Charity sewing

I’ve been doing more charity sewing this week. First up I finished two Busy Bags for the sew-along…now I just need to get them mailed out! This sew along is going on the whole month of May so there’s still time to join in for a good cause.

Bag #1

I found these fabrics in my stash and thought they’d make a cute bag for a little boy.

A look inside…

Bag #2

I found these two fabrics on the clearance rack and scooped them up just for this purpose. The lining fabric is from my stash.

Inside…

Next up is my first finish for the Hands2Help challenge that is finishing up next week – talk about getting in under the wire! I quilted this with large ‘l-shaped’ loops in each rectangle and carried that same motif to the border. This was a lot harder to do on the machine than it was in my head!

This picture shows off the quilting…

And here are a few shots after I put on the binding…

I used a bunch of random fat quarters to make a scrappy back

I still have 2 more quilts I want to finish for this event so I’ve actually taken a few days off from my ‘day job’ next week to hunker down and get ‘er done!

In other news…I finished the commissioned t-shirt/memories quilt. I’m really happy with how this turned out and the backing fabric is perfect for a little girl 🙂 Her mother will be giving it to her later this year on her 10th birthday.

And in case you haven’t heard, there’s a new rage out over the Instant Pot – it’s basically an electric pressure cooker. I have several of the old-style that are used on the stove top but since we have a glass top range we haven’t used them anymore. I waited and waited to buy one until I knew enough people that owned one and still used it…and then I jumped in, thanks Amazon!

I haven’t actually cooked anything yet – lol – I need to get to the store and buy a roast or two.

Lastly, I took a break from my current projects and pulled together all the Cookbook SAL blocks I’d made. I had enough for a lap size quilt so I’m calling this one ‘done’. The SAL is supposed to go on all year but I’ve lost my steam, so I put these up on the design wall and this layout just kind of came to me organically. I had plenty of Kona Snow for the background and before I knew it I had a top! It’s going to need to wait in line to be quilted behind the H2H quilts as they have a deadline!

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No running this week, which is a shame because the 5k I committed to is next Saturday – ugh!! Hey, I guess I can walk it if I have to :-p

That’s all from here…what’s going on in your neck of the woods?

Wow, I got a lot done!

When I first sat down to write this post I didn’t think I’d gotten much accomplished this week but when I looked through my pictures I’m pretty happy with it all 😀

I worked pretty diligently on the commissioned t-shirt/memories quilt and got the top all completed…I had not incorporated 3D items before so that was a new challenge for me. The Mom wanted the crochet cap and the pixie dust pouch included in the quilt so I appliqued them onto some left over tshirt pieces – I like how it turned out! There was also one denim shirt that had embroidery on the pockets and rather unique buttons so I kept the front of the shirt, including the bottons (it’s almost dead center). The only thing I would change would be to better distribute the dark & light shirts…I think the top half is a little dark heavy – but – it’s done now and there’s no going back.

I took a break from the t-shirt quilt to make a few blocks. I wanted to try the Stripey Stripe block from The Honey Pot Bee so I pulled my Blueberry Park and got busy. Since I’m using layer cakes I had to sew a few pieces together to obtain the 16″ strip length but after that it was pretty darn easy. I will say I starched the heck out of the blocks before cutting the triangles which helped immensely.

Then a quilter I follow on IG put a call out for blocks to make a quilt for another quilter whose husband is in hospice care. Of course I had to help out and as luck would have it the blocks called for 3.5″ squares which just happened to be what came in my Sew Sampler box this month – it’s fate I tell ya! The first two blocks were made from my scrap bin but the other four are from Coney Island Moda Treat packs. The bottom right block really is a pretty blue, dang lighting! I had planned to put these in the mail yesterday but didn’t get to the Post Office in time so they’ll go out tomorrow.

I got some happy mail yesterday too…earlier this month I wrote about a ‘wine’ rug I made from fabrics I picked up at QuiltCon. I posted the wine rug picture on IG and tagged Marcus Fabrics as instructed and low & behold they pulled my name as a random winner…whoop, whoop! Yesterday I received my prize package and in it are more beautiful batiks 10″ squares and a coffee mug…I just had to snap a shot with my wine glass in the picture too, lol!

Friday night I decided it was time to pull out a very old WIP that had been waiting to be quilted for almost 2 years – yikes!! I mulled over what design I wanted to use, my regular meander just wasn’t going to cut it. I was stumped so I pulled out a book of quilting doodles I won last year: 180 Doodle Quilting Designs by Christa Watson and found the perfect design called Claire’s Rose. I was too tired to start on it then but I got to work on it Saturday…here’s a really bad picture 😦  I also added big loops in the borders. All that’s left to do is binding – I should get that done today.

