Blocks

 Dear Readers,

Miracle of miracles I have another finish to share.  After I trimmed off Starry I had lots of the backing left as I had oversized the back and I also had some end of strips from my seven inch wide strips.  It looked like it could be combined to be a baby quilt.  

48 x 57

So I put them together and was pleased but thought it needed a border.  So in my quest to use some of my "ugly" fabric up I found a small print for the border.  I also did not want to cut up one of the pieces I had that would be big enough to do a large quilt, so I took one of the strips that I had trimmed badly on starry, the ones I had remade, and used it with some larger scraps for the back.  

Super pleased with those results.  This quilt will go to Tracy Carter's first grand.

Close up of the quilting

So far this year, I am 5 for 5.  Five quilts done five months in....

Sew on,

Terry

Starry

 Hey Readers,

During the pandemic I started Bonnie Hunter Summer Mystery that she ran during the pandemic.  Click here to get the pattern.  The first few weeks went well.  It is a medallion quilt.  Each week there was a new round.  In the first 5 rounds I kept up so well... then I must have moved my seam guide or got it on the wrong place and all the stars 

These were the first couple of weeks... next it looked like this... loved the added spinning friendship stars.

The next week we made lots of flying geese.  We just put these top and bottom...

The next week we just made bazillion half square triangles.

The next week we made stars and I don't know what happened but I think the seam guide got shifted a bit and they came out the wrong size, so I decided to trim the blocks down to the right size, knowing I would lose a bunch of the corners, but decided I could live with it.  After I trimmed them down, I hated it.  So I decided I would remake the bazillion half square triangles and redo the squares.  I just didn't have time...right then so I put the project on the corner of my sewing table.  Where it lived for a number of months.  Finally it got close to Spring Break and I decided to do all the cutting for this project and kit it up so that I could work on it at the beach.  

I got everything cut up for the last two rounds as I now knew what the mystery would look like and how many rounds there would be.  So I got the half square triangles done at the beach and trimmed the wonky ones. After returning I made the next round and the final two rows.  About this time, I thought I should check on whether the possible recipient even liked these colors.  Well she said her favorite colors were teal and peach. I had bought the assorted teals from this project and peaches I had bought for another project that never got made and decided to cut them up and make a pieced back.  So I quilted it last week and it is done.  

And the back...

I hope she loves it.   Gifting it on Monday!  It is going to my only Calculus student this year.  Mary Hope Gammel.  I have taught her for 3 years.  She has been the highlight of my day this year.  I know she will be a big success in what ever she puts her mind to as she has a great work ethic and great attitude.  Best of wishes to her.

Sew on and Happy Mother's Day!!  

Terry

Sendak's Dream

 Dear Readers,

I finished my third quilt this year!  This was another eye spy quilt for a coworker and his wife's first baby.  

If you follow this blog you know this is my go to baby quilt pattern.  I always use Pat Yamin's templates to make this quilt.  Click here if you want them.   Despite having made it a bunch of times I got things twisted up a bit this time.  I offset the top of the quilt one way and the bottom of the quilt a different was when I was joining up the rows.  So after I un-sewed the rows,  I started again and put it back together.  I used the scrabble tiles again, but this time I cut them a bit smaller as it was so hard to keep exactly the same blue border  I think it was much nicer and a cleaner look.  

So the back is pretty wild...

I am trying to use up fabric that I most likely won't use somewhere else.  So I found a stack of blocks that were to be used in a Bonnie Hunter quilt and I changed up how I was making it so they were left over.  Since I didn't have a big enough piece of purple or lavender for the back I used that to separate the other pieces that I would use to form the other side.  

Since there were lots of animals on the front it made me think of  the Maurice Sendak book "Where the Wild Things Are". So Will helped me come up with the name Sendak's Dream.  

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter and will use this time to rejoice in the salvation that His death provided.  

Terry

T-shirt Quilt #4

 Dear Readers,

The year is off to a great start quilting wise.  Hope your 2021 is going well.  I finished my second quilt this year.  It was a t-shirt quilt that I had started almost 2 years ago.  Taylor sent me a big box of T-shirts with ribbons tying certain ones together.  I did the other 3 quilts pretty quick, but then I kind of hit a block and could not seem to make myself do this last quilt.  I wasn't liking the quilt, as the fabric the client wanted me to use seemed too dark for the shirts to me.  Finally I got past it and completed this quilt.  

I hope Taylor likes it.  Once I added the quilting to it I liked it a lot better.  Celeste kept telling me you don't always like what a client likes, and that is OK.  

Close up of some of the quilting...I did echoed hearts on this shirt.

I found a piece of fabric at Cotton Blossom in Ridgeland that had little pine trees on it. Since Taylor lives in Colorado and wants this for their camp house I thought it was fitting, especially since black is her favorite color.  Let me tell you sewing that black binding down with black thread was very hard on old eyes.  

I haven't talked about this yet, but I have been making a pillow case to go with each quilt, as it is a good way to store quilts in a fabric that won't get hurt.  I put the extra fabric from the binding and the backing on the edge of it.  

Keep making everyday count.  Two months down and two quilts completed!!

Luminous

 Dear Readers,

I have my first finish of 2021!  It is another eye-spy quilt.  I know those are fairly simple, but I like how you get a different look depending on the theme and the setting color.  This one was for the a coworker at Winona High School who is about to have a baby.  I talked the her mother, and she said they like Alabama, Delta State, all sports, dogs and domesticated animals. Her husband is an Army vet and a police officer.   I also know that she likes flowers as those are the prints she has hung in her office.   Well, no one makes Delta State fabric, but I think I did incorporate lots of things that they love.

I picked a medium soft yellow for the border and the setting triangles.  I also found some Scrabble tile fabric and worked out how to put in her name.  With the yellow background I was trying to find a way to work in light or Sunshine into the name.  Will came up with Luminous.  

And as a stash buster, I am getting older prints and putting them together for backs.

We are in the middle of a winter storm here in Mississippi.  We are out of school but working from home for the day....and I would not be surprised if it was for the next few days.  I know a lot of the country is going through the same weather system. Stay safe out there.  

Sew on,

Terry