What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

     Oh boy, is this is an oldie WIP. I pulled it out of the bag to web and remembered that recently I found leftover HSTs from this layout and it wasn't enough to make another decent sized quilt. I dug those out and added them to the webbed, sewn top. I was able to add a top row, two bottom rows and two side columns. This made it a large sized comfort quilt (72" x 84"). I used to make comfort quilts under 70"  long. Yes, it takes less fabric and time, but really, a comfort quilt to really ...

I've gotten sidetracked by a few things, but my June goal is slowly getting there.  I was nearly finished appliqueing some blue star blocks when I decided to make it my June goal to turn them into a donation quilt.  I started making nine-patches for the alternate blocks, but got tired of that, so I ended up making a second kind, too.   Then somewhere along the way I realized I was using two different shades of gray.  It's a scrappy quilt, though, right? 

..... and I was able to pull the perfect backing fabric ...

      When my daugher and her husband spent last week grading AP Chemistry exams, I helped to babysit the 3 yr. old and 6 month old so my daughter could grade online in PA and my son in law grade in Salt Lake City. I took my machine and a couple of projects with me. I was able to web and sew a Scrappy Trips that was a leader ender for too long (photo to come) and trim 168 HSTs made from a layer cake (4 per 10" square) with the Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmer. And iron them all with Best ...

I made a quilt for one of my grand-nephews.

Here is his baby quilt.

I try to make a flannel baby quilt, then a regular cotton big-kid quilt for kids in my family. This way, when they move from a crib to a big bed, they have a quilt that will fit.

This time, I went with a string quilt. I made 4.5" HSTs with strings and a neutral background. I arranged them in a layout I saw HERE.

Here is my result.

String Squares (76" x 94")

String Squares (binding and border detail)

He likes a series of ...

      Lots going on in the making department. One of the many quilt tops QuiltDiva Julie has sent me went out the door this week to a family member dealing with breast cancer. I was able to quilt the plaid HST quilt, put the quilt package together (tote bag, quilt, card, music CD, pocket quilts and book- 50 days of Hope), and deliver it out of town.

All fluffed and washed

Quilted

Bag

Ungrouted

Grouted

If you need more projects to work on or you're looking for a quilty podcast to listen to, check out Sherri's blog, A Quilting Life.  Just after the Covid isolation began my quilty friend Denise used that blog to entice me into doing a Mystery Block of the Month as a sew-along with her.  It turns out this Mystery BOM is an annual thing.  Now she's talked me and three other neighbors into making the 2022 mystery quilt.  More about that later.  

The 2020 quilt was designed using all half-square-triangles.  I decided to use bright batiks ..... 

..... with ...

     The blue green zig zags is done, bound, etc. I could not resist photographing outside in the snow. When Alycia, with her wonderful Colorado ranch landscape, shows her quilts outdoors, I always drool. I live in a tight little suburban lot which is not exactly photogenic for quilts, but due to the almost 20" of snow that fell on MLK day, I gave it a try.  I also know how to crop out.

Back detail

Back

      First, I have to ask- are you having trouble replying to blogs you are subscribed to? Blogs that I have followed and commented on for years are not allowing me to click in the comment box. I have done an online search on this topic, but found nothing. Whether it is my phone, laptop or desktop, can't comment.

      Every once in a while, I find a layer cake that snags me because of great price for comfort quilts. This one was from Etsy. My mother can sew some straight seams and I prepped the stack of batiks with a ...

      Another layer cake HST quilt. Layer cakes, on sale, provide a way for me to make a quilt with a big variety of complementary fabric which is great for comfort quilts. The white zig zag area made a great place for quilting and I tried to use a different leaf motif in each one. I used Glide Aquamarine on the top and DecoBob Dove gray in the bobbin.
     I still need to make and put the binding on for a final show plus show the back, but I wanted to do a group of blog posts so I don't ...

Every girl needs a new quilt when she leaves home to go off to college.  Especially when her Aunt Sandy thinks she does! And even more so when her sisters have recently received new quilts.  (You can read about Karlie's here and Kourtnie's here.)  It was Kacie's turn.