And…last but not least I got three quilts spray basted today; they look a little wrinkled but I haven’t ironed them yet. The one on the bottom is the t-shirt/memories quilt and the two on top are the scrappy leaders & enders for Hands2Help charity challenge. I have one more quilt for H2H but I ran out of basting spray!! No worries, I ordered some online from Connecting Threads along with a few rolls of batting and it should be here next week – whew!

I basted these babies out on the deck and oh boy is it humid here in SC today – yuck! Luckily there’s a front coming through tomorrow that will chase the humidity away.

That’s it for now…I’m headed back to the sewing room where it’s nice and cool. 😀

 

Memory Quilt finish!

This post will be light on words and heavy on pictures…

THE MEMORY QUILT IS FINISHED!!! Woohoo!!! I looked back to see when I started on this and it was early Feb…so it’s taken me about 10-11 weeks to finish. Not bad for my first 😉

I tried to get some pictures outside in natural light but didn’t have a lot of help (just DH and he wasn’t really ‘into it’).

…and here’s the reveal:

The “BS” on the backside are her late husband’s initials

This is big enough to fit across the top of my king size bed…in either direction

I did all the quilting on my domestic Pfaff…free-motion large meandering

I’m exhausted…ttfn and G’night 🙂

Neglect

I just realized I haven’t posted anything here since my last race earlier this month…what!? My, time can really fly when you’re not paying attention 😦

I must admit I haven’t been doing much running so maybe that’s why I haven’t been posting. Since I completed that Half  (with a personal best time), I seem to have fallen off the running wagon – ugh! I’ve only run once in the last two weeks {{{smh}}}

Saturday the 12th, I met up with Laura and we did 4 miles. I had taken a few brisk walks during the week right after the Half but didn’t do any running. Those 4 miles felt pretty good but I was tired by the end. After that…nothing. I was supposed to start a new challenge with Kirsten of The Blog Runner to run at least 1 mile every day…but unfortunately I haven’t done it (so sorry Kirsten!!!).

I’ve come to realize that unless I signup for an organized run I just won’t get out there and do it…damn, that’s sad! So, tonight I did some searches and found a 10K run relatively close to me on April 30th and I’m signing up. I’m hoping one or more of my running buddies will be interested too but even if they’re not, I’m doing it.

I also made another purchase today – I bought a FlipBelt. I’ve been running with a pretty large ‘fanny pack’ for the last few years and I’m really just tired of it. Yes, it holds everything I need (and then some) but I really don’t like it anymore. A FlipBelt is a pretty simple idea – a spandex fabric tube shape worn around the waist/hips that has slit openings to hold things. Once it’s all loaded up, you ‘flip’ the belt so the slits are facing your body. I sure hope I like it :-s

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On a brighter note, at least I’ve still been sewing and making quilts. I’ve completed the top for the Memory Quilt and it’s huge!! Here it is laying across my king size bed 😮

I have several pieces of shirt left so I’ll be incorporating them into the backing but will need a few more yards to finish it. I’ve also asked the recipient if she’d like her husband’s initials appliqued on the back and the answer is Yes! Once all of that is done, I’ll tackle the basting & quilting – I have a feeling I’m going to need to enlist DH to help 😉

I’ve also been keeping up with The Splendid Sampler QAL – here are blocks 6,7,8,9 & 10

And I’ve been following along with the Sugar Block Club – here’s March’s block

As if all that wasn’t enough, I finally finished the Lush Lagoon top mentioned here. I added a border of teal fabric with little fishys and I found a deep teal water motif for the backing – all on 5bucksayard.com. I highly recommend their fabrics and the prices & service are excellent too! I’ve got it up on my design wall with the backing underneath just to make sure it was big enough – because the water motif was directional I couldn’t cut and add to the selvage…so, I added an 8″ section of the border fabric to the backing – problem solved! Now I just need to baste & quilt.

I think that’s about all the sewing updates for now…whew!

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Linking up with Let’s Bee Social

 

ttfn…and…G’night 🙂

 

 

Memory quilt update

I took a little break from the Memory quilt to work on the blocks for The Splendid Sampler and now I’m current…here’s Block 5 and all the blocks including the bonus

With that QAL under control I went back to work on the Memory quilt and began adding the horizontal sashing strips. After I made a few mistakes, I quickly realized I needed to really concentrate on what I was doing but not before I had to rip out an 89″ seam! grrr!!

I’ve stopped for the night after joining 6 rows…haha, only 12 more to go!

{just in case you’re wondering…the black spot on one of the blocks is not a bug or clump of thread, it’s the Polo emblem from one of the shirts. There are other blocks that contain the emblem too, you just can’t see them in the pic}

ttfn and G’night.

