Catching Up

I have been working on a few things, just not enough to get done and get posted.  Life and circumstances have a way of changing things a bit.

I have a few projects that I have been focusing on and off for the better part of 2019.  Mostly projects that I started and need to get finished.  I am planning on doing that for the rest of the year as I want to get all my UFO's done.  My past UFO's have included both actual projects I started and then there were programs that I purchased in the past and never started.  I am going to concentrate on working on only UFO's that I have actually started, for instance, BOM blocks are done, but need the assembly (sashing), borders, quilting, and binding, or projects that have been cut out and need assembly.

My first UFO is a Leader and Ender (by Bonnie Hunter at Quitville.com) from 2012 called Cheddar Bow Ties.  I have been working on this since 2013.  I wanted to have a total scrappy look, by not having any repeats in the blocks.  I planned on making two twin bed sized quilts, but ran out of the Cheddar I was using as the background fabric, so I found a solid cheddar fabric to continue to use, and ended up making a king size.

I ended up assembling them by alternating the printed cheddar background and the solid cheddar background.  It is now ready to head off to the long arm quilter.

The second UFO project that I have been working on this year has been the Leader and Ender from July 2018.  It was called Jewel Box Stars once again from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com.  Once again, I have opted to use my abundant amount of Thimbleberries scraps to do this project.  

I still have some assembly to do, and a border to add, and this will be off to the long arm quilter.

My third, fourth and fifth project is not really a UFO,  but projects I work in while working on my main projects.  I make Quilt of Valor blocks for a FB group.   Starting last fall,  had a mystery block program, and I had been keeping up with the blocks until recently.  I have three left to do.

Each month the fabric layout changes, but the pattern is the same each month. It was quite surprising how the block looks so differently just by changing the fabric layout.   This is a sample of a couple of the blocks:

Then I did a presentation of a quilt made with donated blocks from this FB group, and one of the members quilted it and sent it to me to finish it.

As soon as I got it bound and the label put on, I was able to present it to the Veteran.

The third QOV quilt is for a friend of ours that I took his army uniforms and made two memory stuffed animals (one for his wife and one for his daughter), and then I also made a quilt for him.  More about the stuffed animals here.

My fourth UFO is completed to the quilting phase.  I still need to cut the binding, bind it and take final pictures.  This one is from a monthly program back in 2009 for the month of June.  Each month the online shop Main Street Cotton Shoppe (no longer in business) would send a complete quilt kit that matched one in Lynette Jensen's book "Celebration of Quilts".  The program was called "Anniversary Club".  This month's quilt was called "Child's Play".  I did have a start of posting about it here.

Then the last project I have been working on is the annual Quiltville Mystery Quilt, called Good Fortune for 2018.  Usually, I have this done during the time the mystery is going on, from Thanksgiving to New Year's, but I am still working on getting the piecing done. Again, I am trying to use up my Thimbleberries scraps on this mystery quilt.   I have one more border to do, and then it is off to the long arm quilter.  

As soon as these are completed, I will do an individual post with more information and pictures, because I am using the blog mostly now to document my different finished quilts.  

2018 Quiltville Mystery Quilt - Good Fortune

It's that time of the year again.  I am doing the Quiltville Mystery Quilt again.  This will be my fifth year of participating.  This year Bonnie Hunter is calling it Good Fortune.  You can read about the mystery quilt and all it's instructions as they come out here.  

The mystery quilt has the premise of using fabric from your stash based on the colors she has chosen to use as a suggestion.  She always refers to her color choices using paint chips.  Using the paint chips gives you help in values.  I am choosing to use up some more of my Thimbleberries scraps and picked these to match the values on the paint chips.

The colors are published on Halloween, and the first clue comes out on Black Friday, and the final revel will be on New Year's Day.   I written before in past Mystery quilt posts about her thinking of doing this during the biggest holiday seasons.  

Many of us quilters no longer have families around to gather and celebrate, and by doing this Mystery quilt, they can get involved with a group of quilters around the world to keep their minds on something fun during what could be a hard time for them.  It gives them a place to connect and share with others.

Stay tuned for progress as I do this Mystery.

Warmest...

Renee

2018 Finishes - On Ringo Lake - #42

This quilt is another Bonnie Hunter annual mystery quilt.  This is the fourth year that I have participated in her mystery quilt programs.  They are free and happen every year between Thanksgiving and New Year's.

This is the second mystery quilt that I did in fabric lines from Fig Tree Quilts by Moda.  I have quite a collection of her lines, so I was able to have enough to do this mystery quilt again for the 2017 Mystery Quilt.  Progress posts of this quilt can be found here.

Every one of her quilts are quite large, this one is no exception at 75" X 90".  

Close up of the block and quilting.  Notice the binding, I had to use both yellow and backing fabric in order to have enough to do the binding, just like the backing.

