Just dropping in to share this cozy quilt! I finished it up last week which is fairly quick considering I started it just a couple of months ago. I posted that I was battling a ridiculously lengthy virus and, out of boredom, started stitching 3 1/2″ prints with alternate blue chambray squares. Then I got distracted with the leftover squares and made a matching baby quilt. Well, now I have a set!
The lap size version is so soft, drapes wonderfully and makes me happy! (Really, what more does one need)?
I quilted it just like the baby quilt with a straight line running through each chambray square.
The backing is a soft flannel I found at a thrift shop a month back. I think someone may have donated it because it somehow got a few spots of what looks like rust (?) on the fabric. Since it was close enough to the edges I was able to work around them nicely. Along with the flannel backing, I also used a light weight batting. This ended up giving the quilt just the right weight and drape.
This is the sort of quilt I love when I am watching tv or reading a good book.
After taking pictures the other day, I brought the quilt upstairs to the sewing room. I got an urge to free motion quilt a few designs in some of the print squares. I had pink Glide thread in the machine so I chose a variety of the pink squares and stitched a flower on them or a little swirl. I may do a few more today. I know I won’t quilt all of the print squares but it was satisfying to do a few here and there. It looks cute. Sorry, no pictures available. Maybe at some point?? This doesn’t change the overall look of the quilt anyway. It was just something I did for fun.
That is it for today. It is going to be a gorgeous day out. How about you? Are you enjoying some pretty spring weather?
This post has been in my head for years. Maybe since I first started my blog. I think about it each May for reasons which will become apparent. Then it drifts away and I don’t write it up. But here we go!
These little ones are my parents. They were born in the mid-1930’s.
Some years later, they started dating and wearing matching swimsuits – because they were, and still are, just that cool. (I think they were 16 and 17 years old in this picture).
In May of 1955, the cool couple got married. They were young, 19 and 20 years old.
As was common in the 1950’s, the first baby happened quick. She was born three days after their first anniversary. Those babies (all girls) kept on coming with the last one born in 1966. So, six kids in ten years. These were busy times. The photo above is not great as far as quality but I love it. (I am on the far right). This was the summer of 1966.
Time went on and their six children grew up, got married and started having babies. Just like those cool parents of theirs.
Between the six kids (now shown with lots of gray hair), 21 grandchildren were born. This began in 1979 with the birth of grand child number one, Maria. The last grand child, Julia, was born in 2001. Julia was the tie breaker making the final count eleven grand daughters and ten grand sons.
The twenty-one grandchildren are all grown up now, contributing to the world in myriad ways. We have two lawyers, one occupational therapist, two who work for Go Fund Me, a project engineer at Collins Aerospace, a director of engineering turned full time stay at home dad, a network security specialist for a brokerage firm, a professional dog trainer, a high school French teacher, a bank manager, a comedy writer who wrote for many years on the TV show, Big Bang Theory, a chef-in-training, a sports administrator at University of Arizona, a recruiter for Roblox, an esthetician, a preschool teacher, a student advisor at Stanford, a government employee in DC who works in I/T, a medical equipment sales tech at Stryker, and Julia who will be taking a job as a research technician upon graduation. This is a whole lot of brain power and it was all started by those two cool kids back in 1955.
But there is more! The 21 grand children have been busy marrying and having kids of their own. They are expanding this family greatly. My parents now have 17 great grand children.
This sweet girl, number 17, was born just a few days ago, on May 11th. (She is one of the reasons I started thinking about all of this again; when I realized we now had 38 grands and great-grands in the family)!
This picture, taken last fall, is incomplete – with about 15 people in our family not present.
