Sister's Choice Quilts

Star Studded Event Quilt: Finished!

I am happy to tell you that I finished my second UFO of 2023! This is the Star-Studded Event quilt, started in the summer of 2018. This was a block-of-the-week kit/program sponsored by Primitive Gatherings. The pattern is now available on their website. 

It's a great scrap quilt project, and once you get those center 2-inch stars completed, the rest of the piecing is easy. I really like this quilt, especially its generous size! It ended up being 84 inches square, which as you can see, fits great on a queen size bed. 

I did remove the dark pink blocks but left in the light blocks that had some pink in them. In the grand scheme of things, the pink isn't particularly noticeable in the lighter-toned blocks. I made some additional lighter "dark" blocks in pale blue, sage green, and light brown. Before I did that the quilt had a somber tone to it, as one reader mentioned. I much prefer it now that it has been lightened up. I have lots of leftover blocks. About 10 pink ones, and some navy, black and dark brown. I will probably end up making a table runner out of the pink ones. For next year's Valentine's Day.

I am totally happy with the finished quilt top, as well as being thoroughly sick of working on it. I'll send it to the quilter as soon as my backing fabric arrives. Once I get it back from her it will go right on my bed. 

Hope your week is going well. Eva has been staying with us this week because her daddy has come down with the flu. She's been lots of fun, and as always, keeps us on our toes. I forgot to tell you that we finally got our new oven. It works great. Baking is now fun rather than a frustrating exercise in adjusting the temperature up or down depending on how it is working.  We have made chocolate chip cookies, a quiche, and various snacks for Super Bowl with great success.

Tackle Those UFOs

Have you made a list of your UFOs and started tackling them? My January UFO is Take It Easy, a jelly roll quilt pattern by Primitive Gatherings. I started it a couple of years ago and it has been sitting in a project box half finished for a while. 

I do love a red and white quilt, and think this one may be a gift for one of my brothers-in-law. A quilt I made for my sister that he always loved has been damaged by his dogs and he asked me if I could replace it. I think he would like this one. Actually, she would have liked it too. She was always so appreciative of the quilts I gave her.

At any rate, I digress. I finished all the blocks for this project and plan to see if I can sew them together this weekend. I have a major tip for any of you who plan to make this quilt:

TRIM YOUR BLOCK UNITS AS YOU SEW.

Because of the nature of jelly rolls, I was dealing with more variation in the width of the strips than I would have had I cut 2 1/2 inch strips out of yardage. Consequently, I don't think two of those block units came out quite the same size. They were real close, but not precise. 

I did trim the final 12 1/2 inch blocks to size, but I sure would be happier with these blocks had I trimmed each of the block units as I made them. Construction is super simple, although you can get mixed up as to the placement of the 2 1/2 inch square in each unit if you aren't careful. 

This is what the finished quilt top will look like. 

Say, I have a question for you all. I have a friend who is taking a trip to Tuscon, Arizona next week. She would love to visit any quilt shops in the general Tuscon area. Can any of you make a recommendation? She would sure appreciate it!

Resurrecting a UFO from 2018

I was digging around in my sewing room, looking for something to do this week. Which is of course what one does on Thanksgiving week, when one has work deadlines, cranberry relish and pies to make, and a house to clean. And did I ever find a project. Back in the summer of 2018, I signed up for a weekly block kit from Primitive Gatherings. They called it "Star Studded Event". Of course it features teeny tiny pieces, which Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings is known for. 

At the end of the project, you were to end up with 240 six-inch quilt blocks. Super scrappy of course. And each block has a 2 1/2 inch center star.

Here is one 2 1/2" center star. It is tiny all right. The flying geese units are 1" x 1 1/2". Good grief, my yellow rotating mat is a mess. My friend Thelma sent it to me eleven or twelve years ago and it has gotten good use, obviously. I can't bear to replace it though for some reason.

I had already finished 120 blocks, so yay, half way through. As I started going through the weekly fabric kits, I felt (as I often do with scrappy kits) that many of the fabrics were (to put it kindly) not to my taste. So that led to much rummaging around in scrap bins and me cutting more strips to make blocks more to my liking. You should see my sewing room. To say it's a mess doesn't quite sum up the complete chaos. 

This is how you assemble the blocks. You get four blocks out of a fabric strip assortment for one color story. Five color stories per weekly kit, so 20 blocks a week. Evidently I forgot the instructions not to combine duplicate fabrics within a block. No problem I have about a hundred more blocks to make.

The blocks really are awesome. I need to finish this project. I think it will be an heirloom. I will keep you all posted.

In other news, if Jan gives me the ok, I will share her Thanksgiving Jello Salad story tomorrow. I think you all will get a kick out of it and be able to totally relate to it! 

Hope you all are getting more done this week than I am. I still have all the cooking and house cleaning to do today. How smart of me to have procrastinated and left everything for the last minute.

