I finished quilting 3 blocks, the sashing and extended the borders last week. Then I started prepping for my guilds retreat.  Wait — I need to go back further. The weekend before the guild had Annette Ornelas as a guest instructor. Later in the week I’ll see if I can get a picture of what I’ve done.

OK — back to the retreat. I made these keyfobs for the gift bags. I’ve peeked into my bag, but have not totally processed what was included.  I’ll do that in another post. Now for the projects I worked on.

First up – the music jelly roll quilt.  Back in 2014 I cut a 2 1/2″ wide strip of fabric off every music them fabric I had to make a backing for the Eeyore quilt.  This was left over and needed to finished, I just didn’t know what I wanted to do.  As I was packing, I spotted the orange fabric on my table and found the black in my cabinet. I like it.  Now to find a backing and get it quilted.

The next day I made 4 more string blocks, a small inner border and combined 2 different UFOs into one top.  The center is from 7/22/13 – they are left over pieces from a quilt I made one of my great nieces.  The blue strings I started 6/16/12 – then I  discovered I had made them in 2 different directions and I don’t like piecing strings, so they languished.

Somewhere along the way I made the binding for the 99-strip quilt, then I started working on Riviana.  I need to do one more seam on about 20 blocks then I can start assembling the quilt.

I took a break from sewing and did a little shopping. I just wanted a ‘good black’ all those other fabrics jumped into my cart and said take me home.

I started this month off with a list of 8 items on my to-do-list.  I’m happy to say all but 2 have been completed, and most of the tops ended up quilted and bound.  Additionally, there are 2 quilts not on the list which were completed.

Will September be as productive? Who knows. I’m taking a class offered by my guild next week, the following week is our retreat, and I’m taking 2 different on-line longarm classes.  There are at least 3 customer quilts in the queue.

Today, instead of finishing the quilt for the longarm class I’m taking, my skirt, or even making progress on Riviana, I decided to visit a couple of quilt shops – not that I needed anything.  In the back of my mind I was looking for a pretty red tone-on-tone and a good black tone-on-tone.  I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find these two pieces.

The top piece is an Amanda Murphy panel.  It’s designed for ruler work.

The second piece is Echo Braid.  I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be used, but my thought was to use it to practice long arm quilting.

Both pieces will go into my stash until later.

This quilt was started back in MARCH.  Looking at my notes I started it 3/2/26, finished the top on 3/8/26 and quilted it the same day.  It’s been waiting to be bound since then.  I am happy to say it’s quilted, bound and labeled as of today, 8/15/26.  The pattern is on the Bonnie Hunters Free Patterns Tab.

I found a length of vintage fabric to use for the backing.

• 55 1/2″ x 72″
• Legacy 80/20 Batting
• “Magic” binding
• Glide Strawberry Blond thread (2 bobbins)
• 11 SPI
• Overlapping Crop Circles enlarged — I’ve made a note to not increase the height to more than 20″.  I started at 22″ then reduced the size to 21.75″
• Started 3/2/26
• Finished 8/15/26

Yesterday I quilted Quartered Square. It still needs the binding, but I need to finally get my Scrappy Bargello bound. I just need to finish pressing the binding then put it on the quilt.

But Wednesday I got distracted.  I ordered a set of long-arm rulers from Piece N Quilt for a Stitch-Along starting September 7th and need to get the top ready. It’s simple enough, mostly 9-patches.

While I was on the site, I found a class on 99 Strip designs and pulled fabric for a couple of small quilts.

I was so ready to start cutting into these fabrics when I remembered my August UFO list. After all it is the middle of August.

After staring at the list wondering what Shenandoah was, I cut into my panel for the quilt.

I don’t recommend square panels. 

Leaving off the outer panel strip and lengthening the strips sewn to the center cut I think will fix the proportions.

As for the Stitch Along quilts, I’ll put them back in my pile to work, but after I get a couple more things off my list.

