I finally got my Fairy Frost Sunset quilted. It’s been hanging around since September 2010. It’s been bound, but needs to be washed. Hopefully next week I’ll get that post written.
The Christmas Star Swap from April 2019 is now a top. I’ve pieced the backing from some vintage Christmas stash and cleaned out a project box. I hope to get this loaded on the frame in the morning.
Both of these quilts are on my Brandon Quilters UFO list.
Last Thursday morning my SIL and I headed off to the Kansas City metro area. The occasion? The start of Hunter Quilt Marts Customer Appreciation sale where everything in the store is 25% off. (I’m not sure is that is true for sewing machines and longarms). I was in need of quilt batting. I’m down to about 9 yards on my king roll and maybe 9 yards on my queen roll.
After 12 hours switching off the driving every few hours we arrived at my brother’s just outside of Ottawa (KS). We visited that evening and Friday morning. We then headed toward the city where I visited with a friend from my previous guild for a few minutes — she was holding some quilt books for me (will do a post on those books) and we did another small task that I cannot do here in Mississippi. Then we kept driving north to St Joseph (MO) where we visited with my sister who had quilts I had purchased from a guild members estate via proxy. We spent the night, heading to bed early so we could get to Hunters Quilt Mart in Centerview (MO).
The goal was to get there by 10:15 or so because we wanted to leave by Noon so we could get to another shop before they closed. We got there at 10:45. Oops.
We both had lists. Ruby started with her notions and notions she remembered from my list. I headed to the thread.
All of these are Glide 40wt thread which stitches beautifully with no tension issues. Cool Gray 7, Mercury, Biscotti, Magic Mint, Grape, Salmon, Strawberry Blonde, and Yellow Whisper. All of these are replacement cones except for Salmon and Yellow Whisper.
As for the notions, I picked up needles for the longarm, an 8″ rotating mat, a Hot Ruler, a tube of bobbins, 2 backlash springs for my bobbin case, a new ruler and small snips. The small snips were not on my list. They did not have the Brother bobbins for my sewing machine in stock, but now I know exactly what I’m looking for.
That just left backings – not that any of these quilts are finished (or started in some cases). At the top left is the backing for my Quartered Squared quilt which I haven’t started. In the middle is the backing for Cascade which clearly hasn’t been started. At the top right is the backing for my Rivanna which is my current leader/ender project. I have just over half of the HST made for it. That’s the left over FQs sitting on top of it. At the bottom is the backing for Star Studded, a BOM I started in 2019. It turns out I only have to made the center star and assemble it.
Although the batiks were calling to me, I remained strong and stopped shopping. We checked out, stopped by the batting and told them what we bought and headed to the car to unload it so we could load the batting. A Honda CRV has more cargo room than my Nissan Cube. The same amount of batting was brought home, but I had plenty of leg room this year and there were 2 us in the car!
Where we went next later this week.
On this Design Wall Monday I first have a finish. Last week I made the Midi Bag. This past weekend I made the larger Mondo Bag. I think this will make a great reusable shopping bag.
Here are the two of them together for size comparison.
After the bag was finished, I pulled out my Christmas Star Swap blocks from April 2019. I made the 6 alternate squares, now I need to do the setting triangles.
I’ve finished the Twisting Star Magnolia. Years ago, I made another one of these for my mother. The fabric was found on the road trip to Iowa – 3 days and 3 nights, 13 shops. We left Friday after everyone got off from work and spent the night at a hotel on the interstate closest to our first shop. Shopped all day Saturday. Managed to hit a few shops which were open on Sunday. Stayed another night and hit a few more stores before heading back to Kansas City. Anyway, I think it was the shop in Ames, Iowa which had this on display and I had to make it for my mother as she was decorating her new home with magnolias. This was my mom’s. I now have it.
A few years later my friends and I shop hopped our way to St. Louis so I could meet my first great-nephew and I spotted the magnolia fabric in one of the stores. I bought enough to make 4 more toppers, 1 for each of my husband’s sisters, my aunt, and myself. I did not have the dragonfly fabric, and got 3 of the 4 made.
Somewhere along the way I found more the dragonfly fabric in the original wall hanging, but after my mom passed, it came back to me, to the fabric for my quilt has been sitting in my stash as a PIG. I started to send the whole mess to my sister, but decided I’d just make another one to give her. Now that it is done, I’ve put the rest of the fabric back in the stash. It’s off my PIGs list and on my DONE list. Now I just have to remember to take it with me when I travel to Kansas City in a few weeks.
