A new little quilt

It felt so good to be doing REAL sewing again.  I can't believe it's been 16 days since I cut out the pieces for this quilt.  The detour I took before getting here took much longer than I thought it would!

26 1/2" x 30 1/8"

This is the small double 4-patch quilt from this year's Little Women's Club, designed by Jo Morton.  All the fabrics are Jo's, except for the border, which is a 3 Sisters print.  I didn't have a single Jo Morton piece I liked for the border, so I made do.  The alternate squares are a beautiful light print by Jo that I'd not seen before.  I bought it at the first quilt shop we visited on our way home from Death Valley.  I've always wanted to make a pink and brown quilt, and this seemed to be the appropriate time.  I love how it turned out! 

Now I think it is time I got back to some Civil War Diary blocks, as I didn't finish any last month.

It's been a long time since I pieced a little quilt

Update:  A huge thank you to Dorothy who suggested "Butterscotch Stars".  My father's favorite flavor was butterscotch.  So, Dad, I'm thinking of you and naming this quilt "Butterscotch Stars".

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Why have I waited so long?  This was like eating peanut butter chocolate cheesecake - every moment pure pleasure.  I'm going to focus on little quilts in between working on my WISP's.  This was so much fun to do.

13 1/2" X 17 7/8"

Regan commented that she wouldn't have thought to use this background fabric.  Jo designed "Bittersweet Stars" to be a Christmas quilt.  When I saw that holly fabric in my Jo stash, which I don't remember ever seeing before, it told me it was the perfect choice.

This one needs hand quilting for sure.  I need to shift a bunch of my fiber stash to get to my Blue Ribbon quilt batting so I can begin.  I guess I'll be shifting fiber this afternoon.

I need a name for this quilt - any suggestions?  It is speaking to me but is keeping its name a secret for now.

The blocks are finished

I had time to sew more after I got home from spinning, so was able to finish the blocks.  I'm fine with the setting fabric now - I've learned to reserve my judgement until most if not all the blocks are finished.

I'm going to play with the block arrangement for a bit before I sew it all together.  Jo Morton didn't put a border on her Bittersweet Stars, but I might decide to put one on mine.

A little progress . . . .

I've had very little time to sew today.  Tonight is our monthly Vancouver Handspinners meeting.  I need to find fiber, bobbin, etc. and get my wheel ready so it is time to stop sewing.  I do like the way this little quilt is developing.

  

Gratitudes:

1.  An evening to spend with amazing, inspirational spinning friends

2.  Gluten-free buns at Burgerville

3.  Wonderfully fresh vegetables to roast

Holiday Inn top is finished

The quilt measures 43" square.  Designed by Jo Morton, it was part of "Jo's Little Women #8".  It feels so good to cross another project off my list and move it to the "tops to be quilted" list.

Now I need to do a bunch of cleaning and organizing before starting to sew again.  I'm moving on to Civil War Diaries, so I need to print the foundations for all the blocks I've not yet done.  Normally I would never do paper piecing, but the measurements on these blocks are all so wonky (4" divided into 5 or 7 or more equal sections) that foundation piecing is the best way to go.

I also have five quilts ready to bind that returned home from the longarmer over two years ago.  I'm going to work on those also.

I found another one

I knew I had more UFO's than those listed in the sidebar.  Here is another one I found this evening.

This is "Holiday Inn" from Jo Morton's "Little Women" series #8, started in 2008.  All that is missing is a flying geese border and a final outside border.  All the fabric for the flying geese border was folded with this piece . . . 

(The fabric on the far left is also green - not sure why it looks so dark.)

but the fabric for the outside border and cornerstones was not.  I thought I remembered what it looked like, but I guess not since I can't find it.  I searched my entire Jo Morton stash and came up with these two fabrics . . .

The stripe will be the border and the green the cornerstones.  This should be a quick one to finish, so I'll probably do it next.

Here is what I'm going to use for the doll clothes.  These are two pieces left over from Miss Emily's quilt.  The polka dot for her dress, and the plaid for her apron.  These colors fit our current decorating scheme, which isn't harvest gold, avocado green and rust (thank goodness!)

Happy Day!

Did you know that today is National Quilting Day? I was reminded earlier this week, but forgot about it this morning. A quilty greeting reminding us to celebrate just arrived from one of my Tangled Threads friends - I was glad to get that memory jog.

So . . . . here's wishing all of you a very happy National Quilting Day. I hope you all have a little time to spend quilting today - or doing something else that you want to do.

I spent much of yesterday and this morning finishing the March addition to Holiday Inn. I just love this little quilt! In case you hadn't noticed - I fussy cut all the "stopper" borders to give it a more "together" feeling. It doesn't really jump out at you, but I think it would be quite noticeable if I hadn't. If you click on the picture you can see the details much better.

