Another Larkspur Quilt

 I don't suppose y'all are getting tired of seeing quilt tops made with Larkspur fabric? I finished up my second one on Thursday while Sharon was here for sewing.

Both Sharon and I had rather hefty collections of Larkspur by 3Sisters/Moda. We determined back in May to make quilts using this luscious fabric. We did that and we both still had a significant amount of remaining fabric, so each of us has now made a second quilt top.

Click back here to see my first quilt, Larkspur Stars, as well as Sharon's two quilts, Larkspur Lane and Lark Meadow. And now I have finished my second one - Yay!!

My latest is just plain Larkspur 9-Patch - not very original, but I know what I am talking about when I refer to it, at least.

My Larkspur Stars required random 3.5-inch squares and 3.5-inch HSTs. Consequently, I had a hefty little stack of each left over. Rather than to let them go to waste, I used the squares with a piece of neutral and made  9-inch 9-patch blocks. I had two light fabrics that I cut for setting blocks. I also had a good amount of coral that I used for setting triangles and corner triangles - I like how the coral serves to border the quilt. 

Believe it or not, I still have Larkspur fabric remaining. I have used the HSTs to make a sweet little quilt that will serve nicely as a table topper. I quilted this little quilt Thursday evening and stitched the binding down Friday morning when the Frankfort Girls met.

This is Sharon O's (a different Sharon!) dining room table. She brought out some of her pretty pottery to accent my little quilt. Below see it at my house on the mantel.

It sure has been fun to sew with this beautiful fabric. I still have some, and a couple of pieces are rather large for having made 2 quilt tops and a table topper. I am not sure what I will do with this remaining bit. 

This next week is the last week of summer for me as I go back to class on the 24th. I feel like I have so much to get done before then. I sure hope there will be some sewing.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

A Sweet Surprise

You may recall that I offered up some assistance to a "quilter in distress" a couple of weeks ago. Click back to read about the situation.

 

The transaction is fully complete; I recently got a sweet note from Lynn which contained one of her rosettes. She said that through her auditioning process, this one didn't "make the cut," as she put it.

 

I am happy to have it, Lynn, and will give it a good home. Since I have made a few rosettes over the years, I thought I would just add yours to my collection. However when I compared them, mine are slightly smaller. So this presents a nice little conundrum - do I use yours as a solo show? Do I find templates to match your size and add to it? This is one of those dilemmas that will need time to marinate.

 

Lynn also emailed a picture of the remnant of the fabric I sent her. She needed quite a few hexies for the rosettes; she has very little remaining. Whew! Close call!

I am off today to sew at friend Terry's house. And tomorrow Sharon will be here. Lots of stitching! Catch up with you later!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sharon's Latest Finish

Sewing with Sharon is proving quite rewarding of late. We try to get together every Thursday, and have become quite regular about it in the past few weeks. Besides just catching up with each other, our productivity increases as we feed off each other, and sewing is just plain more enjoyable with a friend. 

 Earlier in the summer we both worked on our stash of Larkspur fabrics. I made up a pattern and named it Larkspur Stars.

Sharon made a strippy quilt that she named Larkspur Lane.

 

 And now, guess what? We are both still have a good amount of leftover Larkspur fabric. It is an absolute shame to leave it boxed up in a closet or drawer. Sharon got busy right away and began a second Larkspur quilt. 

She had saved back a layer cake of Larkspur. She set aside the cuts of the fabric with the birds to use as setting blocks for this quilt she has named Lark Meadow. It is so simple; so sweet; so striking. And it went together fast. All the best of quilt-making, if you ask me.

Now, I have to do something with my leftover Larkspur, right? My original quilt had a lot of 3.5-inch squares, and I was left with several. Rather than to let those go to waste, I am now in the process of making 9-patches with those. It won't take many of those 9.5-inch blocks to make a quilt, so I am rather amped up to finish them. I have a couple of neutral/light pieces of yardage which will do nicely for setting blocks.

The plan is to show you a finish later this week!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

An August Finish!

