comfort quilts for donation

Yes, it's been a while. A long while.

And I've missed writing updates and sharing photos. So I'm going to try to get back in the habit of spending time here :)

My wonderful quilt guild continues to support a local breast cancer care facility with donations of comfort quilts for patients in the surgery phase of their treatment plan.  I set a personal goal for 2017 to donate five quilts, and the first two are finished and on the way to patients.

16-patch quilts are so simple, but the result is always beautiful. The fuchsia, orange, and yellow batiks in this 56" x 70" quilt remind me of a summer sunset. You only need 20 fat quarters to make this large throw sized quilt.  First I cut four strips measuring 4" x 18" from each fat quarter, took two of those strips and paired them with two strips from a different fat quarter, and used this construction method to create one 14" finished block. Repeat nineteen more times and you've got 20 quilt blocks!! This is a great project to take along to a retreat or sew-in because it can be chain pieced without needing to constantly refer to a pattern or directions :)

Fellow guild member Judy C did the freehand longarm quilting on both of the quilts I'm showing you today. She did a marvelous job!

The second quilt was made with fabrics I purchased from another guild member who was destashing fabrics and kits, and it's tough for me to resist a pile of bright, beautiful fabrics at a bargain price! The fabrics were part of a kit to make an entirely different quilt, but I had a new half-hexagon template from Missouri Star Quilt Company begging to be used.  The template is designed to be used with 10" fabric squares (layer cake squares), but you can also use it with fat quarters or yardage.

After cutting all of the half hexagons it took me a few tries to find a layout I liked, but once that was settled the sewing was easy! The sky blue borders are cut from my stash fabric and bring the final size to 55" x 65".

The flowers Judy quilted in the center of each hexagon are the perfect finish :)

The kit even had enough fabric to cobble together a backing and scrappy rainbow binding! Who wouldn't like a quilt backing covered in zinnias?!

In October 2016 our guild members made 31 donation quilts for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a few of us were lucky enough to deliver the quilts and receive a tour of the facility.  The nurses, doctors, and administrators provide such excellent care to their patients - both physically and emotionally.

Since our 45 member guild began supporting this local care center we've donated over 100 quilts to local women battling breast cancer :)

Christmas gift sewing

It's been radio silence here for a long while, and now I can finally show you the reasons!

Earlier this year I decided to make each of my five sisters-in-law on my husband's side of the family a quilt. The idea occurred to me as I stared at the closet of beautiful fabrics in my sewing room wondering how I would ever manage to use them all in my lifetime.  My SILs are all lovely women with very individual personalities and color preferences, so I thought a large lap-sized quilt for each would be not only the perfect Christmas gift, but also a great way to use up some of my ever-growing fabric stash.  I started digging through the closet pulling fat quarters and half yards to coordinate with the few pieces of yardage I had that were big enough to use as borders.  Turns out I had been collecting fabrics all this time that were perfect for each of their individual personalities without even realizing it!

Much of my sewing time this year was spent working on these quilts and last weekend I had the great joy of presenting them to the SILs at our family Christmas celebration. And yes, they loved them :)   I fact, this is the last photo my husband took before they starting elbowing each other and holding up their quilts in front of each other's facing exclaiming "mine is the best!"

First up is Rita's quilt. She loves chrysanthemums in the fall, so I chose a mix of autumnal batiks from my stash that coordinated with this beautiful ginkgo leaf border fabric.  I used a free pattern from Timeless Treasures called "Tonga Harvest All Squared Up Quilt" which was designed by Pam See of vanillalattequilts.com.  It measures 48" x 68" with 10" x 12" finished blocks.

The backing is another fall toned batik, but I'm not sure of the manufacturer or pattern name.

Beth is a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan whose new home is painted and decorated with lots of soft greens.  I added some soft browns to the mix so the green and yellow wouldn't be too obvious.  This pattern is "Picture This" from the pattern book "Happy Hour" by Atkinson Designs.  The finished blocks are quite large - 14.5" square - with the entire quilt measuring 58" x 72".

The large piece of green and yellow sweet gum leaf fabric on the back was the original inspiration for the color palette used on the quilt front.

Mary is a master gardener who loves roses.  These fabrics are from Jennifer Paganelli's "Circa" line for Free Spirit, and the pattern is "Show Biz" by Villa Rosa Designs.  It finishes at 54" x 63".

Mary says the back of her quilt is just as lovely as the front; it's the "Taylor" print in blue from the Free Spirit "Circa" line.

Jody's home is filled with a burgundy and cream color palette so I used a mix of French General, 3 Sisters, and Red Rooster fabrics.  This quilt is made using the same "Show Biz" pattern and also measures 54" x 63".