I love being part of a big family. My sisters are my best friends. Having had four children within sixteen years and now knowing the work it takes to raise a big family, I cannot express my gratitude enough to my parents for their decision to have six children so close together. It wasn’t idyllic – we all argued, we created havoc. Dad was always fixing something. It was noisy and there was a lot of female energy in the house. I can remember my dad saying things like ‘go put some clothes on’ (if we walked around the house in our underwear) or ‘who is crying now’? when he would walk in and hear the tears starting up. Mom and Dad shared a car for quite a while in those early days. Mom stayed home with all of us until about 1976. I am sure she spent many, many hours washing those endless cloth diapers!! She read to us, took us to the library, taught all of us to cook, to SEW!!, and to get the chores done on Saturday mornings. Mom and Dad put up with lots of teenage angst, boy friends, and the usual drama. They put us through college and hosted six weddings.
Lots of sacrifice is necessary when you decide to have a big family. As with any family, we have all had our ups and downs. As a group, we have dealt with divorce, loss (the death of my first husband), health issues, learning disabilities and more. Life can be a challenge but we have each other to lean on through whatever comes our way.
I am not saying this is the only way. Having a big family isn’t for everyone. In fact, having children at all isn’t for everyone. But for me, it was and still is, the best way. I am very thankful to have grown up in this crazy family.
Did you grow up in a big family or small? I would love to hear your experience, if you want to share.
Thank you for all of the wonderful anniversary wishes you left on my recent post. It was sweet to read them and kind of you to write them! On the more recent post about my Choose Any Direction quilt, there were lots of mentions about the amazing community support we all give and receive when trying to solve quilt making issues. Again, thank you – it was a challenge for me and so nice to be able to ask questions and find the answers. So, yes – I am feeling positive!
Spring is another reason for my boost in positivity. Our garden is beginning to burst with color! The rhododendrons and azaleas are blooming and the lawn is gorgeous. It makes me so happy to see abundant color after a winter of no blooms whatsoever. This is just the beginning too. Many more plants are popping up here and there. Tis the season for gardening!
Feeling really positive about the upcoming QAL too! Hope you are getting excited about it. Preeti just put up a post talking about sponsors and prizes. Hop over and check it out. Won’t be long until it is time to choose fabrics and start making blocks.
Speaking of choosing fabrics, I am positive I want to use this pull in a quilt. Do you all enjoy pulling fabrics together without a plan in mind? I was looking at the old fashioned, large scale floral and one thing led to another. Next I know, I am looking through solids that work with it. Now I love this whole stack. Hmmm…. what to make with it??
There is no way to feel anything but positive when I look at photos of these sweet girls. Ray and I gave them this swing for their birthday a year ago. Time went by and it wasn’t hung. (We all know how that goes, don’t we)? Anyway, my son got it installed and the girls are loving it. Be sure to take a look at little sister’s shoes. If she wears Crocs, they are invariably on the wrong feet and it makes me chuckle every time.
Black and white photos are something else that I just love. When looking at a black and white picture one doesn’t have the distraction of the colors. It causes a person to see the emotion in the picture. (Does that even make sense)? This picture of A is gorgeous with the focus on her pretty eyes, cute little mouth and curly hair.
Who doesn’t get a dose of positivity from a cute puppy? Then add a trip to the library to the equation. Now we have absolutely, positively pure joy! My sister brought Powers to the library during our normal volunteer hours. She is just starting to take him in public. He was adorable and made everyone so happy. I hope she brings him again on Wednesday. Puppies make people smile, no doubt about it.
Lots of simple things going on making life good these days. What about you? Who or what is making you smile lately? Tell us in the comments and then go have a great day!
The quilt I am sharing today exemplifies our many choices and the potential with each one. All arrows point outward to a possible path taken. Many colors to choose from allows a person to pick what is right for them. This project is really different from anything I have made previously and thus presented a few hiccups along the way. But the result is great and I am happy to see it hanging in our family room.
I bought this as a kit at a quilt show last summer. The arrows are laser cut from Alison Glass 2016 Sunprint line. They had the fusible backing already applied to them. All of this is great because the arrows are very thin and delicate. It would have been a tedious process were I to have to apply the fusible myself. Anyway, I think I actually fused the arrows to the backing in November. With the holidays and myriad illnesses all winter long, I didn’t get it basted until some time in February.
