One more

 

Here is my final quilt for the year, the last in a series of five commission quilts for a customer's grandkids:

 

Other versions completed earlier this year: 

 

 

 

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A quiet quilting day

After a busy holiday season, I'm looking forward to a relaxing day at home today!  I'll be working on this quilt, which comes from some of my RSC15 blocks.  It is quilted, but needs to go back on the longarm machine for some corrections and additional quilting.  When it's done, it will be donated to our local

domestic violence shelter.

I also brought out this block set, and hope to get it further along toward quiltiness soon -- planning to have it ready for our Civil War Sew-along group scheduled to begin in February.

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Pieced blocks

 

Finished getting these blocks together.  This is a shop sample, to be quilted on the long-arm later in the week.  It's going to be a Sew-Along Club project, beginning in January.  I like the piecing, but I think the outer border is too blah for the blocks.  Hopefully the quilting will enhance it enough.  Or maybe prairie points?

 

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North Star

I finished assembling the blue stars from my

STARS IN A TIME WARP

block collection!

All year long, Barbara Brackman has been teaching us about fabric styles from the 19th century.  In
her introduction last January, and several other times throughout the year, she suggested that we try to think like early quiltmakers might have, and use unusual combinations and off-kilter fabric placements when creating our stars.  With this suggestion in mind -- and since most of my blocks came from smallish pieces found in my scrap bag, and I was "loose" about running out of fabric and subbing in something else -- I ended up with a lot of quirky stars!

None of these star blocks have anything in common other than the same star design, and blue fabric of some sort or another. Since my blocks are so casual, I chose to use them in a strippy "utility" quilt rather than a more formal layout, sort of like this quilt Barbara shared with us in October.  Ha -- my imaginary early quiltmaker even ran out of fabric for her border, and had to substitute in some other blue pieces! :)

It is my intention to tie this top rather than quilt it, in keeping with the "no frills" utility feel of my project.  I plan to keep this quilt in my own collection, as a reference for all the fabrics we learned about this year. 

This series was an outstanding learning experience!  And I still have another 114 star blocks waiting to be used in future projects!

 

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Ahead of the game!

I had a chance to finish up this lap quilt today, and get it ready for TV-watching and binding-sewing tonight.

It's slated to be my first guild comfort quilt for next year, so I'm all set for January!

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Handwork

I finished up the binding on this little quilt last night.  It's soothing to do repetitious hand stitching, isn't it?

This project was inspired by "Churn Dash Weave"  found in The Blue and the Gray, a book by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene.  We're going to begin a Civil War sewing club in February, and I'm working ahead on samples for some of our activities.

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Odds and ends

We've been having quite an early cold spell the past several days, with temps not getting above freezing at all and overnights down into the teens.  Brrr! 

I just finished a UFO that I started way back in January for RSC15/Blue.  It's been hanging over the door to my sewing room ever since.  It has been donated to a local family who lost their home in a fire recently. 

 As has been the case for the past several years, I started out strong with Rainbow Scrap Challenge at the beginning of the year and then fizzled out in April or so.  I do have one other block set from this year that is close to becoming a quilt, but then there are at least three other block sets that will each need many more blocks before they're done.   Guess it'll be time to start planning next year's quilt activities pretty soon now ... probably including another go at Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

This coming week I'm looking forward to getting out the holiday decorations and changing the house from autumn to Christmas!

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Shop work

Here is this week's batch of completions

for the shop.  The runners are extremely popular,

and sell as fast as we put them out.

This is quilt #4 for the same customer - each of her grandchildren gets to choose their own color scheme, and we still have one more to go. It's an easy quilt anyway, and after four I can just about do this one in my sleep by now :) Earlier quilts from this commission series HERE

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Monday

A few pieces I finished this past weekend:

I don't often use panels, but Mommy wanted a Disney-themed baby quilt, and this one fit the bill:

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Sunday

 I made short work of this Kaffe Fassett project today.  It went together quickly because the blocks are so large ... designed to showcase the Fassett fabrics, of course. 

It reminds me of zinnias.

