Guitar Quilt

 It has been almost a month since I've blogged.  I had a couple of bad weeks where I did almost nothing but nap, but I've got an extra week off chemo, and I'm starting to feel better.  

Right after I finished the Storm At Sea quilt, I started a guitar quilt for one of my nephews.  Jillian Yohn designs under the name Refine and Shine Design.  I am using her Guitar Trio Quilt Pattern Pack ( acoustic, folk and electric).  This is not a paper pieced pattern, but uses the same type of piecing that Sew Fresh Designs or Elisabeth Hartman uses.  The cutting is intense, but the blocks go together quite easily.  I am only using the electric guitar pattern because I can use wild colors this way.

I need fifteen guitars.  So far, I've made eleven.

I find it easy to make quilts for people who have an absorbing interest in something.   I am at a loss with another nephew's quilt.  

He has an interest in lots of things and is very social, but nothing stands out for me when I am trying to decide what type of quilt to make him.  His brother was going into the Air Force, so I made him a plane quilt.  The nephew who spends hours fishing got a fish quilt.  My BIL who believes in aliens, got a space quilt.  If you have any suggestions, what to do for the nephew I am blanking on, let me know. 

String Quilt

 I finished binding a quilt yesterday.  The top has been sitting in my closet for over 2 years.  I made it using blocks I pieced when I was doing the rainbow scrap challenge, where you are given a color for each month, and you make blocks using that color.  My plan was to bind it in black, but given that the backing is white, and I wanted to machine bind it, I chose to make the binding white too.  It is going to an adult, so I am not particularly worried about the binding getting dirty.  That's what washing machines are for.

This quilt in approximately 60"x70".  I am going to give it to my son's boyfriend.  They have been dating 6 or 7 years now, and he doesn't have a quilt yet.  I used to make it a rule of no quilts for boyfriends/girlfriends, but both of my children have been in long term relationships for years, and it seems petty not to give their significant others quilts.  Especially since I have an abundance of quilts!

Plaid-ish Bound

 My Plaid-ish quilt has been sitting for several weeks, waiting to be bound.  Yesterday I put the binding on, and I actually remembered to sew it to the back first, so I could finish it by machine.  

It is dark in my house, so I had a hard time getting a good picture, even with all the lights on.  The back of the quilt is a rainbow print of the periodic table.  Everyone I've shown it to seems to like the back better than the front.

I will put this quilt into our family drawing since I have no use for it now and no storage space for it.

Storm At Sea

 I finished my Storm At Sea top today.  This quilt was very labor intensive.  The specialty rulers I used (Studio 180's Square Squared and Diamond Rects) helped a lot, but there was a lot of piecing in this quilt top.  As soon as my backing gets here, I will send this off to be longarmed.  I had a hard time finding a place in my house big enough to lay it out.  We still have people here working on the bathroom remodel, so my usual floor space was off limits.

 

If I were crazy and decided to make another Storm At Sea quilt, I would choose a different fabric for the heart, maybe a gold or a dark red.  The pink looks very pepto bismal to me. It didn't bother me enough to redo it for this quilt, though. 

Storm at Sea Progress

 I have been working on Storm at Sea almost every day since I started it.  My design wall is not long enough for this quilt.  It will be 107x89, if I do the borders the way the pattern says.

I am very happy with the way it is going together.  My points aren't all perfect, but close enough for me.  I've done very little ripping and no pinning except for putting the rows together.

I am sitting here listening to them clearing the lot behind us. They are taking all of the trees down.  It must be going to be a big house!  Fortunately, our builder left a buffer of trees behind our house, so we will still have some privacy. When my kids were little, they used to hop our fence and play in that lot, which they called Squirrel Woods. It will take some getting use to having neighbors behind us, but I am glad the lot won't be a teenage hangout any more. In addition to the trees, they cleaned up a lot of beer bottles.  They also cut the fios cable, so we will have no internet for two days.  Thank goodness for hotspots!

