An Exciting Arrival!

When thinking of an exciting arrival, we all think babies! No babies arrived, sorry to disappoint! No new kittens, no puppies, no….not what you think. I suppose birthing of a quilt is an arrival, but I did not birth a quilt. That technique frightens the bejesus outa me. I will stick to making quilts as I know how.

So what arrived? I am happy to announce the arrival on my new design wall! I would promote this design wall, I paid $37 for. It did not say what it was made from. All it is, a piece of oversized felt. So for those of you who like to figure these things out without the price tag, just get you some 72 wide felt and cut it to size for your wall. You could probably staple the felt to the wall!

But first, lets discuss the goals I set last week.

• Bind the nautical quilt
• Finish hand stitching the binding on the Radiate yellow and black quilt
• Tat some on the Jan Stawasz doily
• Work on the spinning 9 patch pieces/quilt

This week was a great week for getting things done! The blue nautical charity quilt is complete. All binding is sewn. This quilt will be donated next year to the Sew Yeah Quilting for Alaska homeless. Since last weekend was National Sew a Jelly Roll Day, I opted to get the one in progress done!

I finished hand sewing the binding on the Radiate quilt! Yippee!!!! Now I am having second thoughts and may add a sleeve to the back of this because I am bouncing the idea of quilt show in the future. This quilt is very photogenic!

Here is the backing, this is flannel backed. It has a layer of toasty cotton batting as well as 80/20. With that plus the flannel this quilt is heavy! It reminds me of quilts from yesteryear that were nice and thick and really keep you warm.

This picture does not really do this justice. It is black with gold medallions all over it. And this quilt I tried loading a black bobbin and yellow thread in places in the top. I am pleased that my tension is flawless. I worried about this every time I loaded a different bobbin.

And with the arrival of the design wall, I can see this motivating me to get busy. Here are my blooms of the spring brook blossoms quilt along.

The last part of the pattern was released on Monday so I now have another full block done.

It tickles me the color combinations that I selected for these blooms. The Blue and mauve one above reminds me of Pajamas with that pajama looking background LOL.

I have since started on the last block. The stem is done.

And the upper part of the flower is partially done.

I decided on a bit of orange in this quilt block.

Not pictured are the 10 1/2 inch blocks at the bottom and tops of the empty slots on the design wall. Those are cut and added.

And for kicks, I decided to load the spinning 9 patch pattern up on the wall to see if I like it. Mind you, this is not the final cut, just an audition to see if it spins.

Does this spin to you? I see a circle of 9 patches. I did not think putting squares together could make a circle, but I think it does! This quilt will be fun to make scrappy, but I am utilizing some precuts and yardage to see if I like it. I am thinking I have reds through greens with all different shades in between of the yellows, oranges, pinks, and greens. I am thinking the 9 patch rings would be fun all in one color. We will see if I have enough of any one color to do that. Each jelly roll strip set (one white and one color) makes three blocks with a few 2 1/2 inch squares left over. Can you see all the different shades of pink? There are that many oranges too. The red 9 patches remind me of the chuckwagon logo of Purina pet food LOL.

In having fun with the design wall, I suppose if I get out many of my half done projects, this just might give me the kick in the pants to get going again. For those of you who crawl around on the floor, THAT is for the birds! I am too old and it is such a dang yoga work out. If I wanted a work out, I would work out LOL.

I am looking at the variety of my spring brook blooms and wonder what kind of border I am going to come up with. These flowers are rather loud, but humble. For size reasons I do think it needs a border. Perhaps a simple soft solid.

I failed to tat on my doily, which was a goal. But my excitement of my design wall, kind of over-ruled everything I had planned. If it weren’t for the doily, I would have far exceeded my goals.

Goals for the upcoming week:

• Sew the Spring Brook Blossom and make a top
• Select a border
• Get a few UFOs out of their bins and put them on the design wall and see if I can start going in a different direction
• Give away my padded walls
• Sew a few more 9 patches

To make room for the design wall, these items had to come down. I will be rehoming these. The round la passacaglia is now a potholder in the kitchen as well as the left over pieces from En Provence to the left of the boot.

Out with the old, in with the new. And sometimes what is old, is new again!

I am headed out to go to Sew Becca’s Live stream on youtube. I did not realize how much I miss her live feeds until they were gone.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog!

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Sew a Jelly Roll Day!

You know you have them! Might as well get them out to play! It is that time of year again! Happy Sew a Jelly Roll Day to you all!

I am going to be playing with a couple of jelly roll projects over the weekend.