I did not have enough of the yellow to do the whole backing, so I included another color (background) as part of the backing.  I sewed it as opposite pieces and this is what it looks like.

Size: 75" x 90"

Fabric Lines Used:  Various Lines from Fig Tree Quilts by Moda

Colors:  pale yellow, red, pink and background

Batting:

Pattern: On Ringo Lake

Designer:  Bonnie Hunter, Quiltville

Long Arm Quilter:  Carol Logan Nelson

Year Began: 11/2017

Year Completed: 06/18

On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt Finished!

Just a note at the beginning of this post.  I have been having trouble with Google Blogger and getting logged in, due to security updates, so it has been a bit of a struggle to get signed in to do a post.

This mystery, On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt, has taken longer this year to finish than in year's past.

I think the most difficult part was making the sashing and putting it together on point.

Don't get me wrong, I really like how it turned out.  The colors go really well together, and makes for a soft print quilt.

My driveway is the only place that was dry enough and a large enough space to get a photo of the top.

I now have it ready for the long arm quilter.  I will post finished pictures later.  

Warmest...

On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt Update

Believe it or not, we are past clue 4 and this Friday will be clue 5.  I am not keeping up as well as I have in past years, but I have made some of each clue to keep up with knowing what and how the pieces are going to fit together at the big reveal (which usually comes on New Year's Day)

Clue 1:

Clue 2:

Clue 3:

Clue 4:

Christmas is right around the corner, this weekend in fact, so I'll take a moment to wish all my friends, whether in person or through this blog a Very Merry Christmas!!!  

I'll be back next week with clue 5, and some other non-quilting sewing stuff.

Warmest...

On Ringo Lake - Clue 2

I am late working on clue 2.  I have been busy with year end paperwork.  Yuck!! But very important.

I had a few minutes this evening to get a few of the units done for this clue.

This clue is making flying geese.  Lots of them.  If you are interested in finding out how many, you can go to Bonnie's site to find out more about this mystery quilt.

Now that I am done with the paperwork, I am hoping to catch up on this clue.  Plus, the next clue is tomorrow, and will need to get working on it as well next week.

I am also considering do this mystery in another color way of red, white, and blue.  I have had the fabric for some time now, and didn't have that "right" pattern that I wanted to do, so when this mystery came up with just four colors, I decided to add a touch of gold and I will have a nice quilt.  We'll know more by next week, stayed tuned.

The end of the year is approaching and as always, there are new Block of the Month, Block of the Week, Stitch Alongs, etc that start popping up all over the internet.

These are a couple of programs that I am interested in participating this coming year.  This one is by Katheryn Kerr at Green Avenue Quilts.  It is called Aves, and using blocks named after birds.  Since my first name is pronounced like the bird Wren, I was intrigued and will give it a try.  It is not a "traditional" quilt, but it has a lot of traditional blocks, done in a most interesting way.  If you are interested, you can go to her blog here to find out more information about this one and several others that she has done in the past and some that are currently going on.  

The other on is from Piecing from the Past, called Stars Over Baltimore.  I really like this site, as they offer Block of the Week programs throughout the year for free.  They are always done in civil war reproductions, which I am a big fan.  They also have a FB page that shows off the blocks and tops, which helps me see the different color ways that the blocks can be done.

This project will allow me to make blocks as well as do some appliqué.  I am finding that I need some hand work when we go out of town.  Or, I may go with Heat n Bond, and then just top stitch it down. I'll decide after I get the first pattern.

Warmest...

On Ringo Lake - Clue 1

If you have been a follower of my blog, you know that every year at this time, I am doing Bonnie Hunter Quiltville's Mystery Quilt.  I have done the last three years mystery quilts, Grand Illusion, Allitare, and En Provence.

This year Bonnie is calling the mystery quilt, On Ringo Lake.  Her color choice was coral, turquoise, dark brown and light background.  Of course, all of her choices were from her scrappy stash.

Last year for the En Provence I went with her colors.  For the Grand Illusion and the Allitare, I went with my own choice of colors.  Again this year, I have decided to go with my own choice of colors.

My fabric is from the various fabric lines by Fig Tree, manufactured by Moda Fabrics.  I like the softness these colors bring, and the small floral prints will do well in the small pieces that these mystery quilts end up, because it is based on using up scraps.

Clue 1, came out the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday.  Since I chose not to deal with the shopping crowds, I was able to get the pieces cut out and all sewn up.

So, clue one is done.

Now back to getting my backlog of UFO's done.  I am making great strides in getting them done, just having lousy weather here in the Pacific Northwest to be able to take pictures.  I have several quilts that I have gotten done, but need pictures and to do individual blog posts about them.  

I also got my summer goal project, repainting the kitchen cabinets all done!!  

These are the before photos:

These are the after photos:

I even went ahead and refinished my laundry cabinets as well.  The laundry room is off my kitchen and I needed the cabinets to look cohesive.  

