Broken Bricks Flimsy

My lesson has been learned; that "light" blue doesn't quite work. I definitely should have used white for the little blocks, but I had a ton of that blue scrap leftover from the Queen's Jewel quilt I made a couple years ago. I thought/hoped it would work. It looked so light in the original quilt, but next to the yellow and light blues, it looks dark. Oh well. I'll probably go ahead and quilt this one and pass it on to Comfort Quilts via the Northwest Quilters Guild.

I used what scraps I had that went with the color scheme but I did cut a few strips off yardage. And the borders and backing are from stash. It's nice to use some of these fabrics that have been in my sewing room for decades. 

I also made progress on another quilt from my friend who visited a couple weeks ago. She left me fabrics to make another of these Broken Bricks quilts for her niece. It went together quickly, but I set it aside when I didn't really like the arrangement of fabrics. I would have to do a bunch of ripping to rearrange the blocks though, and since I'm only willing to spend so much time on a freebie, I'll go ahead and put the borders on it today for Friday Night with Friends.

Since this is the third broken bricks quilt in a row, I'm ready for something different for the next project. LOL

Linking up with
Finished (or Not) Friday

Friday Foto Fun

TGI Finished Friday

Organizing Scraps

On my design wall is the little quilt I finished for my friend. We decided to name it Skittles because of all the bright colors.

I quilted it with Let it Bloom 3 by Christy Dillon.

Over the weekend I quilted a massive King size quilt for another friend. We used Cherokee Rose on it. I just love this pantograph, but it is a little bit of a challenge to get it aligned correctly.

For the past couple of days I've been sifting and slicing up my scraps. This was my scrap pile a few days ago and I'm tired of tripping over it.

I've made a lot of progress. The pile is now gone and I have a few tubs of sifted scraps. I'm now working my way through them ironing and slicing them into strips and squares and tucking them into my new scrap saving station.

I'm trying to wrap up the year with all my in-progress quilts finished and my sewing room cleaned up. I'd like to start 2024 with a clean slate.

Linking with up 

Design Wall Monday
Monday Musings
Monday Sew & Tell
Tuesday ToDo

Paducah 2 Finished!

I recently completed my second Paducah Log Cabin quilt, but the tight schedule didn't leave me any time to think of a new name or make a label before attaching the binding. This was because I needed to send it off with my husband, who was heading out to visit his elderly mother for the holiday.

I must say, I'm quite smitten with the final result. For this piece, I used another chunk of my William Morris earthtone fabrics designed by Barbara Brackman, from around 2012. Back then, my grasp on fabric quantities for a quilt was a little hazy, leading me to buy way too much. I'm grateful I found someone who appreciated them as they are beautiful fabrics, the colors just aren't in style. (Though, I am seeing a lot more browns lately so maybe I'm at the front of the trend this time.)

This quilt design was created by Judy Martin and is available in her Extraordinary Log Cabin Quilts book. I've really become an admirer of her incredible designs.

In the rush, I managed to snap a quick photo before my husband's departure, but alas, the lighting wasn't ideal—too shadowy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed he'll capture a better shot for me upon delivery.

For a change, I also took a photo of the backside. =) I thought it looked interesting.

For the quilting, I chose the Buffalo pantograph from Quilter's Niche, primarily because it was my brother's favorite. (Though I suspect it’s more bison than buffalo in shape.) The pantograph stitched out smoothly, but if I were to nitpick, I'd say I wished for a tad more detail in the bison, especially to fill the large unquilted space inside the body. Should I use this pantograph again, I'd opt for a smaller overall size.

I used Quilter's Dream Green batting, as usual, and stitched it out with soldier green Glide thread. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good photos of the quilting. That's one of the problems with rush jobs.

With this quilt off to its new home, my gaze turns to the rest of the year. I might just be dedicated to taming the chaos of my sewing room and tackling the mountain of scraps that's reached knee-high proportions. I'm contemplating participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge next year, and Bonnie Hunter's scrap saving system seems like an efficient approach. Pre-cutting my scraps into uniform strips will surely make my next scrappy quilt project smoother. Here's to orderly chaos and colorful creations! 🌈🪡

Linking up with 

Brag About Your Beauties
Finished (or Not) Friday
Friday Foto Fun
Peacock Party
TGI Finished Friday

Sewing Weekend

I had a friend visit this past weekend for a mini-sewing retreat. It was pretty fun. I had several of my own projects lined up to work on, then I just ditched them and worked on her projects. LOL

First, we had to make a quick run to JoAnn Fabrics so she could buy the backings. Then we quilted up this little lap quilt for her. I used the Nebula pantograph from Christy Dillon. I love how it turned out. Christy Dillon has definitely become my favorite designer so I'll be sure to not miss her 50% off sale on Black Friday.

