Quilted Jonquil

It’s Design Wall Monday and the theme of this post, by pure coincidence, is Red, White & Blue.  I cut the fabrics for my First Saturday blocks and a couple Civil War blocks.  For this civil war block, I used one of the fabrics I received from Vicki…..as soon as I saw the blue fabric with stars, I knew it was perfect for the flag block!

My design wall has more red string blocks.  All of the blocks are sewn but I didn’t trim the rest of them because Bonnie pointed out on her blog that it was double work to trim them square them up, cut them in half and then trim the triangles again, duh   I’ll work on getting the triangles cut later. 

On Saturday we went to the parade in downtown St Louis to honor the Iraq veterans home. 

Stash Report:

• Fabric in:  2.5 yards (a couple of shirts from my husband’s closet cut up and in the stash)
  
• Fabric out: 0 yards
  
• YTD Fabric in: 18 yards
  
• YTD Fabric out: 7 yards
  
• Net Fabric In/(Out): 11 yards
  

Happy Quilting, Cherie 

It’s Monday and time for Design Wall Monday   I finished some of those red string blocks I’ve been sewing for who knows what

Check out Judy’s DWM post here.  I’ve also gotten out the Topsy Turvy Nine Patch from forever ago (started at the Oct 3, 2009 workshop).  All it needs are the borders added….and they are pieced already!  I’m not sure they are pieced correctly because they don’t seem to fit any of the sides.  I need to re-read the directions and see what’s up.  It would be nice to finish this one up finally!

Stash Report:

• Fabric in:  1.5 yards (a couple more Goodwill items cut up and in the stash)
  
• Fabric out: 0 yards
  
• YTD Fabric in: 15.5 yards
  
• YTD Fabric out: 7 yards
  
• Net Fabric In/(Out): 8.5 yards
  

Happy Quilting, Cherie  

It’s Design Wall Monday time and Judy’s DWM post has lots of links you can check out.  Here’s my wall……yep same as last week but only because there isn’t room to show all that I’ve done!

I’ve been busy this week and it’s not due to Thanksgiving preparation as we are going out of town   I completed sewing together all of the Prickly Pear and string blocks for Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll…..did you catch that…..all 30 Prickly Pear, all 20 string blocks and all setting string blocks are finished!! 

Not only that, but I’ve gotten all the pieced border units pieced and ready to iron.  After that, I’m ready to start sewing everything together, woo hoo!

This weekend I went to Scrap Club and Sarah completed her Exploding Star quilt.  Now the Exploding Star is one of Teajuana Mahone’s patterns and Sarah began her’s before the pattern was even available.  Sarah wanted her’s to be a true charm quilt (same shaped pieces, each piece from a different fabric) so she made the light/dark squares out of half square triangles so the entire quilt is completely made of triangles!!  After starting, the project languished for several years (6 maybe??) as Sarah didn’t have enough different light fabrics to keep going.  After telling this story a bunch of us brought in light squares for her to use and now it’s finished.  It was such fun looking to see if we could find any of the fabric we gave her.

Yesterday was rainy and cool and when you’ve set aside your doll sized work-in-process and it looks like this:

This is what happens:

Cats just love quilts, even small ones not hardly big enough for them

I also got the alternate First Saturday block for November finished.

And snagged a couple of nice shirts for re-purposing from the Goodwill. 

Lots of things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and quilting and quilting friends are high on the list.

Stash Report – No Change from previous (I haven’t washed and cut up those shirts yet, so they don’t count )

• Fabric out: 0 yards
  
• YTD Fabric in: 165 yards
  
• YTD Fabric out: 86 yards
  
• Net Fabric In/(Out): 79 yards accumulated 

Happy Thanksgiving, Cherie

Another late, late design wall Monday posting for me   Be sure to check out Judy’s DWM post to see all the links.

I’ve gotten 27 of the 30 prickly pear blocks completed and about half of the string blocks under construction.  I can’t wait to get this top together……it will feel like such an accomplishment!

I also finished the applique on Barbara Brackman’s civil war block 40, Order Number Eleven.

I’ve been hand quilting a small project during my train commute and it’s getting a bit easier, but not much faster

Stash Report:

• Fabric in:  6  yards (Backing for a First Saturday top and some fabric on sale, both purchased with a gift certificate from the thoughtful people who work for me.  I HAD to use it, right?)

• Fabric out: 0 yards
  
• YTD Fabric in: 165 yards
  
• YTD Fabric out: 86 yards
  
• Net Fabric In/(Out): 79 yards accumulated 

Happy Quilting, Cherie

Due to computer issues, I’m quite late with my design wall post.  On the bright side, probably everyone else has linked up to Judy’s DWM post so check it out here.  Lot’s going on on the design wall…..civil war BOW, First Sat blocks and Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll (RRCB) blocks.

I got the main Nov first Sat block finished and the alternate block in progress.

