THE COSY QUILT AND STRING QUILT BLOCKS

I am making good progress on my Cosy Quilt this week.  I have managed to get most of the finances taken care of with the guild's quilt show at last.  The budget paperwork is prepared for the budget meeting for the new fiscal year startup on the first of March, and I think the bits and pieces left over I can get done and hand the whole mess over to the new treasurer.  I even managed to wade through some of my neglected housework here at home.  

I am really pleased with the progress on this quilt.  Originally I planned for it to go to my charity group, but have decided I am going to keep it. All the fabric is mine, out of my stash so there is no issue there.  I recently gave away four quilts so feel like I can add another into my hoard.  

However this is what is still left of that stashed fabric.  Really is time to move it on.

I found this idea on a blog and though this is the perfect way to use up all those little strips and pieces.  They are 8.5" square.  I am using Carol Doak's Foundation Paper, it comes as 8.5" by 11" so just a matter of trimming off one side and I am ready to go.  I am figuring I will make 7 rows of 7 blocks so need 49 of them.  However, if I can get an 8th row with what is left I will try.  Then this one will be off to the charity group.  

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FINISHED, STARTS, AND QUILT SHOW SHOPPING

I think I have finally managed to survive my guild's quilt show last week.  Still a mountain of paper work for me to get through, but I can almost see the end.  Hopefully I will be able to close the fiscal year at the end of this month and by the end of March turn it all over to the new treasurer.  Plan is to permanently retire from that position.  I have been doing it in one or two year shifts for over 25 years.   

I managed to finish my elements quilt this week.  It is off to my charity group to be quilted and bound then stashed away until October when we will distribute them all.  Last year was around the 300's.  Hopefully this year we can set the bar a bit higher. 

I am off to make another charity quilt this week.  I have had a stash of these Not Your Mama's Garden by The Sew Yeah Brothers for years.  Made several quilts with them.  Time to clean them out and make room for something new.

I came across this pattern and it worked well with the stash I had.

The plan is to make four rows of blocks across and four down.  The blocks finish at 10" wide and 12" long with 2" strips of the grey and center squares between them and 2" borders making the quilt 50" by 58".

I did manage to do a little bit of quilt show vendor shopping.  I purchased this pattern.  I expect this one is going to be an interesting journey.  

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OFF TO THE QUILT SHOW

Since Friday I have been working in the set up of my guild's quilt show.  I handle the finances and usually help set up the boutique as well.  The show started yesterday and it was a long day.  And I am off today as well for the final day.  Expect it to be even longer. Monday off to the bank and settle all the deposits.  I did manage one quilt item last week.  Not sure what is likely to happen this week.    

I have a scrap bin full of Elements fabric.  Lots of little bits and pieces.  I think I can just about manage to get a charity quilt out of them hopefully will be 48 by 60.  

They are easy to put together, and the fabric is interesting and fun.

Just a few highlights from the first day of our quilt show.  We do a basket raffle.  This year the team involved with it really went all out with 55 baskets. 

Our guild does a traveling quilt show on a regular basis.  These little 16' quilts travel to multiple hospitals, libraries, and senior living complexes. 

This is our Opportunity Quilt, some lucky person will win this beauty.

This is our charity group's booth.  These ladies are working on binding by hand some of the quilts that will be distributed in October to local groups.

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FINISHING PROJECTS

 This past week and the week coming up have are stressful and full of things to do.  My guild's quilt show set up day this week is Friday the 30th and the show is Saturday the 31st and Sunday the 1st.  I am the treasurer and prepare and handle all the finances for the show, so I have pretty much been running around like a crazy woman. However, I have managed to get into the sewing room.  It is a place that I am able to decompress, when life gets out of control.

I got my fall runner back from the quilter this past week and managed to get the binding on it.  

My quilter is wonderful, all I did was give it to her and say maybe leaves would be nice.  Her quilting was just perfect for it.

I spent some time fussing with my Christmas fabric stash.  There were lots of bits and pieces and I was able to put together these 10" blocks and make an easy child's quilt for my charity group.  We do the distribution of quilts to local agencies every October so a Christmas quilt fits right in.

