Finishing a Small UFO

Instagram has many benefits for crafters of all sorts, and quilters especially make excellent use of the program. I recently had a comment from someone who'd seen a picture I posted clear back on December 22, 2018, of a table topper I'd made. Icopied a design that I'd seen Frankfort Girls' group member Sheryll share at one of our get togethers. The fantastic simplicity and striking beauty really motivated me to make one myself. So I did! Check this post to see the flimsy. You'll have to scroll to the very end. Below is Sheryll's topper.

My version has fewer borders and has wider borders. I like them both ways. Mine was certainly faster, but Sheryll's has more space for stitch-in-the-ditch quilting. It's all a matter of choice, I suppose. The photo below shows my quilting stitches in the ditch.

I worked on this last evening, and thought I would just do the quilting, yet it went so fast I decided to find some suitable binding fabric and finish it all off. The topper measures 21" so really, a finish was easily accomplished.

It was late, so I did not remove my blue table cloth, but here is my little finish in the center of the kitchen table. I am glad I was prompted to pull this out and finish it. I have dozens of these small creations stacked up in the sewing room. It really needs to be a goal for me to finish some more.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Finished Pseudo-Toile

Finally, I finished the pseudo-toile quilt. I had the borders to finish and then I got this awful sinus infection. That threw me for a loop, but I'm feeling better, and I got the borders on this morning.

The inner border was easy - no trouble. The outer border required the attachment of the corner squares and then normal procedures. I've done these corner squares before, but doing them with a sinus infection required too much brain energy. (Yeah, I know that sounds pathetic.)

Here is one corner. It all went together quite easily, so I really had no need to feel like it was going to be difficult.

And here she is, all done up on the guest bed. Looks pretty darn good, and I am glad I made it. This quilt was not on my goals list for the year, but that's okay. We need to have leeway, right??

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Pseudo-Toile Quilt

I have dubbed this quilt as pseudo-toile because in the place where the pattern calls for tiole, I am using a non-toile-but-sorta-kinda-could-resemble-toile-if-you-squinted print.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Here are the blocks laid out on the guest bed. Since doing this, I have about half of it sewn into strips now.

And a close-up. Gotta' see it close, you know! You can check out what I mean about the "pseudo-toile," too.

It is going together nicely, although if I'd trim up a bit, it would be even better. So on what remains, I will probably go ahead and trim, just to make for fewer aggravations.

Tomorrow is a big day!! The annual 30% off sale at Mrs. Miller's in Charm, OH, in the heart of Amish Country!! I will be going with a group of 3 other quilter friends. We start out early - I will be leaving my house at 6:45am! I have a shopping list, so I don't intend to get too frivolous with my fabric purchases.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

My Current Project

This latest project is one I began on a whim. It is not listed on the 2013 goals as I didn't discover the fabric in my stash until well after I made the goals list. But, I did want to leave room for spontaneity, and this is definitely spontaneous!

I have had the pattern marked in this book for a long, long time. I have looked in fabric stores for just the right blue toile on an off-white background, and have never found one that satisfied me. Well, while digging around in my blue stash, I came across a 3-yard piece of fabric that met the color requirements, but it is not toile. I decided to go with it anyway. A quilter is permitted to take liberties with a pattern, right? It doesn't have to look exactly like the picture - deviate, if you must! I certainly do, and read lots of blogs from others who do this, too.

Anyway, this is the book, in case you wondered, and here is the fabric I found in the stash. Add in some random print 9-patches, and, ladies and gentleman, I will soon have a quilt!

While at Terry's on Thursday, I got real busy on making 9-patches. That is always fun. They go together so fast, and you really feel as though you've accomplished something when there's a big ol' pile of 9-patches by the sewing machine!

Then I began with the triangles.

Easy stuff.
Fast stuff.
Fun stuff.
Satisfying stuff.

That about covers it, right? *grin*

I was still plugging away at it on Sunday evening, and got all my pseudo-toile blocks done.

Allow me to insert a bit of a sidebar here. I was whacking away when cutting these blocks and triangles, not doublechecking measurements like I should. I discovered (too late) that the light block is to be cut at 6.5 inches, and I had cut them all at 6 inches. DRAT!! I stewed about that for awhile, and decided that I would try to make it work. And I did. A new quilter might not want to try doing this, but I figured with my years of sewing and quilting, I could figure out how this will be okay. I adjusted the stitch size down a bit, and was careful to sew each seam the same way. I think I will be fine when it comes time to stitch the whole thing together.

What would you have done? I couldn't see wasting the fabric, and I didn't want to find an alternate fabric. Make do, isn't that what our ancestors would advise??

Okay, so back to the construction of the quilt. I put 4 blocks together on the ironing board to see the effect, and I am so pleased. It is going to look wonderful, if I do say so myself!

I had several random leftover 2.5-inch squares, so I piddled around with them and made a 16-patch block. Who knows when and how this will come in handy, but I bet someday it will!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Just Regular Stuff

Nothing too impressive coming out of the sewing room lately. At least from my end of things. Sharon has something VERY impressive hot off her sewing machine.

We sewed here on Monday and her goal was to make a star. Sounds easy enough, but when you see the complexity of THE star, you will see how it could become a one-day goal.

To review, she is using her Roman Holiday fabric in a kit she bought for the Miss Rosie Quilt Co. pattern called Three Coins. Here is the pattern.

 

 

And it is also in this book, Spice of Life Quilts. Be careful, though, the direction differ, as do the yardage amounts. Haven't quite figured out why that would be.

Anyway, here is the star, all 45 pieces of it. Isn't it a beauty? It would have to be to make it worth dealing with 45 pieces!

Sharon doubled her expectations by getting two of the stars completed. It was not without some gnashing of teeth and reaching for the seam ripper, either. There were some snafus along the way. But the finished product looks fantastic, and making 14 more of these beauties will be smooth sailing. (Always think positive!)

The "regular stuff" was from my end of the sewing room. I machine quilted another baby quilt. I had been putting it off until I got my own machine back from repair. I am such a novice at machine quilting, I didn't want to increase my wariness by using a machine that was new to me!

I now have added the binding and will be hand-stitching it down this week - probably later today.

There was some fun, too. The most enjoyable part of the quilting process - for me, anyway - is coming up with fabric for a new quilt. I happened up on a nice off-white and blue piece in my stash and my brain went immediately to a quilt I'd been longing to make for ages. Here, take a look.

The fabric on top was my "inspiration" and the two under will be what the pattern calls "navy" and "light blue."

And here is said pattern, called Toile; I am using a "close, but not quite" fabric instead of true toile.

 

It is from this book, an oldie but a goodie, called Quilt-Lovers Favorites, vol. 3. I have lots of sticky notes plastered into this book along with 3 other volumes on my shelf. I am excited to come up with these stash pieces for this quilt.

 

It is not on my 2013 goals list, but it will likely be added. I reallly want to make it, and it looks so easy: plain toile block, hourglass block, 9-patch block. How simple!! And setting triangles, but I am getting pretty good at those anymore, so that doesn't intimidate me at all.

 

Well, off to work on some binding.

 

Happy Quilting, Friends!