 Quilts have stories - did you know? I'm sure you do, if you quilt. We might remember buying the fabric or deciding the pattern, or the book you listened to as you stitched - that sort of thing. 

My most recent finish has a story, and for a little quilt, it might seem like a rather involved story, but that's just how it is sometimes.

This is the Key West quilt, aka Periwinkle. The story of this table topper began in March of 2019 when while on spring break, I bought these fabrics in a little quilt shop on the island. I didn't have a lot of suitcase space, so I limited my purchase to 8 fat quarters - 4 background and 4 different darker prints.

And they have lived happily on the back of my sewing table for well over a year. I wanted to use the cheerful little bundle rather than let it sit forever, but I could not find a pattern that suited me.

Now before I go on much further, I have to remain in Key West for a relevant little side note. Take a look at this picture from the courtyard of our little condo for the week. 

 

The design in the privacy fence reminded me of a quilt; and just like that I determined that these fabrics would be turned into periwinkle blocks. So earlier when I said I spent over a year looking for a pattern, to be more clear - I was looking for a suitable periwinkle pattern. Using the fabric was never far from my mind, as I considered a lot of various options and construction methods. When I saw this pattern in this book, I knew that was something I could work with. I purchased the book in March.

 

This spring we decided to take a road trip out to Oregon. Coronavirus had us postponing it for a few weeks, but we finally decided to go near the end of June. We would be driving for the better part of 12-14 days; I needed a project for all that car time. I would go absolutely stir crazy if I didn't have something to work on while a passenger on a trip this long. This urgency sent me to the sewing room to cut all the parts for the KW quilt. I knew I could hand stitch the blocks while we traveled - I would be making a vacation quilt while on a different vacation! (What a novelty.) The Key West quilt now encompasses our western US road trip. 

I wrote a little bit about my road trip stitching in this post, and I have continued to make the remaining blocks here at home. I had to find my scraps to cut a few more background pieces in order to come up with the 25 blocks I needed for the table topper.

From this point on, I credit Sharon for motivating me to finish. On Thursday when she was here for sewing, I stitched the 25th block and arranged them all on the design wall. With so few blocks, I decided to just go ahead and sew them together. I mean, why wait? Get'er done, right? At some point, Sharon offhandedly said something about how cute the back would be if I quilted around the periwinkle stars.  This totally appealed to me, and suddenly I was super-stoked to finish.

Small quilts like this are perfect for using all the batting scraps. I found some bits that I pieced together. Now what would I use for the backing? I had not thought this far ahead, but then Sharon again came to the rescue by saying "Use a Kaffe."

Good grief, YES I have gobs of his fabric, and surely something would work. And wasn't that a fun 20 minutes of digging through the tubs? Yes! Below you can see the fabric we decided on. All the colors are so representational of Key West, and while they don't exactly match the periwinkle colors, there is no issue as far as I am concerned about the choice.

I spray-basted the layers and proceeded to quilt. In no time at all, I had it finished and we were looking for binding options. I have a healthy stash of solid fabrics, and we found this royal blue which works just fine.

And that pretty much tells the whole story of my Key West quilt. Now let's see a few more pictures.

It is currently on duty on our screened porch table. Sure, she has some wavy edges and some questionable intersections, but I am not at all interested in checking out her flaws. I am reveling in a finish that has such a happy story. 

I am linking with Kathy's Quilts for her weekly feature, Slow Sunday Stitching. Hop on over to have a look around.

It's a beautiful day here in southern Ohio. Hope you all are enjoying a beautiful day where you are.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Blockheads 3 Update

If you follow me on Instagram or FB, I have been regularly posting the blocks I've made in the BH3 sew-along. Facebook has a group dedicated to Blockheads, and on Instagram, using the hashtag modablockheads3 will yield all the varying blocks being made all around the globe.

I have not, shared here for awhile, though, so let's take care of that today.

My most recent block is #16, Dream. It was an easy one to make, and I am sure I took more time making fabric choices than making the block.