My upstairs sewing spot is busy with RRCB units as the parts are finally coming together

Stash Report:

• Fabric in:  1  yard (Fabric from Italy that Lily brought me & I missed on my previous reports)
  
• Fabric out: 0 yards
  
• YTD Fabric in: 159 yards
  
• YTD Fabric out: 86 yards
  
• Net Fabric In/(Out): 73 yards accumulated 

Happy Quilting, Cherie

I had a great time at the Shipshewana Threads of Mine quilt retreat.  There were somewhere around 56 quilters but I’m not sure we were ever all in the room at the same time.

I sewed on Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll……I learned that squaring up my HST was well worth the effort because the block units are fitting together just about perfectly.  Here are 600 HST ready to be sewed together 5 at a time.

And sewn together with my leader/ender project sitting in front.

Then I started sewing the units into bigger units…..and here they are back at home waiting to be sewn up into completed blocks.

Like this one

I did a little stash enhancement shopping while there but I also de-stashed a bit too

And that brings me to the design wall for this Halloween Monday:

Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll is going to be finished, completely finished by next year’s retreat because I’m going to show that I didn’t waste the whole retreat sewing and sewing for nothing (even though all I had to show for it was bigger block units than when I started, lol).  I may never do another Bonnie Hunter quilt again

Stash Report:

• Fabric in:  8.5  yard (Shipshewana purchases )
  
• Fabric out: 4.5 yards (Shared at Shipshewana)
  
• YTD Fabric in: 158 yards
  
• YTD Fabric out: 86 yards
  
• Net Fabric In/(Out): 72 yards accumulated – just wait until I get the RRCB top together, that will bring down the total!

Happy Quilting, Cherie

I received a wonderful gift.  It’s hand made, selected just for me and took a lot of time to complete.  A.  LOT.  OF.  TIME.  Which means I must be very special   So what do you think of it?  Isn’t it wonderful?  My DSD (dear step daughter for the uninitiated) made this as a birthday/Mother’s day present.  Thank you so much….it means so much to me.

So where might I hang this?  Well, I spend a lot of time in my office at work, so what better place for something that was made especially for me and makes me smile when I see it?  (And don’t even comment about my messy desk )

And here’s the other gift – the last of the 600 half square triangles for Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll waiting to be trimmed.  Woo hoo a great gift to myself

Darlene & I had a wonderful trip to Paducah and, despite the venue changes caused because the flood walls were installed, we managed to see everything twice.

We stayed in the home of the same wonderful host (hi Nancy) we had last year which happened to be quite close to the church where the small wall quilts were displayed.  Nice because this year Darlene’s quilt was accepted into the show and was hanging at the church.

While her quilt wasn’t an award winner, it more than held it’s own and was deserving of hanging in the show…..it looks terrific!  We went to lasagna night with our traveling companion from last year (hello Dar) and her friend and had a great time!   We saw Quilt Man again this year.

New this year is his sidekick, Bobbin.  Get it, Quilt Man and Bobbin

As we do every year, we helped the quilting economy:

I picked up Bonnie Hunter’s newest book, some scrap bags of Cherrywood and hand dyed fabrics (these are great for scrap quilting), some Thermore batting to try using for embroidery like Wanetha Ebker uses, some thread, needles and basting glue for applique.  I also snagged a couple of $2 t-shirts from prior shows as well as this year’s shirt.  And a couple of bags, oh, and a bit of fabric   Okay, maybe a little more than a bit, including fabric for 4 backings, three of which are flannel, and some Moda Bella cheddar, Kona orange, chocolate, ash and ivory……woo hoo!!

Not only that, but I got block #17 of Barbara Brackman’s civil war quilt BOW finished!

Happy Quilting, Cherie

Here’s what’s on my design wall this April morning.  Click over to Judy’s DWM post for more quilty goodness.

The big news of the week is  —-  I completed the Animal Quilt, binding, label and all!!

Here’s the April First Saturday blocks.

I free pieced this yellow circle which was such fun!

The yellow circle will be quilted and wrapped around a CD to make the rosette of a yellow award ribbon for the Quintessential Quilt 2011 show.  Our guild directs this judged and juried show that hangs in the University City Public Library for the whole month of October.   For the first time last year we made the award ribbons and they were a big hit.  Directions for making these ribbons can be found here.

I’ve continued making half square triangles as my leader/enders for the RRCB quilt…..and I have 380 sewn & trimmed and a total of 425 sewn.  Woo hoo…..only 175 more to go.

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Stash Report:

• Fabric in:  0 yards, yep nothing new
  
• Fabric out: 0 yards
  
• YTD Fabric in: 27 yards
  
• YTD Fabric out: 16 yards
  
• Net Fabric In/(Out): 11 yards accumulated - the same as last report

It’s definitely not spring like weather in St Louis today.  My cat, Casper agrees, staying curled up on the warm bed this morning.  The quilt Casper is on was made by my mom.  We took a class together when she was visiting St Louis and now I have the quilt she made

I’ve continued making blue/green three patches and, as soon as I cross cut these sewn strip sets, I’ll have the required 414.   Then I’ll start sewing them into nine patches as I want to get the zigzag top together so I’ll be able to show it at the April scrap club meeting.  I’ve also continued leader/ender sewing the red/neutral half square triangles.  I don’t have a current count but it is more than 350 so I’m getting closer to 600 every day.