Sew-Along Blocks

Sheryll announced our block for this month when we Frankfort Girls last met. Friendship Star. Today I took the opportunity to make mine -- two in the main colorway and one in the 30s prints.

I debated on making the center red, but opted against it. I had no particular reason, and now that I see it with the other blocks, I think it is just perfect
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All the blocks stretched out on the guest bed. This is going to be a really gorgeous quilt. I am already eager to know what the block for next month will be.

Look at how simple that block is and it goes to show that a block does not have to be complicated to be pretty. Making 3 of these took me practically no time at all.

Yes, I have a third one - the 30s quilt I am making with the same set of blocks. One each for this one, as opposed to two in the red and cream. I am leaning toward piecing setting blocks for this one in a stepping stone pattern.

My intention when we started this sew along was to make a trial block. As it turned out so pretty, I have continued making trial blocks each month, and when we get to November for out final block, I will have enough to make a quilt. I may have to make a couple extra, but these have been so simple, I don't see that as being a problem. Add in the stepping stone setting blocks and Presto! A 30s quilt!

Happy Friday, Peeps! One week of coronavirus quarantining down! We are adjusting!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Bonus Quilt On the Horizon

A few days ago, I wrote about saving the cut away triangles from the Snowball blocks I am making with the intent of using them in some future, as yet-to-be-determined quilt. Today, I can report that I have a plan.

Friendship Star blocks have always appealed to me - actually, I love most star blocks - and these little 4.5" cuties will look wonderful in a quilt! I will stitch them with wild abandon, not concerning myself with matching blues, and go for a totally scrappy blue bonus quilt.

Just imagine what 105 little blue stars with neutral alternate blocks will look like. Enchanting! Why 105? Because that is how many Snowball blocks I will need for Snow Shoo, my current project.

This bonus quilt is gonna be so worth the extra time spent sewing now for the rewards I will reap later. Good philosophy!

Linking today with Needle and Thread Thursday.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Wreath Follow-Up

My last post explained most of the surface details about making the Frienzies Wreaths. Today, I will delve in a little deeper and provide more of the construction process.

First, one remaining tidbit that should have been included in the previous post. This stars used to form this wreath are known as Friendship Stars. This is an obvious reason why I chose to make these wreaths for my friends. Why did it never occur to me to include that essential detail in the first post? I will plead sleepiness. I wrote the post late the night before and scheduled it for early the next morning. Not firing on all cylinders after a late night of Christmastime festivities with the Frienzies, I suppose.

Back  in the middle of November I posted my first mention of these wreaths; it is a veiled hint at what I planned to do because several Frienzies are regular readers. I couldn't spoil my surprise by revealing too much. Here is the post I am referring to. I used Thangles to make the Shoo-Fly block at our Veterans' Day sewing at Sherrie's. When I got home, I made the first set of stars for the wreaths.

The instructions from the website indicated that I needed 3" stars, so I used the package for 3" stars. Well, that wasn't right. I should have used the 2.5" package, as I needed to make the distinction between finished and unfinished. Consequently, I had a lot of trimming to do.

That's a lot of fabric to be throwing away, doggone it! At least I didn't make the first set too small. No way to fix that; look on the bright side, right?

My first set of stars, trimmed to the correct size. Whew. It was at this point I realized how big this project was going to be. I needed 8 different sets of red stars, one for each Frienzie. I really had to get myself in gear, let me tell you.

I began cranking out HSTs like a madwoman - the nice part was I didn't have to worry about stretching those triangles because the Thangles kept everything pretty well in check. Above are piles for making two more sets of stars. I needed 8 stars out of each fabric. There would be 8 wreaths total, and each star has 4 HSTs. (That's a lot of math for this English teacher!) I was getting a bit panicked when the enormity of this endeavor gradually hit me. What made it even more daunting was that I only had a month to get them all done.

 Above is one star laid out. When I had all the parts made, I placed all the stars of the same fabric in a stack and built the wreath block accordingly. It was at this point that I was figuring out how to most expeditiously construct these blocks. In the interest of time management, my desire was to do as much assembly line sewing as possible.

In the photo above the 3 top rows are sewn together.  When they are attached, they become the top one-third of the block. The bottom third is exactly like this, just turned upside down. Take a look:

The center third was easy because of the 8" plain square in the middle.

