July is blue

Blue blocks are being stitched up...

Lots of blue blocks!

Cherry Festival is happening downtown....crowds, congestion, traffic...so I'm happily staying home and sewing.

I also have this top ready for quilting...and it just so happens that it is the UFO of the month for July...perfect! I should have this months projects wrapped up quickly.

And this is much better that carnival lights...I may just stay home all month :)

UFO and color for July

The scrappy color for July is BLUE💙💙 if you're playing along with the RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE.
The Patchwork Times UFO for this month is #12.
Time to grab my blue scraps and start stitching.

Getting ready for the 4th

Three rows done, 4 to go on my Charlevoix quilt. I'm very happy with the design of this one. 

Henry went strawberry picking with Al and I. He found a HUGE double berry...and of course had to eat it. It's a good thing they don't weigh little ones on the way out! He ate his share:)

When we got home, I made freezer strawberry jam (our favorite) and pumpkin cookies. The cookies are for my brothers that are stopping by on their way to the Upper Peninsula...heading to their summer cottage. They love these cookies that I usually only make in the fall. 

Cherry Festival is being set up downtown and traffic is getting bad. I'm just going to hide out at home and get ready for the biggest week of the year!

Charlevoix UFO...continued

Well I ended up with 21 blocks....I had to squeeze out one extra for the design I decided on.

I BARELY had enough.

So this is the design I settled on. I needed a larger quilt than 4'x5'. An extra 21 blocks will give me 6'x7'. 

I had plenty of the background fabric and a good sized piece of the light blue. The orange had to be pieced to get enough for the centers.

So the light blue squares had to be a very specific size...3-5/16"!! And I had to cut 84 of them. I cut a paper template that size first then used double stick tape to temporarily attach it to my 3-1/2" template. It gives me a good visual for lining up and cutting blocks. 

It's all cut now and I'm starting to stitch blocks ....I think the layout will work. 

Sewing up a UFO

I'm working on an old UFO today. This is from 2011 or so.  The fabric is "Charlevoix" from Moda designed by Minick and Simpson. 

There was enough fabric to make 20 blocks.

If I stitched scraps together like quilters of old did, I might be able to squeeze out one more block.

There's a few yards of the background fabric and plenty of backing. I also have a piece for binding. My problem is I want to make this quilt larger. A large border of the background fabric would be nice and maybe a sawtooth border of background and the orange/ rose fabric. 

I'm searching the internet and local quilt shops first to see if I can find any more fabric. 

Just another day in my sewing room.....

Scrappy Saturday sewing

Today was a true SCRAPPY SATURDAY... Finished up all my yellow blocks for the June #rainbowscrapchallenge 

The scrappy spools quilt is now halfway... It'll be 20 blocks when done. 

The Scrap Jar Stars blocks are also halfway. This quilt will be 12 blocks. I think it would look good with nine patches as cornerstones. I'm going to stitch up a few and see if I like it.

Here's this months yellows. My supply of scrap yellow was very limited so I was lucky to get as many as I did. 

And after finishing up the yellows I tackled the Scrappy HST quilt. The top is now done. Tomorrow I'll find a backing and get that pieced. It finished up at 64"x80". Not a bad size for picnics and the beach.

Look what popped up in my backyard...we didn't plant these. Such a nice surprise!

June is YELLOW

The scrappy color for June is yellow so I'm digging those out. This is one of three quilts I'm making in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge...see the button on the left sidebar of this page. Here's two of the four blocks I did for this quilt,

 It's surprising how much yellow I DONT have. But there's enough for these blocks with leftovers for my spool blocks, which I haven't cut yet and my scrap jar stars.

 As I stitch the yellow blocks, I'm using HST scraps as leaders and enders.

I have quite a pile of those! I cut my scraps into strips then cut strips into squares or triangles. These are 4" finished half square triangles. 

 Here's where the HSTs end up:

As I get enough for a row, I add it on....need at least five more rows for a 64" square quilt. It will probably be much larger than that ...I have SOOO many scraps!

Autumn top is finished...on to the quilting

This week I was able to make all the geese, stitch them into border pieces, add those borders then the final black borders...

Have any of you noticed your eyesight going as you get older....and it's giving you headaches as you sew? I think I might need new glasses...some kind of readers. After an hour or so of sewing my head is just aching...got to be the eye strain. It's really cramping my style...this aging thing!

Anyways, the top is finished so I stitched up a back (so happy that I had a good sized piece in my stash that worked). It's half pinned...I'll finish up tomorrow morning. . 

This is my favorite pinning tool. It's called the KWIK KLIP. If you pin many quilts you HAVE to try it. I was very skeptical when I was first told about it but tried it. Bought one for myself...one for a friend...one for my daughter...well, you get it. Love it! 

Back to pinning....

Maybe...just maybe, I'll get this finished up in the next few days. I need a May finish

Working on 2nd border autumn quilt

The center is done...yay! I'm stitching flying geese units as time allows....it's been a busy month. Als birthday, Mother's Day, son-in-laws bd, anniversary (36 yrs!) plus we took a short trip up to see my brothers place in the U.P. (That's the upper peninsula of Michigan).

Loved making these sawtooth stars. It was a little weird to be working with these warm colors but I REALLY WANT THIS DONE in time for fall. 

My favorite was this striped star...I could do a whole quilt of these!!

Autumn in the springtime

I've started a new project because....well....because I was bored with everything else. My sewing room, my rules...right?!! Yup! I have plans to finish this one before fall so I got it cut....everything except the borders. Won't this be perfect for an autumn/Halloween quilt? 

I found the picture (below) on Pinterest...searched for the pattern and finally found out it's from Keepsake Quilting and called Flying Geese and Stars quilt. These are 6" stars with 6" borders. It'll make a nice lap sized quilt for the couch. My colors are a little deeper for the oranges...leaning toward rust. I still have to find the perfect black...I don't want solid...maybe something black with little pumpkins? Little Gatherings has a few black and beige prints I like too....

May's scrap color is GREEN

 Since May's color is green, that's the scrap bin I'm digging through. I'm amazed to see that I don't really have a lot of the same type of green and almost no true "crayola" green. So all the scraps were sorted into yellow-green, bright green, dusty green.. etc....

I was able to make a nice set of these blocks below...my "no name" blocks.

Finished up with the May blocks making 2 green spools, one scrap jar star and a bunch of the other little blocks.

There are 5 scrap jar stars so far

.....and 27 of the no names...

....10 of the spools... So it feels like progress on getting rid of scraps.

These Kaffe scrappy bear paws are done and are getting stitched into a top. 

I think I've decided on backing and binding....maybe...

And this months UFO is #11 which is Lisa and Dustin's wedding quilt! That needs to be done by mid June so PERFECT! Don't ask about the last two months UFOs...just don't ask....