My Garden is in Blossom

Another productive sewing day for me yesterday. This has been quite the week for getting my mojo back. I finished the fourth and fifth blocks in my 2011 Designer Mystery BOM. The setting is going to be so cute. I will be making little stem units so it appears that each block is a flower. Hope I have enough green....

That fifth block (the middle right one) was a bear to sew, I can tell you that. It was a bit fussy. But it used all the colors, woo hoo. Of course, I got one tiny unit switched around (not just once but four times) and had to do some unsewing. Ah, those thread-picking interludes are restful for the mind, right?

I am really enjoying these bright fresh colors.

I also can report that I got my Serendipity quilt top all put together, except for the borders.  Maybe I can wrap that up on Sunday afternoon.

Have a great weekend everyone!

What Next?

I tell you, give me a week to spend sewing, and I can get things done. Lately that hasn't been happening though, but due to a Covid outbreak in the family, I have been able to get up in my sewing room for extended periods this week. And look what I found.

This is an ancient fabric collection by Fig Tree & Co. It was called Strawbery Something. Strawberry Fields, Strawberry Rhubarb, Strawberry Shortcake, I can't recall. It was a Block of the Month Designer Mystery sew along sponsored by Fat Quarter Shop from 2011.  Eleven years ago.  Can you believe I dug up a UFO older than my grandchild?

And I never made a single block. Month after month for a year I paid for my monthly block subscription and never sewed a blessed one. 

I had neatly stored all the fabrics in a plastic tub and still had all the patterns. 

I started assembling the fabrics needed for each block and starching them. Yesterday I made three blocks,
and I don't mind saying, they are adorable!

Block number one.

Block number two. This one took a while. And I got two of the corner blocks turned wrong. Fixed it!

Block number three. I think this one is my favorite.

I am having fun working with these larger blocks (12.5 inches unfinished). I have no idea how I will put them together. Probably a simple setting with the white tone on tone polka dot I am using for my background. I will never find a matching border fabric after all these years, but Fig Tree will have a red print that will still match, so I think I will be good.

Did any of you make this quilt back in the day? 


 

2022 Off to a Great Start

The New Year has gotten off to a great start for me. My goal is to tackle my large number of UFOs and either finish them or let them go. It's probably not surprising that I was drawn right back into the Lori Holt Red Sampler quilt. I had completed only six weeks of the project. The "Sew-Along" ship has sailed, but lucky for me, Lori has kept her sew-along posts on her Bee In My Bonnet blog, so I can refer back to the weekly instructions. Here is a link to all sixteen weeks of this sew-along.

Yesterday I had a lovely day in my sewing room and completed six blocks for Red Sampler Weeks Seven and Eight.

I've also been working on sewing the rows for Serendipity together and trying to catch up with Among the Stars Again block of the month. I'm feeling very good about my organized approach and look forward to showing you some completed tops soon. Or, at least in the next months...

Also, I have gone through my "flimsies" (completed but unquilted tops) and made a pile of some that I want to donate. My charitable organization of choice was Firehouse Quilts in Boulder, CO, which is quilting tops and giving them to victims of the terrible fires that took place in Colorado recently. I have five tops that I plan to mail to them today.

Why do I suddenly have so much time on my hands? Um, well, certain members of my family have come down with a well-publicized contagious virus and are isolating this week.

Hope you are all staying well and getting things done!

 

Facing Up To Your UFOs

There comes a time in each quilter's life when she needs to face up to the UFO situation. Are you organized? Do you even know what unfinished projects are hidden away in your sewing room? If you went back in time, how many years old are some of your abandoned projects? 2012 was the oldest one I found that I was still interested in. 

Pat Sloan had a YouTube video this week where she talked about UFOs and how to organize them. We tend to stash them away out of sight and ignore them for years on end. She urged us to confront them and make a list of our UFOs and make a plan on how to deal with them.  I highly recommend that you watch her video. I was inspired to get out a notebook and go have a good look at the project bins I have full of almost completed or half-finished quilt projects. 

Worse than the pile of unfinished projects was the list of future projects I had purchased fabric for and planned to make, but never even began the project. 

Pat was super realistic about her UFOs. She said you have to just face the fact that you may have lost interest in a project and no matter what, you will never be inspired to pick it up and complete it. In that case, donate it to a quilt guild or someone who might like to pick it up and complete it. If you are like me, you have a stack of finished tops you have never bothered to have quilted. (That is a post subject for another time). In the case that you have a finished top that you know you will never use, donate it to a group that quilts flimsies (unquilted tops) and gives them to charitable groups. Pat lists several organizations that do this sort of thing. If your local community has a quilt guild, they could be a great resource to you if you want to pass on some of your UFOs.

So I worked on my lists today, mostly from memory. I am sure there are more UFOs in my closets, but these are the ones that stuck in my mind that I'd actually like to complete. 2021 was the worst year I have ever had for starting projects and not seeing them through to a finish. I have a great excuse what with homeschooling my granddaughter during the week and caring for my dad on weekends, but still, it's a lot. I made three lists:

UFOs from 2021 that I'd like to complete in 2022

Older UFOs

Projects I bought fabric for but never started

So you see, I have my work cut out for me. It feels good to face up to these projects, however, and try to make a plan to prioritize them for finishing.