She also picked up small pieces of fabric that coordinated with this in-progress scrappy quilt. It is so bright and fun; her niece will surely love it. If we had spent a little less time goofing off/sleeping we definitely would have finished it before she left Sunday evening.

Since it just needs another hour or two of work, I had her leave it with me to finish the long arm quilting. That is on my list for this coming week.

I did finish my Paducah quilt in time for it to travel down to California with my husband. I started a blog post on Friday but didn't get it finished before my friend arrived. I'll try to get it posted later this week as well.

I'd also like to work on my pile of quilted-but-not-bound quilts. I'd like to start 2024 with a clean slate.

• Flower Paths
• Cosmic Cabin
• Morris Garden
• Chocolates & Roses

I'm linking up with Tuesday ToDo, Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss.

Another Paducah Flimsy

The flimsy is finally finished!! I am so glad. I'm really hoping I can finish it by Saturday because that is when my husband is taking off for California to visit his mother and he'll be able to drop it off for me. I've made this quilt as a wedding gift for my brother.

I used a lot of William Morris fabrics and quite a few other earthtone fabric scraps. These are my brother's favorite colors. I really didn't like them when I started the project, but they've sort of grown on me. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

My plan for the week is to make a backing, quilt it, and get it bound by Saturday.

(This is actually the second Paducah Log Cabin quilt that I've made. This is the first one I made last year.)

Linking up with TuesdayToDo, Midweek Makers, and Wednesday Wait Loss.

Paducah Blocks Finished!

I've been hard at work this past week and I've finished making all the blocks for the Paducah Log Cabin! That's 144 for the center portion and then another 52 for the border. I'm so pleased.

For the coming week, I'd like to assemble them into the quilt. My goal is to finish this project within the next 10 days so I need to keep up my pace. I think I can do it.

Linking up with

Tuesday ToDo

Nov Fri Night w/Friends

I turned my night of sewing into a full day of sewing. I'm so pleased I've finally finished all 144 of the center blocks of the Paducah Log Cabin Quilt!

I also got started on the border blocks.

To see what everybody else worked on during Friday Night With Friends, drop by Gone Stitchin'.

Tuesday ToDo #79

I've been making steady progress on the blocks for my newest Paducah Log Cabin Quilt. My count as of tonight is 129 blocks for the center section, I need 144.

My plan for the coming week is to continue making blocks. I need 15 more for the center section, then I can get started on the 52 blocks for the borders.

I'd really like to have this quilt completed by the second week in November. If I can keep at it, I should have time to finish, but it's really easy to get distracted by movies and goofing off. LOL

This is approximately what the finished quilt will look like.

Linking up with Tuesday ToDo, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss

Paducah Log Cabin Progress

I spent quite a lot of time on Friday assembling blocks. I tend to just make strips assembly-line fashion and sort them into piles. For this month's Friday Night Sew-In, I decided to sit down and just sew all the strips together and make finished blocks. I didn't take many photos because they pretty much look the same as all the rest. LOL

In total, I finished 35 blocks. I don't have a large enough design wall to show them all. 

The central quilt is 12x12 so I need 144 total; I'm more than halfway finished now. 

Change of Plan

About 3 weeks ago I came down with a pretty severe cold. It probably wasn't covid, but I wasn't tested. The cold wasn't debilitating, bit it left me with no energy or motivation to do anything. I mostly sat around and streamed movies.

I did finish the last of the eleven charity quilts. I am not going to show photos of all of them, but there are a few I'm pleased with. I tried out new pantographs and played with some new techniques to get them cropped right at the edge.

Avril pantograph

Cherokee Rose pantograph. This was a little fussy to get offset correctly, but I really like it so I'll definitely have to do it on one of my own quilts.

West Wind in Autumn pantograph

I don't need to finish the binding on these quilts and they'll be returned to the Quilts Beyond Borders charity.

A couple weeks ago, I spent most of a day cutting out the Snake River log cabin quilt, and then I realized my brother needed a king size quilt. I tried to figure out how to make the Snake River bigger, but I just didn't like any of the ideas I came up with, so ultimately I decided to change the plan.

I wasted so many hours trying to come up with another idea that would use at least some of the fabric I'd already cut out. Finally, I decided to make another Paducah log cabin quilt. The finished size was a couple inches bigger than the Snake River and it would be a LOT easier to add an extra border strip. It should end up about 100"x100", which is big enough.

This is one of Judy Martin's suggested layouts and I liked it when I first decided to make this quilt again, but now I'm not sure I do, I may
change it to the more traditional log cabin layout. 

These blocks only use a few of the same length pieces, but because all the strips are the same 1½-inches wide, I can cut them down to the smaller lengths with not a lot of waste.

Finally over the weekend, I felt like sewing again. This is about a quarter of the total blocks I need for the center section.