I had some left overs after making the quilt and tossed together this little runner.  The fabric was just too cute to not do something with the last bits and pieces.  

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BACK INTO THE CHARITY QUILT MODE

 This is birthday week for me.  I have a son on the 13th, and one daughter on the 16th and my husband on the 19th.  Very poor planning on my part, although I can't blame myself for my husband's birthday, but the other two are all on me. What can I say, January is just as hectic as Christmas when it comes to parties.

I did manage to get my blue charity quilt top together this week.  They look so simple but joining all those blocks together is a bit of a trial.  However, blue quilts are always so pretty, and I did put a significant dent in the flue scraps bin.

I also did a bit of de-stashing of some really old Christmas prints.  This quilt will go along with the blue one above to my Warm Wrappings my charity group.  We distribute quilts in October of each year to 6 different local agencies.  Last October we delivered 359 quilts.  So back to working on that project.  I try to do 2 each month.  Just have to do a top and prepare a binding for them then others will quilt and bind them.  So a Christmas quilt to be given away in October fits in well.  

I finished all 14 of my Christmas placemats this past week.  But did have left overs of fabric that I was able to make this runner and enough I think to make a couple more.  This fabric is so pretty and just a shame on to make something out of it.  This pattern uses either 3 inch or 2.5 inch strips and squares, which makes using scraps really easy to manage.  Thinking I will stash away some runners like this one and they will make nice gifts next holiday season, or have considered doing a booth at a local event next year and sell some.

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NEW PROJECTS FOR THE NEW YEAR'S CHARITY GROUP

 I have been a bit lazy for the last week or so and not accomplished much of anything other than finishing up my 14 Christmas placemats to be used next year.  My guild's quilt show boutique contributions are done and the show will take place on January 31st and February 1st.  So I just fiddle around in the sewing room for a few days and collected up some odds and ends of scraps to start working on this year's charity group's quilt making process.

I pulled these odds and ends of blue fabrics.  Not much of anything but thought I could make a 4 patch quilt and get enough of them together to make 9" blocks and come up with a quilt that was hopefully 54" by 63".

They look pretty, but find that I am very much short of the light blue/white prints.  So I guess it is off to Hobby Lobby later this week for some additional fabric to add to the mix.  One of the reasons obviously that one never seems to run out of scraps.  In order to use them up you have to buy more to go with what you are trying to get rid of.

Now this project is another story all together.  I have lots of these fabrics.  While at Warm Wrappings my charity group meeting, one of the ladies showed a quilt she made with this pattern.  She did not know the name of the pattern but was able to describe how the block is made and I was able to come home and duplicate it.  The blocks are 9" finished, and I easily have left over fat quarters of these fabrics to make a 54" by 63", their preferred size, quilt for the charity group. 

Yes, one more unfinished set of 6 Christmas placemats unearth when I was putting away the last of my Christmas fabrics into a bin in the closet.  I am almost afraid to take a better look into that bin to see what else I might have stashed in there.  It is a bit of a jumble and I know I had better sort it out, but who knows what I might find.

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MOVING ON INTO THE NEW YEAR

We started the New Year here quietly.  Nice to just sit back and relax.  I am hoping to wrap up a couple of projects that really do need t o move on and finally get completed.  Christmas wall hanging and table decor still up around the house.  Something I will try to get to later in the week.  Just not in any real hurry to do that this week.

This is the one project that I do plan seriously to get completed.  Our family is growing and several years ago I purchased fabric to make 14 Christmas placemats.  The fronts are the black print and the grey are their backs.  This project got side tracked for I do not know how many years.  But during the holidays I unearth 2 of them finished and another 12 cut and ready to put together.  Over this last week or so I now have 3 completely finished, 7 sitting on the back of my chair in the living room waiting for the bindings to be finished by hand, and just 4 more waiting to be quilted, bound and finished.  Better late than never!

A week or so ago I took a few left over 2.5" strips to try out this new table runner pattern for my guild's quilt show boutique shop.  It was fun and gave me an idea with some fall fabric I had left over from another project.  

