ROSEMARY & THYME AND PLACEMATS

 This week I finally decided to shift from working on my guild's baby quilt charity requests and do a couple of personal projects and finishes.  

I finished my Rosemary and Thyme quilt top.  Those last 3 missing blocks were a real chore for me for some reason, but I finally pulled myself together and got them done.  Now just to do a back up and off to the quilter.

This delightful little one is our Yorkshire Terrier Zoey, and she likes her breakfast and snacks on a placemat.  Her old ones have been wash thousands of times and were looking pretty worn out, so I happened to find this fabric given to me in a bundle of scraps.  Just enough to make two new placemats for her.  

While digging out all my fabrics in order to finish the last 3 blocks of the Rosemary and Thyme quilt top along with some other this and that fabric scraps I ran across this scrappy placemat pattern.  We use placemats on a regular basis for our meals so placements for the various seasons are regular table settings for us.  This pattern however takes scrap quilting to a new height.  I always make four so this little project consisted of (224) 2" blocks, (8) 2" by 2.5" blocks, (4) 1" by 2" blocks, and (8) magic corners from 1.5" cuts.  I have taken scrap quilting to a new dimension.  I made the four pumpkin sections first and at that point of was just hooked.  Cannot wait until late September or early October to start using them. 

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BABY QUILTS REQUESTS

My quilt guild's charity group put in an urgent request for baby/children's quilts. Annually in October we donate approximately 350 finished quilts to 5 different local agencies.  Quilts for men/boys and young children it seems are always hard to come by.  

I finished up this one from left over fabrics from a quilt I had made years ago for  one of my grandson's when he graduated from fire academy.  He is now a fire fighter working for CalFire.  I think some little boy would love it.  It measures 45" by 45".

This one I think could be either girl or boy.  The little dots in the blue fabric are green, orange, and pink.  Not a lot of pink, so maybe. 

This one definitely a girl quilt.  I still have another two cut out and partially sewn together.

I still have a bit of a stash of children's quilt fabrics, there is not much of a demand any longer in our family of a need for them any longer.  When eventually there is there is always the ability to go on a fabric shopping spree.  

A month or so ago I finished all the blocks on my Rosemary and Thyme quilt by CottonStreetCommons, or so I thought.  I laid it out this past week on the design board and discovered, I had a problem.  Three blocks missing, I miss counted.  Now to dig out all the fabrics that were stashed away here and there and see about coming up with three more blocks. I have my work cut out for me this week on this now.

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FROM BATIK FINISH TO CACTUS RUNNER

 I seem to be making a dent in my UFO's pretty well over the last few weeks.  I have three quilt tops with prepared bindings going to my guild's charity group.  My attempt to de-sash my batiks really didn't make much of a dent, but fun trying I guess.  

I did finish this last batik project.  All along I was in a quandary as to whether I would give it to my charity group or keep it.  My husband voted for keeping it, so it is off to the quilter in a week or two.  

The blocks were paper pieced.  A YouTube demo I stumbled across on the TV.  

Simple trick with this 8.5" paper that I was able to just lay my fabrics down on and they came out perfectly  pieced together.  

I did fuss around with this little cutie.  I have a friend with AccuCut dies of these little guys that was able to help me with the design of them for me.  I  just took a bit of time and adjusted the size and with bits and pieces of other appliqué patterns I winged it.  I am not much of an artist, but they came out really fun.  Plus decided to step up my quilting skills from serpentine stitches and used an oval circular template to quilt them.

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DE-STASH AND DONATE

 I spent most of this week continuing to work on trying to reduce the stash of batik fabrics I have collected over the years.  They do no one any good sitting in the closet.  I certainly do not need to add more quilts to the closet full and two quilt rakes stacked with finished quilts that reside in our guest bedroom.  I have other projects I would like to work on but I am on a mission and intend to finish it before I move on.

I finished up this Jelly Roll Race quilt this week with my leftover blue and purple/lavender batiks 2.5" strips.  It is 50" by 50" and has a binding prepared for it.  Off to my quilt guild's charity group to quilt and finish.