 

It will be used as a donation quilt for a  local family who recently lost their home in a fire.

We are enjoying picture-perfect autumn weather this week -- mellow, mild days and nights just cool enough for blissful sleeping.  This is my favorite time of year!   

  

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Two more done

More commission work:

another pair of family heirloom tops

that have finally become quilts.

 

Classic 30's color combos!

 

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Number Three

Just finished this third "same" commission quilt:

 

The customer is having a total of five made for her grandkids, all using the same pattern.  The kiddos are making their own color choices.  Here are the two I finished earlier : 

 

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Bears

 

Another commission quilt completed

 

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Recent commission work

Here is the latest batch of commission quilts I've been busy with recently. 

 

The orange baskets were a family heirloom top that is finally finished, many decades later. 

 

The beach vans also came to me as a top. 

 

This one was a new quilt - the customer selected the pattern and fabrics.  These colors remind me of vintage Barbie doll carrying cases :) 

 

And finally a keepsake quilt using the customer's family clothes.  As is typical of these quilts, kind of a mish-mash ... but the customer is always right :)

 

 

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Saturday

 

This week I finished two quilts, in addition to working on several miscellaneous odds and ends.

 

This patriotic lap quilt was a *special request*

for a friend 

 

 And this little piece will be used as a class sample for an upcoming beginner quilting series at the shop.

 

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A finish!

 

This big quilt has been folded up on the rocker in the family room for months, waiting to have its binding stitched down.  We watched a movie last evening, and I finally got the last side of the binding completed!!

 

It's a queen-size quilt, made up of an accumulation of 30s-repro blocks from several swaps, plus 9-patch alternating blocks.  Last time I blogged about it was a year ago in January, so it has been lingering in my workroom for a very long time.   I'm thrilled to have it done at last!

 

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Stash report - week 17

Used this week: 2.50 yards
Used year to date: 97.00 yards
Added this week: 0.00 yards
Added year to date: 43.50 yards

Net used for 2015: 54.50 yards

I finished three more log cabin runners
 for the shop this week

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Saturday

I seem to have wandered off and fallen out of the habit of blogging, haven't I? Life is fine, and I'm busy, just haven't been taking the time to sit down and type up a blog entry.

 

One of the things I've been absorbed with the past couple of weeks has been this top:

It's a commission piece, and it has been slow going.  The pattern was written to use pre-cut strips, and while it was very accurate and detailed, 2 1/2" strips were definitely NOT the most efficient way to make all those triangles and flying geese!  If I never see another stitch-and-flip corner again it will be too soon. 

I realize that the industry encourages their designers to create patterns that can feature pre-cuts, which are an $$expensive$$ but popular way to purchase fabric.  But any experienced quilter would have preferred making the HSTs and flying geese with bigger pieces of fabric and multiple-unit techniques.  I received the project in a bag, already selected and paid for  -- pattern, jelly roll, charm pack and yardage -- and we'll just say if I had been doing the shopping I would have made different choices.  Anyway, I've been slowly and tediously working to meet the customer's wishes using that pattern and those materials ... and I'm relieved that it will be heading off to the long-armer on Monday!  Commission work is certainly a different can of worms.  (and I would have chosen a stronger-colored fabric for the border.  Sigh.)

I also managed to excavate to the bottom of the freezer out in the garage last week -- some *interesting* things unearthed there, let me tell you!  And I'm getting started on the annual window-cleaning and curtain-washing schedule. Meanwhile, I've set up a couple of little hand-quilting projects to pick up when I have a few spare minutes.  Otherwise, since Spring is here, the garden will be calling me outside soon!

 

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Stash report - week 16

Used this week: 8.50 yards
Used year to date: 94.50 yards
Added this week: 0.00 yards
Added year to date: 43.50 yards

Net used for 2015: 51.00 yards

This week I finished a couple of
checkerboard runners for the shop

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Stash report - week 15

Used this week: 5.50 yards
Used year to date: 86.00 yards
Added this week: 0.00 yards
Added year to date: 43.50 yards

Net used for 2015: 42.50 yards

This week I did few patriotic runners for the shop

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