We sew because we love doing it, but it's hard to keep that in mind when a deadline is fast approaching. I tried really hard to make myself enjoy the process of constructing these, especially because they were for my dearest friends. I played lots of Christmas music while I stitched, and kept my heart focused on the giving, not on the deadline. (I believe this is called mind over matter.)

When I finally got to the quilting part of the process, I used two of my very ancient Thimbleberries fabrics for backing and machine quilted around each of the 8 stars. I also quilted a star in the center block.

At some point in the quilting of all these table toppers/wall hangings, I had to search for more black thread. I found the spool pictured above in my grandmother's sewing kit. At 15 cents a spool, I wonder how old it is? It had never been used; the paper hasn't been poked on a spindle, and the end of the thread was still tucked under the label.

I mentioned in the last post that there were some boo-boos, and that the most egregious of these were on the very first one I quilted; that's the one I kept for myself which currently adorns my counter top. And it looks mighty fine. *smile*

Happy Quilting, Friends!

  

A Week of Satisfying Sewing

Gosh, this past week has been just chock full of sewing fun. I have taken so many pictures of beautiful quilts, delicious food and wonderful friends. Most of the quilt pictures have been posted, but in recapping the week I have found that I've left a few things out. Today's post will be a catch-all post of the fun of the past week.

On Tuesday a group of us sewed at Terry's. Click here to read about the fun project Sheryll and Jan worked on. I finished the t-shirt quilt and left it for Terry to quilt. Here are a couple of additional details that I didn't already share.

Terry has 3 sweet dogs that make themselves right comfortable when all the quilters come. They are the most precious pups.

Terry began the day trying to finish these colorful zipper bags, but gave it up around noon. I think those zippers got the best of her. She worked on a different project in the afternoon and made better progress - but I have no pictures to show, unfortunately.

Wednesday found me at Sherrie's for the annual Veterans' Day sewing and socializing. This year seemed to be more about socializing than sewing, but that's all good. The food is always fantastic. Here are some of the goodies we enjoyed.

It's a potluck affair, and we always have more than we need. From the top:bacon-chocolate appetizers; potato soup and fixings; cranberry breakfast bars; broccoli quiche; salad with pears, apples, cranberries, cashews, swiss cheese, romaine lettuce and poppy-seed dressing; pumpkin bars.

Hettie and her daughter came with the new baby, Joel. He found himself surrounded by adoring Frienzies. Lyn is entertaining him in this picture - or is it the other way around??

Hettie also had this sweet quilt to show us. It is not, as you might think, for her grandson; it is for a baby shower coming up soon.

For my own sewing that day, I took my first foray into using Thangles, a brand of triangle papers. It was something I'd wanted to do for quite a long time.

And from that first Thangles effort, I made this Monkey Wrench block.

After careful consideration, I decided that I wanted more complexity, so I altered the construction a bit and made several Churn Dash blocks which you can read about by clicking here. After leaving Sherrie's, I made more blocks, stopping at 9. You can see my little table topper/wall hanging here.

In the meantime, I have made several more HSTs using the 3" size of Thangles. I saw a picture on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. Click here to see it. It is called Friendship Star Wreath, so I thought it would look pretty in Christmas colors. Stay tuned for more on that.

And I'm not done yet! Also on Pinterest, I saw the cutest little clutch bag, and it looked so simple. I could hardly wait to get to the sewing machine to give it a try. And so I did. Take a look.

This was as easy as advertised. It took me about an hour to make, and that includes the time it took me to select the fabrics. I have since made 2 more, and I daresay that a few of the females on my gift-giving list will have something like this under the Christmas tree.

Finally, I have been able to sit at my quilt frame quite a lot these past few days. With all the NCAA football games yesterday, and the Cleveland Cavaliers last night, I have achieved sore-finger status. It feels so good to glance over at the quilt and see the little stitch indentations in the shadows of the bay window.

And that wraps up a full and fun week of stitching. No UFOs breathing down my neck, and new stuff to play around with. Quite satisfying. I will go back to some of those UFOs still to be finished, but it has been nice to have a week in which I could experiment and play. Very, very satisfying.

Have a great Sunday!
Happy Quilting, Friends!