This batik quilt top is still a work in progress.  While trying to de-stash my huge batik fabrics I found that I did not have enough turquoise batiks to finish off the color way.  Now is that not the height of craziness.  Buying more fabric in order to de-stash what you already have.  However, while this top was originally supposed to go to my charity group, I now think I might not be able to give it up. Plan to finish it up this week and see how I feel about it when it is all done.  It is not a large quilt, only 48"square.  

My daughter mailed this quilt top to me this past week.  She lives in Colorado, I am in California. She took up quilting about 3 years ago.  Loves making the quilts but, how many of them can you keep.  I have often said my love affair with the quilt ends when it is finished, and she now agrees, how many can you keep.  It is give them away as a gift or find someone willing to take them off your hands.  This is the third quilt she has made and donated to my charity group in the past 18 months.    

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SCRAPS, ELEMENTS, AND NEW YORK BEAUTY FINISHES

Over the last two weeks I have spent some time trying to de-stash some of my batiks.  Frankly it is a lost cause, I am not getting anywhere, but it has been fun trying.  

I had a difficult time with this batik quilt top.  While I thought I had tons of different scraps, it seems there just is never enough variety.  However, I figured that it is not supposed to be a masterpiece, the idea is to get rid of some of my batiks. Once I got it all together it seems to have come out rather nicely.  It is going to my charity group and I hopefully someone will love it.

This is my finished NewYork Beauty Tim Holtz Elements quilt top.  I am really pleased with this piece.  It was so much fun and something I have never done before.  Everyone says New York Beauty blocks are difficult to make.  There was a bit of a learning curve with them, but they are paper pieced and that system really does make things easier to get those little sharp points.  The best part was you can put colors and shapes together next to each other and get away with it that you can't anywhere else.

The pumpkin wall hanging is finished as well.  It needs to go off to the quilt this coming week along with the NewYork Beauty.    

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A FINISH AND STASH REDUCTION

I got my curved pieced project back from the quilter this past week.  It was a free class I took offered by my quilt guild given by one of the other members.   I think it will make the perfect table mat for the coffee table in our living room this winter.  

I had my quilter just do a simple circular quilting on it. 

I decided to rid myself of a large scrap bin of Tilda fabrics over the last month or so.  They were just taking up way too much space.  There are 12 star blocks and 13 solid blocks which will make a 60" by 60" quilt, and the fun dots binding. I handed them over to my charity group last Wednesday to be finished up, quilted and giving away to some local group.

Still working on getting rid of fabric from the stash.  I happened onto a YouTube site designed to get rid of little bits and pieces of scraps.  My batiks are taking over the entire storage in my sewing room.  As I  often do appliqué pieces almost all my fabrics have a tencency to look like moths have gotten into my stash and had a banquet.  So this project really works well at slicing them up into various 1.5" to 2.5" strips and a few 5" squares for the corners and paper piecing them together.  They will become a quilt for the charity group as well.  This color group is more limited so lots of repeats, but I have tons of blue batiks and they are next.  

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THE NEW YORK BEAUTY EXPLOSION

 I have been playing around with some New York Beauty blocks for the past 2 weeks or so.  I started out with just going to make 4 blocks, but somewhere along the way I have morphed into a completely different idea with the entire project.  

I got the first 4 blocks done and then decided to add a couple of half square blocks and some of my Tim Holtz Elements fabric had pretty butterfly prints on them, and then things just sort of took off from there.

I added 2 more New York blocks.

And then another, and I am thinking I need 3 more now too.

Working with the Elements fabric is so much fun.

Now just to figure out what blocks I want and fabrics I want to include in the last 3 blocks and somehow get all these odd filler pieces sewn together and manage a perfectly square top.  I also found I needed couple more pieces of Elements fabric, so I am waiting for them to arrive. 

I know, really just a few more!

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FALL PUMPKIN IDEAS

I have been enjoying working on fun projects over the last two weeks.  Once I had some time I realized I have multiple patterns and fabrics bagged up that were set aside to work on someday.  Over the last couple of weeks I decided someday is finally here.    

Earlier in the year I purchased this pattern and decided to dig it out along with some orange scraps I had bagged up with it.

