The pin basting is done and I've started the quilting. I thought about hand quilting this one but in the end, with so many ufos, I figured I just needed some finishes.

So I'm doing free-motion quilting in a swirl design (my favorite).

I'm loving the pink...it's so nice to work on happy colors right now.

And, with being stuck at home, I'm also baking up a storm. My hubby is gonna have to buy new jeans when this pandemic is over...he says I'm feeding him too much.

We both love bread. Since March, I've learned to make a great loaf of chibatta. Bad thing is, we eat it up SO fast...hot out of the oven .....with real butter and homemade jam...amazing!

Pink Double 9-Patch quilt

Today is a basting day. I took one quilt out of the "to be quilted" pile...it was 12 high and toppling over. As I started pressing it, 

 I noticed all the cute, vintage fabrics that I had stitched into it. 

 These dots are from the 50's or so.

This red, below, is feedsack.

 This cute kitten drinking milk is a reproduction 30's.

 The tiny piece in the upper right corner, below, is from an old apron...50's probably. And the royal blue with white flowers and red centers is a teeny tiny scrap of 30's I had.

 Some of the fabrics were so small I could only cut one 1-1/2" square.

 So today this got pinned. I started this quilt in 2017 and really enjoyed making it. There are a lot of tiny pieces but still...it was fun.

Maybe on Monday I'll be able to start free-motion quilting it.

If anyone would like to make this quilt, I can add a tutorial. It's very easy...just 9 patches and snowball blocks.

Started a new star quilt

So I started another quilt. It was an accident... really...not planned at all.

Remember those vintage scraps and old blocks that I was organizing? I remade the friendship star blocks and put the 16 of them together as a future quilt center. Well, I was thinking about it at night and thought, "what if I cut up all the scraps that matched the stars and surrounded my center with a huge star.
This was about midnight...couldn't sleep. I pulled out my laptop with my EQuilter program and started playing with ideas.
Long story short... About 3am I finished my design and in the morning I wanted to test out one block. Just to see if I liked it. And I haven't stopped. May as well finish it at this point.
So the plan is to make one more border of star points. The quilt will be 72" sq, a good size I think.

These are some of the vintage fabrics I tucked into the star points. This stripe above and the brown print below, are early 1900's fabrics!

This stripe with the flowers is 50's I think (36" wide). It's a really nice, crisp cotton.

I'm still organizing the vintage scraps too. The ones that don't make it into this star quilt will go into my next one. THAT quilt needs to wait! No more starts allowed!

Projects, projects and more projects

If you follow my blog, you know I can't just work on one thing at a time. I get bored easily.

So as I'm working on my version of a 1918 quilt, I'm also working through this box of vintage blocks and scraps.

These vintage friendship blocks are a mess...shredded and frayed. I took each apart, pressed them and remade them. They were a variety of sizes so I cut them to be finished at 4-1/2". I had 20 blocks...4 turned out to be so bad that I had to make them into 3" blocks. The 16 others were stitched to form a quilt center.

I kept the original fabrics as much as possible.
I haven't decided on what to do next with this center but most likely I'll form a pieced star around it.

The box also had a few blocks that were attached...the start of a quilt. But there wasn't any more purple or yellow so I took the blocks apart. I'll decide later how to use them.

And then there's these hexagons cut out of 30's fabrics. They're SO pretty. Some past quilter drew on fabric and cut these out. She started making hexagon flowers then never finished. So I'm taking her cutouts and her scraps, and I'm making more flowers. These will be appliqued to solid fabric along with hers. That's as far ahead as I've planned. I'm just having fun finishing up her projects.

So speaking of finishing up, I completed my top today.

It's dreary and rainy out so the color doesn't show well, but the top is done. I'll pin baste it over the weekend. 

I gave it a good press and starch this afternoon. 

 I really love the colors in it. It looks exactly as I hoped it would.

Vintage style quilt will soon be a top

The blocks, cornerstones and sashing are cut and complete. Now it's time to sew everything together and finish this top.
I think a few hours sewing tomorrow should do it.
I'm working on three quilts right now. This one above, a star quilt and a hexagon quilt. I'll post a bit about the others tomorrow evening.

My next project

 I started this quilt about a year and a half ago so it's a newer UFO. This is my version of a quilt I found in an older magazine of mine (no pattern available, circa early 1900s). Using EQ7, I came up with a block that worked...15" sq. The block is made up of HSTs, 9 patches and rail fence pieces. (113 pieces per block!)

These are some of the nine patches. Im using scraps so if I run short, another fabric is substituted in ...that will give it the vintage feel I'm looking for.

 Finished up this block...one more to go then sashing and cornerstones.

Would you like to make this block?

I put a tutorial together on a past blog post:

vintage block tutorial

My quilt will be smaller since I'm doing 12 blocks and the original has 20. A 3"x15" sashing will surround each block, even on the outside edges. The cornerstones are 3" finished 9 patches. When it's done it'll be approximately 57" x 75"....nice as a throw or large lap...unless I change my mind and add another border. 