My brother's favorite colors are brown and olive/drab-greens; I appreciate the chance to use up some of these old William Morris reproduction prints I bought way too much of more than a decade ago.

My ToDo list for the week is simply to continue making blocks. I need 144 total of the center blocks and 52 border blocks so it will likely take me more than a week to finish this one.

Linking up with Tuesday ToDo, Midweek Makers and Wednesday Wait Loss.

So Many Charity Quilts

I didn't actually stop working on projects, I've just been too busy to take the time to post. I've been working on 11 charity long arm quilting projects.

One of them was for Pacific Northwest's Quilt Guild's Comfort Quilts program. I provided the backing, but the quilt was made by someone else. I quilted this one with the Avril pantograph from My Creative Stitches.

I also accepted ten quilt tops from Quilts Beyond Borders. I've finished eight of them so far.  I must admit, my quilting effort definitely reflected how much I liked the individual quilts. (These were all made by someone else, I only quilted them.)

This one was my favorite.  I spent all of a day quilting this one and used a variety of Donna Kleine's pantographs from her Gabriella set, though I did actually create that small sashing from elements in her sashing and border designs.

I also had fun playing with this quilt. The blocks were really large⏤about 14" in diameter⏤so I decided to try out the Bouqet de Fleur Bundle from Kim Diamond. The blocks are really pretty and stitched out well. I'm quite happy with how this one turned out too and I'm glad to see how lovely those pantographs are. I definitely need to plan my own project that will use them.

The rest of the quilts were just finished with edge-to-edge designs and I didn't even remember to take photos. I still have two more quilts left from the Quilts Beyond Borders charity then I am definitely going to take a break from unpaid gigs.

In the midst of all this, I also wrapped up two commissioned quilting projects. I wish I could share the beauty of these pieces through pictures, but I forgot to ask for permission.

So, it’s been a bustling couple of weeks, albeit not with my personal endeavors. Once the final two charity quilts receive their final stitches, my focus will shift back to my anticipated Snake River quilt. I have a pretty firm deadline on that one.

Snake River Log Cabin

My brother has decided to get remarried and I'd like to make him a wedding gift. It turns out his favorite colors are drab green/olive and brown so I thought it would be a good excuse to use more of my leftover William Morris fabrics. Back when I bought them, I really had no idea how much fabric you needed to make a quilt so I bought about four times as much fabric as I actually needed. LOL

I'm probably a little crazy, but I've decided to make another Snake River Log Cabin for him. The pattern is designed by Judy Martin and published in her Judy Martin's Log Cabin quilt book. I'll be making it really scrappy and focusing on olive greens and browns, with a little bit of rust/reds, something along these lines. I won't go quite as wild with the cream fabrics as I did last time because I didn't like how dark some of them were.

I've spent a couple hours digging through my scrap bins and fat quarters to find all the useable pieces, in addition to the yardage. Now I have so many hours of cutting ahead of me. It seems like the hardest part of this quilt is managing all the pieces.

If you want to take a look, the finish for my first Snake River is found here. This version will largely be the same, but I will be using the dark green instead of rust for the second curve of blocks.

Chocolates and Roses

Like a nice date with Chocolate and Roses, I spent my Friday Night finishing up my squirrel from a couple weeks ago! I have no more flimsies left to finish! It's taken me more than a year, but my closet is now bare. =)

Inspired by the name of the pattern, Chocolate Dip, I named mine Chocolates and Roses. I used the last of my Quilter's Dream Green batting for this quilt and I used inexpensive MaxiLock thread in a dusty rose color for the quilting. 

I chose Donna Kleinke's Carmen's Roses 3A pantograph because that curly tail reminded me of the knots in my quilt. Once I'd started, though, I'd rather wished I scaled it a little smaller. (To be honest, that's my one gripe about Donna Kleinke's pantographs, they are sized so huge that it's hard to know how much to reduce them to make them look good.)

Originally this pantograph had another row on the bottom, but when I realized it was exactly the right size without it, I edited it out with my ProStitcher Design software.

Linking up with:

Brag About Your Beauties

Friday Foto Fun

Off the Wall Friday

Peacock Party

TGI Finished Friday
Whoop Whoop

Morris Garden Quilted!

Hip-hip-hooray! 🎉 I managed to get this beauty quilted just in the nick of time—right before the month's close. Binding, however, will wait until after I do my next round of quilt labels. 

It's another really big quilt so it's hard to hold it up to get a good photo.

The quilting shows up better in dim light

This project pushed me into uncharted waters, throwing me design and alignment curveballs. It was a fantastic practice session, letting me flex and explore the alignment tools of my ProStitch long arm computer. What a relief it is to wrap up this quilt—it's been patiently waiting, making it the last 'flimsy' in my pile, urging me to summon the courage to quilt it.