Storm At Sea

 I finally decide on what I'm going to make for our friend's wedding:  a Storm At Sea quilt.  Other than the name of the quilt, I decided it would be a good wedding choice because I can piece a heart into it.  I am using Pam Goggans Smooth Sailing pattern and Deb Tucker's rulers Diamond Rects and Square Squared rulers. 

 I have always wanted to make a Storm At Sea quit, but the diamond within a rectangle units put me off.  There is really no way for me to make an accurate diamond within a rectangle unit with conventional piecing.  There were several options for paper piecing the units, but I decided the Diamond Rects ruler would give me the most accurate units with minimal waste.  I can't say that all of my units are exact, but they are close, and I am happy with them.

I have made over 130 of these diamond rects units so far.  They are not quick to do.  There is a lot of cutting and then a lot of making sure the points are matched up in the right place before sewing.  

If you are interested in the technique:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9hiTQ0v6Gk

Dawn's Early Light

 I got the top of Dawn's Early Light finished yesterday. It is a Bonnie Hunter pattern, so it is very scrappy.  The little friendship stars finish at 3".  This quilt has been almost six years in the making. I had the blocks finished and then played around with the setting for a while.  I ended up using sashing rather than just sewing the blocks to each other because there were so many seams, and I wanted to control some of the bulk.  After I got the center of the top together, I folded it up and let it sit for at least 2 years.  Yesterday I finally put borders on.  This quilt is 90" x90", and there is so much work in it, I might just keep it.

I didn't get a great picture of the quilt.  The day was cloudy, and

the place I use to photograph my quilts (the floor of my bedroom), has been partially taken over by the guys who are remodeling our master bath.  It is a big job which includes taking out the corner tub and removing a window.  They just started yesterday.

I think a darker blue border would have been better, but I wanted to use up what I had.  I will probably bind this one in red or navy.

In other quilt news, my brother in Atlanta won the drawing for Surrounded By Scraps.  I have started showing pictures of my quilts to my family when I have excess quilts.  If they are interested in the  quilt, they let me know, and their name goes in the hat.  This also lets me know which of my siblings would like another quilt.  If they don't win a quilt drawing, I plan to pick out a quilt from those I'm hoarding, and give it to them.

I don't want all my quilts to be kept here.  What if something happens and we have a fire or flood?  By dividing them up among my seven siblings (most of whom have 4 or 5 quilts), I feel like I'm keeping at least part of my quilts safe. I told my BIL to think of his house as my off-site quilt storage facility.  

Surrounded By Scraps Bound

 I just completed the binding on Charlotte Hawk's 2017 mystery, Surrounded by Scraps.  The classic name for this pattern is Burgoyne Surrounded.  The mystery was just the center of the quilt, which was very quick because there are no triangles.  When I got mine done, it seemed unfinished, and I didn't like it.  I put it away.  A couple of years later, I added the piano key border, and now I like it.  This may be the scrappiest quilt I have ever made. Just a few of the fabrics are repeated, not counting the background.

The back is also scrappy.

I used the last of one of my favorite wide backs.

The quilting was done by Denise Zapf of Quilting Mojo.

This is the last of the quilts I had ready to bind, and I am glad of it!

Barn Quilts

The LQS I used to work at made a quilt out of Pat Sloan's Quilters Stand for Ukraine block to be raffled off to support Unicef Quilters Stand for Ukraine fund.  They also had a barn quilt made by my friend Wende Hughson.  I took chances on each of them, hoping I would win the barn quilt since I am overrun with regular quilts.     https://patsloan.typepad.com/files/pat-sloan-quilters-stand-for-ukraine.pdf 

Yesterday they called to say I had won the barn quilt!

It is a Storm at Sea block, painted in blue and yellow for Ukraine.

A couple of weeks ago I took Wende's barn quilt class.  There were nine of us in the class.  Wende gave a short lecture on the origin of barn quilts and barn quilt trails.  We each painted the quilt block of our choice.  These were small 12" blocks for inside the house, but the same techiques are used in painting big barn quilts for the outside.  I am not nearly as good a painter as Wende and had some touching up to do when I got home. 

