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.