Monthly Archives: February 2020

Kitties and Linen

I have a couple of small projects to share today. Both happen to involve kitty fabric which is totally coincidental. Which one do you want to see first? Oh, the linen project? Ok – sure.

I have been selling a line of cotton linen blends made by Andover for as long as I have had my fabric shop (which is just over three years now – can you believe it??) I love these fabrics and try to always keep a few choices in the shop. I have also used them to make a lot of custom Chemex covers and French Press cozies to sell in my shop. This leaves me with quite the collection of oddly shaped scraps. Obviously, I cannot throw them away. (I know you understand).

So I have been cutting them into squares to make it easier to play with them. I did a simple patchwork and quilted it up. I love the size of it and plan to make one or two more so I can use them as placemats on the table.

I quilted each of the fabrics with a different motif. Hard to see, but the kitty fabric has tiny pebbling. The black on black quilting was not fun. It is so hard to see as you are going! For the grid fabric, I did little squares that spiral this way and that. The solid fabric has loops. For the dogs I did a micro stipple. With the abstract shapes, I just outlined shapes which was easy and fun.

So pretty with some camellias from the garden.

Want to see another kitty project? This one is totally different. My grand daughter has her 3rd birthday coming up on March 7th. I was wrapping her gifts so I could get them in the mail when I realized I had not made anything for her. Kind of silly, why do I have to ‘make’ something for her. She is equally impressed with a store bought or hand made gift. But for her first birthday, I made her a doll quilt and her second birthday I made a dolly bed.

What was I to do?? I went downstairs and looked through my patterns and fabric. Wanting a quick project (since I had to mail it the next day) I chose to make her a little apron. They have two kitties at their house whom she dearly loves (though I am not at all sure her intense affection is reciprocal). I chose a sweet fabric designed by Dana Willard – you’ll find it in my shop if you click here.

Because of the length, I had to cut 3/4 yard of fabric but it was just one piece and the ties. There was plenty of fabric left over to cut another length and line the apron. This actually made it a much quicker project. Rather than hemming under the edges of the perimeter of the apron, I just sewed the two panels right sides together (after basting the neck tie and waist ties in place). The additional layer of fabric gives the apron a much nicer weight. (Which is clearly the concern of any three year old. I didn’t want her to complain to her Gram-gram that ‘this apron is just too flimsy and light weight”. Haha)

I lined the pockets with a pop of red which makes me happy and most likely matters not one bit to my sweet little girl. Again, lining the pockets seems quicker than turning under the edges and stitching them on. This way, once they are turned right side out and pressed, those edges stay right where they should be as they are stitched.

I do think she will enjoy the D-rings though. For some reason, I suspect she might want to see if she can loop the next strap through on her own. Most three year olds have this idea they can do everything on their own and she is no different.

It was a fun and really quick make – hoping she will enjoy wearing it. Her mama and daddy cook a lot and she is their helper. Now she can sport this little apron in the kitchen.

I even labeled it – The hearts look cute but I must have put too much pressure on the fabric because the bottoms of the hearts are too open. Sigh.

These projects were definitely a couple of squirrels that happened by so I’ll be sharing over at Sandra’s monthly DrEAMi link up! Also linking to From Bolt to Beauty.

Who is celebrating Leap Year today? Me, I am!! If you’d like to join me, head over to the shop because all yardage is 15% off. Clearance and remnants are 50% off. Crazy right? Great deals on lots of awesome fabric. Happy shopping!!

Mosaic Mystery QAL Quilt Top

11 Replies

I made it!! It is only the 24th of February and my quilt top is complete for the Mosaic Mystery Quilt Along. I have to tell you I had so much fun with this event – between selling so many great kits for it, meeting new quilters through Cheryl’s Facebook Group, completing this quilt top which I truly love, and seeing all of the different versions of the top. Cheryl’s QAL’s are extremely popular and there are now hundreds of Mosaic quilts in the world. The amazing thing is the speed with which some of these quilters can sew! Honestly by the time I read the next batch of instructions, there would be several (sometimes many) quilters posting their progress on Facebook. Lightening speed!

