2nd Top AND 2 Backs!

Saturday I was able to get more of the yellow so I could finish the borders on the second baby quilt. I really like how this one turned out and will be the one that goes to little Helen. I made the decision because there is one small square that was cut from fabric from a shirt I made for her great grandfather, my father - "Opa".I used up the rest of the extra fabric making the two backs for these quilts and luckily bought a fun bright green that is in the blue print to use as binding.

Today I will be trying to get all the quilting done on the wedding quilt and would love to get the baby quilts quilted this week as well. It is doable if I have the batting - the wedding quilt used up the last of my roll of 124" Warm and Natural and I can't get another roll for a few weeks.

I have been working on my cathedral window quilt in the evenings. It is now about 20"X22" using 59 blue background squares and so far 102 different yellow pieces.I am enjoying watching this one grow but I am wondering what I will use when I run out of my navy blue.

Beginnings

Almost a year ago I posted about the Cathedral Window Quilt I was getting going on and I asked if anyone was interested in swapping some charm squares of whatever color I decided to go with.

I ended up with yellow and Amy at The Calico Cat sent me a pile of yellows. I used up all the squares of yellow I had so I started cutting into the pieces from Amy. Instead of figuring out which of hers I didn't have she just sent the pile which included some that I decided were too orange-y or too brown but there were still lots!!!! Amy was also very generous in the size of the pieces she sent as most of them were at least 3" X 5". Since I only need squares a little over 1.75" I was able to cut a bunch of 2.5" squares.

As I was doing my cutting I was thinking about my new grand-niece and the quilt I would make for her and suddenly had the inspiration that the yellow squares would work nicely. Once I had all of those cut I went through my scraps and came up with enough yellows and blues to make 16 16-patch squares.

Here are the blocks I have made that may or may not be the baby quilt for little Helen. I am leaning towards 'yes' but the final decision has not been made. I need to take the blocks to my LQSs and figure out sashing. I could frame each block with white and then sash them with a yellow, blue or green and then add a border of some sort but I am going to hold off on that decision until I have a lot of fabrics to help me decide!

CW Update

I got a lot done outside yesterday. My little plants are either in pot or the ground and the deck is cleaned off for summer dinners and 'beverages'.

Today I also mostly worked outside because it is just so lovely out! I cleaned out our bike shed so the grandkid's riding toys have a home. I also cleaned up an old wringer washer and hubby got it put together and it is ready for a plant - I just don't have something to plant in it so I will have to shop tomorrow - how sad! I also got some mowing done. I also planted some beets, swiss chard and kohl rabi in the raised bed that was empty since the lettuce didn't sprout.

Since I finished the hand quilting on that row by row quilt I have been working on my Cathedral Window Quilt. I have made quite a bit of progress in the last couple weeks. I have used up all the yellows I had and once I get some more squares added on I will start in on the ones from my sister and Amy. I hope to use up all the blue I have soon and then I will either change to another color for the background or I will find more of this navy or something close.

A Package and a Start

I lovely little package arrived from Kristin yesterday for the Mini Quilt In A Bag Swap 3 - Lovely Logs. I sent her the fabric for the center of some sort of log cabin blocks and then she came up with the rest. I have one ready to send to her today hopefully. Here is the fabric she sent for the centers of her log cabin blocks, I can't show the rest until she has received her little quilt so check back in about a week for that.

Yesterday, I also got a start on the t-shirt graduation quilt. I was having some trouble picking a fabric to use between the t-shirts but finally got that at my LQS yesterday, got it prewashed and got started. Here is my start and if things go well I might have the top done tonight. I was hoping to have a mini quilt retreat this weekend since my husband and daughter will be out of town for a workshop but you know what they say about best laid plans. I will be having some interruptions but I still hope to get a good bit of sewing done around them.

Since I finished the hand quilting on my Row by Row quilt I have gotten started up on my Cathedral Window Quilt again. It is coming along nicely, if slowly.

Moving right along!

Yesterday I did the second coat on the section I painted on Wednesday and made it a little further with the first coat. Today I will move on with the first coat. I could have this side done this week but I am not counting on it. I think Larry will be taking down the gutters this weekend so I can paint where they were and next week we can have new ones put on. So the next time it rains we shouldn't hear the drip, drip, drip or the water falls that we have been hearing!

I have also made some progress on my CWC (Cathedral Window Charm) quilt. Now it is time to get to work on more of the blue squares. Amy is sending me a few yellow squares from her stash (around 200, I think!) for me to use if they will work and I will be picking some up from Kristy also. So a HUGE Thank You to both of them! I also need to go through my stash and see what is there. Luckily I only need 2" squares so my scrap bin should be a great resource!

Well, I guess it is time to get outside and paint! My old body will sure be glad when this marathon painting is done!

Quilts and Paint

Tuesday after getting back home from our long weekend, I got laundry started, put things away, checked emails and blogs, even posted here. Then, around 7:30 I was sitting down to do some quilting in front of the TV and suddenly realized it was TUESDAY! CRAFT NIGHT! I almost missed it! Luckily, it occurs next door so I could get then in just a few minutes! I grabbed the Cathedral Window project and headed over. In the midst of chatting I did get several panes of yellow added. This past weekend has really messed with my sense of time!

