PECANS AND BABY QUILTS

It is pecan harvest season at our house.  We have two trees on the side of our home.  The larger one is easily 40 feet high and the smaller one, if one can call it that about 30 for 35 feet tall.  My husband harvests them himself, which ends up being a pretty lengthy ordeal.  It involves lots of drying them in our oven, cracking them open, and drying them again.  Our dining room ends up pretty littered with stray shells on a regular basis and it goes on for several weeks before he is done.  

During all this I try to stay clear of the mess.  There is no better way to do that than to get into my quilting studio and find a new project, any project to avoid the mess until I can vacuum up the debris at the end of a day.  

Yes, a baby quilt.  I had lots of left over Big Sky by Annie Brady charm squares from my runner I made earlier last month.   

And it was done pretty easily and quickly.

Have you noticed in the last few years that baby quilts are not so babyish?  I wondered about that as I put this together.  It is only 40 inches square so only really big enough for a baby/child quilt.  I did not have enough fabric to border it, just enough to bind it.  The binding will be that black and white print in it.  I like it a lot and the little bear print squares seem just enough to call it a baby quilt.  I'll quilt it myself and stash it away for that gift that will eventually come up for a little one.

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NOVEMBER FAT QUARTER QUARTER QUILTS BLOCK ALONG

Wow, eleven months under by belt.  I now have 66 blocks and wonder if December will be the final month with a total of 72.  I don't usually stick it out this long.  

Here is the November block.  I am surprised that all of these have gone so well.  The unfinished size is 5.5 inches square.  That means that pieces like those little squares only finish at 1 inch.  One thing I have learned doing this quilt along is that my piecing accuracy has improved a great deal.  

A month or two ago when looking through my stash for more red fabrics I cam across a bag of them along with this red work panel.  I decided that I would try to incorporate it into a quilt with all this year's blocks from this quilt along I have made.

I cut out the flower panel pieces, deciding not to use any of the animal or fruit pieces.  

I got a couple more blocks done, only three more to go.  I make six each month.

Yes I think this is going to be a great idea for a finish.  

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OK SO NOW I AM READY FOR THANKSGIVING

I think this is one of the first appliqué projects I ever made, many years ago.  My children still laugh at the turkey's legs.  Not much meat there they say.  

Yes success at last.  If you have been watching my blog over the last month you will remember I made a full size Christmas spiral runner.  Then I tried making it half size with not much success.  It wasn't awful, but it just was not perfect.  I talked with the teacher that taught the original class I took and she suggested a different approach.  Well it worked.  

Well here it is all bound and I am just finishing the handwork.  This was a real lesson in just keep working on it. 

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THIS AND THAT

I am in a bit of a creative slump.  Nothing really seems to be coming together.  In an effort to do something I finally resorted to making new doggy placemats for our two pups.  

Easy quilting back.

And front.

Love the bone shape.  Although the binding is a little bit of a challenge.  Still one more to make, but it seemed to take care of the HooHumm feeling and got me started on a new track.  I know placemats might seem like a silly thing for dogs, but we have wood floors and our poodle is a messy eater, so it keeps most of the food splatter off the floor.

I purchased a new line by Pat Brovo called Indy Folk.  I had this idea in mind, but just could not get it to come out the way I wanted.    Thus the only alternative was to make dog placemats.  However, once I sort of got myself together I spent sometime on the internet and came across a tutorial on the Missouri Quilting site that was the perfect solution for these fabrics along with pulling a number of Maureen Cracknell's fabric lines to go with them from my stash.  

And here we are.  These are the first four of several that I made.  I now have over 10 complete.  They measure 7 inches so will finish at 6.5.  I guess I am going to need lots of them, but they are so fun. So it is off with a renewed creative bug.

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SOME THINGS JUST DO NOT WORK OUT

I made a Christmas Spicy Spiral runner this past week.  I bought 1/4 yards of each eight fabrics and once all needed were cut I ended up with just enough to cut half the amount normally needed for another.  I decided to just make it smaller.  Seems like a simple idea.  Well not every thing works out like it should.

Here is my original full size runner.  It is 25" wide by 42" long. 

Here is my small, half size runner that measures 12" wide by 24" long.  OPPPS, that did not work out as I expected.  At first I sort of pondered the idea of tossing it into the dog bed scrap box in my studio then I began to think better of it.  It really isn't awful, I sort of like it.  It seemed worth binding it and using it on our everyday dining table.  I still would be interested in trying a smaller one in the future   Maybe talk to the gal that I took the class from that commented that it could be made smaller and find out where I went astray.  I guess some things just do not work out as planned.

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SPICING UP CHRISTMAS

I took a class at the end of September and made a runner called Spicy Spiral. (Note the Featured Post)  I really love this pattern and just this past weekend decided to buy some Christmas fabric and try it out again.  A 25% sale on Christmas fabric certainly helped me make up mind to go with it.  

I selected the order of my fabric.  This cheat sheet really helps.

The first of my four strata panels.

Here we are.  All spray basted and quilted.  Now only to bind it.  

Last a nice long pile of bias binding.  I bought just 1/4 yard of each of my fabrics.  I had just enough left over so I am going to try making a smaller one.  The normal size is 42 long and by the wide area 25 inches.  I am winging  it by working backwards on the wedge cutting.  I have no idea what size I will end up with.  I am going to be sure to make notes on this idea.  We shall see how that goes.  This one at least is almost a finish.  I have sewn the binding on and just working on the handwork. 

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A RUNNER QUILTED AND A THREAD PROBLEM SOLVED

I finished my new runner.  I tried out a new idea for quilting it and it worked out well.  I have a problem even after a four day class on free motion quilting so I am always working on ways to get around that issue.  

I sort of copied what my quilter did on my Blue Dahlia quilt.  I think it worked well.  And the front with this really nice binding.  I liked the contrast. 

I also took some time to make myself a thread catcher container.  I often take class with my guild and once a month sew with my charity quilt group.  We usually meet at a church or other facility and try to make sure we have not left a mess for others to clean up. I have been using the lid to my pin container, but because is so shallow the thread cuttings end up on the floor.  So I was determined to solve that problem.  

I had some left over deco fabric from some bags I made so purchased a front fabric.  I really like this idea of the squares cut out of the bottom of the bag to make the box corners.  That little step was new to me, but it really works well.  

Here is the inside also with the cut corners.  

And it is done.  It is not very large only about 10 inches long and about 6 inches wide.  Perfect to catch those cut threads and snips of fabric.  

The inside too.  Once I got done I pressed really well the bottom four sides and the four sides so instead of looking round it is now a rectangle shape.  I might just make the larger size, as I still have lots of left over fabric.

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