Sister's Choice Quilts

Relaxing Weekend

Eva and I got the Halloween decorations put away and brought out a few Thanksgiving things. Daylight Savings Time started, so it feels like it is dinner time, but it's only a quarter past 3.  My photos are all kind of dark, and that is what it was like in my house at the time.

Eva's dad and his wife have gone away for the week, so she will be staying with us all week long. Yay! It's a treat for us to have her for so many days. Sunday we made cornbread and attended a basketball team pizza party. I did get some sewing done on Saturday and somehow managed to spend a heck of a lot of money on new fabric.

Aren't these just beautiful? They are selected pieces from the Isabella collection by Minick and Simpson. This summer there is going to be a basket quilt sew-along in faded patriotic colors and I had to jump on this fabric to be sure I got some before it sold out. That's what I told myself anyway. I will put it away soon, but right now I am leaving it out where I can fondle it.

How gorgeous is this large-scale print? It will be my border I think.

In other news, I re-made my Sewcialites 2, Block 2 for the third time. I just could not get the colors right. Here they are in order of my making them:

One, on the left. Two, on the right.

Final version. I sure can't keep doing three versions of each block. I need to get my act together.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Sewcialites 2 Quilt Along

This is my latest fabric acquisition, Buttercup and Slate by Corey Yoder of Coriander Quilts. It was hard to justify the purchase when I have a closet bulging with fabric, but I did it anyway. My bedroom has green walls and a quilt with green in it looks ever so nice there. I've purchased a couple other of Corey's collections and have some leftover fabric that I can add into the mix of this new group.

I am not going to admit which is the chicken and which is the egg, but Fat Quarter Shop just announced that they are going to do a second Sewcialites sew along, starting this month. This is the setting they are proposing, and I thought the Buttercup and Slate fabric would work well for this sampler project. I plan to make my quilt bed-sized with the addition of a coordinating floral border. The larger stars will be green grey, apricot, and yellow tone on tone prints from the line. It will be so pretty in my bedroom next summer.

Not much going on here. Eva had a home basketball game yesterday and I was amazed at how exciting it was and how much fun I had. My fanny is sore from scooching around on the hard bench, and my throat a bit scratchy from cheering, but woo hoo, was it ever a thrill. Her team, the Mark Twain Badgers, won by one point against the Copperopolis Cougars! Now I can't wait to support her at the next game. There are a couple of girls on her team who are on the short side, but man are they fast and coordinated. It was thrilling to watch them dribble up and down the court and shoot baskets. When they do amazing things, good athletes have such a cool "oh, right, it's nothing" attitude don't they? So not like me.  lol  When I played basketball at that age, I stood like an unmoving lump on the court and was anything but cool. Seriously I was a hazard the other girls had to run around.

We made banana muffins today in the hour and a half between when she got out of school and had to return for practice.  She got her mid-term grades and got all A+s except for a B in Math. I guess we did something right in the homeschooling effort over the past two years.

Guess What? Problem Solved.

Well, I made a happy discovery yesterday. I was looking at the "Rollin' Along" book featuring the jelly roll quilt I want to make and took a closer look at the fabric used in the quilt. Hmmm, turns out it is a collection called Cozy Up by Corey Yoder. Which I happen to have a fat eighth bundle of.

So that means, I can make the quilt exactly as pictured in the book. I'll have to cut my own strips, but that's no problem. Sometimes you want to branch out and be different, and sometimes you just want the exact quilt that inspired you.

Now I have to figure out what to do with Squirrelly Girl and Kitty Corn....

Yesterday was my birthday and it was pretty much a perfect day all around. I woke up to red roses and a sweet card from my husband. At lunchtime, a friend took me out to eat at a local hotel, and afterward we went to our local indy bookstore. I got to sew a bit in the afternoon, then my husband took me out to dinner. I had lots of well wishes all day long and went to bed with a very full tummy and happy heart. 

 

 

 

Rollin' Along Book and Sew Along

I picked up this recently published book, Rollin' Along by Moda Bake Shop that features quilts made from Jelly Rolls. Then I found out Moda Bake Shop is going to do a sew-along for one of the quilts in the book.

The quilt is called Family Reunion and showcases one of my favorite blocks, the Granny Square! 

I have a dilemma though and would love my blogging friends to weigh in and help me make a fabric decision. I was initially planning to use a jelly roll of an adorable collection called Squirrelly Girl by Bunny Hill. 