To really be sure the arrows stayed glued to the backing, I decided to use matchstick quilting. I started with wide-ish lines. Maybe spaced an inch apart? Then I filled it in, stitching between the lines. This is when I had the problems!
As I got to the corners the fabric just ruffled – it was a mess and I was really concerned. I posted on Instagram and Facebook asking for advice. Yvonne, Quilting Jetgirl, sent me a link to a tutorial she has for blocking a quilt. I decided to block it before I finished quilting it. I was somewhat skeptical because I had tried to block a quilt some years ago and wasn’t successful (and now I know I didn’t do it correctly)! But with her tutorial, I got to work on this piece.
With beach towels under the quilt to protect the carpet, I sprayed water all around the permitter of the quilt. I didn’t want to soak the arrows if possible because I think it would have diluted the fusing. But I really wet the outer portion. Then I took long pins and pinned all the way around. As I was pinning, I was either stretching or patting inward to get the fabric back into shape. I left it pinned to the towels & carpet for several days to be sure it was truly dry. This worked beautifully.
After the quilt was flat and shaped nicely, I finished the quilting. With Yvonne’s advice playing in my head, I stitched very slowly and tried to be sure not to pull on the piece at all.
The next task was to square it up. Truth be told, I did a poor job of placing the arrows on the background. Because of this, I was having a heck of a time figuring out how to square this and have the arrows centered properly. Ray to the rescue. This is right up his alley and he got a border drawn for me to cut. After squaring the quilt, I did a facing instead of a binding. I wanted a clean edge for this piece.
It is hanging above the couch and I love it. This project included quite a series of lessons for me! But this is a good thing – there is always more to learn.
Happy to call this finished and to check off one more unfinished project from my list.
I have moved on to the next UFO. I am quilting the chambray patchwork this week. Hope to share it with you soon!
I met my husband on a blind date in July 1997, we were engaged in November and married in April. We celebrated our 25th anniversary on April 18th! We both look at each other and wonder how 25 years have already gone by. Much has happened in that time span – the boys have all graduated college, met their life partners, married, settled into careers and two grand daughters have been born. We had Julia, she grew up and will graduate college next month. We have bought and sold four houses over the past 25 years. We have taken trips, worked to our retirement, celebrated occasions and grieved the loss of a couple of very close friends. Yet even with all of this, we look at each other wondering how it could possibly have been 25 years already!
Throughout these years one constant for us has been our love of the beach. When we first met, we spent time at the beach. Vacations with our kids often included the beach. Our honeymoon was spent on St. John in the US Virgin Islands. Thus it came as no surprise to anyone when we decided to celebrate our 25th at…. the beach!
We told each other come our 25th anniversary, we would take a big trip and mark the occasion. We thought and thought about it. Looked at the free airline miles we have accumulated. Hmmm, where should we go? After much discussion, both of us admitted to the other we just wanted to go to the beach. We picked Westport Beach about two hours southwest of home and rented a house right on the bluffs.
It was such a cute little house. On the bluffs of a beach with a very long stretch of coastline going either way.
We walked for miles each day. We ate fish & chips (our favorite) and looked for shells.
Ray gave clamming a try. It is the season to dig razor clams so he decided to have a go at it. He is a tall guy and stooping over like this was hard on the muscles!
But oh my gosh, what a success!
We were quite surprised to see how many people showed up in the mornings to dig razor clams. I enjoyed watching this go on all morning. When the tide came in by 11am or so, the beach emptied out completely and we had it to ourselves.
Ray made clam chowder one night and it was so yummy.
It was the perfect way for us to celebrate our (first) twenty-five years. We returned home, feeling rested and and full (bellies and hearts).
Friends – It’s been a fun week or so around here. First off, don’t let the title confuse you. Ray and I did NOT get a new puppy!! I don’t have the patience for that. But my sister does and she did get one. He is adorable so let’s start off with him!
