Another Box to Wrap-a-Smile

Finally!  The box is leaving the building.  Finished the bindings on all of the quilts that are going to Wrap-a-Smile.

Moved on to making more colorful Elephants, but photos of that will wait until tomorrow.  Here are the quilts in the box:

Feathers ...

Square Dancing in Space?

Fish, fish and more fish

Musical notes and treble clefs

Got this one at a quilt show for a really low price - sadly, quilters don't often get a return on the value of their labor.  But it makes a welcome addition to the donation box ...

Sunday Summary

An on-line friend and I had an email discussion about borders of quilt tops - especially borders that are wavy and ripple and really don't fit properly on the quilt and cause untold angst when trying to longarm quilt that top!

I pulled out a v-e-r-y old quilt top that I had made and laid aside for many years.  And lo and behold, there was an improperly applied border.  I must have learned a lot since the 1990s - lol.  But did I unstitch the border and apply it correctly?  No, I did not.  I receive quite a few quilt tops to quilt for donations to various groups and I decided to practice on my very own *mistake* in case I encounter another in the near future.

So, this is a part of the rippled border - see that waviness?

I just decided to quilt the entire top with a denser pattern than I usually use and expected that to flatten down the border.  This is the result - it worked pretty well:

I think the feathers (Feather Elegance by Christy Dillon) look pretty good on this relatively plain quilt:

Lyn Durbin's YouTube video was the first one I had ever seen where it showed how to quilt and work in excessive fullness and waviness of borders - this is almost magic!  Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPHsBYa36W0

So, this Bars and Strips quilt is on the pile that need bindings (only two left now!).  It will go in the box to Wrap-a-Smile.

And I finished quilting a little Duckie panel, but I didn't get a full photo of it yet.  It will have to wait for its binding until the other box goes out the door - this one is destined for Quilts Beyond Borders.  Here's a sneak preview:

Specialty Rulers

Do you have a lot of specialty rulers/templates that you don’t use much?  I am unable to resist the sales pitches and cute patterns/classes available for these types of rulers.  I store mine in protective plastic page sheets in a three-ring binder (unless they are extra big or extra long) and have often used them just the once to make “that certain” quilt and never used them again.

Well, they came in handy the other day when I wanted to add something extra to a Jelly Roll Race quilt.  This technique makes a very quick quilt top - Wee Folk Art has a good tutorial.  My colorful top looked ok, but was a bit boring and I thought it needed a punch of fun to be a good children’s donation quilt.

I saw a cute Hipster Cat pattern on Shwin and Shwin’s site that I used for inspiration.  Since I didn’t want mine as large as theirs, I made my own pattern and I dragged out these specialty rulers:

I forgot to take a photo of the circle template/ruler that I used for his head, but you can see that I used all of those triangle rulers - lol.  My cat still needs eyes and a nose and to be stitched down, but I think he’s turning out to be pretty cute.  I’ll post his photo again when I get him finished.

Quilts of Valor Meeting

I was able to make it to my Quilts of Valor group meeting this past Friday and had a lot of fun catching up with what the ladies have been working on.  Several quilts came back in from the volunteer longarmers, including these:

This one was made from blocks made by volunteers from all over.  There was a Challenge from the Quilts of Valor Foundation and another one from the FL State Fair.  These blocks were assembled by a member of our local group.  She did a great job (as did the quilter!).

Wouldn’t the design of that last one make a great scrappy for any occasion?  Linking up to Quilting is more fun than Housework’s Oh Scrap!   Feel free to jump over and see other scrappies at her site, just for fun.

My thrill of the week (not) was coming across an alligator whilst walking my dog and day dreaming as is my custom.  The dog stopped and I looked over to see what she stopped for  -  we were about 10 feet from a 5-foot alligator that was apparently leaving the cypress swamp to visit the pond across the road.

We beat a leisurely, albeit a trifle hasty, retreat backwards to a safer distance (and me without my camera or phone, of course) and he slinked away back into the swamp with a little hiss acting annoyed that we had interrupted his sojourn.  But a skittish alligator that didn’t stand his ground and was willing to run away is a good alligator in my book.

The following day we saw him on the bank of the pond, so apparently he made it safely across the road later.  This time I had my camera, but when he saw my shadow he went into the pond.

