Sister's Choice Quilts

Piecing the Past Comfort & Blessings Finished

Finally finished! I got the borders on this quilt top at last and am so happy with the results. This was a summer block of the week sew-along called Comfort and Blessings by Piecing the Past quilts.  And it was free! If you want the pattern now you can get it, but there is a charge. The shop is finishing up a fun summer row quilt right now, which you can see on their website. Next week I understand they are sponsoring a new fall sew-along, so check out their website for information. You might as well sign up to receive the weekly patterns while they are free, even if you don't have time to make the quilt right now.

So, here are the details of my quilt. I reduced the block size down to 6 inches finished (from 9"). I just like the look of a smaller block. In a few cases, the math was too tricky for me, so I substituted other blocks in the 6" size. The finished quilt size is 70 x 80".  I did a diagonal setting with alternate plain blocks. Fabrics were from my stash, except I did need to buy more cream prints in the exact shade I wanted to use.

I had a lot of fun making this quilt.  The weekly blocks were just the distraction I needed from COVID-19. 

Hope all of you in the States had a nice Labor Day Weekend.  Can I put out the pumpkins now?

American Pie Block Units Done

Remember this project?  It is a one-block quilt called American Pie, an older pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company that lends itself beautifully to scrap busting. I picked it up at the beginning of the pandemic, thinking it would be a fun project to occupy me for a few weeks while we sheltered in place.  What a laugh.  First of all, I got distracted by other shinier projects, and second, we are now five months into self-isolating at home and I haven't made much progress. At least all the units are complete!

The block units are super simple: larger colored squares with background squares sewn on two opposing corners.  I have made hundreds of them and now need to press out the units and construct the blocks.

Once the units are pressed, you need to pick out two pairs and sew them together as shown above.  The pressing is tricky in order to keep the seams opposing (so they lay nice and flat).  I need to study those directions a bit more closely, just saying.

So, here is the first block.  I like it.  The quilt is going to be very scrappy, with all the fabrics coming out of my Civil War Reproductions leftovers bins.  I have fond memories of many of these fabrics from other projects.  I do love a quilt that uses fabric up!

I hope you all had a nice weekend.  I went to visit my dad, and we had some extremely weird weather.  He lives two and a half hours away from me in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is known for its pretty mild weather.  In the 60 years I have lived in California, I only recall one time, back in the early 80s, when we had a thunderstorm with lightning in the Bay Area.  Last night it started up around 3:30 AM.  At least that is when I woke up to strange flickering light outside my window.  And a loud rumbling noise a few seconds later.

It went on for hours.  Along with occasional cloud bursts of torrential rain.  Any of you familiar with the weather around San Francisco can attest to the fact that It.Does.Not.Rain. in the summer.  At. All. Ever. The rainy season is November through April (with the rare rain in late October or early May).  So this was very strange.  Around 6:00 I dozed off again, only to be awakened around 7:00 by a bright flash of light and a colossal crash of thunder.  I was so startled I actually cried out.  I leaped out of bed and there was another flash of light and an immediate deafening BOOM of thunder.  And the power went out. I think an electrical sub-station near us must have taken a direct hit.  

You wouldn't believe the buzz happening on social media in our area.  Everyone is showing their photos of lightning bolts and the sky lighting up as if it were daytime.  This sort of weather just does not happen there. My home is in the Sierra Foothills, so I do get thunderstorms (which greatly distress Ozzie), but it is unheard of to have that sort of thing 130 miles away in the Bay Area.

What's going on in our world this year??  Locusts next?

Holly Berries/Cinnaberry

I keep calling this quilt "Cinnaberry" but the proper name of the pattern is "Holly Berries".  The fabric line is Cinnaberry by 3 Sisters for Moda.  I love the design's powerful simplicity and the elegance of the fabric. The pattern was free, and still is available through Moda.  

Construction could not have been faster or easier, as the quilt is made up of 4 inch half square triangles.  The setting is a diagonal one, so additional setting triangles are needed.  Moda put this quilt out as a kit, but I waited too long to get one.  I had a fat eighth bundle of the fabric and additional 1/2 yard pieces of the eight cream and tan backgrounds.  More cream fabric was needed for the setting triangles. 

I couldn't be more pleased with the quilt.  My eyes just dance around the entire quilt top when I gaze at it.  I am thinking an additional border of one of the cream or tan prints might be nice, and of course would be a good way to enlarge the size of the quilt.  What do you think?  Leave it alone or add an outer border?

Hope your week got off to a good start!