Do you have piles of UFOs? At what point do you say "Forget it, I am never going to finish that" or "Gosh, I still really like that fabric/project and want to finish it". Personally, I see nothing wrong with letting something go if it no longer brings you joy. I don't believe in drowning in guilt over wasted time and money. It may have been fun to work on those 600 half square triangles when you were making them, but now you have lost that loving feeling. Let it go. It's ok.

What do you think? What is your UFO situation?

 

From the Vaults

Here is a UFO from the vaults for sure. This is my Red Pineapple Quilt, begun in 2012. Seriously. Every year I drag out the project box and re-visit these blocks and make one or two more. As you see, I have enough blocks to make a decent sized quilt. As shown the top would be about 60" square when the blocks were sewn together.  However, I have enough fabric cut out to make it bigger.

So, what do you think? Shall I keep going? I really want to finish this and after eight years, I think I really need to do that. I am going to try for a 6 x 6 setting, which means I need to make 12 more blocks. If I have enough fabric, that is the plan. I am pretty sure I can make at least a 5 x 6 setting.

I found out this weekend, that, as recommended, making three or more blocks at a time is the way to go.  Not this fooling around making one block or two every year or so. It turns out the block size is more consistent when you make several at a time and trim each round as you complete them.

I have an ancient ruler, made by Possibilities, that is working ok. That is what I started this project with, and it doesn't seem feasible to switch tools now. In the past I have used a Creative Grids Pineapple ruler for another Pineapple project and preferred it to the Possibilities ruler.  But Creative Grids doesn't make a Pineapple Block trim tool in the 12 inch size that I need for this quilt. If I ever make a Pineapple Quilt again (which is doubtful at this point) I will paper piece it. My blocks look good enough, but if you want perfection, I think the only way to get it is to paper piece.

So that's my update for a UFO that has been on the TO FINISH list for a long time.  Time to get it done, don't you think?

 

Dig Out Those UFOs

Under the current state of madness we find ourselves in, we all need to find at-home activities with which to occupy ourselves.  Our governor has stated that all of us over the age of 60 really need to self isolate at home and only go out for essential reasons.  As long as my grocery store stays open I think we will be fine.  Eva's school emailed everyone this weekend that they will be closed through April 14.  Caring for her and keeping her occupied will take up some of my time, and I plan to fill the rest with reading and sewing.

This weekend I decided it was high time to dig out some UFO projects and get them done.  This is the ideal situation to accomplish that mission.  Do you all remember a couple of summers ago I participated in a summer sew along sponsored by Primitive Gatherings called Star-Studded Event?  Each week we received a packet of scraps and were to make twenty blocks a week for twelve weeks over the summer.  240 blocks.

I got sidelined after week 7 after making 140 blocks.  The blocks are so interesting and after making a few dozen of them, that
2 1/2" center star gets a lot easier.

  The blocks are 6 1/2" square and I will end up with 240 of them.  This is going to be a big quilt.  

Half the blocks are made with dark strips.

And the other half with light strips.

This is what the finished quilt will look like.  This is a photo of the Primitive Gatherings quilt from Pinterest.  As you see, by the way the blocks are laid out, there will be no seam matching, so construction should be fast and easy. 

Now that I have dragged out the project box and gotten going again with my block sewing, I am pretty excited to get this finished.

So, how about you?  You must have a UFO or two you might pull out and work on, right?

Dazed and Confused

Oh boy.  This quilt has been a process I tell you.  I started it one, maybe two years ago and it has had me scratching my head from the get go.  The instructions are fine.  It is just me being super confused about the diagonal layout and frustrated by my choices of fabrics.  It is supposed to be a scrappy quilt, but man, trying not to have the same prints or colors next to each other has been making me absolutely twitchy.

The pattern is gorgeous, and the instructions are pretty clear.  It is a Miss Rosie pattern called "Into the Wind", and when she was producing them herself there was admittedly more text and explanation, which I kind of miss.  However, the instructions are all there and just needed a smarter person than me to decipher them.  I took it step by step and still had a number of hiccups along the way.  I just could not seem to wrap my head around the layout.  There are also some partial blocks around the border that threw me for a loop for some reason as well.  And all those prints...well, I really tried not to get the same ones right next to each other, but it was hard.

I also ran out of light background prints and had to order more.  I packed the project away for months and months and when I dragged it out again it was like re-inventing the wheel to get back up to speed as to what I needed to do next.  Ugh.  The fabric is Larkspur by 3 Sisters by the way.  It is a kind of random assortment of pink, red, aqua and gold.  The effect from a distance is interesting, up close, I am not so sure.

i am in the final stages of sewing the rows together and will be thrilled to get this off my design wall!