Jennie Doan's "Summer Camp" pattern looked like fun, and I was in the mood to work with teals and grays.  I dug into my stash and found something to work with, but I ended up adding a few fat-quarters to round out the mix.  We have to do ...

Every year, I look forward to Bonnie Hunter's Mystery quilt which begins the day after Thanksgiving here in the US. It is fun to quilt along with so many others from around the world.

I've completed Clues 1 and 2 of this year's mystery--Rhododendron Trail.

Rhododendron Trail (Clues 1 and 2)

I'm looking forward to seeing how this mystery comes together. 

If you would like to participate, it is easy! Simply visit Bonnie's blog and click on the Rhododendron Trail tab at the top. All the instructions will be posted there each Friday. There is ...

If you have read my blog (or just looked at the pictures!) you know that I delight in string blocks. This is my latest string project.

String Carpenter's Star (82" x 82")

Carpenter's Star (sometimes called Carpenter's Wheel) is a traditional pattern, and layout charts are available in many places online (the one I used is HERE), but I substituted string blocks for the regular color or print blocks.

I drew it on EQ8, so I could get an idea of what I would need.

EQ8 Plan--I did change the four corners to string blocks rather than ...

 Bonnie Hunter has a new leader/ender project for the next year called fish school. I have officially declared easy breezy blocks done, so, I can take the challenge and start working on this project. Bonnie is using 2 inch strips and HSTS, but, I have too many 2 1/2 inch strips, so, I am going to use those. I have a hsts die that I can use to cut 6 at a time. I started cutting strips to 9 1/2 inches to fit that die.  I went through a drawer and cut 115. By calculations I will ...

Well, all good things must come to an end. The HST Medallion quilt is completely finished up! All 102 inches! One of those projects started sort of by impulse, but not really. I'd looked and looked and LOOKED at a picture of an antique quilt, wistfully thinking about how cool it would be to own one.

HST Medallion is done!!!!

A lot going on with ...

Baby quilts are so much fun to make - they are usually fairly quick and don't take a lot of fabric. When I'm in the mood for a fast finish, a baby quilt is usually my go-to. 

For my latest finish, I once again looked through my collection of Bonjour Quilts patterns and chose to make Color Explosion.

The pattern calls for 16 fat quarters in cool and warm colours (8 of each). My stash of fat quarters has dwindled over the last few months and I haven't replenished it yet so my choices were somewhat limited. But ...

There has been a lot of talk and writing about blogs no longer being "relevant" and how fewer and fewer bloggers are active anymore. I guess that's due to the rise of Instagram and how quickly you can share on that platform. But I love writing and sharing on my blog and I still follow many, many bloggers. I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon either. 

The baby quilt I finished is a result of a blog post from Lee Heinrich from Freshly Pieced which she published back in 2018.

This is such a simple design but the ...

 The latest WITB ("what's in the box?") project uses the 4.5" unf HSTs I made for last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  

Can you guess which of these four layouts I chose?  (I have assembled the flimsy and I'm auditioning backings today.)  I'll tell you the answer in my post on Friday.  

      A while back, I bought a layer cake that was very reasonable from Fort Worth Studio and had my mother sew a 10" white square to the print square all the way around. I glue basted the corners so we did not need pins and would counteract her practice of pushing the fabric through the machine instead of letting it feed. She can sew straight seams, sometimes she zooms around the corners too fast.

     I finally had the time to press and cut the squares diagnally twice, resulting in 4 triangles. Instead of opening them up and trimming all four ...

Sometimes, while cutting shirts into useable pieces, there are off cuts that are not really useful for big pieces. I tend to throw them into a bucket to deal with later. I was in the mood to sort and cut. Some of these pieces will be great for string or crumb blocks.

As I dug into the bucket, some just went into another bucket for strings, but, a few, I could cut into HSTS. Most of my goals this month involve the longarm, which is currently busy.  I had fun just playing in the scraps.