Quilts on Moonrise Lane

You all know full well that I am still making 9-patch blocks with my 1.5-inch scraps. I estimated in the last post that I thought I could get at least 100 more out of the remaining bits. And I am halfway there. Since that post, I've made roughly 50 more blocks, and it looks like I will exceed my earlier estimate. I still have a lot of pieces left, so I will likely get more than the 100 I figured on.

In an attempt to keep some semblance of regular posting, I thought you might be interested in seeing the quilts that are staying here in Florida with us. We have two bedrooms each decked out with quilts, of course. 

In the master bedroom, I have the only true king-sized quilt I've made all the way to completion. It's a Thimbleberries pattern called Snowflakes, as I recall. I call my version Snowflakes at Dusk because of the gray tones used in the background fabrics. I know snowflakes don't really belong here in Florida, but the quilt is pretty, regardless of it's wintry name. 

An interesting additional note on Snowflakes at Dusk: it is the first one I pieced upon my retirement in 2009. I had no idea then that I would ever become a snowbird.

In the guest room, I have the more recently made Spring Dreams. Sharon and I did a sew-along in 2022 using this pattern. It is fitting, then, that the first guest we will have here in the Moonrise guest room is Sharon! Yes, a scheduled visit here this month had to be rearranged for next month. 

Don't you love how well the newly painted night stand matches the fabrics used in Spring Dreams? It was a total accident, but how nice to have it look as if it were planned. Sometimes plain dumb luck wins out.

I do have one additional quilt that resides here. It generally resides across the foot of our bed. I will retrieve a pic from the way-back files to show which one. We have some pretty cool nights here, so an extra layer of quilt is necessary.

Dreamy Stars is a quilt I made and quilted in May of 2020. Yes, you read that right - made AND quilted all in the same month. A first. I'd long wanted to use these two soft-colored fabrics together, and Ohio Stars are always a fave. Win-Win! 

I've intimated that all I've sewn are the 9-patches, but I have also made some home decor items. I will share all the details next time.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Spring Dreams Sew Along - Grand Finale!

 

I am away again on another quickie vacation, and very nearly forgot to put up this post! Forgive me, please!  But hey ~~~~~

We did it! We spent the entire spring season playing 'together' as we made our Spring Dreams quilts. I have used up so much stash fabric through this effort, and for one quilt, bought some new! The pattern is one that I would consider making again and again, especially if I needed a quilt in a hurry. 

Today, we present our Spring Dreams Parade of quilts. Grab the cup of coffee or tea (or, at this late hour, perhaps something a little stronger!) and have a scroll through our individual interpretations of Spring Dreams.

Frienzie Pam made her quilt early on from fabrics she acquired after the passing of her husband's aunt. She was limited by her background fabrics, so her 3x3 mini-quilt was enlarged by adding borders. Now it fits a card table perfectly.

This whispery sweet bit of goodness is Parisian Dreams from Sharon, using a 3 Sisters line called Paris Flea Market.
 

Sharon has a dreamy-soft Blue Dreams using fabric from her stash by 3 Sisters. Sharon used a unique method for extending her fabric options when making this version. She was running low on 'light' fabrics, so she flipped a few blocks - in other words, the back or wrong side of the fabric is facing out.

 

Dee's is different in a couple ways. First, she opted for the 9-patches with 5 darks/4 lights. Another difference is the light used as sashing. This pattern is so versatile! I don't know if Dee has given her version a name, but I see ribbons of color when I glance at this, so maybe Ribbon Dreams will work for now.

My original Spring Dreams is quilted and bound! The fabrics are all from the stash, including the backing.

Next, I made Scrappy Dreams, a 3x3 quilt like Pam's above. However, I chose to forego borders. It makes a nice little quilt. It, too, is quilted and bound. 

 

LuLu Lane Dreams came about after a trip to my LQS (local quilt shop) which inspired me to check out my Coriander Quilts fabric stash. Along with a good amount of remnants, I discovered a jelly roll I'd forgotten about! 

I really went deep-stash diving for Patriotic Dreams. Most of these fabrics came from my grandmother's treasure boxes of quilt goodies. This is a tablecloth-sized quilt and will be perfect for summer picnics.
 

Sanctuary Dreams is the only one I made with newly-purchased fabrics, which I bought while at retreat in April. 

Pioneer Dreams, my latest effort, is made from an older layer cake by Pam Buda and stash yardage by Thimbleberries (dark sashing) and Johanna Wilson/Plumcreek Patchwork (neutral). I knew that using my background for the cornerstones would result in diagonal white chains across the quilt, and I am not mad about this at all. In fact, I like the look.

Thanks for playing along, everyone! It has been both a fun sew along, and a productive one. It forced me to think outside the box for a few of these, and I definitely have made a dent in my stash, which is always a good thing.

