Local Community Service Part 1

The weeks have flown by.  I had my Local Community Service Week early this month and my calendar has been jam-packed.

My Quilts of Valor (QOV) group was to have a medium-size presentation (11 quilts) and a planned large presentation (30 quilts) plus several individual presentations and we started the year with zero quilts on hand.  Everybody in our group was enthused to get busy.  I was given a lovely quilt top to quilt, but it had an issue:

Did you see the block facing the wrong way?  So, even though it had its borders on, I couldn’t leave it that way:

It wasn’t a hard fix and now its lines are all straight:

And onto the frame it went to be quilted with a panto called Stardust:

Then it got returned to the group to get its binding sewn on and a label put on by hand (I don’t do any hand sewing, but some members of my group are delighted to do that part, thank heavens!).

And, of course, I had to finish up my QOVFoundation Mystery Quilt for 2017.  This quilt was designed by Sandy Berg of Raspberry Bramble Designs who coordinated the mystery.  It was fun to sew.  The pattern is available here:  http://2017qovmystery.weebly.com/

This is a little of my progress as I waited in between receiving clues:

See those little post-it notes on the computer?  I highly recommend you label your pieces as you go as Sandy suggests ... The result is grand!

It went off to another quilter since I have only done edge-to-edge pantos so far and it is more likely to get some special quilting with another quilter.

More on my Local Community Service Week activities in tomorrow’s post.

Monday Musings

I was mentioning recently that I needed a teenager to help me navigate my new Kindle Fire – I have it all set up now, but we all know kids are the best at that kind of thing!  And then last weekend, I was wondering what happened to all of the teenagers that used to be in neighborhoods “back in the day”  - the ones that would mow lawns and do odd jobs for extra money … hmm.  I guess they are all now glued to their electronics.  The reason it came to mind was that I was outside digging a hole:

And believe you me, that counts as exercise!  We have mostly clay soil and the hole had to be 18 inches deep.  That pigmy palm is now in the ground and looks nicer than sitting in that pot like it has been for a month.

A quick update on the quilty front.  This one (from this post) is now a completed top:

And this one is bound and waiting for a full box to go somewhere:

And this one is on the frame:

Now for the periodic segment on this blog known as “Seen on My Walk”.  This is a poor picture (no – I won’t complain about my camera again - you've heard enough of my whining) of a pair of Hooded Mergansers:

These are uncommon in my area and very cool to see.  They were skittish and kept going to the far edge of the little wooded pond.  They can raise or lower their hoods.  In the above, his is lowered and hers is partially raised.

This is a better stock image so you can see the male more clearly:

Lovely and wild. 

Quilts of Valor

I went to both the Friday and Monday meetings of my Quilts of Valor group and finished up my duties for them for the months of Aug and Sep.  In addition to the few I showed in the last post, I quilted this one and turned it in:

the panto is called Variety

And then I took these blocks home from the Monday meeting and assembled this top - it's the same design as the one above, but it was using up lots of various size strips so it needed different borders to bring it to the right size:

Now it's back to quilting and making quilts for children - they go so much faster than those big ones!

The Rain Stopped

I actually got a lot of quilting done when we had all of the rainy days.  This is the standing water at the back edge of our yard.  They haven't been able to mow that far back for three weeks:

But this is the quilts/quilting I have completed when there was no lightning:

this is the Easy Baby top - it is now quilted - I'll take another photo when it's bound

still using up the Nigerian fabric I received

Spaniels quilted up with Paw Prints, of course!

A Weekend of Sewing

Just a little bit of sewing this past weekend.  In the evening of D-Day, I finished a top for Quilts of Valor using the last of the 4-patch blocks that were made by volunteers.  We used the blocks that were meant to be 6.5 inches in a Bonnie Hunter design, but these blocks were made using a 3/8 inch seam and so they only measured 6 inches.  This was the design I came up with last Fri night, but it isn't the final top.  I didn't like the blocks around the corners so I ended up putting them across the top and bottom.  When my quilt holder returns, I'll get a photo of the changed design.

Then, just for fun, I did this quickie Big Block Sailboat from a Project Linus design.  Did the whole thing in one evening (and just selecting fabrics takes me a long time!).  It was fun.

Yard Work and One More Top

I’ve been working in my neglected yard recently and haven’t been sewing much.  I did finish sewing the blocks together and adding the borders to this little top with the baby animals.

I first showed the beginning of this top when I was auditioning the sashing to go with a scrappy quilt (see this post).  But the sashing looked much better with these fabrics from my stash than the other scrappy so I guess it was meant to be …

I am linking up to Oh Scrap! from Quilting is more fun than Housework so they can see the finished top.  Once again, the stack of tops is getting tall and I need to get to quilting them!

