October Potpourri (No Pumpkin Spice!)

When your current goal is to finish a bunch of outstanding projects, it's hard to come up with compelling blog topics.  Right now I'm in the process of hand-stitching the binding on a queen-size quilt.  I'm not one of those people who can stitch down a binding in one long session (carpal tunnel issues), so I try to do a little bit of stitching every day.  I'll get this one finished eventually, but there are three more waiting in the binding queue!

This is the quilt being bound:  Austen Family Album - a BOW by Barbara Brackman.  I divided up my completed blocks and made two quilts with them.  The colors are a little washed out here, but I love the soft look of the pink, yellow, and turquoise fabrics.

The first Austen Family Album quilt contained orange, green and brown fabrics.  I gifted the finished quilt to my sister.

We're finally getting some cooler fall weather here in South Louisiana.  I was inspired to do a little decorating.  I purchased the turkey platter on the left at an antique mall almost exactly 4 years ago.  After that first purchase, my Dear Hubby and I seemed to stumble across vintage turkey platters every time we went antiquing.  Pretty soon we had a collection.  My favorites are the ones with advertising for local furniture stores.  They must have been premiums for folks who purchased furniture around the holidays.

We couldn't stop with just turkey platters, we had to start adding turkey figures, too.  

My Halloween decorating is minimal compared to what I did when my kids were small.  There's a closet full of Halloween decorations, waiting for grandkids or a garage sale, whichever comes first!  I made this little quilt from brown and orange scraps and a great jack-o-lantern fabric.  It's perfect for displaying some Halloween push puppets and wind-up toys.

And now it's time to go stitch some more binding!  I hope everyone has a great week!

Still on the Finish It Train!

I have not been blogging much recently, because most of my quilting activity has involved hand-stitching bindings.  I've finished the binding on one quilt and started another, but there are still FOUR more in the pile of un-bound quilts!  

And why have I been focused on all this binding?  Because I'm still on a kick to finish up some UFOs!

This quilt got finished up earlier this week.  It's had a final trip through the washer and dryer and I'm more than happy with how it softened up and got crinkly.

The weather is not conducive to outdoor pictures today, but I wanted to document the quilt before mailing it off to a family member.  This quilt started out as an effort to use up a big stock of red, white and blue scraps from a previous quilt.  First I made the 16-patch blocks, then added the pinwheels (inspired by a Bonnie Hunter quilt).  Next, a red border followed by an HST zig-zag border (maybe my favorite type of border?!) and another dark blue border to frame everything.

My local long-arm quilter, Cindy Braiwick, had fun adding some patriotic quilting elements.

She added lots of stars, some words, and other patriotic symbols.  The quilt is a gift for my uncle, who is retired from the US Air Force.

The quilting showed up better on the back of the quilt, although I had to tweak the color to improve the visual.

And yup - I remembered to add a label!

Another quilt on the Finish It! list is Modern Crosses.  I should probably call this Not Modern Crosses, as I used reproduction fabrics instead of modern fabrics.  These are blue blocks for September's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color.

I needed five more blocks to complete the setting, so I chose some multi-color florals.

I wasn't in love with just arranging the blocks in a straight set, so I looked online to see if anyone else was making the pattern and how they were setting the blocks.

When I saw several versions of the quilt using this half-drop setting, I knew I had a winner.  Now to cut some half-size pieces for the side blocks and stitch everything together!

I also did a little experimental sewing.  I needed a clear vinyl bag of some sort to carry necessities to an upcoming American football game.  Any bags being carried into American sports stadiums need to conform to a specific size and be see-through.  I knew I could probably make something from materials I had on hand, so I went looking for inspiration online.  Diane Knott at Butterfly Threads had recently made a bag of her own, and I also found this tutorial which got me started.

I didn't want my bag to be team-specific, so I chose some stash fabric with fall colors.  I already had some vinyl on hand, and some lightweight fusible interfacing for the handles.  Not bad for an afternoon's sewing!  Now I'll have something to tote my wallet, sunglasses, reading glasses and lip balm - all things I hate to be without!