One of you left a comment asking whether I used Thangles for the sawtooth border. I've tried Triangles on a Roll and wasn't impressed, and so I've never tried Thangles. I find that clever "shortcuts" usually work no better for me that just cutting triangles and sewing them together. What works best for me is to make many "parts" larger and then trim them down. I do this with half and quarter square triangle squares (hour glass blocks), square in a square blocks, and flying geese. The trimming down does take extra time, and can get tedious when there are hundreds of pieces to trim, but I love the way everything goes together so easily and perfectly after it's trimmed. I also use the "bias square" method of making triangle squares, using my Creative Grid rulers for the trimming instead of a "bias square" ruler. I have a tutorial on making triangle squares this way - check the list of tutorials near the top of my left sidebar.

February installment completed

Today I finished the second month addition to "Holiday Inn". It's been quite awhile since I worked with pieces this small - I love it! The half-square triangle squares finish at 1". The piece now measures 19 1/2" square. Not sure why the one edge looks crooked - I assure you it is straight.

I'm eager to work on March's segment - two plain borders separated by an hour glass border - so I can be caught up by the next meeting on April 11th. I have a couple other things to do first - I'll talk about them tomorrow.

Medallion Center

Here is the center block for my Jo's Little Women's Club quilt. Jo calls this medallion "Holiday Inn" after the old movie by that name. She calls this her "Christmas Quilt". I love the colors, though they don't say "Christmas" to me. Now I'm working on the second installment - February's. I'll post a picture of that when I finish it - hopefully tomorrow.

What I've been up to

I took a couple days at the end of last week to prewash some fabric, iron it, and put it away. I didn't do it all, but I needed to do what I wanted to use. I went on a buying spree in February to stock up on light colored plaids. I needed larger pieces than I had for background blocks for a few different applique projects. Joseph went along as it was a Joseph day, and he was very happy to help pick my fabrics. First he chose a couple fat quarters, which I put back after explaining that I needed bigger pieces. I pulled a few bolts and took them to the counter - whereupon he pulled a bolt or two also. It was so much fun watching him ooh and aah over the pretty fabrics LOL!

Yesterday I pulled a bunch more fabrics to use in our North Star Quilters BOM. As I made my first block last month I realized I needed a bunch more mediums and darks in order to make the best fabric choices for the blocks. Once I was satisfied with my selection I made another February block and two of the March blocks. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

Today I was back to prepping applique - this time the center of Jo Morton's Little Women's medallion quilt. I'm determined to have the first three parts finished by the time we have the next club meeting next month. Tomorrow I should finish the center block and will post a picture. I'm using a new applique method that I learned in the first meeting - I like it! I'll try to get a tutorial up about that also.

More of what I've been up to

Soon after writing my February goals I decided they just didn't appeal to me any more. And I needed something new to do during Joseph's naps. I decided to do one EQ lesson per nap. Well, in no time at all was I totally addicted, and spent almost every waking moment at the beginning of February playing with EQ and working through the lessons in both the User Manual and EQ6 Simplified.

I loaded the second of three postage stamp quilts onto the longarm near the end of the second week of February. I did about four rows of a simple pantograph before going to bed that night. I didn't get back to it the next day - Valentine's Day - because I drove up to Longview in the morning to my favorite shop - Momma Made It - for the start of their Jo's Little Women's Club. I've been collecting the Little Women's Club patterns since the beginning, and was thrilled that a local shop finally decided to offer the club. Then in the afternoon we all loaded into the CRV and headed south for Sophie's second birthday celebration .

The next day - Sunday - I got sick with a bad virus. I talked to Rebecca and she was sick also. I'm pretty sure we got it from Joseph - who was sick only 3 days. That was over 2 weeks ago now, and neither of us are completely well. Rick got sick about 3 days later, and Fred managed to fight it off until last week. This was a bad virus - absenteeism was over 40% for over a week in several of the local school districts. Some grade schools in Vancouver had absenteeism reaching almost 60%. I know we got our flu shots in the fall - as did many others - but this obviously was something not covered by the vaccine.

So . . . for two weeks I didn't do much other than sit in a chair and do handwork. Funny - most of what I finished had been January goals that I'd not finished that I decided not to list for February. Last weekend I managed to finish quilting and bind the postage stamp quilt so I had one finish to list for February. I've also included a picture of the back, so you can see how my "self-constructed backing fabric" turned out. I'm quite pleased with the results. This will go to guild on Thursday for Hotel Hope.

In the next post I will talk about the applique I finished.