Project Quilting 17.1 A Clean Slate

The first challenge for this year‘s project quilting challenge was 'A Clean Slate'. Trisha always includes within the first prompt the Pantone colour of the year, which is not even a colour: white aka Cloud Dancer. We were in Cuba up until late Thursday, so, because many American sites are blocked due to the American embargo on Cuba, I did not know what the prompt was until I got back. That left me two days to figure something out. I knew it would have to be a smaller project so I chose to make a couple of placemats.

I’ve made many placemats over the years using this stitch and flip, quilt as you go method that I first saw on Janine‘s blog, Quilts From the Little House. It’s a great way to use up those proverbial ever present strings, batting scraps, and make a useful item.

Leftovers Get New Lives

Although I find the 'stitch and flip' method for adding squares to rectangles to make corner triangles quick, it produces leftover triangles. If the squares are less than 2 ½", I toss them. When the squares are 5", as were those in Suburbia, it means leftover HSTs that, when sewn back together, are 4", finishing at  3½", much too big to waste, and, get this: there were 65 of them!! What to do? Make a matching cushion, for starters!

When Brady was here in August, I had just finished making Suburbia. It is going to Jordan, Brianne's boyfriend, for Christmas. Brady always like to sew something when he's here, so I asked him what he thought of sewing the HSTs, which I'd sewn back together and squared up as I made the quilt, into a coordinating cushion cover. He thought that was a great idea, and started playing around with them to make his own design. I'd shown him several ideas that one can do with versatile light/dark HSTs, but he said, "No, Nana, I want to do my own thing."

O Canada Placemats

Another item on my long list of USOs (UnStarted Objects) is a set of placemats. I am happy to report that I finished them up yesterday!

Why it’s taken me this long to make these I do not know…shame on me.

More Blues

Since I got my Project Quilting runner, Diamond Girl, done in just two days, I did a little fun, mindless sewing. One of my goals this year is to make a placemat each month in the colour for the RSC. I got a dark blue one done a couple of weeks ago and so this week I decided to make a light blue one in my ongoing efforts to reduce the strips.

Since making these two, I actually have noticed them go down.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project 1

I really enjoyed making my Scrappy Stars in 2023, and last year had a glimmer (yup, one of those moments) when I thought I might be able to do a churn dash block using the same idea—crumbs and strips in the colour of the month to make the main components of the block. Once I had Cradled finished and blogged, I got out my graph paper, fired up my math brain, and created a 15" block.

I love it! I plan to make nine for a quilt which I intend to give to the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre as I do each year for a child. The tutorial is below if you’d like to make this scrap-(sort of)-busting block.

Thirteen Little Makes

As I mentioned in a previous post, July saw me doing more outdoor things and less sewing which is appropriate for a beautiful summer month. I did make quite a few smaller projects so here’s a roundup of them.

These four are the Strippy Pouch pattern formerly on Moda Bakeshop. After I made the navy and cream one for the florist and gift shop in town, I made a second one for my shop. The soft aqua one has a beach vibe and I even photographed it at Seacliff Beach. 😎 The other two are made with Pat Sloan’s Bird Song fabric. Those have been fairly popular; think I’ve sold three or four. 

The Partner Placemat

For the last Project Quilting challenge I made a placemat for our dear friend John. I’d also started a second one for his former wife, with whom he is still very close. Here it is.

Partner placemats. Sharing similar characteristics but able to stand alone as well, as good friends do.

Like John’s I did the Irish Chain block for Pat’s. Like John’s, hers has stars using the triangle-in-a-square block. They share a common colour: green. They share Cypress but she has Leprechaun. However, you can see that where his used purple for the stand alone triangle, hers used the background fabric and I used green for the side triangles. Same exact block just coloured differently! Pat's favourite colour is red.

Project Quilting 15.6 Irish Chain

For whatever reason, maybe a lot going on this past week, this last challenge for Project Quilting gave me pause. We were to work with the Irish Chain quilt block.

I first played around in my graph paper design book, originally planning a quilt for myself, baby size, as another of my take-to-yoga-class quilts, or else a placemat for my good friend John. I knew I would do a triangle in a square in the alternating squares. I made a quilt with this design in a 9-patch exchange about 20 years ago and I just love the effect. It was a busy week and although I plan to do that yoga class quilt or 'Baby Boomer Blankie', a placemat, hopefully two, it had to be. (Baby Boomer Blankie is a term coined by my friend Rose, and since I am born in the last year of the Boomers, I guess it can apply to moi as well), 

I finally got to my sewing machine on Friday and by Saturday around 10 pm (gulp) I had one complete. 

Of course I had to make delicious soft ginger cookies, a recipe Brady shared with me. Brady also gave me that mug. The cream and sugar pottery is now 45+ years old, a pre-marriage gift from Pat, my SIL. It’s all about the photo shoot right?!

Project Quilting 15.4 Hourglass

I had told myself to make a little less involved of a project this round of Project Quilting at Persimon Dreams. When I saw the final graphic that Trish had posted, the idea to make a placemat, and thus have a rectangular based hourglass was born.

I have tons of green and tons of blue strips so I at first figured I’d do the side triangles in blue strips. It didn’t take long to realize that that would be a whole lot of seams regardless of whether they met or not, and on the bias. Not such a great plan. A little thinking ensued.

Rosebud Garland Pattern Release

Ta-da! May I present Rosebud Garland! I am very excited to release my first pattern of 2024, which technically is my last pattern of 2023, since it was in the previous issue of Make Modern, issue #55 to be specific. One of the many things I love about this magazine is that they only keep the rights to your patterns until the next issue comes out, in other words, just two months.

What you won't get in the Make Modern issue is the pattern for the accompanying placemats, as well as a tip in this post to make an extra-long runner if you've got a large dining table, as does my daughter, Dayna. Read on to find out and also to check out the low price at which it's being offered.