The bright sun washed out the colors just a bit.

As for me, I am thrilled to have the top complete by the time of the last link up! Looking at the finished top, I am almost completely satisfied with the fabrics I used. If I could make one change it would be to change the value between my off-white fabric used for the stars and the background. The stars don’t show up nearly as well as I would like. Value is something I continue to work on. It is something I need to consider more when choosing fabrics because truly it is what makes or breaks a quilt (in my opinion).

The stars are washed out for sure but I just love the rust that runs through in Irish Chain fashion. That bold pop of color is beautiful.

Another picture, just for fun. For now, I will fold the top and store it while I move on to some other projects. I can complete this at a later time.

The first few blocks of baby girl’s quilt.

I need to move on to the next project. I have a disappearing nine patch started for my new grand daughter who is due on March 12th. This little quilt is so sweet with farm animals and bright red and yellow colors. Maybe she will be able to sit on it out in the yard this coming summer or fall. It is a simple pattern which I will finish in no time as the pieces are already cut and some of the blocks are done.

I love a border print and this one is exceptional!

I also have this pair of pants I started a couple of weeks ago. They just need to be hemmed. I love this fabric and am anxious to get them done so I can wear them.

This week I have two fabric orders coming in. Both are completely different and I am excited to get them listed and available in the shop. Always plenty to do around here! How about you?

I am linking up to Patty at Elm Street for One Monthly Goal and also at Brag About Your Beauties as well as Cheryl’s final link up for the Mosaic Mystery QAL. Whew!

Wrapped with Kindness

41 Replies

I received something really special in the mail yesterday. The family of a patient who received a Mercyful Quilt wrote a note of thanks. We quilters have talked about this and agreed we do not need to hear the gratitude felt by recipients of the quilts we donate. As quilters, we donate because it might soothe someone during a really difficult time and it makes us feel we are helping in some small way when we make and give these quilts.

But this family was so taken by this handmade gift and they wanted to be sure we all knew how touched they were. Three sisters spent time with their father who recently passed away at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento. They were given the opportunity to select a quilt and wrap up their dad with it as they sat with him. Receiving this was such a sweet surprise for them. They wanted to extend a note of thanks and this is the best way for me to share it with all of you.

The best thing was the photo they enclosed with their thank you note. I am really hoping the person who made this quilt will see this post. Please let me know if it is one of you who donated it. If I can track down the quilter, I would be happy to send the picture to the maker – what a sweet way to see your quilt providing comfort.

This picture says it all to me. The comfort it provided to three sisters and their father. The beauty of this quilt tucked around their dad rather than a plain, sterile hospital blanket is just lovely. It surely didn’t make saying goodbye to their father easy but maybe it helped just a tiny bit.

Since I am writing on the topic of our gifts for Mercy Hospital I would like to share one more story. Last summer a young woman was dying of breast cancer at Mercy Hospital. Her husband and 11 year old daughter spent their time with her. As her death became imminent, a palliative care team member asked the girl to come and choose a quilt for her mom. She explained the girl would be able to keep the quilt after her mother’s death. The girl looked through the quilts and carefully picked one out. When asked why she chose a particular quilt, she told the nurse it made her think of Paris. She and her mom had talked about how wonderful a trip to Paris would be. Since this wasn’t going to happen, she wanted to wrap her mom up with this quilt. (I wish I knew which quilt this was but I don’t have any idea). I think this is so amazing though. For this little girl to attach such an important memory to the quilt she chose must have been comforting to her.

These are the reasons we do it. This is why we spend hours cutting up pretty bits of fabric and sewing them into quilts to be given to people we will likely never meet or hear from. It is kind, thoughtful, helpful and so necessary in our world. Kindness matters. Thank you to each of you. Please know the need is on-going. Mercy Hospital is down to about ten quilts right now so if you are called to help, please donate a lap size quilt when you can. It means more than we know to so many people.

February Scrappy Projects

12 Replies

I started the month off by working on two scrappy projects. Kind of nice to play a bit and use up a few pieces from my scrap bins. Besides what else was I to do while the Super Bowl was on??