The good news is that I have finally sewn the binding together for Scrappy Bargello.  It still needs to be pressed, but is at least in one piece. Most people would go ahead and finish the quilt. I mean it has been waiting for the binding for 5 months.  Is that what I did? No.

Yesterday I delivered the two shop samples and I got to pick 4 yards of fabric to replace what I used on the back of Southern Charm from my stash.  Quartered Square by Missouri Star Quilts has been on my list since that trip to Kansas City when we had to buy luggage to get all the fabric home.  In fact Ruby made her quilt and we quilted it yesterday. Anyway, I picked fabrics to make the quilt.  I simply couldn’t resist cutting into it last night.  All my blocks are cut and I have the first 4 made. This is really a quick quilt to make I got to this point in less than 2 hours. I’ve not sewn the row yet.

This past couple of weeks I’ve been working on a shop samples.  Up first is Southern Charm.  This is from a Riley Black fabric bundle.  6 yards of fabric plus the panel.  No pattern, just me trying to figure out how to put all 6 fabrics in the quilt. Ultimately the the 6th fabric ended up as the binding.

We forgot the backing and was told to pick something from my stash.  I found this vintage fabric in my stash.  It’s dogwood on peach- on theme and color.  i used the E2E Magnolia from Urban Elementz to quilt it.  The thread is Yellow Whisper.

This is also from Riley Blake. It’s Crayola Colorful Creatures.  This is a shop sample panel for the kit.  Just load and quilt.  I been talking about needing to up my free-motion/ruler work game and was given this a top to practice on.  Now that I’m looking at the picture, I see that I should have outlined the path.  Oh well.  Quilted with Bone thread, I used leftover backing fabric for the binding.

Both of these quilts are on my August UFO list.  Now to finish making the binding for Scrappy Bargello.

April was busy.  I have not kept up on my handwork this month, nor did I do my BOM Saturday.  After I finished the pillowcases, I started in on this table runner and quilt.  They have since been bound in the same fabric as the sashing, but I didn’t get a picture of them before they left my possession.

Around the same time, I worked with a local landscaper and she put in a flower bed along my north fence line.  I can’t wait for it to fill in.

Then it was off to AQS Paducah.

My friend and I stayed in Metropolis, so naturally I have the obligatory photo of Superman and Lois Lane.

The second night we were there, we were woke up with meowing outside the door.  This is Yankee.  We took her to the walk-in Vet where she was scanned for a microchip -does not have one – and given a rabbies shot and ointment for her eye.  She was given a clean bill of heath with an estimated age of 6 months.  The front desk said she had been hanging around the motel and we were welcome to take her with us.  She was well behaved in the room and on the ride home.  She will live with my friend’s neighbor.

After the vet visit it was off to Hancock’s of Paducah where I walked in found the Steampunk Menagerie fabric I tried to order last fall.   1 yard in and out in less than 10 minutes.

At the show I found this gorgeous panel and companion piece at the Motherland Fabrics booth.

Not fabric, but quilting decor – I bought this garden stake of fused glass from Kos Artistic Design.

This years Brandon Quilters President’s Challenge is pillowcases for the Children’s Safe Center.  Years ago I prepped 5 cases which never got made, so I finally made those, then dug through my stash to see what else I could find. I thought I was done, then I picked up a quilt to bind and found one more.

I cut the body of the case 27″, the cuff 9″ and the accent band 1 1/2″.  Personally I don’t like the accent to be loose, so I stitch it to the cuff, then do the burrito roll to stitch it to the case.  Once the cuff is pressed, the case is folded in half wrong sides together and trimmed to 21″ wide.  I sew 1/4″ down the length of the case, press the seam and turn the case inside out and stitch the seam, encasing it.  My needle position was at 1.0 from the right.

The case is then turned right side out and pressed.  I then trim the length of the case to 31″, repeating the steps above to encase the seam.