This is Powers. My sister has already raised three guide dogs for the blind. This cute little guy makes number four. His name is Powers and he is nine weeks old. They are in the throes of housebreaking him and hoping he will soon be able to sleep all night. It is so much like having a new baby in the house. He is just adorable and like any good auntie, I went and met him. He has that sweet puppy breath and is so heavy!! He is going to be a big boy, that’s for sure. Cathy is already working on his training. Raising a guide dog is an enormous commitment.
This face! I love his eyes and how soft he is.
OK – moving along now! H and A were here last week. We had them plus their parents for a quick over night. They were on their way to take the ferry up to Victoria, Canada for a long weekend with some of their friends. We watched their dogs while they were gone. When they were here I noticed that H had on some leggings that were way too small for her. Not that she doesn’t have pants that fit but this child has her favorites and wears them forever! I told her I would make her a new pair and she was so surprised. “You can make me pants?” Sweet girl, of course I can. Let’s go pick out a fabric. She chose this stretch knit that I used years ago to make her a dress when she was not quite two years old. (You know how it goes – it was on sale so I bought a bunch!) Little sister now wears the dress in the picture above but honestly, it fits like a tunic now. Fortunately, I had enough to make a pair of leggings for big sister and little sis both. I haven’t seen them on yet but reports are they fit well. H wore them to school last week. It was a fun project and a quick finish.
Over the past several months, I worked on this patchwork quilt. It is now a quilt top! I used a blue (leaning to gray) chambray fabric for the solids. Then went through the box of 3 1/2″ squares and chose as many as I could that looked soft and muted. There are some with deeper colors to add a bit of variety but the majority are very soothing tones. It is exactly what I had hoped for. The only issue was the darn chambray. Oh my gosh it frays so easily. This drove me nuts! When I get ready to baste this, it will take forever to clean the threads from the back side. I did use a very small stitch to ensure the seams remain strong.
When I was satisfied with the size of this top, I still had a stack of the chambray squares remaining. Instead of putting them away, it seemed a good idea to just keep sewing!
This baby quilt is the result of the extras! It is so sweet! I put a narrow chambray coping strip and then a soft green dotted border to grow it to a decent size. At approximately 36″ square, it is a bit smaller than I usually make for a baby quilt.
There are so many sweet prints in this little quilts. Kitties, butterflies, rabbits and hedgehogs can be found. I stitched in the ditch first and then did a crosshatch through the chambray. As with the lap quilt, I used a very small stitch to sew the patchwork.
The backing is an older Mode print I thrifted some years back. Because of the smaller size of the quilt, this piece fit perfectly. A pale yellow binding finishes it off well. As of yet, I am unsure where this quilt will end up but at some point, it will find a good home!
Recently there was a great course called Color Mixer offered by CT Publishing. I had posted about it a few months ago. Lots of great teachers gave one hour lessons on color. Anyone who registered for the class has access to the recordings to listen to as they like. While sewing, I have been listening/watching the classes. So much great information was imparted and I am learning quite a bit. Moving forward, when I was at my sister’s house last week to play with her puppy, she gave me a yard of the firehouse fabric in the picture above. She had ordered it not realizing the larger scale of the print and then couldn’t use it for her project. It is such a great print and I don’t want to cut it up. Instead, it will be the backing for a child’s quilt. I pulled fabrics to use to make the quilt top. The focus will be red, white and blue with orange and yellow to add vibrance. The only fabric I am unsure of is the lightest blue (just behind the yellow). I think that one doesn’t fit in. How about you? Should I remove it from the pull?
You all know I am always watching prices and can be very frugal. AccuQuilt dies can be super expensive so it is great to shop their overstock sale items. The dies are 40% off which makes the cost a bit better. To make the system even more affordable, I think it is a great idea to collect these with a friend and share them. When I am cutting, I do love using my AccuQuilt but there are plenty of times it is just sitting on the shelf. Sharing it would be super easy. Just a thought!
Somehow another year has come and gone!! It is time to start planning for the 3rd annual Positivity Quilt Along. The Positivity Quilt Along was created by Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts to give the quilting community a fun, social way to make a new quilt for Mercyful Quilts. Each year Preeti designs a fun, easy to make, lap quilt. She shares the pattern for free and guides quilters through the process of making it. These QAL’s have been a huge help to Mercy Hospital’s palliative care program.