I'll be posting at least weekly for this mystery quilt, as the clues come out weekly until New Year's Day.  

Warmest...

2016 Finished Quilts - Crossroads - #25

Warning, lots of pictures.  This quilt is one quilt that I started in 2016, and finished in 2016.  Actually, it is a BOM from Fat Quarter Shop, and it was a Mystery BOM quilt.  I did lots of many posts about the process of making these blocks.  You can read it all about it here. This link will show you all the blocks up close and the process of completing the quilt top.

Here is the front of the block all done and in it glory.  It is done in a fabric line from one of my favorite Mode designers, Joanna Figureoa who does Fig Tree fabric lines.  This line is called Strawberry Hills Revisited.  The colors are cool and yummy.  

This is the different way of doing a backing.  The last instruction was the big block star surrounded by the backing fabric.  Really like this backing for this quilt, would probably do it again, if I am short on backing fabric.  Usually I have fabric left over from these BOM's and could do a big block to make the backing stretch.  

Picture of the quilt all laid out, you can see the red Irish chain bringing all the blocks together.

Here are close ups of the different blocks throughout the quilt.  The constant block is the red Irish Chain.   

This quilt had five borders, all the same size, just in different colors.  The one sawtooth border is scrappy reds.  This took a long time to sew and get put together, but I really like the end result.

The backing is a favorite of mine, being white with pink/red roses all about and the polka-a-dot binding is just perfect.

A better view of the back, you can see the big block better.

It's been folded for awhile, with other quilts on top of it, so when I pick it up after photographing it, I folded it different so that the fold lines don't get engrained in the quilt.  I read somewhere that to keep the permanent creases from forming, to take them out and refold them a different way.  

Warmest...

Size: 66" X 83"

Fabric Lines Used:  Moda Fig Tree, Strawberry Hills Revisited

Pattern: Crossroads by Fat Quarter Shop Mystery Quilt 2016

Designer:  Several From the Jolly Jabber Blog (Moda Designers)

Long Arm Quilter:  Carol Logan Nelson

Year Began: 02/2016

Year Completed: 10/2016

En Provence Mystery Quilt - Part 7

En Provence Mystery quilt of 2016, part 7, is the last part of this mystery quilt.  It included two separate blocks (several units of each) and the finishing instructions to complete the quilt.

First up are blocks that are the same block as part 6 only has different color placement.  This by the way is a Hour Glass Block, very easy to do.

The next set of blocks, in the instructions, were to be a 3 inch block of one print of yellow.  I felt that wouldn't be scrappy enough, so I decided to cut it into 4 equal pieces to make up the 3 inch block.  

This is the some of the parts, laid out to make the main block of this quilt.  As you can see the scrappy yellow blocks look really nice with the rest of the scrappy block.  This is a really large block, bigger than 12", and there are 16 of them in this quilt.

The next few pictures were taken, as I was working on piecing the quilt blocks and the sashing blocks to complete the top.

This first picture is of Woodstock from the Peanuts cartoon.  there is only one block of him in the whole quilt.  I thought it was too cute not to get a picture of it.

This is my bucket (the plastic bins you get when you stay in the hospital) that I use to hold all the parts as I finished them, and then pull them out to make the final blocks to sew together.

Here is the pile of completed block parts along with the sashing parts ready to be sewn all together.

This is just a picture of the overflow of parts from making them each week.  I made extra of each part, because I wanted to make sure I wouldn't have any scrappy prints of the same print get sewn next to each other.

This is the start of sewing the blocks and the sashing together.  The quilt is square, with 4 blocks across and 4 blocks down with sashing blocks in-between.

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This is the best picture I could get this winter here in the Pacific Northwest, as it has been a very wet winter.   This is the finished top.  If you look really close at the top of the quilt, you will see a white "border".  This border is made from the left over pieces from part 1, 2 and 4.

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

The first round of border has the 4 patch with a part 2 and a part 4 every two blocks, and then the final outside border is a round of 4 patch blocks.  It give the illusion of the pink and purple stars floating out into the border.  Really cool.  I'll try to get a better picture of the border when I finish the quilt.

Below is a close up the of the scrappy blocks, and yes as I look at the picture, I see a misplaces piece, but I am not going to change it, as it is such a busy pattern, I don't think anyone will see it once it is quilted.   There's probably more than this misplacement, but overall the quilt looks really pretty.  The picture does not do it justice.  

As it was laying on the bed, I called in my mom and asked her if she liked the finished look.  She of course liked it a lot, but purple is a color she really likes.  I told her that even though I think it came out prettier than I expected, it is not something I would ever use in my house.  Then we discussed a very close friend of hers that absolutely loved purple, if she would like receiving the quilt.  My mom, excitedly said yes, this quilt would be perfect for her, so we decided that when it got quilted, we would ship it off to her.  A happing for everyone all around.  

Hope to have finishing pictures soon.

Warmest...