My colors are a little garish (based on most of my quilts, is anybody really surprised by that?), but I had a great time at the class.  I highly recommend Wende's barn quilt class, even if your painting skills are rusty.

 

Scrappy Mountain Majesties II

 I finished binding my second Scrappy Mountain Majesties.  It is a free pattern from Bonnie Hunter. https://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/free-patterns.html  

It is made from men's shirts, so it is very soft.  I get old shirts from my husband and brothers-in-law, or I buy them at the thrift stores.  I wish I had added one more row to this quilt, but I used up all the fabric I had cut and got lazy.  The binding is backing leftovers from another quilt.  The backing is something I got on sale.

I really like the quilting that Melissa, who owns Virginia Longarm, suggested. I remember really liking the longarm pattern on my last Scrappy Mountain Majesties too.  When I went back and looked, the patterns are very similar even though the quilting was done in another shop.  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6417752598575065741/5287776221265985872

I had planned to bind this by machine, but I goofed and stitched the binding to the front of the quilt, so I ended up hand stitching the binding to the back.  You would think I'd have learned something from my mistake, but I did the same exact thing on my next quilt, so I'm going to have to hand bind that one too.  It is normally not a big deal, but my hand/foot syndrome (from the chemo), makes hand binding a little more difficult.

Quilt for Mother's Day

 This was the last quilt I worked on before I quit quilting last year. I never blogged about it.  I really didn't feel like sewing while I was making this, but I slogged through it, forcing myself to sew one row a day.

I did not have enough of the original fabric to back this quilt, so I went to the quilt store looking for a blue that would look good with the fabric I had.  I found no blue that was close.  Instead, I found a fuchsia that would work.

I am glad I chose this color because the quilting shows up so well on it. Virginia Longarm did the quilting.

I first saw the OBW floral in the LQS where I was working.

I thought it would be perfect for a OBW, but at the time I had too many UFOs to justify buying more fabric.  I just watched it at the store when I worked.  I watched it for a couple of months, and then  someone bought all the fabric on the bolt.  A couple of months later, I went online to find it and bought enough (without my employee discount!) to make this quilt.  It will be a Mother's Day gift for my mom.

Blue One Block Wonder

 I tried to finish up a lot of UFOs during the pandemic.  Here is one of them:

I bought the fabric for this OBW in a quilt shop in southwest Virginia.  It must have been old or not selling well because it wasn't very expensive.  I bought 7 panels, 6 for the front, and one for the back.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this quilt. I may ask my family if anyone is interested in it.  I think it is really pretty, but I don't have space for all the quilts I make.  

One thing that my longarmer pointed out to me:  it is bearding a little on the back.  I used Dream Cotton batting (100% cotton), but I am not sure of the manufacturer of the dark blue fabric since I bought it so long ago.  I don't think anyone but a quilter would notice the bearding.  I washed the quilt, and it didn't seem to make it any worse. I've made lots of quilts and never had one beard before.  I don't think it would have even shown if the backing had been a print.  I had considered using black batting with this quilt, but the white in the flowers stopped me.  

Hearts of Hope, Top Done

 I finished putting the borders on Hearts of Hope today.  It took me a while to decide what to do.  My quilt is 7 X 10 hearts (odd X even).  Bonnie's quilt is 7 X 7 ( odd X odd), so the border she designed will not turn the corners properly on my quilt.  I saw someone else with an odd X even quilt who did use the string borders that Bonnie designed, and I did not like the way their corners looked.  My choice was either to design my own borders or to just use straight borders.

I decided the quilt was busy enough without the string-pieced borders.  The person who will receive the quilt will not love it any less for having plain, unpieced borders, so that's what I chose to use.  I had to buy fabric for the two neutral border since my neutral stash is very low, but I found the blue fabric in my stash.  I also found backing in my stash.  I am trying to use up the big pieces I have.  Somehow I made an over abundance of the yellow/blue squares that go around the hearts.  I thought about using them on the back, but there are a lot of seams in this quilt, and it didn't make sense to add more seams with more little squares on the back.