Just in case you are new to the Mercyful Quilts program, it all started back in November of 2018. A friend of mine is a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento, CA. She explained that they gave quilts to the family of patients who were dying. The family chose a quilt to snuggle their family member under and after the person’s death, kept the quilt as a memory of this time in their life. Patty, my friend, explained how comforted the patient and family were by these quilts and I started to organize lap quilt donations for the hospital. There is much more information available if you click here.
Preeti became a loyal donor and would send me quilts whenever she could. Then during Covid, when we all desperately needed more positivity in our lives, she hosted the first QAL. I am so grateful to Preeti for her commitment to Mercyful Quilts. Because of her we have received so many stunning quilts for our families.
Positivity Quilt 2021; finished July 2022
This is the first Positivity quilt I made. It took me a long time to finish it because we moved in the midst of everything. This event garnered well over twenty Mercyful quilts!!
2022 Positivity Quilt for Mercy Hospital; August 2022
This was the quilt I made for the second QAL. I loved the pattern and the ease with which it all came together. This QAL resulted in over a dozed quilts for Mercy’s palliative care program.
Here is a sneak peak at the block the next QAL is based on. I see lots of leafy vines coming my way! The block looks super easy to make which is a good thing for me. I am not one for fussy quilts with millions of pieces!! Also, Preeti mentioned it is jelly roll friendly and I happen to have two rolls of strips sitting on the shelf!! Of course cutting your own scrappy strips is a great idea as well.
As before, the Positivity QAL will have a super relaxed schedule allowing plenty of time to make the quilt. The kick off is at the end of May and the event concludes over Labor Day weekend in September which means you’ll have all summer to work on it. We have a selection of lovely prizes that might be won by those quilters who finish and share their quilt in September! There will be link parties along the way to share progress and cheer each other on.
You are all invited to join us as we make a lap quilt for Mercy Hospital. Let’s work together to fill their shelves with quilts for patients and families who are struggling with grief and loss. We all know how comforting it can be to know someone out there is thinking of you and trying to provide a bit of solace. I hope you will sew a quilt with us! If you have questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.
(Also, if you are interested in Mercyful Quilts and want to donate a quilt but cannot commit to the QAL, that is fine too. We ALWAYS need lap size quilts. They can be scrappy, simple, complex, patriotic, or whatever you like. This particular hospital does not treat children so no juvenile themes or fabrics please.)
Ray and I just got back from five days with Julia in the California Central Coast. Usually Julia comes home for spring break but since this is her ‘last’ one, we decided to enjoy it with her in California. The three of us had such a nice time together. Much of our time was spent beach combing with Julia and Ray looking for rocks and me hunting for beach glass. The shores in Morro Bay did not disappoint. We left with our pockets bulging each time we walked there.
The three of us never seem to tire of beach wandering. We had some sunny days and walked in a bit of rain at other times. But it was all lovely.
Nothing like a sunset shot on a California beach.
Cal Poly campus
We asked Julia if she would tour us through the Swine Unit at Cal Poly. Since she spends so much of her time there, we wanted to better understand the work she does there.
I don’t know about you, but it is such a treat to see our kids in their world. What they spend their time doing, the jobs they are so knowledgeable about, their favorite parts of their work – it lets us, as parents, see our kids as the adults they are becoming.
Julia took us through all of the various barns. Some held the boars (like the photo above). Some had the teenagers (piglets who had recently been weaned from mom but not released to run outside yet). Others had sows who currently were not taking care of a litter. There were sooooo many pigs! Julia seemed to know many of them by name and what each one was doing and why. How she could tell them apart was beyond me.
The nursery was my favorite part. When we were watching the mamas (sows) with their babies, the whole nursery was quiet. One of the sows was laying on her belly without exposing any teats to the piglets. Julia said they do this when they don’t want to nurse at the moment. The piglets started to really scream at her and she grudgingly rolled to her side to let them feed. The funny thing was once that litter of piglets was screaming to eat (and they were really screeching!) then ALL of the litters immediately began to screech. The power of suggestion, right? It was hysterical to listen to the whole barn come to life.