Rosebud Garland in Make Modern #55

I am thrilled to finally be able to share a design that was accepted in January of this year for Make Modern issue 55!

Our own Sweet Autumn Clematis was stunning again this year, and when one of my sweet neighbours, Mary Beth, exclaimed about it, she said hers was wonderful this year too, climbing all the way over a wooden trellis. When I was thinking of good places for a photo shoot for my project, I thought her trellis might frame the runner perfectly. And wow, did it ever!

Green Work, Pumpkin Placemats and DrEAMi! #66

Two thirds of the way through writing this post and I looked at the date and realized tomorrow is the last Saturday of September (just WHERE did that month go?) so I need to double up and make this the DrEAMi post too. The pumpkin placemats at the end of the post are actually a Drop Everything And Make it project!

My RSC work is done for this month. Angela asked us to work some more with blue, but I've already done light blue and turquoises, and I'm itching to work with bright green, so that is what I did, making another hot air balloon block. This makes a total of eight.

I plan to make one more for the layout I have in mind. I think it will be a multi-coloured one.

I'm Back...

albeit with a little reluctance. I'm my own boss, so why don't I take the rest of the summer off blogging and (mostly off) Instagram? Answer: the longer I do, the harder it is to get back into the habit. And habit it is. So what have I been up to over the month of July and first week of August? Here's a summary with more details inside.

First and foremost were three glorious weeks with Brady here.

Here he's cutting out a pair of sleep shorts. While he was here, not a lot of sewing got done but a lot of getting out and about did. I read 6.5 books, which I'll mention later, as there have been several excellent ones. I've sewed a bit over the month, not all quilts. I've lazed around in the pool, and done a bit of gardening. I've got one pattern ready to release and another nearly there with a third at the 'ready to figure out yardage and start typing' stage.

I've Got the Blues and I'm Happy About it!

Bright blue is this month's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge with Angela at soscrappy, and that is just fine, because blue is my favourite colour and it makes me happy! I've finished both of my ongoing  RSC projects for this month. The first one is my hot air balloons.

Aren't they just the best? I didn't make a forest green one for May because I want a bright and lime green one since this quilt is likely headed to a toddler I happen to know.

The Yellow Month of March - RSC

I posted these finishes on Instagram earlier this week, but I like to keep track of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge progress on the blog too. My main project this year is making Kelly's My Quilt Infatuation hot air balloons from her book Scrappy Improv Quilting. Yellow was the colour for March, so here is the yellow balloon.

They are truly such fun to make and use up all of my small scraps that I keep in little baggies inside their scrap box of scraps about a fat quarter or less in size. I thought the scrap of Kaffe Fassett crisscross fabric made a great zing across the balloon!

Wake Up Make Up

This small quilt was finished in January. As it has finally arrived at its destination this past week, and since my daughter reads my blog, I haven't been able to write about it until now. You've seen some sneak peeks  of sections on the blog and on Instagram. Well, here is what I made:

This was another design-as-I-go project and it was so satisfying. I saw the phrase 'wake up, make up' somewhere. Pinterest or Etsy, maybe something on Instagram. It stuck with me as a perfect phrase for the makeup mat Brianne had requested last summer, and which I'd made...but that was a different mat. Let me back up a bit...

Project Quilting 12.2 Fussy Cutting

The challenge this time was to incorporate fussy cutting into our project. I did two projects again, two of each, though due to real life happenings, one of the four items is still as you will see, in the blocks stage.

Still, I do have three finished items.

One of my quarter of the year goals has been to make two cat mats which I donate to either the Windsor Humane Society or to Kittenaide. Cats photographed sitting on something cute or homemade like a little cat-sized quilt, tend to get adopted faster. And what cat doesn't love a snuggly place to curl up?

Bella already tried them out, as some of you may have seen on Instagram.

Pink and Grey Placemats and Two Great Tips

With a few hours to spare, I've knocked off another item on my rather lengthy Q4FAL List. 2019 was definitely the year of the placemats, and 2020 so far has been fulfilling family quilty requests.

Dayna originally fell in love with the Opal Silk placemats I made for Brianne, asking for those colours. And then, in keeping with her Demando Dayna nickname bestowed upon her by my friend Rose of something rosemade, who has a Demando son, and recognized this quality in my daughter, Dayna said, "Well, I'd like the turquoise ones for my outside table, and I'd like four more for my inside table, but in pink instead of the turquoise." All right then! She opted for a soft pink and I like the look. In all honesty, I am most happy to oblige these quilty requests. The mending or altering requests, not so happy to oblige...

DrEAMI #33

Well big time oops here. This post should have been on Saturday, as in a few days ago. That was when I was participating for the first time in #missingmarket and it was fun! Sunday it continued, but another reason my head was not on my blog duties was that we had to dog-sit this sweetiepie.

It wasn't hard to spend several hours with her in their basement watching the Lions..... win! She is a snuggle bunny extraordinaire. So it didn't even dawn on me that the last Saturday of October was over until this morning, and well I was in the throes of finishing off the current quilt, taking a certain cat to the vet, and getting said quilt into the mail.

More Placemats!

I have a finish for Friday, but it's not the Bear Paw quilt, though it should be a finished flimsy today. When I was procrastinating starting the Bear Paw quilt, I made several other items, two of which are the two placemats I 'owed' Dayna. These are on my Q3FAL List which is here.

Dayna requested a set of four the same as Brianne's for her outside table and four more for her inside one, in slightly different colours. Brady has also commissioned a placemat, similar to those I made for his mother, but with red substituted for one of the greys. So you'll be seeing placemats for a bit yet! Here are the other two I made for Dayna.