I decided on the wall hanging size and over the last couple of days have two of the three rows of the quilt top done.  I don't think I ever make anything that I do not in some way modify the pattern a bit.  I did decide to modify the lattice between the two rows.  I just found in my mind that the fussy vertical lattice in the pattern was just too much.     

Last week when I finished my summer mini quilt block for my kitchen wall I thought my pumpkin pattern scaled down to size would make a great fall one.  This has turned out to be lots of fun, and they go together in an afternoon start to finish. 

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MINI WALL HANGING AND NEW YORK BEAUTY BLOCKS

I finished all the blocks for my Rosemary & Thyme quilt.  Now just to get all of them up on the design wall and sewn together.  Now that is finished I can get a few mini projects handled and out of the way.

When I first saw a picture of the Rosemary and Thyme pattern on Facebook I thought I could master it by myself.  That did not work very well and I realized that after wasting a lot of fabric trying to figuring it out I would just buy the pattern and get over it.  But this block was my attempt and I didn't want to toss it.  So I took some time this week to make it a little wall hanging and put it up on the brick wall in our kitchen.

I have been working on these New York Beauty blocks.  Dee Christopher does a class every Saturday on the internet.  I get her classes by going to Alex Anderson's site but they are also offered  free on The Quilt Show site under Learn.  These little babies are paper pieced and I have had a wonderful time making them.  I have a lot of Tim Holtz Elements fabrics which I really love.  Not sure how I will finish it but I do have one more block to make, the blocks are 9.5" and I am sure I will do a border around them so maybe in the end 24" to 30" square.

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THREE GIFTS

 My oldest daughter is back in town from Colorado helping getting her husband's brother to Stanford Medical Center here in California for some medical appointments.  She always brings at least a couple of finished quilts and sometimes even a fun project to work on while she is here.  

This quit is a gift for a childhood friend's mother for her birthday coming up this week, I believe she said that Millie will be 96.

My daughter's quilter is really good, they selected this light background and it really shows off the red quilting so nicely.  

Our neighbors across the street gave my daughter some fabric when she was here in December visiting us.  She made this quilt as a gift for her.  It is really pretty long, great for someone tall.

Again her quilter did an amazing job with some really lovely quilting on it. 

The last item she brought was a 36 by 40 inch quilt top from left overs of the red quilt above.  It will be gifted to my charity group along with a binding we prepared for it of black and white dots fabric.

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ROSEMARY AND THYME

Summer has arrived it was 99 here yesterday and this morning 79 at 7am.  Wonderful weather to stay in and sew.   That is just what I have been doing.  I have been on to the second one of my sewing projects I have laid out for myself to accomplish during the next few months.  I tend to get bored after working on any project after a week or more so always have at least 2 or 3 going at any one time. 

Off and on I have been working on my Rosemary & Thyme pattern by CottonStreetCommons.com I purchased earlier in May.  I have blocks 1 and 2 competed.  These have just a bit of appliqué which I love doing.

This is the first of block 3 completed.  I have four more of this block to make and then on to make 4 of block number 4.  Just about ready to set them aside for a week or so and move on to yet another one of my other 2 projects I have lined up.  

But I really do finish projects.  The is my finished curved piecing blocks.  All six blocks completed and cut  at 8.5" and joined together to make a table runner of 16" by 24".  It is off to the quilters now.  

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FREE FORM CURVED BLOCKS

My Wisteria Wall is completely done, all the quilt show boutique items are finished.  I now can play with anything I want in the sewing room and do some fun things just because I want to.  My quilt guild offers classes several times a year.  Some are with professional quilters which we pay $40 to take, and twice a year two classes are offered free for guild members.  These are usually taught by a guild member and are always great fun and good classes.  I took one of them last week and by far one of the best ones I have ever taken.

The block pattern you make is all free form, on a 18" square of freezer paper you draw four circles starting from the middle and out, then you  cut the 18"square into four 9"squares.  Cut out each quarter circles pattern, iron them onto fabric and zig zag down onto stabilizer.

Then bias strips are made and sewn down to cover the zig zag.

I have three complete, two that need bias strips, and one more to

make a complete  table runner at 16" by 24".  Fun class and every one got one or two done.

This is a sample quilt that was shown to us of things one could do with the blocks.

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