This collection contains pumpkin, apricot, and a muted brown color. I was thinking of doing the outer border of square in a square blocks with the orange acorn fabric. The question is, is there enough color and contrast in these fabrics?

But then. I studied the photo of the quilt featured in the book, and loved its greens, oranges, and blacks. The greens didn't photograph well in my picture, they look grey, but trust me, the second round of blocks is light green. I remembered that I had quite a lot of Urban Chiks Kitty Corn collection, which has all those colors. The blacks would be striking in the square in a square border.

So, advice, please! Which fabric group should I go with?

Then This Happened

Oh dear, I am not sure what came over me. This is Fig Tree & Co.'s latest Halloween collection "Pumpkins and Blossoms". It is different from, but coordinates perfectly with their previous Halloween group "All Hallows Eve".

You know I am making the "Among the Stars Again" Block of the Month in a beautiful Christmas collection by Lella Boutique called "Christmas Morning". The BOM I accidentally signed up for with Fat Quarter Shop. Well, I figured since I was already making two blocks each month in the Christmas fabric...

...I might as well make two more in Halloween fabric.

Just to be clear, in case anyone is confused, I am not combining the Christmas blocks and the Halloween blocks into the same quilt. I will be making two quilts. One Christmas, one Halloween.

I am just glad all the thinking is done for me because I don't have the energy to do anything too clever on my own these days.

As an aside, the cream background fabric in the Pumpkins and Blossoms line is a tone-on-tone print. It is cream with a little pumpkin figure on it. I can't show it off properly in a photo, but trust me, if you can get your hands on this background fabric, do it. It will be perfect for any fall or Halloween-themed quilt you do in the future. I managed to get 6 yards from an Etsy seller, and am so glad I did.

This is the design in black and orange. It is pretty darn cute too. The fabric I bought is all cream, with the design printed in white. The SKU of the tone on tone is 20427-21

Hope you all had a great weekend!

New Fall Project in the Planning Stages

Just look at this adorable table topper by Carried Away. It is two patterns in one, and I want to make both of them. The first one I plan to tackle is the Halloween/Pumpkin version. I have all the fabrics on hand, which are mostly scrap-sized. When I bought the pattern, I noticed that the exact Moda Solids you need for the checkered design were listed on the back of the pattern instructions, so I went ahead and ordered a couple of yards of the light grey and the darker grey.

FYI, you need 98 Bleached White, 178 Etchings Stone, and 128 Stone. The other fabrics are from a layer cake of last year's Fig Tree Halloween collection. They have a new one out now that would also work great.

I was itching to get started right away, but I caved in and did my starching first. It is so darn hot here, that my fabric was dry in about 20 minutes, I swear. Look how hazy the air is from the drift smoke from the fires. The air quality has been "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" which is me, with my asthma.

I am quite excited to start a small manageable project like this little table topper. I am overwhelmed with all my bigger ongoing projects, so will switch gears for a while. It is getting me down not to have finished anything in so long. When I finish this little project, maybe I will start on the second one, which is little Christmas presents instead of pumpkins. Then I will have two little quilts to send out for quilting. I love having a new seasonal project to display.

Hope your week got off to a terrific start!

 

Easing Back Into Things

Well hello there. I am easing back into things. Rejoining the land of the living. Call it what you will, but I have been out of commission and am struggling to get back to normal.

The doctor says my eyes are healing perfectly and all is well. I had some sort of allergic reaction to something and my right eyelid swelled up pretty spectacularly. My vision was never constant. Sometimes super blurry, other times just ok. None of the "I can see the individual leaves on the trees" stuff that many cataract patients claim. The main thing I noticed besides not being able to see very well at all was that my world had suddenly gotten super bright. Too bright. Dracula at dawn bright. Wearing sunglasses indoors bright.

Day by day things are getting better. With luck and time, I will be able to see great again. I am counting on it. I'll keep you posted.

I am SO anxious to get back into my sewing room. My big summer plans and goals have gone right out the window. I even had an email this weekend from a lovely lady in North Carolina who quilts for me, asking if I was still sewing. Now that hurt.

Even while I was laid up, I managed to do a bit of shopping. Here are two new Halloween-themed bundles I picked up. No idea what I will do with them. 

Pumpkins and Blossoms by Fig Tree

Kitty Corn by Urban Chiks.

 

Hope you are all well. Looking forward to sharing more with you this week.