Before completely closing the book on the sew along, I must be sure to give one final shout-out to my cyber friend, Helen Philipps, whose picture so many months ago inspired us to make our quilts. You can find Helen here at her IG account, or here at her blog. I promise you will love looking at all her lovely, whimsical and pleasingly simple designs. 

So, this vacation has taken us to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the eastern Pennsylvania farmlands around Lancaster County. The car is pointed toward home now, and I should be back to more regular posting - maybe Tuesday evening, but more likely, Wednesday morning.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sew Along Update - Week 16

 

We find ourselves entering the final week of the sew along, and I wonder how everyone has enjoyed making this quilt? 

Its ease of construction cannot be beat, quite honestly. The 2.5-inch block and strip are just the easiest sizes with which to work, and the resulting design is as fresh and clean as can be. If one were trying to teach a beginning-level seamstress to quilt, this would be a most appropriate pattern to use. A newbie to quilt-making would learn simple block construction, seam nesting, pressing options, matching intersections, and color placement. And a big quilt would provide plenty of repetition for honing those skills.

Today I have a partially finished quilt top to share. If you recall, I was working on Pioneer Dreams - the same pattern as our Spring Dreams, but done with reproduction fabrics. I was curious as to how the pattern translates to other "looks." 

I had enough blocks for a quilt that will be square - 9 rows by 9 rows. My background fabric is a fairly old piece of yardage from my stash. It paired well with the Pam Buda layer cake of one of her older lines called On Maple Lake.

In an earlier post, I explained how I prefer to sew smaller sections of a quilt top together and then wrestle just once or twice with the big bulk of the entire top. I currently have all my rows and sashing strips ready to connect; a few, in fact, are already connected. Shown above is a section of two block rows and three sashing rows sewn together for a unit. 

 

Today's work will involve putting all the rest together. I have everything hanging over a bar of the long arm in the order they will go together. It should be a very straightforward effort today to put them all together.

The final installment of the Sew Along will be next Monday! The Grand Finale! I will have a special guest this week, which will be a surprise for our finale. In that final post, I am planning a Spring Dreams Parade, so if you want your quilt to be included, please shoot me a photo and you can march along with us!

Have a great week, dear readers!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

 

Sew Along Update - Week 15

 

Perhaps you have forgotten that we three friends doing this sew along are retired English teachers. Dee and Sharon and I met as brand-spanking-new teachers at CHS back in 1979-80. Even though we separated professionally in the '90s when Dee and her husband left for jobs in northern Ohio, we three have managed to maintain our friendship across both years and miles.

We are all retired now (Hurrah!), but in true English-teacher fashion we still enjoy some nerdy aspects of the subject we taught. We treated you to a found poem by Dee in this post. A few weeks later, Sharon shared her "sentimental" poem with us in this post. Not to be outdone, today you get my poem - a sonnet, no less, in true iambic pentameter - mostly. 

But first, I am super-pumped to show you my Spring Dreams finish for this past week! This represents a milestone! My first sew along quilt - I've called it my original Spring Dreams - is quilted and bound! Longtime readers here know the rarity of my planning, making, quilting and finishing a project in such a short turn-around time! Quite the development! 

You are about to see three pictures of the finish. Note how different the color looks. I am stymied with what a chameleon this quilt is. No matter where I photograph it, no two pictures show the green sashing true enough to suit me. The picture above is on the front porch, late afternoon light, sheltered from direct sun.

Here she is in our family room, courtesy of DH and his long arms holding it for me. This room always seems somewhat dark.

This bedroom has windows on both sides, diffused by curtains when necessary. Oh well, if you can conjure up some amalgamation of these three pictures, then you know the color. *smile*

Rather than focus on my inability to accurately capture the colors, check out the similarity to Helen Phillips' inspiration quilt. She has been so gracious and such a cheerleader, as we have stitched from her beautiful photo.

Instagram photo from Helen Philipps

 

During our sew along, Helen has published a pattern for her table topper, available on Etsy, and perhaps she includes alternate sizes. We three sew along gals here have made quite a variety of sizes and in a variety of colorways. One is limited only by the amount of fabric being used for the sashing, mostly. All the blocks can be scrappy, as can the cornerstones, if necessary.

This coming week will find me attempting to finish one more quilt top using this design in reproduction fabrics. I have a healthy start, and plan to sew this afternoon.

Now for my sonnet. I do enjoy reading poetry, but as for writing it, let me just say that birthing three babies might have been easier. Geeesh, what effort! I reread poems I once taught; I searched the web for rhymes and synonyms; I gleaned interesting words from radio and audio books. My desk is strewn with scribbled-up drafts - such very messy business it is to pen a poem. *wink*

 Spring Dreams

Come Spring! And bless us with your charms!

Shrug off old winter's long and dreary days.

We long for azure skies, bright sun that warms;

On flowers, buds and blooms we long to gaze.

So gradual doth spring share her wak'ning breath,

As length'ning days do warm the vast expanse,

Yon meadows shimmer, draped green, en-wreathed.

