What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 Once again, I am doing the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt; this year it is entitled Grassy Creek. The first clue was given on the day after Thanksgiving.

These are just a few of my units. Much more to come . . .

I didn't think I'd like this finish as much as I do. I mean, obviously, I liked the pattern because I bought it, but I was afraid my fabric choices wouldn't be great. When I purchased the pattern, I really wanted to make it out of the same colour but in different values. My stash, however, didn't have enough fat quarters of the same colours to make it work and I really didn't want to order fabric for this.

Anyhow - I went with solid fabric in a bunch of different colours and Kona Ash as ...

Coming home from a quilt retreat is a challenge to unpack and get back to normal. I crammed a lot of projects into my weekend, and my bags. I wanted to pull them out, one by one, and, make sure everything is taken care to put where they belong.

The first project I worked on, was the big easy Christmas. This was my one monthly goal for November. I had it quilted before I left. I used the big tables at the retreat to trim it, and, then, I attached the binding by machine to the back side of the ...

I'm pretty excited this morning. Why? I did it!! I walked the entire length of Route 66. That's a total of 2,280.3 miles. So bear with me for a minute while I mark this momentous occasion. 

Here's my position on the Santa Monica Pier. I see a Cheesecake Factory nearby - perhaps I can have a piece of cheesecake as a reward?

The finish line at the Santa Monica Pier

Here's the view from the pier!! I love it - I can't go any further!!!

The view from the Santa Monica Pier

It took me ...

What's with the crazy weather? We had crazy rain for most of the day, and how about that wind? I don't think we had any issues at our house, but you can hear the house creaking in the wind, and those little bathroom vents flap like crazy!

The girls were thrilled to see me, and I managed to walk with each of them between the rain. I got lucky because this wasn't just rain - it was torrential rain driven by the wind. Fortunately, whenever the rain started, I was snuggled up with a quilt in my chair ...

Summer in France

Hi everyone! Back to Greece... and to my blog after a long summer in France. I am still busy there restoring my 19th century summer house bought five years ago. I love doing this job and especially  decorating, with the drawback that it keeps me temporarily away from quilting. 

I have sent most of my quilts, the antique ones and those done by me, from Greece to France, with the aim of a future exhibition, but not only : my house is going to be filled with quilts on beds, on couches, hanged on walls...

The above picture ...

 It was just a happy day yesterday in many ways. The weather was glorious - a short-sleeved T-shirt kind of day. Things got done that had been sitting for a while, and well - it was just a happy day!

A HUGE thanks to Maria, who found the panel that I was looking for. I must get that paid for today. I'll share the store with you tomorrow - after my purchase goes through!

Oh my - when I looked at my FitBit last night, it had been in overdrive all day. 14.99 km. How did that happen? I did go for ...

 I didn't get a single one of my One monthly goals for October done. No, not one. I did finish 3 quilts, but, they were not on the list - 4 patch x , Aunt Mary's double chain, patriotic boxy stars.

That makes November goals easy to decide. But, I think I need to keep it simple. It is crunch time for long arm client Christmas quilts.  I need to make sure I can get them done. I will try to sneak this in for quilting after thanksgiving.

1. quilt big easy Christmas -   I don't have a start date ...

Have you noticed that we spend a LOT of time doing quilting stuff that has nothing to do with the sewing of the project? 

This is the scraps from PRISM Squared. I took apart all the seams for the pieced sections - remember, this is the scraps. Now I need to cut out the center for the next project, which uses the scraps from cutting the first set of wedges. YES - there is a bonus project with this one. I'm trying to get everything organized, and it might go in my retreat bag! 

Sorting through the scraps

Then I'm ...

 I have had a lot of fun making postage stamp psp20 blocks with 1 1/2 inch squares. Many of my print squares were a gift from a great quilting friend. So, I get a smile every time I start a new block. I went through a little bag of scraps, and, every time I found a piece big enough for the solid color, I cut for the postage stamp block. I think I will have a lot of red blocks. It's amazing how many shades of red I have found hiding in the scrap piles.

 Hi everyone! Yeah, I know, it's been a while. What can I say? Thanks for your emails checking up on me! I'm okay, really. There has been stitching happening, but not writing. I do what I can, you know? And some things are looking up. A huge problem that we were having at work looks like it's going to resolve (hurray!) and I finished an 8-week class that I was teaching, so now I have a tiny bit more time. Zoom remains exhausting, but in between classes I sometimes play videos of my grandkids singing the ABCs ...

 Thank you everyone for your comments on my previous post!

It has been some busy few weeks. I decided to paint one of the bathrooms and the top floor porch. It has been 13 years since the interior of our house was painted, I think it's high time to repaint! (It took time to convince DH! LOL). Going from yellow to light grey with a touch of lime green in the bath/wash room, it looks so much better! We are almost there, left to do some drilling - (do I need to say I hate concrete walls?!) - and getting ...

 My #onemonthlygoal this month was to finish one of the scrappy baby quilts I had in progress. Mission accomplished! I used one of the machine quilting designs that I tried out earlier in the fall and was happy with how it came out. I should have made my lines farther apart though because this took way longer than it should have and didn't really need quite so much quilting. I will know better next time. This quilt was made totally from my stash, mostly scraps, so I am linking it up with Oh Scrap!

Baby quilt finished and ready ...

I have an abundance of shirts whole, and in parts. I found a great idea for a block using shirt fabric, and, started cutting. The block uses a 4 1/2 inch center and 10 -2 1/2 inch hsts so I cut and cut and cut...and sewed and sewed and sewed.....

I used my slotted trimmers for the hsts.

oops I am angled challenged

It doesn't use as much from a shirt as I expected, so I have 2 sets ...

This is the umpteenth quilt I've made using the fun Quick Strippie pattern from maryquilts.com. It makes a wonderful quilt for a child. This one was finished in May 2020, and I have another identical top waiting to be quilted...hopefully soon.

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backing and binding

 More pandemic sewing -- and more batik scraps. No pattern; I just did my own math. Finished in early May 2020.

(click on photos to enlarge)

backing and binding

 It's amazing how much one can accomplish when sitting at home for days on end. I finished this quilt in April of this year. Another one from my batik scraps. It's based on this quilt that I saw on maryquilts.com. I didn't use charm packs, just five-inch squares that I cut from my batiks.

Another quilt finished in March of this year, at the start of staying home with not much of anything else to do. It's amazing how quickly a quilt can be put together when all one does is stay home and away from people.

This is based on a quilt I saw online somewhere. I made up my own measurements and then went through my batik scraps. There were plenty to choose from (and some left for even more quilts). I liked this one a lot, so it spent the last six months on one of our sofas.

(click on ...