My yard is beginning to look much better with some much-needed mulch and some new annuals.  I’m trying out this Angelonia that promises to attract butterflies and can tolerate the heat and humidity in Florida:

 

Not in the ground yet - and this area needs to be mulched - always something more to do ...

All of the websites say these plants attract butterflies, but none tell you which type of butterflies.  Those “sticks” on the left and right in the photo are the stems of my milkweeds that the monarch caterpillars have been devouring the leaves and flowers of.  That’s what I plant the milkweed for, so go ahead and munch away little guys!

Lazy Sunday

I’ve been goofing off.  I know, it’s difficult to tell since I’m retired and goof off a lot anyway.  I forgot to pick up April’s Project Linus tops to quilt the two for this month so I’ll have to get over there tomorrow to get those.  And it’s been a bit warm to pull weeds and get new mulch.  What?!  It’s only going to get warmer?  There goes that excuse …

But I did get my little Angry Birds top put together with the border on.  I have the backing ready to go and the binding cut, so there will be a UFO finish for Stashbusters this month and it’s #3 in the Numbers game so I’m on track for that, too.  That’s something.

We did see an unusual bird in our pond – a Roseate Spoonbill.  They aren’t uncommon in this area but where I usually see them is in the boggy the waste areas and ponds around golf courses.  This one might have been pushed down here by the controlled burn in a Preserve northwest of us:

We had rather large ash bits raining down on us due to the prevailing winds all that evening and maybe this guy took refuge:

He (she) didn’t stay long, but it was welcome to stay as long as it liked!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Added the final colorful border to the newest Scrappy:

And put the last border on the Scrappy Trails:

And a sneak preview of what's going on the frame to quilt for Project Linus (not hard to guess who!):

Continuing the Scrap Pursuit

I finished up the two tops that I was working on using scraps and fabrics from my stash today.  This is the top using bug fabrics (see this post for close-ups of the bug fabrics):

And I added the end borders and the corner pieces to finish up the monkeys top (posted about here):

These are now in the ever-growing and about to be over-whelming to-be-quilted pile.  I’m going to have to quilt next week for Project Linus (I try to do two a month for them), so I’ll get a few of these tops done then.

And this is the source for the next project on the drawing board (I think this issue was Jan/Feb 2013):

I often put post-it flags on pages of quilt magazines for projects that I want to work on in the future and literally have hundreds of pages marked.  Well, 2015 is the Year to get going on those!  So I selected this Quiltmaker magazine baby quilt – the ongoing series at the time was to take a block from a previously published quilt and enlarge it to make an easy Big Block Baby Quilt.

These are the fabrics I have pulled from my stash.  Cutting and sewing begins tomorrow … drum roll, please!

Linking up to Oh Scrap:  http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com/

Check out what others are doing with their scraps!

Busy as a Bee in the Sewing Room

I’ve been happily sewing away in the New Year.  I have vowed that 2015 will be the year that I use my fabric stash and scraps to make interesting quilts for children.

This is a low-contrast top I made on New Year’s Day from fabric I’ve had for several years.  The two colorways of the floral fabric look brighter in person and I like the design called Chain Reaction from a recent Fons and Porter Magazine.

I  joined the Stashbusters Yahoo Group for more incentive to dig into that stash of mine.  My first step was to officially join their 2015 UFO Challenge … and I actually dug out a few of those UFOs and counted them and sent in my entry.  Wahoo!  That’s progress already because I know now that I have too many UFOs (well, you would have thought I’d have known that before now, wouldn’t you?).  But now they are organized and readily available for me to sew them up.  And I joined the Numbers Game whereby they draw numbers and you work on that number from your list should you choose to do so.

The first numbers drawn were 8 and 35.  My #8 was a homemade kit for a kid-size Warm Wishes design using fabric printed with tropical fish.  It was in pieces before and I sewed up the top today:

And my #35 was strips that I had cut to make Mary Johnson’s Quick Strippie.  She says it is her favorite quick donation quilt and it really is so easy that I can’t imagine why mine is still a UFO.  Anyway, I sewed the strips all together today to make this quilt top (it’s actually straight, but I didn’t take the time to straighten it out on the rug):

 

The star print and the checkerboard are actually a dark Hunter green

I have desperately wanted to get rid of that checkered fabric that makes me dizzy looking at it – what was I thinking when I bought it?!!  They have to be quilted and bound before they are considered finishes for the UFO Challenge, so I have some work to do.

I also have a new button on my sidebar, Oh Scrap, that links to a blog that will have linky parties beginning on Jan 4^th where people will share their creative ideas.    Cynthia Brunz sponsors the linkies and has a blog titled “Quilting is More Fun Than Housework” (you had me at the title, Cynthia!), also with numerous ideas for how to use those scraps.

So 2015 should be great fun in the Sewing Room!