What's on the Design Wall in November?

That small, off-the-cuff, Halloween wall-hanging has inspired me to make an actual Halloween quilt.  I started by making three blocks, while out camping near Bruno.  I finished twelve blocks and they are on my design wall.  I have cut some two inch strips of my light fabric for the sashing and rearranged my blocks, to my liking, on the wall.  

The trouble is I have two unfinished quilt projects that I need to finish by mid-December.  I seem to have lost my momentum.  One of them does not need a design wall, so I will go with that one first.  I am planning to start on it on Saturday, with the help of a friend.  I need a second opinion on how I should attack it, due to it is an old quilt top that was both hand-pieced and machine pieced.  I is not square around the outside and the inside is not exactly flat.  I want to put a border on it, to bring it all together, before Phyllis gets to quilt it.  Smile.  If I am diligent this weekend, I can have it all ready to go to the quilters by Sunday evening.  Then I will be down to one UFO to get finished this year . . . and I can do it!

Halloween Wall Hanging

      I have some fabrics left in my scrap bin by T.  She did a few Halloween quilts.  I made a wall-hanging for my daughter, about three years ago, and it turned out pretty cute, from being made with T's Scraps.  I have used those scraps again, plus a couple new Halloween fabrics I picked up this fall.  Annita and I went over to JK Quilters on Ustick Road, and they had some amazing Halloween Fabrics.  The center of this wall-hanging is a square that was left by T in my scrap bin.  I started with it and then grew the quilt around it.  When I quilted it on my Viking (can you spell Husqvarna?) sewing machine, I used my walking foot and went around the words "Happy Halloween" in black thread.  It made it stand out nicely.  The rest is stitch-in-the-ditch, which rhymes with witch, of which there are none in this quilted wall-hanging.  

     When we went on our last camping trip of the year, I started piecing some Halloween blocks for a whole Halloween quilt.  Below is a photo, of my first three blocks.  We were at the Bruno Sand Dunes State Park.  I based them on the outcome of the wall-hanging.  I was the only one at camp that was outside sewing for hours, just a few feet from the camp fire.  I take my Necchi camping and get a spot with power, or my husband brings solar panels.  I had lots of fun and ended up in the middle of nowhere (really!) while trying to find the Bruno Canyon Overlook (the road was not on the map, but the overlook was).

Me practicing social distancing.

A Break From Quilting?

Sometimes it is nice to do a small easy project, between big quilting projects.  I get instant gratification when I do a small project that does not take days, weeks, or months (dare I say years?) to complete.  In the past, I have made tote bags, pot holders, and place mats.  I am certain I have made other small projects, I just cannot remember right now. I do not make table runners.

I happen to be a big tea drinker.  Some of the best tea comes loose-in-the-can, but I don't always like fiddling with a diffuser to make my tea.  Also, some diffusers allow too much of the tea leaf to float into your drink.  In August, I made some tea bags for my husband, because he loves the loose-leaf Immunitea.  I bought some muslin, and sewed some tea bags and poured some tea leaves in each one and chain stitched them together, leaving a bit of thread hanging on each one.  He really likes the tea bags I made for him.  I like the Earl Grey, of which, I have several tins.  Last weekend, I took the time to sew some tea bags for me.  I learned that I need to put less than a kitchen sized teaspoon of tea in each bag, so the next time I fill tea bags, I will use a little less tea.  The reason is, I got ten cups of tea out of the first tea bag.  I think that is fine when I use a teapot, but usually I just pour boiling water into my mug, then put the tea bag in. 

I made a whole pile of tea bags.  I did not fill them all yet.  I just have them on hand for when I need to make some more.  I cut a soda bottle top off, to use as a funnel.  I suggest a smaller spoon to scoop the tea into the funnel, as you don't need much tea to make 3 or 4 cups per bag.  I have a couple of preferred brands; one being Divine Lotus Tea Company. 

Sixteen Patch!