Rejoice when Jacks and jonquils have fair chance!

As garden's cheerful crocuses burst forth

And thrumming bees dance pirouettes aloft,

Whilst songbirds trill and flit with lovers' mirth,

Throaty polliwogs through murm'ring night call soft.

Spring tiptoes timid through the frost and cold,

Crescendos buoyant full in pageant bold.

Until next update, dear readers, have a wonderfully productive week at the sewing machine!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

Slow Sunday Stitching

Major league baseball games are great for binding quilts. So are audio books. And so are Instagram friends. Seems a strange combination of motivators, but I shall explain how all three helped me stitch the binding on Spring Dreams.

I quilted Spring Dreams on Thursday.

 

For some reason, I typically have a hard time maintaining my focus while binding. I will stitch a little while, then pick up the cell phone or go do some other stuff, and have to force myself to finish the stitching. That is why I try to have something else to do while stitching to keep me on task.

I made and applied binding on Friday.

Our baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, had games on Friday night' and Saturday afternoon.  I did LOTS of stitching. It felt good to get so much done while also enjoying the games.

The back is pieced; using from the stash.

 

When the games weren't on, I queued up my current audio book which is due back to the library in 3 days. I needed to finish this book! I still had at least the last third of the book to read. Perfect. I plugged into my earbuds and stitched for a good long time. I have just two chapters to go.

(From Goodreads.com)

And my most unique motivator came from Instagram. I have become good IG friends with a quilter from Texas who makes the prettiest quilts and small inspirational gifts like book marks, cards, and pouches. The way we came to "know" each other is that her name is spelled the same way as mine - Jayne - and we both sew on Bernina machines. While we haven't met face to face, I have come to know her as a sweet, caring lady, and I find her creativeness very inspiring. 

After I posted about binding, she responded that she also had a quilt to bind this weekend, so we decided to have a race to see who could finish first. I rarely feel competitive about anything, but this was just enough of a challenge to keep me on task.

Bound and ready for use!

It is worth noting that rare is the occasion when I plan, make, quilt, and finish a quilt all in the same calendar year. And this one! Why I didn't have an inkling that I would make it as of March! It was the sew along with Sharon and Dee that did it, by gosh. So there's another motivator! Sew alongs definitely get me going and (sometimes) keep me going. Read more about our sew along in tomorrow's post.

I will join up with the weekly Slow Sunday Stitching gals over at Kathy's Quilts. Stop on over to see what everyone has been doing.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

It's Just The Way I'm Wired

Over the past 24 hours - give or take - I have worked on three different quilts, drafted for two different blog posts, and dreamed about scheduling the next half-dozen or so quilts on my to-do list. I know it appears to be utter madness to some, but I truly think I am wired operate in this sort of chaos. Flitting from task to task doesn't seem to impede my productivity. I suppose it could be more efficient to stick to one thing at a time, but what's the fun in that?!

First, I have a quilt to bind. I quilted it on Thursday (click here for details), but I'd not prepared the binding nor trimmed the quilt. That was among my first tasks yesterday. I am currently half done with hand stitching it - two sides done, two to go.

Still pretty much spread out across my sewing space is the reproduction version of Spring Dreams. (Since it's so clumsy typing out 'reproduction version of Spring Dreams' all the time, it's new name is Pioneer Dreams.) I am in the row-sewing phase of the process; it is easier to manage sections rather than the entire top, so I will make three sections that will then go together to form the top.

One section is done (above). Two rows and three sashings as of Friday morning. I sewed together one more sashing and two more rows, and have attached a sashing and a row (below). Next I will add the other row and then make and add another sashing for a second completed section. (Talk about chaos! Did you follow all of that??) Pioneer Dreams will soon be a quilt top!

The third quilt I worked on is a brand new one. I've only referenced it very briefly here - the Frankfort Girls are all making the same quilt, so we are doing it together next week in a 3-day mini-camp at Terry's house. In order to make the most of our camp time, all the cutting is done beforehand. That means pulling fabrics. Let's have a look at what I came up with.

First, note this picture of the quilt we are making. I have my book ordered, so I can only show you a picture of a picture from Becky's book, County Seat Quilts by Julie Hendricksen and Vickie Gerike. Based on that picture, here are my fabrics - all from the stash.

Some of these fabrics are very old - aged to perfection, wouldn't you agree? Some are cut into, others are in-tact fat quarters, other still are remnants of yardage cuts. That dark piece in the mix is gray - even though it looks sorta' blue. I hope it will look gray in the quilt.

Here's another view - I think this will be quite pretty. I am not typically one to make Halloween-themed projects, but this is subtle enough to suit me. I like that each pumpkin has a star in it; that makes it seem more quilty than Halloween-y. *eehh??*

So, welcome to my normal, squirrel-like stitching and planning - that's what's going on over here. *smile*

Hope you are having a super Saturday! It is absolutely gorgeous here today!

Happy Quilting, Friends!