The color of this French General backing fabric is slightly off in this photo - it's really a much deeper red that looks so rich with the deep red tones of the quilt front.  It's one of my favorite prints from French General and kinda makes me want to start hoarding their fabrics.

And the final quilt belongs to Lisa - lots of deep navy accented with gold, wine, and green.  The pattern is "Snapshots" from the "Happy Hour" book by Terry Atkinson and measures 57" x 75".  The multicolored border was my color palette inspiration.

I used several extra blocks on the backing to make it more interesting and colorful.

Each quilt has a hand-written and hand-stitched label containing my name, the date, and the name of each sister-in-law.

There are lots of machine and hand stitches in each of these special quilts, but I have to give the machine quilting credit to my super-talented longarm quilter Carol Linder.  She did a fantastic job getting each of them quilted in plenty of time for me to have them all ready for Christmas delivery.

It was a big job to finish all of these beautiful quilts, but I'm so glad I decided to do it, and I'm even more thrilled that each of these five special ladies loves their quilts.  I'm a lucky girl to have married into such a wonderful family :)

Watch for two more posts about my 2014 Christmas sewing projects coming this week!

spools progress

It's been a few weeks since Lorrie and I have been able to work on our spool quilts. Life and the holidays just seem to take over sometimes, right?

But we did manage to get in one last sewing session before Christmas where we were able to finish all the spool blocks and get the centers of our quilts together...

41 spools arranged in 9 rows. I just realized that this photo is upside down - the sideways green spool at the top left is actually the bottom right part of the quilt center - whoops! A green applique floral vine will be spooling off of this block and flowering clockwise around the quilt border when all is finished.

We've elected to machine applique all of the flowers and vines (time savings!) as we'd like to finish these tops before spring. Lots of tracing applique shapes is what's up next for us, and that's our "homework" to finish before our next session in early February.

So many projects - so little time!!

Sewing time to complete 82 spool blocks and 2 quilt centers: 8 hours
Grand total from 4 sessions: 33 hours



**You can read more about this project by entering "spools" into the search function on the right sidebar.

spools progress

Yes - Lorrie and I are making spools! Our last sewing session earlier in November yielded quite a bit of progress...

We sewed our remaining eight strip sets giving us a total of 36 sets. We each need 41 pieces measuring 3.5" x 4.5" for our spools. Due to some over-zealous strip cutting on my part, we actually had enough strip sets made to make 4 spool quilts! Our extras have been stashed away for another project - we're not sure what project - but they will be used for something!

We then sewed the side pieces onto each colorful spool, pressed them, and called it a day. Here are some samples of what we accomplished. Pink spools...

And teal spools...

And now it's December and we got back to business today! It was a very tedious day of sewing - making 82 spool tops and bottoms for each of us. Yep, that's right. We spent the entire sewing time today adding these little triangles to the ends of the brown strips.

Over three hours for each of us sewing and pressing. The most boring part of the project so far. Mind numbing as it was, thank goodness we were working on it together or else it might have gone straight to the WIP pile (or out the window!) But we plodded through, and next week we'll be on to a more fun task - actually finishing the spool blocks!

Project hours from our November session:
Sewing strip sets - 2 hours
Cutting spools - 2 hours
Sewing blocks - 3 hours

Project hours from today:
Sewing spool tops and bottoms - 7 hours

Grand total from 3 sessions: 25 hours to date

To see more about the beginning of this project read this post.

combined effort

Today Lorrie (from SewMod) and I started a new project together! We're only going to work on it during our sewing days together, and in the end we'll each have our own quilt - each one different but both very similar.

Over the past week I've cut 200 or so of these...

And today the two of us turned 75% of those strips into these sets...

Pretty, huh?

And the next step will be to cut all the finished sets into these...

Any guesses about what they might become?


And just for fun I'm keeping track of hours the whole project takes us. So far:

Cutting strips: 4 hours
Sewing strip sets: 7 hours today with about 2-3 hours remaining

well that only took 21 months!

If you've been with me from the beginning of this blogging adventure (or if you've paged back through old posts to numbers 2 and 3) you might remember this quilt.

Finally after 19 months of stopping and starting, the Italian Tiles quilt is hanging in my foyer!

I finished quilting all but the outer border in September of this year, and then I was just stumped on how to quilt that last bit. I settled on a simple diamond pattern that was easily marked by dividing the border into 3" segments. Then it was just a matter of zig-zagging from point to point, once starting at an inside point and another go-around starting at an outside point.

The binding's been ready for months, and I machine finished it on the back (rather than hand-stitching - too time consuming) so that was a pretty speedy step.

And just in time for the end of fall decorations, we were able to replace the fall-themed quilt that was hanging there for not one, not two, but three fall seasons (and everyday in between), with this new lovely that is much more holiday neutral :)

I'm not really hung up on this "completion thing" when it comes to quilting (obviously), but it does feel oh so good to have this one finished and hanging where we can all see it each day!