I just love it! 

Update 4/25/20: I've just found out this block is called Queen's Crown. It's always nice to be able to put a name to one.

Hand sewing HEXIE flowers

 When I'm on vacation, I love to do a little hand sewing...especially EPP (English paper piecing).
This "stay at home" period isn't exactly vacation but I thought if I looked at it that way, it might improve my spirits.

So I asked daughter Jenn what color hexies she still needed for her quilt. She wanted tans, neutrals, browns and olives.

Well, I can do that. A few of these were already cut out so I stitched those up first.

Then I dug through my "drabs".

I didn't find many...I seem to collect brighter, cleaner colors.

But there were some shirtings...

And homespuns.

I stitched up 10 flowers for her and about 1/2 were darker or drab.

Then I decided to bake. Instead of buying bread, I'm baking loaves once a week. This week I did one sandwich loaf and one cinnamon raisin 😋

I love this recipe that I found online. It needs kneading for 7 minutes so I let my kitchenaid mixer handle that. So easy!

Here's the link:

homemade bread

STAY HOME & STAY SAFE everyone😷

Blue and White Quilt Top

Check off another quilt top! 

Im finally done with this blue and white quilt top after...oh...maybe 10 years? It's going onto a hanger with the rest of my unquilted tops, mainly because I haven't decided how to quilt it (hand, domestic or longarmer) and I haven't found the batting or backing. It's not a rush...I have PLENTY more UFOs to work on. 

This one started YEARS ago as a class sample. I was teaching from a book with lots of jelly roll quilts. I had a finished sampler quilt to show the class but I started this solid one to explain cutting and piecing. The center star and some of the surrounding stars were taught in the class along with the 12" corner blocks in the next round. They were never put together...just stuffed in a box for 10 years. I'm just thrilled to have finally finished this much of it. It's 80"square. 

I love two color quilts and am so happy to have one. They feel vintage to me. I suppose that means I should hand quilt it. Yup...maybe.

Making birthday dinosaurs

It's really hard to find a good present and have a fun party for a two year old right now. 

Charlie's birthday was a few days ago. He loves trucks, diggers, dinosaurs and balls.

I dug up this pattern that I've had since the 80's (buried in a box in the basement) and made two...one for the birthday boy and one for brother Henry. It took about 8 hours to make these two...not hard, just time consuming. 

I think Henry loved this more than Charlie. 

Since we're all in lockdown, I couldn't really be there to play with the boys or have cake with the family but seeing the pictures from Jenn just made my day.

The local fire department drove by with all the trucks...horns blaring...sirens going, then stopped in front of Jenn's house and sang Happy Birthday to Charlie. 

Very special day!

Boy, how things have changed..

I haven't posted in a while...I just can believe how the world has changed in a bit over a month. We left Florida on schedule and got back home in time to stock up on groceries and necessities.

First it was the social distancing, then the "stay home order". Part of our family is in southeast Michigan where the virus is the worst. I think they're staying home and staying safe. Up here in the Traverse City area, it's not bad yet...maybe 9 or so cases.

When I finally sat down to sew, I started working on finishing up my Kaffe Bear Paw quilt. This was one of many UFOs I would be working on to finish up BEFORE starting anything new.

So I added a plain border, basted and quilted this quilt then attached the binding.

First UFO of 2020 ✔. I posted a picture on Instagram because I'm following and playing along with @2020finishalong 

This really pushes me to get projects done.

Next up is my #blueandwhitequilt 

It's a two color solid one that was started YEARS ago when I lived in Charlevoix. 

I am currently working on the final border...lots of white with a sawtooth edge and stars in the four corners. This is being designed as I go...just seeing what I think it needs. It'll be about 80" square when done...seems like a good size.

After making 188 half square triangles, I stopped working on this quilt to help out the local hospital. They are requesting face masks that can hold the N95 mask inside. I made a dozen then started sewing masks for family and friends. A call has been put out for these same masks to be made for first responders also. That's what I will be doing today. Not my favorite type of sewing but it's got to get done. Until the government can get more masks, we need these covers to be able to reuse what we have. I'm using a sheeting fabric for the inner because it's a higher thread count. 

The nurses in our area made a specific pattern request. We are making masks according to the ones recommended on this site: 

  MASK PATTERN

So that's it for now...STAY SAFE AND HEALTHY...STAY HOME!

Orange peel blocks

The orange peels blocks are coming along. I made a cardboard template, cut a bunch of ovals and started to applique them onto the white background. 

They're really quick blocks. I'll have quite a pile when I get back home. 

Al and I took a ride to Dunedin this afternoon. They have one of my favorite quilt shops there and it's going to be closing. Everything is 40% off. I REALLY don't need much fabric but it's fun to look.

I did buy this cute stripe. It's perfect for binding on a future quilt. There's a growing stack of quilt tops at home that need quilting and binding. I have plenty of backing pieces but am short of bindings.

Now it's back to relaxing. The weather today is perfect.🌴