Moda BlockHeads 1 Finally Finished

This has been a long time coming.  I finally got Moda BlockHeads 1 finished.  My big hold up was the borders. I wanted to do something fancy and different for the borders, and had an idea to add a flying geese border, then an outer border or two.  I made a gazillion flying geese and started attaching them as a border.  And it looked like this:

Do you see how rippley that is?  Honestly, I looked at that hanging over my balcony railing for months not sure what to do about it.  So I finally took it off.  There is so much going on with all those sampler blocks that I decided to keep the border much more simple and be done with it.

I did cut strips from my leftover fatquarters and made a scrappy inner border, then added a plain outer border of light background fabric.

All in all, I am satisfied.  Gosh, it was such a fun project to do.  I used a very large assortment of Kansas Troubles fabrics for the quilt top. There are 60 six-inch blocks, plus one center applique block (which is the size of four 6" blocks). The top is around 71" square.  Whew, those blocks represent a lot of hours of work!

Now for the quilting.  I always send my quilts out to be professionally quilted and typically opt for an all-over quilting design.  So, you long arm quilters out there, answer a question for me if you will:  The applique blocks are a little stiffer because of the fusible interfacing.  Is that a problem when doing an all-over quilting design?

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Binding

Every week on my To Do/Planner I write "Bindings" in an effort to complete the massive pile of bindings that I need to sew onto my finished quilts.  I just do not enjoy sewing bindings.  I know, lots of people love doing it.  Well, I wish they would come sit on my porch with me and sew mine while I watch.

This week, I decided I really mean it this time.  Really. Mean. It.  So dragged out a quilt that needs to be displayed from May through August (it has flags on it) and started in.  And would you believe that on the second corner I came to one of those dreaded situations that sometimes happens to us all?  Yes, the seam on the binding was perfectly lined up with the corner of the quilt so there was no way to turn the corner neatly and perfectly.  Arggghhh.

Luckily I still had some of the binding fabric leftover and could actually find it.  It meant taking off a big section of the binding and cutting it and reattaching a new strip with the seam falling anywhere but on the exact corner.  My mission was definitely sidetracked, but I persevered.

It still isn't all sewn down, and Ozzie certainly does not give a flying fig, but it's all ready for me to complete today while I sit out on the porch.  There are worse things to have to do.

Speaking of Ozzie, can you all believe he is going to be 13 on June 21?  Some of you may remember puppy Ozzie.  Gosh, he was a mischievous dog.  Still is, as a matter of fact, but at least he isn't destroying shoes and irons anymore.

Here he is back in 2008 after tearing some knitting project or other off my knitting needles.  He killed that for sure.  Thanks Ozzie.  If you want a smile, click on my right hand side bar where it lists "Categories" of my posts.  Click on "Ozzie" and it will take you on an entertaining journey you won't soon forget.

Have a great weekend everyone!  It is the weekend, right?

 

Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt A Finish, with Borders

I am surprised that I have a finish to show for the past month, but here we are.  My focus has been all over the place, so the fact that this top was started and finished in such a short period of time is gratifying to me.  Well done, me.  

The fabric in the top is primarily from two different 3 Sisters collections, Chocolat and Aster Manor.  Both of them are quite old, from years back.  The nice thing about Moda designers such as 3 Sisters, is that their color lines are quite consistent over time, so if you wait eight years to use your fabric and now need a coordinating border you might get lucky.  Neither fabric line that I used is available any longer, but 3 Sisters did come out with a collection called Rosewood not too long ago that works brilliantly for my border, featuring the same colors as their previous collections I used for the top.

This was a mystery quilt project hosted by Laundry Basket Quilts.  I typically avoid mystery quilts because I like to plan my fabric placement quite specifically, and mystery quilts do not allow for that so well.  If I had this to do over, in place of the tan fabric in the outer corners, I would have used a pink or large scale red instead.  I think I would have liked that effect better overall.

Lucky you though.  The patterns are all still available for free on the Laundry Basket blog, so go for it and copy them off while you still can.  You can see how the final quilt is laid out and come up with your own color story and customize the quilt to your own liking.

I am looking forward to getting back to homeschooling Eva this week.  I missed her this weekend and realized that she is pretty much the main thing that is giving my life meaning and purpose right now.  If I didn't have the structure of her lessons and the pleasure of interacting with her, I think I would be rattling around pretty aimlessly.

I hope your weekend was enjoyable and as productive as possible.  Kimberly Jolly from Fatquartershop had a hilarious post on FaceBook that I just have to share.  It pretty much sums up how I have been feeling week by week during this lockdown.  Maybe it will give you a laugh as it did me.