This quilt is  throw size, 74" X 56".  

I had problems with one of the neutral fabrics I bought fraying.  I have NEVER had this much fraying before.  I have heard people complain about Kona fraying, but it is nothing compared to the fabric I bought.  It was made by Marcus, and I have looked high and low online trying to find it but I can't.   All I can say is it will be a long time before I buy any more fabric by Marcus.  I got it at a quilt shop, but it definitely wasn't quilt shop quality. Fortunately, I only bought 1/4 yard of it.

Hearts of Hope, Part Two Done

 I got all the hearts put together today.  I think I am going to give this quilt to a friend when it is finished.  Her walls are yellow, and her furniture is blue.  This quilt has UVA as well as VCU fabric in it, and her kids went to UVA and VCU.

This week I need to get all the hearts sewn together and start on the borders.  I'm a little tired of string piecing right now, so I'm glad to have a week off from that.

Hearts of Hope Sew Along

 I started Bonnie Hunter's Hearts of Hope a couple of weeks ago.  This is a free pattern on her website, but she asks for a donation to  Quilters for Ukraine Go Fund Me. The last time I checked, they had raised almost $80,000.  Here's a link to the first Hearts of Hope post.  https://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/hearts-of-hope-sew-along.html  Sorry, it has been so long since I posted a link, I am not sure how to make it clickable.

So far, I have finished the first week's units.  I am about half way through the second week's.  I lost 3 days of sewing last week because I was sick. 

Because I can't count, I ended up making extra blue units (the top of the hearts).  Then I had to make extra yellow units, so all the tops would have a bottom.  My quilt is going to be rectangular,  7 x 10 blocks instead of Bonnie's 7 x 7 blocks.  

Sew Many Strips

 I finished binding my third Sew Many Strips quilt yesterday.  This one was all scraps with no thought as to color.  I used up a bunch of ugly prints and busy neutrals.

I think Sew Many Strips is the perfect scrap quilt pattern.  It uses strip piecing, so the sewing goes fast, considering how small the pieces are.  You can make it completely scrappy like this one, or controlled scrappy for a different look.

This was my first one.  I used blue, green and a little purple.  I gave this one to my cousin who hosts our family reunion.

The next one is all batiks.  I gave it to my sister.  This one might be my favorite.

I have one more to go,  done in fall colors.

Update on my quilt drawing.  Not Quite Zuckerwatte went to my niece.  This is a variation on a Bonnie Hunter pattern.

My goal is to finally finish up my unquilted tops.  Three are done.  Three more are at the longarmer, and I have many more to do.

The pillowcases I sent to the young adults in my family are starting to arrive.  Say what you will about our postal system, but I mailed them Monday, and the first arrived on Tuesday!

More Pillowcases

 I decided to make pillowcases for my nieces and nephews who are still in college and for those who have graduated from somewhere other than Virginia Tech. Tech grads have already gotten theirs. I have made 26 pillowcases since I started this in February.  The minor children in the family will have to wait for theirs!

I made 3 VCU pillowcases:

4 George Mason:

1 Pokemon:

1 UVA:

1 South Carolina:

and 2 more JMUs:

I would say that I'm done for now, but maybe not.  I saw some baseball fabric that would be perfect for my sister, I need to come up with something for my niece at Sweet Briar (probably a fox print), and if everyone is getting pillowcases, my mom probably needs one too.

Not Quite Zuckerwatte Bound

 I got Not Quite Zuckerwatte back from the longarmer and bound it last week.  It looks like a quilt a little girl would like, but the youngest girl in our family is 15.

I really like the quilting  pattern that Virginia Longarm chose.  I usually let the quilter pick the pattern since they see so many more quilts than I do, and they know what type of pattern works well on the kind of quilt I make.

I sent an email to my family today letting them know that this quilt is looking for a home.  They need to let me know if they are interested in it, and I will draw a name from the interested people later this week. If this goes well, I will do this with other old quilts I have hanging around.