The first block I made is for the 2020 Monthly Color Challenge. The color is blue and the block was a quick make. Coincidentally, I used polka dots again this month (I used them last month too, but in yellow).

These look so happy and it is making me wonder if I should try to go for a polka dotted theme with this quilt. I need to check the bins and see if I have enough dots though. I am NOT going to buy dotted fabric to make this happen. Sort of defeats the purpose of scrappy quilting, doesn’t it?? Jen does have the colors she will be focusing on listed on her blog. I will take a look and see how many dotted fabrics I have to decide if this might work.

After this block, I decided to pull my orange bin as that is the color for February over at Angela’s RSC2020 challenge. I had absolutely no idea what I was wanting to do with them but thought I should make something just to use some of the scraps up. Plus, I was in the mood to play around.

Somehow it popped into my head to make a Dresden block. I have seen lots of minis or wall quilts with a series of Dresdens of various sizes and colors, made to look like flowers. I think I will do something like this. I like the Dresden’s with the curved tips and might alter a few to look like that as well. It will be a fun thing to work on here and there.

This week was our monthly guild meeting. My friend Sophia encouraged the guild members to make tree blocks for Australia’s fire victims. The result was fantastic. There was a sew day with one local church group of quilters and quite a large stack of blocks was created.

The variety of blocks showed a great deal of creativity. It was fun to look through them since I didn’t attend the sew day. I did make two blocks though and you can see those here if you like.

There were lots of appliqué, many strip pieced trees and an assortment of traditional tree blocks.

This tree was drawn on the fabric which I thought was quite clever. If our little guild came through with all of these, I cannot imagine how many the Wollongong MQG is going to receive. Wow!

Now that my scrappy projects are wrapped up for the moment, I am finishing up the assembly of my Mosaic Quilt top. The main portion of the top is put together. I keep looking at it to see if some portion is flipped the wrong way before I put on the borders. It is much harder to take apart once the borders are on. It looks good to me but I am going to stare at it a bit more before I take that last step!

Linking to Oh Scrap! and Jen’s 2020 Monthly Color Challenge link (which I totally forgot to do with my yellow blocks!) Enjoy the week everyone!

February Means a New Goal

15 Replies

It is February!! A. new month means another goal to set for what I will accomplish in the sewing room. This month I plan to finish assembling the quilt top I am making with the Mosaic Mystery QAL hosted by Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs.

The fabric pull for my Mosaic Mystery Quilt.

I have really enjoyed making this quilt and it is exciting to be this close to finishing up the top. Cheryl did such a great job with the drafting of this pattern. Her instructions were great. One would think this would make it easy for me to avoid errors. Well, what can I say? I haven’t had to rip many seams – I think just a few little ones. Where I made mistakes was not piecing all of the blocks she instructed us to. I think I get going too fast and then don’t read everything thoroughly. As I assembled the top, I found out I had totally skipped making a set of flying geese blocks. I should have been clued in by the extra unused pieces sitting in the project tub but I didn’t really notice. Anyway, I have caught up and made the rest of the missing bits.

A sneak peek of the quilt top as it comes together.

Let me ask you… when you are piecing a top, do you sew each row (eg all of Row A, all of Row B and so on). I don’t. I am impatient and want to see the whole thing all laid out. So I have been assembling the rows on the bed and then lifting them and stitching each row together. I love seeing it take shape like this. The design is wonderful with the rusty textured solid creating a bold chain pattern across the top. The dark floral will be used as the border.

So, it should be very attainable because I have over half of the top assembled. Just need to do the rest of the rows and get the borders cut and stitched on. Who knows? Maybe I will even get it basted?

Even though I live just a couple of hours from San Francisco, I can’t get too excited about watching the 49’ers play in the Super Bowl. Instead, I will be working on my Mosaic project. How about you? If you aren’t overly excited about the game, hop over to the shop and take advantage of the Super Bowl Sunday sale!! 20% off of all yardage, pre-cuts, kits and clearance/remnants. So many pretty fabrics to choose from!

Linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts, host of the 2020 One Monthly Goal.