 I am the proud owner of a lovely sixteen-patch/four-patch quilt.  Annita made this beautiful quilt top, and she gave it to me.  I quilted it with stitch-in-the ditch with gold thread, in the center portion.  I used black and pink in the borders.  I hope I did it justice.   I love it! Thank-you, very much, Annita.

Lovely old barn on Locust Grove Road (to be with us not much longer)

Tile Style Quilt for Special Young Lady

This time of COVID-19 has put some extra stress and anxiety on our children.  My co-worker's daughter was feeling that around the first part of August.  There has been so much uncertainty about the new school year and how that would be handled, along with all the summer fun activities with friends being cancelled.  I offered to make a quilt for this 14-year old.  I got to go shopping for awesome cheery fabrics for someone who loves animals.  I did use a little bit of fabric from my own stash, however the main fabrics are from a current line.  I wanted a quick easy, yet fun, quilt design, so I went on-line to Missouri Star Quilt Company and watched the Tile Style video.  I discovered something about these MSQC tutorials.  She really just gives a quick overview and leaves out important pressing instructions to aid the quilter in clean seam joinings.  After the first block made me realize this was the case, I looked back at the video, at the close-up the the finished quilt and paused the video.  I could see she had lumpy, not-exactly-joining-smoothly intersection on all those squares.  I planned which way I would press the parts of my blocks so they would all go together correctly, but I still had problems with many of the blocks being right next to the same patterned block.  This is something else that Jenny at MSQC did not care about in the quilt she made.  I care and believe in "planned randomness". I did some seam ripping and resewing , but I was on a mission.  I think I made it bigger than I meant to, but decided that was okay as she is a tall gal.

This is the quilt front.  If you click on the photo it will show you a closer up (bigger) view of it. My co-worker was very happy with it and so was his daughter.  That makes me happy.

This is the back of the quilt.  I used some left-overs from the front and other quilt left-overs that I thought would go.  This is truly one of the nicest quilts I have turned out this year.  Thank you, Phyllis Oneal, for the wonderful quilt job.  I asked her to use pale blue thread, which is a nice detail.

What's On The Design Wall In September?

It has been a busy year, and the projects are still piled up.  Sometimes I tend to get the cart before the horse.  For example, the quilt that is coming along on my design wall, has caused me to shoot off into another direction . . .see those cute little wonky houses along the bottom?  I canniblized three of them and made them into the most amazing wall hanging, while the original project is still on the design wall.  I had to make more little wonky houses to replace the ones I took for the wall hanging.

This does look really exciting!  This is my Obnoxious IV quilt.  I think Obnoxious V finally left my brain, so I will get back to normal after this one is finished.  I am excited about getting this one done, but I have three more quilts to put binding on, one to photograph then give away, and another wall hanging and two doll quilts to wrangle, besides.  Below is my Wonky House Wall Hanging!  I used my walking foot to quilt it along the yellow lines in the border.  I used yellow thread.  The solid black binding makes it stand out.

GREAT, As In Really Big

 I did get the Obnoxious I quilt finished and mailed to my aunt in Phoenix.  With all those 115 degree days last month, I was thinking, "Boy, she really needs a quilt, and fast!"  I am glad it does not get that hot in Idaho.  I actually did some quilting, off-the-grid in August.  It was pretty hot up in Rattlesnake Creek, but my husband got me hooked into the solar panels and I sewed a whole bunch of 3-inch strips for over an hour, in the shade of the awning on our RV.  Then I put my sewing machine away and got my small iron out and pressed all of the strips I had sewed.  We were both quite satisfied with how the solar power worked with my Necchi and my iron.  Then I went down and sat in the creek for about 45 minutes, to cool off.  Here is the greatest (as in really big) quilt I have ever made.  I think I will stick to smaller ones in the future.  from L to R: my helpers, Tina, Kate, Sandy

This is Obnoxious I, which inspired Obnoxious II (if you scroll down, you can see it in an earlier summer post), Obnoxious III (which is currently at the long-arm quilters), and Obnoxious IV (which is still in suspension on my design wall).