Italian Tiles and French dessert

Today I finally started quilting my Italian Tiles batik quilt that's been in progress since February, 2010. It has another couple of borders added to what you see here, but you get the basic idea.

It's taken quite a bit of trial and error to discover the best way to mark the quilting lines. Let's just say that Pounce chalk is not all it's cracked up to be. I had the entire thing marked 2-3 times (with hairspray to set the lines and without) only to have the chalk lines rub out once I got the quilt over to the machine to start stitching. Arrgghhh! The solution appears to be tracing the quilting motifs on Sulky Solvy and pinning it to the quilt top to follow the marked lines with the stitching. Thank you, Vicki, for this solution!

After you have stitched all around the motif, you can simply tear away the Solvy leaving no residue but lovely quilting :) Or you can wait and dunk the entire quilt in water after quilting - the Solvy just dissolves. But don't get it wet on the counter when tracing your pattern! (Ask me how I know this.)

Our first session of baking along with Martha Stewart was a huge success! Thing 2 and I made Pate Sucree for the first time, and it was so easy with exceptional results!

The custard filling was so smooth, rich and creamy that we really didn't even need to dress it up with a tart shell and berries, but we did! For your viewing and salivating pleasure, here are our four custom-topped Summer Fruit Tarts...

This one with the avalanche of confectioner's sugar is mine. All mine.

And lastly, this little fruit tart "Chihuahua" was staring up at me as I decided if stuffing myself with the last bit of tart was a good idea. I did. And it was.

We only made a half-batch of pastry dough, which made 6 tart shells. No sharing this round. Your chances are probably better next time, friends, with the Tiramisu Cupcakes.

back in the saddle, finally!

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to get back into the daily routine of sewing since coming back from vacation. I mean, it's been over two weeks already! But finally these last couple of days, I've felt that familiar joy that comes from working in my sewing room.

I realized that my long-arm quilter is scheduled to have my New York Beauty quilt finished next week, and I wanted to have another project to bring to her when I pick it up. I dug deep into the unfinished projects bin to find this top - Radiant Suns...

In late 2008 or early 2009, I had finished all the swirl blocks and sewn them into the center 6 by 6 block grid. This week I decided on the dark navy inner border and bright yellow outer border to finish up the top.  Now it measures 67" square.

These blocks were made from fat quarters and a pattern and template set called "Radiant Suns" by Cara Gulati at doodlepress.com. This was a great quilt to practice curved piecing! Each block is made of 5 different sized arcs, but there are no seams to match when joining the blocks. So you just piece each block, and then cut them all to a uniform size before joining them into rows and columns. Easy!

Here are a couple of my favorite swirls in the quilt top...

It feels so good to be back in my sewing room, to have another project ready for the quilter, and something sewing related to show all of you! And can I just say how nice it is to have beautiful summer weather and flowers to help with taking quilt photos!!

Happy weekend everyone :)

batik Dresden table runner - free pattern review

Yes, more Dresden's!! This time a batik table runner for a Quilt in Joy sample. The free pattern came from Princess Mirah Design at Bali Fabrics, Inc.

** Updated July 27, 2015 - the pattern I used was a free download available in 2011.  At this time I am unable to locate the pattern online.  So sorry :(

It measures about 15" x 42". I used a "Bright Jewels" batik sushi roll (2.5" strips), 1/3 yard each of two different cream/tan background fabrics, and 1/4 yard of a multi-colored batik for the setting triangles.

The pattern calls for you to make a template to cut the Dresden blades, but I just put some blue painters tape on my Easy Dresden ruler to mark the template size and used the ruler to cut. So much easier than cutting a flimsy plastic template and tracing it 100 times!

I did use the provided template for the quarter-circles in the center of the dresdens, and it worked just fine.  Each quarter-circle is fused to the Dresden segments and background squares, then finished with a machine blanket stitch.

The template provided in the pattern for setting triangles is incorrect (learned this the hard way). Instead of using their template, just cut (4) 5 7/8" squares. Cut those squares in half diagonally to make your eight setting triangles.

You will need an extra 1/4 yard for binding than what is stated in the pattern. I backed and bound mine with the same fabric as the setting triangles. I attached my binding completely by machine using the "Bugglet Quilts Quick & Clean Machine Binding" method developed by my friend Vicki at Accio Fabric. You can find a tutorial for it here. So fast and easy :)

The pattern seemed suitable for a confident beginner. There are quite a few different techniques used in making this small project: piecing Dresden's, fusible applique, cutting with templates, and decorative machine stitching.  Other than the previously mentioned corrections, I found the pattern easy to follow and the finished project just beautiful!

Be sure to let me know if you make one, too!