 

Memory Quilt progress

I was able to get to Hobby Lobby on Friday night to pick up the fabric I needed to start piecing the bricks together for the memory quilt. I usually don’t wash my fabric until after the quilt is completed but in this case I made an exception – for a couple of reasons. First, since the shirts were already worn & washed many times they won’t shrink like normal quilting cotton. Second, since I’m using burgundy for the background I was afraid it would bleed if I didn’t wash it in advance.

Once I got home from the store I did a quick zigzag stitch on the raw edges and threw all four yards in the wash with a color catcher. I used a delicate cycle and the shortest time setting on my machine. When it was done I pulled out the color catcher and it was red…yay for washing in advance! I dried it for about 30 mins and it was ready for cutting.

I’ve worked on & off over the last two days and have gotten 5 rows pieced. I can’t share this on any other social media because the recipient follows me and she doesn’t want to see the quilt until its finished.

I’ve got 5 rows pieced – I’ll be adding sashing in between each row but I’ll wait until I have all 18 rows done to do that. This thing is so wide it won’t all fit on my ‘design wall’ – at some point I’ll have to move to the floor…ugh.

We’re expecting more foul weather later tonight into tomorrow…ice & freezing rain…lovely. The saving grace is the 5 day forecast is calling for temps in the 60’s on Tuesday – yay!

ttfn and…G’night!

I’ve been a little silent…

I’ve been working hard in my sewing room trying to finish up a few WIPs (works in progress) and finish designing the memory quilt I’m making for my friend.

I decided I needed to layout all the bricks again with a tan/light background to be really sure that’s the way I wanted to go before I buy more fabric…and I’m SO glad I did.

Here are the two backgrounds side-by-side…

I had originally thought the lighter background would allow the ‘bricks’ to really stand out but there are quite a few light bricks and I think they get a little lost in the tan background. However, with the burgundy background all the bricks stand out…so that’s the way I’m going.

I’ve also been trying to finish up my Cozy Afternoon quilt. I got the triangle pieces attached and then sewed on the green border…and then – ugh! It just didn’t look right. There needed to be something significant between the center and the borders.

I took the fabric I had intended to use as binding and cut it into 2.5″ strips, folded them in half and tacked them up to frame the center…ahhhh, much better!!

I don’t want to remove the light green border pieces because they’re already cut to size so I’m going to ‘applique’ the dark green trim around the center. Not necessarily a conventional idea but I think it will work just fine. Then I’ll need to figure out what to do for binding. I think it needs to be a dark color but I don’t have anymore of the dark green so whatever it is I’ll have to go buy it!

I’m gearing up for The Splendid Sampler QAL that begins 2/14 and runs for a whole year…yikes! They’ve released a sneak peak block and some patterns so of course I had to try them. I didn’t make these with the fabrics I bought specifically for this sampler – I really want to wait for the actual blocks before I cut into them.

Instead I used fat quarters from my stash to make them.

Folding Block Station: the block on the inside is the ‘sneak peak’

Fabric Bucket:

Lastly…no running for me this week. The ‘let’s do it tomorrow‘ gremlins have taken a hold of me and won’t let go!!! It doesn’t help that we’re having another cold snap and I just can’t fathom the idea of running 10+ miles on a treadmill…excuses, excuses!!

I’ve got a 10 mile race next weekend, 2/20…this should be interesting, LOL!

ttfn and…G’night

Memory quilt progress

As mentioned here, I’m working on a memory quilt for a friend and each night this week I’ve deconstructed the shirts my she provided. I finally finished 13 shirts (lucky number?) and have enough bricks to layout my design.

I pulled the coverlet off my king size bed and laid it out on the floor to use as my template. In hindsight I should’ve turned the coverlet to the light side since I’m planning to use a tan solid for the sashing but alas I didn’t think of that until I was halfway done laying out all the bricks and I just didn’t have the energy to start over

I decided to go with 8 1/2 bricks per row x 18 rows – this will net a quilt approx 94×108 – WOW! This will be the largest quilt to date for me…I don’t even want to think about how I’m going to quilt this baby! I’ll get to that when I get to that :p

Here’s what it looks like all laid out on the floor

Now that I had the layout I started calculating how much fabric I’ll need for sashing and binding and of course I don’t have enough of the tan. I bought it before I knew I was going to use it for this purpose and only have 2 yards; after doing the math I’ll need at least 3 1/3 yards so I’ll buy 4 yards (I always get extra cuz you never know). I want to make sure I use the same dye lot for this quilt so I’m not going to mix what I already have with what I purchase.

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I had to take a break from this project so I started cutting pieces to make the Sugar Block Club block of the month for Feb. I got all the pieces cut and then ran out of steam tonight…so I’ll finish it in the morning and post some pics.

ttfn…and…G’night