The Scraps of Summer

Here we are, almost to the end of August already!  Local schools are already back in session and it's starting to get dark just a little earlier every night.  We even had a "weak cold front" (as the weather prognosticators called it) roll through Wednesday night, which at least dropped the humidity for about 36 hours.  Even though the daytime temperatures were still in the 90s, the low humidity was heavenly!

I am still on a Finish It Up kick, trying to get some project boxes emptied out and reduce the mental fog caused by too many UFOs.

These blocks were started in 2012 for a BOW by Barbara Brackman:  Grandmother's Choice.  The blocks commemorated the push for voting rights for women.  My original plan was to set the blocks with blue cornerstones, but about a third of them were not quite the right size, and I was afraid it would be too hard to get everything to come out straight if I used cornerstones.  This actually turned out straighter than I thought it would - although I felt like I was wrestling the quilt as I worked on it!

I think it needs a little extra oomph, so I'm going to add a narrow dark blue border, followed by a wider blue and red floral border.  I didn't buy enough of the floral fabric - bad math on my part - or I would've finished the quilt today.

In between wrestling with the Grandmother's Choice blocks, I also finished some Modern Cross blocks using orange (cheddar!) reproduction fabrics.  I think I've finished the RSC colors for this project, except for a few dark blue blocks.  

Next up:  binding this 16-patch and pinwheel quilt that started life as an RSC project.  It's still too hot to sit under a quilt while hand-stitching the binding, but I'll just crank down the air conditioning while I'm sewing!

More scrappy stitching can be found at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge link-up.

May: 17ufosin2017

Time for another 17ufosin2017 report.  I missed last month's link-up, mostly because I posted my only progress for the month as a link to Audrey's Quilty 365 wrap-up post.  

I'm so glad I pushed myself to assemble all those Quilty 365 blocks into a top - otherwise I'd probably still have a basket full of blocks 5 years from now!  My son came up with the name "Full Circle".   I don't have a timetable for the quilting, but it will happen eventually.

Another of my 17 projects for 2017 was to simply add borders to a scrappy RWB quilt that has been in the making for a year or two.  

The photograph makes the border look very dark, but in person it's a great frame for all those red, white and blue fabrics.  At some point later this year, the top will get quilted and gifted.

Once the red, white and blue quilt was off the design wall, I started pinning up these Sawtooth Star and Uneven 9-Patch blocks.  I've had the blocks made for several years, so it was a priority for me to get them assembled into a top this year.  I still have a lot of stitching to do on this project, but 17ufosin 2017 will help keep me motivated!

Last, but not least, I finished hand-stitching the binding and label for one of my Austen Family Album quilts.  It was gifted to my sister just this past weekend.  I think she liked it!

That's all my progress to date.  It's been very satisfying to check off projects on my 17ufosin2017 list, although there are still some very large projects left to complete!  Meredithe has a linky party over at her blog, pomegranate and chintz, so do check out all the other ufo progress.

Red, White & Blue Scraps Revisited

Back in June, I blogged about some red, white and blue scraps that were struggling to become Scrap Jar Star blocks.  My plan at the time was to find some additional fabrics that "read" as solids, in an attempt to calm down the busy-ness of the red, white and blue prints.

After hours of play and experimentation, I ripped apart all the SJS blocks and changed direction.

 

This medallion of 16 patches and pinwheels was the result.  

 

I still had a huge batch of red, white & blue HSTs, so I was inspired to do yet another zig-zag border.

 

Before adding the zig-zag border, I wanted to enlarge the quilt a bit and make the math for the zig-zags work out evenly.  I auditioned this red fabric with white stars, but it reminded me too much of Minnie Mouse's polka dots. 

 

This isn't a great representation, but the fabric is red with small dotted stars - it works much better as the inner border.  

 I still have to stitch all the HSTs together for the zig-zag border.  Although today is a holiday in the U.S., I won't get to enjoy it by stitching.  It's time to return my grand-dog to my son, so I'll be driving half the length of Louisiana to meet him.  

David & Jozy

It's been great having Jozy Labrador (named after a U.S. soccer player) visit with us this summer, but it will be nice to be back to our usual menagerie of just two dogs and one cat!