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.