The piglets are so cozy when they are new. They huddle together under the heat lamps and keep each other warm.
When they are just a bit older (the piglets shown above were about 12 days old) they will do whatever it takes to find their place to nurse. Look at this one laying on top of her sibling. I watched these two for a bit. It was so cute.
As they get older, the piglets climb all over the place – exploring their pen. Mama is kept in the farrowing crate. it doesn’t look like it but she does have room to stand, stretch, drink and eat. The piglets end up on the wrong side of her and will then climb up and over to return to the side of their mama that provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I didn’t get any pictures that show this but on (most of) the males there were two little slits where they had all been recently castrated. I asked why they didn’t stitch up the opening but Julia said the environment in which the piglets live isn’t sterile so they would be sealing bacteria into the cut. Instead they just apply antibacterial on the incision and let it heal. It looked so clean and the piglets just ran around like nothing was bothering them.
Look at this cute little piglet.
On another afternoon we drove up the highway to San Simeon to watch the elephant seals. There is a protected area where they congregate in large numbers.
At this time of year, it is the females and the babies who are on the shore. They sure have a hard life – lounging on the sand day in and day out. 🙂
As always, it was nice to get home yesterday. The next time we go down to San Luis Obispo will be in June to celebrate Julia’s graduation. How wild!! Her college experience was less than traditional considering the hiccups due to the pandemic but she is definitely ready for the next phase in her journey.
Believe it or not, that title will make sense after a bit! I have some fun things to share with everyone. Where to start though??
Let’s start with this book. I just finished it today. It is such a great story. I enjoyed the audio version and have high praise for Julia Whelan’s reading of the book. It is a story of the Pack Horse Librarians in Kentucky during the Depression era. Jojo Moyes wrote a riveting story and I found myself listening to it almost non-stop. It was really hard to put it down. These women were brave and so determined to bring literacy to the poorest Kentucky families. For more information on these devoted librarians, check out this article.
Speaking of libraries, a few months ago I mentioned I was looking for some volunteer work within this new community I moved to. I joined the Friends of the Library for the Port Orchard library. So far, I have been working on Wednesday mornings sorting and shelving books in the Friends of the Library bookshop. I am throughly enjoying this and the group of women are very fun to work alongside. The group provides the funds for the children’s and teen programs in the library. I have long been a huge fan of public libraries and this is a good fit for me.
Shall we take a look at how Minnie Mouse might fit into the conversation here?
Several weeks ago, I was in JoAnn’s and came across this Minnie Mouse fusible appliqué. I didn’t know what I would make with it but I bought it anyway. My youngest grand daughter is currently obsessed with Minnie so I knew I would come up with something fun to make with Minnie. We are going to the kids’ house this weekend to celebrate A’s 3rd birthday. Now seemed to be a good time to put Minnie to use. I knew I had several remnants of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse fabric in the bin of novelty fabrics.
After a bit of thought, I decided to make a book bag for her. She goes to the library fairly often and this will be a fun way to carry her books back and forth. Before I constructed the bag, I fused the appliqué to some bright yellow fabric. Then that bit was fused to the outside of the bag and stitched down with a satin stitch on the machine. Before sewing the lining to the outside, I fused some batting scraps to the fabric and quilted a few straight lines to hold things in place. The straps are also filled with fusible batting.
I did get a bit carried away and made this book bag a little too big. If it is really filled, she may need Dad to help carry it. I think she will be excited when she sees her favorite mouse!
Now that my round robin quilt is finished, I have pulled out another project to work on.
RSC 2021 Blocks
These diamond blocks were made in 2021 as Rainbow Scrap challenge blocks. I love the blocks and finally have the time to finish this quilt. They are all going to be sashed with white and there will be six inch blocks of white separating the blocks in each column. I’ll share more on this soon. Makes me happy to be playing with these again!