Yesterday I got back to painting. 6 HOURS worth! I got a good start on the last side of the house and hope to second coat that and get a bit further with the first coat today. Tomorrow will be a short day because I will be heading into town at about 2 to help hubby install a glass cooktop on a customer's range. He doesn't get too many people who want the job done because the tops are expensive on their own - $200+ and it is a labor intensive job so that adds up to a new range for most people!

I have been working on my SIL quilt and finished off the triangles around the edges. Now I need to create the design for the rectangles - there are 80 of those. Then I will do the center squares of each block (20) and then just the border is left for sure, though if things go well I might add more hand quilting.

And the winner is...

yellow! Yes, I decided to go with my favorite color combination for the Cathedral Window Quilt project. I realized as I worked on it this weekend that I don't have to start in the middle - I can actually start in one corner. It is much easier to add the window panes if you don't have a lot of bulk to work with. So I finished off two edges and started doing the panes using some yellows from my daughter's stash since I was at her house. I am liking the look and now need to start going through my stash to find different yellows. If anyone is interested in swapping some fabric squares, please leave a comment so I can get in touch with you. I need 2" squares in yellows. These can be pastels, brights, orange-yellows. Then can have some other colors in them but I want yellow to be the dominate color, though yellow and blue prints are ok. The plan is to have no two panes the same.

My daughter and I (with grandkids in tow) went to a garage sale that advertised quilt fabric. It was priced surprisingly low and I ended up spending $10 for 5 or 6 gallon ziploc bags full. One bag had scraps of batiks and one had 39 1.5" WOF strips. The batiks must have been left over from a batik quilt and there are some triangles and some squares and then various other scraps. I am thinking I will kind of lay it all out and see if I can put them all together in an interesting fashion - otherwise, they will go in with the rest of my scraps!


I am thinking I will combine these strips with some neutral strips and make a scrappy log cabin quilt. I am not sure how many blocks I will get but whatever I get will determine the size of the quilt! I have never made a log cabin so this might be a good time to try one - WAIT! I did make two Colorado Log Cabin quilts for my husband's brother and sister so I guess I am just revisiting the pattern! So, if anyone knows of another good pattern to use scrappy strips for, let me know, and maybe I will try that instead!

What do you think?

I mentioned a few days ago that I am getting started again on a UFO Cathedral Window Quilt. Instead of using muslin for the background of the quilt I am using navy and I have enough together that I can start thinking about what to use as the window 'panes'. I am leaning toward yellows - including prints with white, blue and green but I also think it could look really great with neutrals, or brights, or ? What do you all think? And if I need more little squares of whatever palette I choose, would anyone be interested in swapping some little squares so I can make this a charm quilt. At this point I don't know how big this quilt will end up so not sure how many little squares I will be needing but I just wanted to send out some 'feelers' into the quilty world. I am waiting with bated breath.

Minis delivered

The second of my July Mini Quilts and the first of my August Mini Quilts were received in the last couple of days.

The July quilt sent to Jen(aka hedgehogquilts) was supposed to incorporate triangles. I used some half-square triangle leftovers from some of my Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop 2007 blocks to make some little pinwheels. I put this together during the two weeks at my daughter's house. When little Layden saw it he said 'Cool! Trees!" And nothing would convince him that they were pinwheels and not trees! I do have to admit that the big one sort of looks like a palm tree. For the back of the little quilt I used the WWQSH2007 focus fabric which features scenes from western Washington.


This is the little quilt I sent to Beth (aka maddieandme1). It was for the August hand-sewn group of mini quilts. I have been wanting to do some cathedral window projects so thought this was the perfect opportunity. I have always wanted to do one that used prints/colors for the background and neutrals for the window panes and this is how it turned out. It has inspired me to get moving on one of my UFOs. I ended up taking all of the machine work I had done from before out and pressed the squares. I am now doing it all by hand and I find it all comes together more precisely. I also discovered that pressing the seams open helps a lot. I haven't gotten too far yet but it will be my new long term project now that the Ludvina's Legacy top is together. I am thinking that the window panes will be charm squares but not sure if they will be one color range or just anything. Thoughts?

Yesterday I pulled out the baby quilt and got started on the embroidery of the name, date, etc. We had so many phone calls for the business though that I only got about 2/3 done with that little bit of hand work! I finished it up this morning and plan to get it basted and maybe machine quilted yet today. If I get the binding on before craft night tonight that will be my handwork while we chat. I also need to embroider the ropes between the baskets and the balloons but thought it would be easier to do the machine quilting if they weren't in the way.

Cathedral Window

Not much of a picture for this UFO/WIP. I was surfing through some blogs this morning and found Quilt Otaku. She posted about a Cathedral Window quilt she is working on. That reminded me that I have a Cathedral Window UFO/WIP.

I made a Cathedral Window pillow as a wedding gift for a friend a number of years ago and tucked it away in the back of my mind that someday I would make a bigger project. I started collecting pictures and patterns for various designs and that was as far as it went.

A few years ago I decided I would finally get started. I decided I wanted to use navy instead of the usual white or unbleached muslin so I got some squares cut and started working on them but some other project came up and put them on the back burner where they have sat. I am thinking I will haul them out as soon as I finish the other handwork I have going right now but that could still be a while! I still haven't decided what will be the 'panes' in the windows but that can wait!