms. Nickols’ technique calls for cutting into quarter triangles a square of your fabric that is sized to yield the motifs from your fabric that you would like to showcase in your blocks. The square size will vary depending on the fabric you use. In my case a 10-1/2” square was quartered to yield the design you see. The sunflower strip from the fabric was fussy cut to make the binding.

This was a fun project to do and was one of those rare projects that made up quickly (in one month).

Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the festival entries – I know I have!