 

Red Sampler Sew Along

Uh oh, you know what that means. I have been going through cans of starch like nobody's business lately. These yummy fabrics are mostly from Riley Blake, getting prepped for a sew-along Lori Holt is hosting, called the Red Sampler Sew Along. As I said, the fabrics are Lori's from various collections she has done for Riley Blake, and the block patterns all come from Lori's books. The sew-along has been going on for eight weeks, so I have some catching up to do!

Here are the reds all pressed and folded. The reds have a coral cast to them, which is very fresh and pretty. The reds that Bonnie and Camille use are similar in tone I think. I pulled a couple B&C reds from my stash and they go perfectly. There are a few darker tone reds on the bottom of the stack on the left. They will add a nice change from the lighter ones I think.

And the backgrounds.

I have fat quarter cuts of most of the reds and one-yard cuts of the backgrounds and the red gingham, which appears often in the blocks.

I have not used Riley Blake fabrics much before this. The quality feels just as nice as Moda. I was a bit worried about the reds bleeding but saw no sign of it while starching heavily. What is your experience? Have you used much Riley Blake fabric?

What is it about red and white quilts? They are so hard to resist.

The patterns Lori uses for the sew-along come primarily from her two Farm Girl Vintage books, her Christmas Vintage book, and her Granny Square book. She has been doing three blocks each week in 12" and 6" sizes. I will link to Week Eight of her sew-along, where she has all the blocks done so far pictured. Obviously, you need her books for the patterns.

As soon as I get my Moda BlockHeads behemoth off the design board I will make a few of these pretty red blocks as a reward. 

Hope you all have a terrific weekend!

Spring Brook Charity Mini Quilt

I worked on the Spring Broom Mini Charity Quilt yesterday. I only got four yellow flowers done, but that's ok. The picture above is from Coriander Quilts website. It is a free pattern you can print out here. My fabric choices will be similar, but I have a grey solid and a green solid that I am using for the leaves, stems, and flower centers. 

I was exhausted by the time I finished the four yellow flowers. I had spent hours starching fabrics for two other projects, plus ironing them. Then my husband and I actually planted real flowers in containers on our front and back porches. Then I cut out all the pieces for the Spring Brook Charity Mini Quilt. It is amazing I got any sewing done.

I think this is a super cute little table topper or wall hanging. You should definitely take advantage of the "free" pattern. Fatquartershop is requesting some sort of a donation for the Make A Wish Foundation in return. It's a great cause. 

Hope you all had a great weekend. I had a lovely time with my father. He has lost his four bottom teeth! I suppose that is common in people who are approaching 100 years of age. He refuses to see a dentist of course. 

The stuffed peppers I made were a success. Neither of us could finish our portions, so even "Cooking for Two" is making more food than we can eat! I bought another Cooking for Two Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen, which appears to be excellent. For my husband and me, I prepared Chicken with Penne Pasta, Mushrooms and Gorgonzola which was just amazing. You can make it all in one pan, and it was truly easy and fast. I will be making a lot more recipes from that book. And I still ended up with leftovers! 

Found Treasure

Oh my gosh, look what I found yesterday. Way up high on a closet shelf there was a project box labeled "Granny Blocks".  When I pulled it down I was blown away to discover these quilt blocks made from a
Pam Kitty Morning collection for LakeHouse Fabrics. I must have made these seven years ago. I vaguely recall making them and I may have even sewn some together for a baby quilt for a niece some years ago. 

Presently though, I have no idea what to do with them! I could make more blocks, but at this point, I have no idea what the white outer fabric was, so it might not match exactly. Not that big a deal I don't think. I can get pretty close with a current Bella Solid. But what should I do with the blocks?  I do not know of anyone who is expecting a baby girl right now. I suppose I could make a baby quilt and keep it on hand for that happy occurrence. Eventually, someone I know will have a baby girl, right?

I wonder why on earth Lakehouse stopped making Pam Kitty Morning fabrics? I recall they were hugely popular, and seriously are way cuter than a lot of other fabrics of this type. Pam has a terrific blog. She has tutorials for fabulous projects and is fun to read. She starts out some of her posts with a photo of a cup of coffee in her garden and saying "It's a PamKittyMorning". She is upbeat and friendly and seems super nice too.

I have a question for you all. Do you think I should separate the blocks with a white lattice? Or do you like the idea of the blocks all looking "connected"?

So, this was a lucky day for me, finding a treasure trove of pretty blocks in gorgeous fabrics. Hope your day was as fortunate!