Just as a reminder, let me show you the fabric pack I am using, along with a few added pieces to extend the options.

Faith; Collection for a Cause by Moda

The original group along with additions.

I have now made 14 blocks; only 16 to make and I will be all caught up, as block #30 was released earlier today. I will not ever be caught up, though, because I won't be making all the blocks they offer. Some of them just don't appeal; I am being a bit selective.

So far, all my blocks are 6.5 inches. I reserve the right to add in some larger blocks along the way, if I so desire, and if it is necessary in order to make my size work out right. I will just have to play it by ear as we see the remaining blocks. How each individual quilter finishes the quilt is entirely according to one's preference. Wait and see; that's the ticket.

I am late posting a blog today as I undertook a very large project - for me anyway. I cleaned the garage. It still has a ways to go, but my car is parked in it, and that hasn't happened in many, many months.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Red and White Sampler Flimsy

When Sharon was here for sewing last Thursday - it was her birthday! - the red and white sampler got her borders attached, and now another flimsy awaits quilting.

It's not a big quilt, but since when does that matter?! It will be a lovely addition to the Christmas quilts and will be perfect as a couch quilt for snuggling under come winter time.

I have described this whole Frankfort Girls sew-along sampler in earlier posts; check here and here for particulars.

And now let's have a few more glimpses of this quilt. I began the project with 3 yards of white with red dots for the background and 2 yards of red swirls for the feature. I am down to about 8 inches of red fabric remaining; it's a good thing we didn't plan on adding more blocks.

I have never taken a picture of this quilt that satisfies me as far as color is concerned. This picture above comes about the closest to accurately depicting the background. In nearly every picture, I think there is too much yellow in the background.

And, now about that birthday. I never thought once to take any pictures of our little celebration. A regular feature of our Thursday sewing is a nut/fruit/cheese plate with a glass of red wine (Chianti, preferred). For the special day, I added a little carrot cake (Sharon's favorite) with a candle. DH came upstairs with me and we sang happy birthday. There were a couple of little gifts and that was it.

But NO PICTURES! Agghh.

Well, trust me, we had a great day, productive for both of us, for sure.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Welcome August!

Gee whiz, is it August already? Isn't it a rather harsh realization that months fly by as fast as they do? When I began July, we were in Montana preparing to leave my cousin's beautiful mountain cabin and turn our sights on heading home. And BOOM! Just like that, the month is gone.

My collage for July reminds me that time with family and friends has been happening all too infrequently in these coronavirus times. Only two pictures show people: one was the 2nd annual Honnold Fest held here at our house for DH's side of the family. With only 15 in attendance, social distancing was easy enough to maintain (if we wanted to; there was hugging!) The other people picture shows two of the Frankfort Girls who were my guests yesterday morning for coffee and stitching at the kitchen table. Terry and Sheryll are enjoying a good laugh about something in that last frame.

The quilt pictures in my collage represent the work I accomplished in July. The Periwinkle blocks were hand stitched while in the car on our western vacation. The pile of blocks shown in the top right corner are all my BH3 blocks, which I am happy to have restarted. The red and white sampler got its borders attached a couple of days ago, and will be the subject of a post later this week. The Summer Breeze quilt was a product of some stash fabric I'd had here for a few years, and a yearning to have a quilt that brings to mind the blue skies and leafy trees surrounding us. The inspiration picture is in the middle on the right.

Center spot is taken by a vase of hydrangeas I harvested from our bushes in the yard. I try every year to dry them without success, but I will try again this year to see how it goes.

So, what is the plan for August?

1. Continue working on Blockheads.

2. Get cracking on the long arm!

3. Begin planning for fall semester; I found out yesterday afternoon that instead of being face-to-face, I will be distance teaching - the consternation about my preparedness is already churning.

4. We will have a major kitchen remodel beginning at the end of the month; with school beginning and the remodel going on, sewing might be very much on the back burner.

Hope you have an awesome August! Let's make it great!

Happy Quilting, Friends!