Oh, it’s the first of the month, so I need to do my stash report.
Last week I started cleaning up my the flat surfaces in the Quilt Studio, starting with the cut off backing and batting from the past 6 months of quilts. Among the finds was a length of Teahouse Garden which was long enough and wide enough to make 18 5″ finished 4-patch kaleidoscope blocks.
In addition to the cut off scraps, I dug around for the rest of the fabric and discovered I had just enough fabric to make a total of 48 blocks — half cut as 4-patches and half cut as hour-glass units. I had more more yard left so, it became the backing of this unplanned quilt.
Thursday afternoon I loaded it on the longarm and started quilting. With just 2 half motifs left to quilt, my phone rang and I paused the machine so I could hear.
It was a now retired co-worker with devastating news. She has Stage 4 Lung Cancer and the prognosis is grim.
After getting off the phone I did what quilters do – looked for a quilt to send her. Nothing seemed right in my stack of recently finished quilts, so I went back to finish up Teahouse Gardens and realized I had been working on Anne’s quilt for the past week. Anne loves Bonsai. In my mind I had just found Anne’s quilt.
It’s packed up to ship out in the morning and I totally forgot to get the final measurements. But here are the rest of the stats.
I’m calling this Bohemia Twilight Feathers in a nod to both the pattern name — Bohemia, and the fabrics Kaffe Feathers in Cool, and Stonehenge Twilight Ombre. The binding is Grunge Basics in Tori, and the backing is Groovy Garden Colors in Purple. Truly the fabrics did all the work.
This was a quick start/finish for me. I bought the fabric for the top and backing Friday afternoon and had a quilt top by Saturday night. Once I had part of the top done Saturday morning, I ran out and picked up the binding fabric.
Clearly the purples in the quilt are on the blue side and the wall color is on the red side. The first picture is closer to the real colors.
Quilt Stats:
Friday afternoon I drove down to McComb to deliver the Log Cabin quilt to my cousin. On my way home I stopped in at Gardensong Fabrics in Brookhaven. Did I need any fabric? No. But since it is the largest shop around and a little over an hour away from my house, I stopped anyway. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, then I remembered Bohemia, a Villa Rosa Design that I picked up in San Antonio last month.
I stepped outside to get reception on my phone and looked up the pattern to see the requirements. I then asked about ombre fabric. They had several colors of Stonehenge.
I liked these two, so began looking for a print to go with them.
For the teal I found this Kaffe Chrysanthemum. I think this would be very striking.
For the purple/blue I found this Kaffe feather print. I ended up choosing the feather.
I picked up 4 yards of this fabric to use for the backing. Although not a perfect match, it was on sale. I decided to hold off on binding fabric until I saw the quilt top.
Now to get it quilted.
It’s taken 4 years, but the matching pillowcases for my Christmas En Provence are done. And the fabric is put away.
First up is my Black & White 4-patch Stacked Posies quilt. The quilt top was finished in 2008. I even started quilting it after my sister got her long arm. Then I ripped out a bunch of the quilting. I finally pulled it out late last month.
Each block is quilted individually with the same motif, the sashing is quilted with another motif and the borders were quilted separately. Given my thread color – Mercury – the quilting is not very visible, and an edge-2-edge design might have worked just as fine. On the other hand, I learned a lot.
This is quilt is on my 2023 Brandon Quilters UFO Challenge list.
This is Spider Webs. A few years ago at a quit retreat, a quilter made Night & Day, a Quilt in a Day quilt. That particular pattern has odd cuts, which can be used to make SpiderWebs. She didn’t want the extra pieces and gave them to a friend, who in turn passed them to my sister. My sister put the center together. While we were in San Antonio, we picked out the border fabrics and backing. I added the border, quilted and bound the quilt before sending it back to my friend.
Well, it’s not bound yet.
Over the weekend I updated the software on my longarm. So between that and wanting to remember how to setup a separate border, I pulled out this Stacked Posies quilt from 2008.
In addition to having a separate border, each block and sashing is quilted individually. If you click on the picture the quilting becomes visible. In retrospect, given the thread color I used (Glide 40wt Mercury) and edge-2-edge design would have worked just as well.
This quilt is on my 2023 Brandon Quilters UFO Challenge list. As soon as I get it bound it will be the 4th quilt I’ve knocked off my list. That leaves me just 12 quilts tops waiting to be quilted. We won’t talk about the # of quilts I’m still piecing. Those can be seen HERE.