Good alligator!

16-Patch Scrappy Grows

In my last post for Oh Scrap! I showed my 16-patch with a setting I really didn’t care for.  So I decided to test drive an alternate block that used up some more scraps:

I was liking the look of this one, so it grew:

And grew:

And then I noticed that I had inadvertently made two identical orange blocks – bummer!  I had intended to make one of those pink …

So one block will change but I think I like this look much better.

PS  That one tan/cream block is much happier in person!

Linking to Quilting is more fun than Housework’s Oh Scrap!  Check it out to see more ideas for scrap quilts.

And what’s happening in the garden?  Not much gardening but the monarch caterpillars and butterflies are back.  My niece and nephew work for Catepillar so I never know what the real spelling is – I’m just glad to see the little butterfly-makers back eating my milkweeds!

Oh Scrap! Progress

Recently I took out my small bin of 2.5 inch scraps and started making 16-patches.  I didn’t have a setting design in mind so I started experimenting:

 

The picture shows more contrast and less busy than in reality.  What looks like solid black is really white dots on black, so it really looks pretty cluttered.  I'm definitely going to change out the sashings and go with a light color instead; and maybe red stars. 

Decisions, decisions?!!  I’m going to have to take a look at google images because there are thousands of wonderful settings for 16-patches – I’ll find a good one.

This is what I might do with the sashings that are made now:

The little zoo babies are surrounded by surfing sayings - I sure wonder what the whole fabric line looked like!

Linking up to the Oh Scrap! party over at Quilting is more fun than Housework’s blog.

My Genuine Scrappy

This one is an easy scrappy made completely from leftovers in my stash.  I decided to take all of the FQ or smaller pieces that were predominately orange to yellow from my drawer and assorted other hiding places,

and cut one 10x5 inch strip and two 5 inch squares from each fabric.

Then I started laying them out on my design floor and rearranging until I thought they looked ok together:

I sewed them into blocks (two squares to one large strip) then alternated the placement of the larger strips, one horizontal then one vertical.  Yes, I had to cut down the large strips by ½ inch when I sewed the blocks together but I had intentionally cut them at ten inches (just in case I needed more 5 inch squares) since I wasn’t really counting anything at that point and didn’t know how many of each size I would need to make a top.

After sewing the blocks all together, I added a small dark orange stop border and a six inch top and bottom border to make it approximately 40 x 60.  That size is good for Quilts Beyond Borders, which is where this quilt will go.

Don’t know how I’ll quilt it yet, but it was fun to make!  I still have orange and yellow pieces, but maybe I'll make another with yellow and blue ... the sky's the limit now!

Linking up to Quilting is more fun than Housework's Oh Scrap!

Quilting for Project Linus

Finished up the quilting last night of this one that was made by a member of Project Linus.  Before I turn it back in (they do the binding), I'm going to have to measure those rectangles ... this is a great scrappy or planned scrappy design!

The panto is called Variety.  Since this is a great design for scrappies, I'm going to link it up to Quilting is More Fun Than Housework's Oh Scrap.  Even though I didn't make it, I'm going to use it for my donation quilts.  Such an easy pattern and so cute!

QOV National Sew Day Goes Scrappy

Yesterday was the National Sew Day sponsored by the Quilts of Valor Foundation.  My QOV group here in Tampa met and worked up a wonderfully scrappy Rail Fence top:

Some of the ladies at work

The rows weren't quite finished being sewn together in this photo and the quilt will have a small border all around when finished.  It will be very snuggly!

I also finished up a non-scrappy Disappearing 9-Patch top at the Sew Day.

I had started the blocks at home and took them with me to Sew Day to finish up the top.

 

We had lots of fun, enhanced by the pizza and brownies of course!  And we received back three quilts from our fabulous longarm quilter, Pat B.  Thank you so much, Pat!

Linda F made the two Big Star quilts from her leftovers from other QOVs.  Great use of leftovers, isn’t it?!

Linking up with http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com/ later today.  Cynthia is in Oregon and I am in Florida – I’ve already been up and out pulling weeds this morning.  The weather is beautiful, 73^◦ F (~22 C) and sunny.  Tomorrow we’re expecting rain, so those pesky weeds will be sure thrive and grow back – heavy sigh …