I started a new jelly roll project two weeks ago. I am several 9 patches in! I am waiting for yardage to arrive so I can start piecing the 9 patches into a bigger block.

I also will be putting the finished edge on this homemade jelly roll race quilt. I pulled all my blues and grays out of my stash back in June and cut 40ish 2 1/2 inch strips. I decided after I sewed them together I had some bluish anchor fabric and made that the border. I had navy and ship fabric for the backing. I managed to quilt this over the last couple of evenings. And keeping with a nautical them, went ocean waves for the free motion quilting. Some ocean waves are calm, some are turbulent, and some are pipeline waves. This was quick to quilt.

Here is the backing. I will be working this for binding in the coming week. This is ready for some pressing and cutting.

And because I am back at my crafting table, that means the puzzle is done!

I have made some fabric purchases. I found backing for my 365 quilt block challenge quilt. I bought 10 yards which is too much, but I know I will have enough since this is kind of directional.

I have gotten a few more motifs done for the Jan Stawasz doily. I think before, the background I used to photograph it interfered with the true color. Here is it, blush!

I finally have a rhythm on this and now that I have those non-reversed chains figured out with alligator join goodness, this is going a bit faster and smoother. I have already used up a 50 gram ball. That is the thing with working from a pattern out of the book I have. No instructions! No quantities called out. Just stitch counts. A schema only, LOL!

My list of to-dos in the coming week:

• Bind the nautical quilt
• handstitch the binding on the radiate quilt
• work on the spining 9 patch pattern
• tat a bit on the Jan Stawasz doily V

Happy Sew a Jelly Roll Day! Thanks for reading my blog!

Scrap happy September!

Not much going on here of late. I cleared off the craft table to have some family time in the simplest of tasks. A good ole’ fashioned puzzle! A doozy too!

Not much going on because of this. In the past month I have finished quilting the Laundry Basket Quilts mystery of 2021. I have the binding machine sewn and it will just have to wait for the hand stitching finish.

I have tamed a bit in the scrap pile using the accuquilt. A bunch of glue basted hexies for display for now.

I have the backing stitched ready to load a jelly roll race quilt.

I was gifted a couple of jelly rolls and am making some 9 patches. I have had a bit of vertigo lately. Life spins way to fast without this too!

And I have made good progress on the Jan Stawasz doily number 5.

This round is a is going to take a while.

A couple more scrappy flowers bloometh from the corriander quilts free quilt along. This month is the final month for those. I am waiting for another bloom to be released. I see a finished quilt top soon.

Please check out all the other scraphappy bloggers posts. Amazing stuff!

Kate , Gun, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, Jill,
Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Kerry, Claire, Jean, Jon, Dawn,
Gwen, Bekki, Sue L, Sunny, Kjerstin,
Vera, Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2, Bear,
Carol, Preeti, Jule, Edith and Debbierose

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog!

Puzzling????

I cleaned off the crafting table and we are spending the holiday weekend putting together a really hard puzzle. Family time! My crafting is on holiday too!

A brief summary of progress.

This has stalled until the puzzle is completed.

I managed to get outside and snap a photo. The sun had just tucked itself under a cloud. This was snapped at the end of August, can you believe that my grass is still green? I can’t. Usually this time of year you see twigs of straw peeking out of the ground.

I have named this quilt Radiate. And no, not done yet, I am still working the binding.

When I was making this, I made the corner blocks the wrong size which used up some valuable yellow scraps. I deemed to go with it and make lemonade out of my lemons. I was going to cut the corners round on this quilt, but the corners are such a focal point with the delectable mountains border, I opted to keep the detail and just bind around a different kind of corner.

In the evenings I am focused on tatting this doily. Now that I am on motif 8 things are a bit smoother for joins that I was previously forgetting. Muscle memory does work!

I aim to move to the next round very soon! I am thinking of a color change??? I am undecided. The current color I am using is a very light blush, so not white. The SCMR round I have before me, I am not looking forward to because it is tatting on the underside of my hand instead where it is comfortable, plus a bunch of joins. This has grown to the point of not really being able to flop it out of the way. I am liking this thread. I have not pressed this with the iron once and it is keeping it’s shape marvelously.

I have failed to get at the longarm this week. Three reasons: 1.) the heat, 2.) the virus, and 3.) my tonsils are fighting off germs and weirding out. I can actually feel my tonsils work everyday. I can feel it now. Bizarre. Glad I did not have them removed, perhaps they are keeping me germ free.

A thank you in advance for putting up with my crafting vacation while I spend quality time with my family.

Ta-ta for now, and thanks for reading my blog!