As you all know, Julia is at her happiest when playing in the barns with the pigs. This photo just makes me laugh. Doesn’t this silly boar look like he wants to come out and play with Julia? Honestly, she takes the best pictures of these funny animals.
That’s it for now – Enjoy your day and I will do the same!
Linking up with a few favorites – check them out at the top of the page, under Link Ups.
Today’s finish leaves me slightly astounded. If you have been reading my posts for any length of time, you know I am not one for finishing a QAL in a timely fashion. This is clearly evidenced by the quilt top I made for the Mosaic Mystery QAL back in 2019 which still awaits completion. The quilt top is so pretty too! The poor thing deserves to be finished. Well, this year I have been trying to change all of this. I decided to start finishing up the projects that have languished. Additionally, I have been working really diligently to use up the fabric on hand (of which there is a large supply).
My fabric stack for the Morewood Mystery Quilt
Further illustrating my point is the stack of fabric I had selected for the next QAL I was going to join. This photo was taken in August 2020. I went so far as to cut most of the pieces and stitch up a large number of half square triangles before I realized I just wasn’t into it. Not sure what happened but I didn’t like where it was headed. Then the pieces sat in a project bag until SAHRR 2023 began. Not knowing exactly how this round robin would work out, I promised myself to use as many of these cut up pieces as possible. It worked out well and I was able to utilize every HST I had made! Of the pieces I had cut for the Morewood Mystery, remaining are a large stack of six inch squares cut in the orange and green batik and an even larger stack of 2″ x 6″ rectangles of the polka dot fabric. These three together should work in some design for another quilt so they are bundled together for future use. Overall, I am super pleased with how many bits were used for the round robin.
Here is a shot of the entire quilt. It is quite joyful to me. This quilt is so colorful and a maybe a bit on the crazy side with the variety of pieces and types of blocks included in it.
There are loads of different quilting motifs used on the quilt. My only plan was to treat each border or section uniquely. I haven’t done lots of free motion quilting lately. In an effort to finish some projects, I have relied on quicker straight line quilting.
To ensure a reasonable level of success, I have been practicing a bit. Also, I have been doodling on a large whiteboard I keep in the sewing room for this. (Do you have one? It is a great way to practice the designs before actually sewing. Doodle, erase and doodle some more!) Above you can see some daisies, stippling and my interpretation of ribbon or ribbon candy on the right.
My favorite motif I used is a flower which I quilted on the center of each square in a square block. Those were super fun and once I got going they were not difficult at all. I did a fair amount of stitching in the ditch as well. Not every bit of the quilt has been quilted down which leaves it nice and soft.
For the backing I used a width of this red print leftover from my shop. I have quite a bit of this – maybe another five yards. It is likely you’ll see this on the back of a few more quilts. Because the quilt ended up being 48″ wide, I had to add a narrow stripe of white to each side. I also have about three more yards of the polka dot fabric (leftover from the shop) and used some of it to bind the quilt.
I did not have a quilt holder available because Ray has been down with a virus all week. Instead, I used the front porch here.
This shot is in a wooded area in our front yard. I like taking outdoor shots when it is a bit overcast. The colors are so accurate here.
This round robin was so much fun and way out of my norm. The fact that I didn’t know what was coming next and no sizes were dictated to me was a stretch. Working this way taught me a lot. While I don’t want to pick apart my finished quilt and decide what I don’t like about it, there are a few takeaways that I hope to remember next time. Learning from each project is a good thing though. Isn’t that how we continue to make progress?
Thank you Gail for dreaming up this event back during the days of lockdown and loneliness. I am super happy I joined in this year and am already crossing my fingers you will host it again next year! (Please???)
Linking up with the final link party (tomorrow) over at Quilting Gail’s as well as Oh Scrap!. I hope you will check out the other SAHRR finishes. It is incredible to see the variety of interpretations of this event. Really amazing.
There is still plenty of time to purchase your ticket to the Color Mixer event coming up on March 30th! If you want to read more about this virtual class, the details are here.