I increased the strip size to 3.5" and came up with this 30" by 36" table runner for my dinning room table.  I'm sending it off to my quilter for some leafy quilting pattern next week.  

The only other project going on right now is our pecan harvest.  Thankfully I am not in charge of this task.  We have two pecan trees on the side of our home, planted by my husband, not too long after we moved into it in 1971.  They are easily 50 feet tall and do produce a good crop of pecans on and off.  This year we had a bumper crop.  He harvests, dries  them in our oven, shells and bags them, and into our chest freezer.  Yes we are up to 52 bags, and there are still a good two or three buckets of them still to be dealt with.  My only contribution to this is I vacuum up the shell that scatter all over the dining room floor after he finishes shelling them.  This has been going on for two months now.  We are nearly at the end.  No we do not sell them. However we are very popular with our neighbors who at both Thanksgiving and pre Christmas got bags of them for their holiday baking, and of course family as well.    

  
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I SURVIVED CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY

I survived Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Had family  here for dinner with 8 of us on Christmas Eve and then 5 of us on Christmas Day.  I am pretty much partied out.  There is one very nice result of all this and that is lots of left overs, especially deserts.  

I did just barely manage to finish some Christmas placemats for husband and I in time to use for the Christmas season.  Nice to enjoy them for a few more days.

I have been working for a good couple months of ridding myself of this particular line of fabric.  This is pretty much just little scraps mostly 2.5" strips.

I ran across a picture of a runner that was the solution to using them.  I hope to get a couple more done, then finally finish the scraps off and add another couple runners to my quilt guild's January quilt show boutique. I might just keep one for myself.  

I just got this fall project back from the quilter and finally the binding on it.  Seems like this year I have been behind the power curve all year.  I guess better late than not done.  

And the last project.  Over the past few years our family has increased in size.  Once 8 Christmas placemats was enough, well no longer.  Grandchildren keep bring in girl friends and boy friends to join the family.  I started this one placemat a couple years ago and that is as far as I got.  Time to get another 11 done, but seems like might just have to do another 1 or 2 extras too.  Going to have to dig out that fabric and see what can make of it.

  

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FALLING LEAVES CHAPTER TWO AND TILDA SCRAPS COMPLETELY DE-STASHED

 A couple of weeks ago I start on a new quilt for myself call Falling Leaves. https://donnaleeq.blogspot.com/2025/11/falling-leaves-chapter-one.html.  I finally got the first appliqués fused on to the back ground and have started appliquéing them. 

While I have a pattern I have found that placement of the vines, flowers, and leaves is a bit of a layout difference.  The pattern is for a table runner and this is going to be the center of a 50" by 50" quilt, that will hang on the wall in our dining room during the fall season.

I was able to machine appliqué down two flowers.  I used a blanket stitch and matching colored thread.   

My daughter visiting from Colorado helped me finally de-stash a bin full of Tilda fabrics.  This is one of the quilts she used to help me rid myself of them.  It will go to my charity group.  She was very clever and used up lots of small scraps doing the wonky 6 inch blocks. 

This 36" by 36' baby quilt was the very last one that finished off the rest of them.   It also will be a charity quilt with a border using the last of the yellow fabric on the quilt top.  

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TILDA SCRAP PROJECTS

This past week I have accomplished almost nothing in the sewing room.  With family visiting, and several holiday gatherings I don't think I have even been at home much at all.  A bit of Christmas shopping done and that is about it.  

Our oldest daughter is visiting from Colorado for two weeks then returning home on the 20th.  She was also here in June and I sent her home with a pile of Tilda scraps.  She brought this little quilt top out with her to give to my charity group.  It only measured 33 by 38, so we decided it needed some borders.

I still had some Tilda yardage and was able to cut enough 4.5" borders and binding for it.

What was left was Tilda dots, so I threw this baby quilt top together, that will measure 36 by 36 and some bindings in the dot colors and I think we have finally managed to completely eliminate the Tilda scraps.

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