Hot Weather Quilting Time

I have been waiting for some 120" batting to arrive so that I could start the quilting. 

I usually get a roll of 90 or 96" wide batting.  

I never realized how much heavier the 120" roll would be, it was all I could do to drag it in from the porch.

Troublesome back!

 When I buy fabrics that I think will make a nice quilt back, I generally buy 5.5 to 6 yards as I don't usually make quilts that are longer than 96" long and usually close to 90" wide. 

This quilt ended up being 99 by 99"which is almost the limit for this quilting machine too.

 So I had to add approximately 24" to the width.  I had these star blocks that I had thought of using in a Patriotic quilt eventually.  They were perfect to make up the width that I needed to this 6 yard piece of fabric.  

They did give me a bit of a headache though when I came to all those seams from the 36 pieces in the center of each block.  So glad I didn't ask a friend to quilt it! 

Variegated Double Nine Patch  - 2019

I have trimmed it and sewn on a binding. I rarely use a light binding but I had a yard of very light tan fairy frost that goes well with all the light blocks.  It is sewn on and there is no way I am taking off 400" of binding.  At least it will be easier to sew than a dark color.

All finished including the binding!

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Planted this lovely hibiscus (Midnight Marvel)that was a birthday gift today.  The foliage has a nice purple cast. It has been so hot that it is hard to keep it watered.  Hopefully it will be happy in the front bed by the driveway.  

A Bordering Day with a Visitor

I wanted to make this 60" square top a little bigger so I used most of the cut off HST's from the star blocks  to make the borders for the top and bottom.  Added a 2 inch border to each side.  It's 64 by 72" so  now I can make a backing for it

Several years back, a friend loaned me her Accucut (sp) cutter and I cut out a whole lot of blue and white scraps.   This past winterI sewed the triangle/square pieces together. Then I made a few blocks and figured out they needed a shoo fly block as alternate block.

 

Added borders to this top to to make it 64 by 70"

Made a backing for this today so it is ready to quilt!

 

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It has been very dry here for the past month with only a few light showers.

We finally had some good rains and my flowers along with the weeds are flourishing.

It was so nice that this little guy came over to visit and stop to smell the flowers with GiGi!

Tickled his nose!

 

June Projects Part 2

So glad to have this finished (broke a needle when I started and messed up the timing on the machine).

66 x 80"

Again I used the leftover blocks on the back of the quilt.

Next I loaded a top I called Sling Blade(named by my daughter, Shelly.  I think it is also called Buzz Saw.

I guess because of all the layers of batiks in some of the points and seams, my machine kept stopping and giving error messages.  So that was so annoying,  I basted the quilt in several rows and took it off.  I am going to try and quilt in on my Janome. It has been a long, long time since I have quilted on a DSM so that should be an experience.

Next up was  Birmingham Inspired. I was a little nervous when I started but this one was good to good from start to finish.    First time I have done a meander in I don't know when!

This is 60 by 72".  I love the pattern and colors of this quilt!

Another New Project

 

- two oopsies already!

A friend shared some of her pieces from men's shirts recently.

So I dug out my shirt stash and --------

June Projects - Part 1

Ribbon Star finished.  I used a dark red batik binding.  it is 68 by 82"

Then I quilted this which I renamed Crossroads.  It is 48 by 60".  

I had this perfect old stripe that I used for the binding.

This UFO had been hanging behind the door of my sewing room for a long time. Along with the fabrics that I had chosen for borders in 2014.  It is a pattern from Becky Goldsmith  called Everyday Best.

Loved making the blocks with all the cute dotty fabrics.

It is 62 x 62" with the borders.  Its hard to see the little insert that I spent so much time adding to the outer border.  Hope it isn't another 8 years before quilting.

Another new project started 

I saw this Kaye England pattern on Pintrest and downloaded it.

It is called Points & Peaks.

Made the whole quilt top in just a few days.

I guess I never took a picture of the whole top.

I made mine 60 by 60" - I haven't decided about borders yet.

May Projects

I have no idea what the name of this block is but I have seen it several times in pictures on FB Groups and on various blogs.  I've made it before in a 9"block .  It is simply a 2 by 3.5" rectangle.  

The 9" blocks takes 18 pieces and the 12" block takes 32 pieces.  They actually sew together pretty quickly.  The hard part is cutting out all those small rectangles. This will be a 48 by 48" donation quilt.  

 I call it Little Tabs. 

I quilted it and showed it at our May Bee Meeting along with the other 2 donation quilts that I got quilted and bound.  It looks a little less jarring from a ways back.

Both of these quilts are about 42 by 48"

I pulled this out of the UFOs.  I started it in 2017 when I went to a Missouri Star Quilt Retreat with a group of friends.  I struggled with it as I used jelly rolls from two different manufacturers and their 2.5 inches varied a little so they didn't match up as well as I would have liked.

I finished sewing the blocks together and added the borders. 

The pattern is called Ribbon Star - I'm pretty sure MSQC must have a video tutorial as it was in one of their Block Magazines.

 I even used every scrap of those jelly roll strips into the backing. Made several backings with plans to catch up on some quilting in June.

I have so many UFO's - but never let it be said that it has ever kept me from starting more - no one ever wants to run out of them!

Trying to make more donation quilts in kind of manly colors this summer!