First Flake Quilt Top Finished for January

First Flake is finished!  I am happy to have had the experience of making this fun and easy strip-pieced quilt.  The pattern was purchased by me as a pdf download from an Etsy seller.  I was inspired by Thelma's red and white version and will be excited to add this to my January/Winter decor.  It is a pretty small quilt (58 x 58"), so I will probably hang it from my upstairs balcony where it can be seen from downstairs.

In other news, I have brought out all my Moda Blockheads 1 blocks and laid them out on my design wall.  And guess what?  I have an idea for a layout that I am super excited about.  But...I need more blocks.  So I had another brilliant idea (the second this month) to make the six inch size of the current Blockheads weekly blocks and add them to the BH1 blocks until I have enough.  How about that?

Goodness I am loving this sew along.

A Quilt For Her Sister

Several years ago I mentored a young friend for a year.  She was working on her senior project for high school and wanted to learn how to quilt.  She was an apt and eager student, and during the course of year, she completed several baby quilts which were donated to women in need who had infants.  

Once the senior project was finished, my young friend wanted to make a quilt for her older sister.  I gave her a bundle of fabric by Zen Chic called "Juggling Summer" and she chose a pattern she liked.  My friend finished the quilt top and it was greatly admired by everyone, and then tucked away.  Her family moved house, she started college and a job, but the quilt wasn't forgotten.  Five years passed.  The older sister has since married and moved to Georgia and had a baby of her own.  The girls talk often and more often than not, the older sister reminds my friend of the quilt she was supposed to complete and give to her.  It has become a source of sisterly teasing and frequent conversation.  "So, where's my quilt?"

At long last, with some assistance, my young friend was connected with a long arm quilter who was able to machine quilt the quilt top both speedily and brilliantly.  You see, the older sister is coming to California to visit and show off the baby in just a couple of weeks.  Just under the wire, the quilt has been quilted, but still needs to have the binding hand sewn down.   I gave my friend a lesson in hand sewing bindings and all the supplies she needs to complete the task.  She says she is up to it, but if for any reason it looks like she needs help, I am at the ready.  Big sister is going to get her quilt at last!

Sweet Escape Finished!

I am so happy to share this Sweet Escape quilt with you all.  It has been on my design wall for ages,  just waiting for me to sew the rows together.  It wasn't such a hard task after all, and it feels great to have it done.

The Sweet Escape Sew Along was hosted by Camille Roskelley of Thimbleblossoms.  The pattern is hers as well.  Do check out the Instagram site for loads of photos of what other folks have accomplished.  You will be so inspired.  It was a very fun sew along in which to have participated.  I did purchase the pdf version of Camille's pattern, but ended up changing it a bit.  In her version, her blocks are 10.5", and I made mine smaller at 8.5".  The reason for going with a smaller block is because I wanted to use my Creative Grids Log Cabin ruler.  I used the 6 inch ruler, but added one more round of strips and trimmed it with my Precision Trim ruler. My center unit is different as well.  I made a half square triangle rather than use a solid square.

I used mostly Sweet Tea fabric by Sweetwater for Moda.  It seemed fitting to use it for a quilt called Sweet Escape!  I selected the reds, navys and tans from that line.  My taupe fabric in the alternate blocks is something I had in my stash that just happened to go brilliantly with the chosen collection.

I am super pleased with how this project turned out (especially that it is done), and plan to send it off to be quilted as soon as possible.

Hope you are all having a great week!

 

Two Runners Put to Use

The binding is going well.  I've been sitting on the porch with an audio book and stitching for awhile every day.  This Fig Tree runner looks so pretty on my dining table.  I love the toned down colors for summer.

The colors in this one definitely are not toned down, but it is so darn cute.  That quilting design is called Mini Marmalade, and may be one of my favorites ever.  I have this little topper on my kitchen counter at the end of the island, and am really enjoying it.

I took my husband's pocket change and a business card off of it for the picture, but even with the junk it seems to attract, it's cute.

Hope you all had a nice weekend.  We apparently have gone from a rainy Spring directly into Summer, but I am not complaining.  We got our herbs planted this weekend, and I am looking forward to making pasta with them sprinkled throughout.

We bought these raised boxes last year and they definitely solved the issue we were having with gophers!

The flowers are going crazy, including these petunias I thought were goners after the deer ate the tops off all of them.  We just put them in the back yard out of the deers' reach and they grew back better than ever.  I guess that proves the rule that once your flowers have bloomed, cut them back and they will bloom again.