Mug Rugs

Because life can throw us curveballs, I try to never leave anything to the last minute.  These mug rugs will be part of Valentine's gifts for each of my daughters.  One is a reader and had a pet rabbit when she was a teen; the other has a love affair with foxes.  These will be given with a coordinating mug and other gifties.

The book is paper-pieced, it's a free pattern from Kate Basti called Tall Tales Quilt Block  For the fox, I shrunk the Fancy Fox pattern by Elizabeth Hartman using my mad math skills!

May your bobbins always be full,

The Secrets are Ready!

First, I added a border, all the way around each block, making each block 18 inches square.  I forgot to take a photo!  Then I cut an 18-inch square from the front and back of each of Bob's shirts.

Before I went to NYC, I asked around and found someone who was willing to do some machine embroidery for me.  She did a wonderful job.  

After stitching the embroidered patches below the pockets of each shirt front, the front became the pillow cover back.

I love using shirt fronts for pillow cover backs.  I used 18-inch pillow forms, and they look overstuffed, just the way I wanted them.  I sure hope my girls love these.

Not a great photo, but it shows Bob wearing one of these shirts last year on our cruise.

May your bobbins always be full,

Secrets

I'm building a secret gift for my daughters.  This is the first part, making blocks for the front of two pillow covers to give them for their July birthdays.  I'm pretty sure they don't read my blogs, I think the secret is safe, here.  My youngest will be out of the country for her birthday, so I'm rushing to get the gifts done for when she comes here on Wednesday for Bob's birthday.  We're going to the cemetery and then lunch to celebrate him.

I'll post updates or the finished project, time permitting.  This block is called Double Windmill and I used some Sweetwater for the prints.

May your bobbins always be full,

A Lighter Shade of Pale, Carrie's quilt is finished

This is from an email from my daughter, Carrie, who lives in North Carolina, that started this quilt:

"I've been thinking about a quilt and I think I want to go with non-colors. For example one dark charcoal gray fabric on the back; on the front have a quilted pattern of whites and off-whites, maybe pale, pale, pale pinks and yellows, too. Then have the stitching in a white thread so it would be subtle on the front, but dramatic on the back. Maybe in a floral pattern. What do you think?"

What I thought was, "This is do-able" and I set out to make Carrie her quilt of Non-Colors.  You can read about the process, here.

The quilt is very difficult to photograph, especially in sunshine.  I waited until our patio was shaded to get these photos.

This is the back of the quilt.  The quilt is twin size and measures 64.25" x 82".  We used Eggshell thread and the pantograph is called Star Flower Swirls.  My long arm quilter is Janiel Miller.  I'll get this shipped to Carrie, tomorrow.

May your bobbins always be full,

A lovely stack of quilts, just waiting for bindings.

My long arm quilter has a couple of vacations planned.  Right now, she's in Connecticut, visiting her daughter, and in March she and her hubby are going on a cruise.  Before she left for CT, she concentrated on getting some of my quilts back to me.  She still has two!  She's a wonderful gal and I really like working with her.  Before I found her I tried four other long arm quilters.  Two weren't any good, and two quilted the wrong pattern on the quilts I'd entrusted to them.   

The top one and the bottom one are commissioned quilts, I'll get them done first, and get them in the mail, once payment is received.  The larger center quilt is for my daughter, Carrie, and the other two are just because I made them quilts.

May your bobbins always be full,

A Lighter Shade of Pale

I've been making steady progress on Carrie's quilt top.  Today I assembled the bottom half and assembled  the whole top.  I held the quilt top while Bob was the photographer, we usually do it the other way around, but he has a sore foot today, and I didn't want him climbing.

I think "A Lighter Shade of Pale" is a good name for this beauty, a take off on Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale".  The quilt top measures 64 x 80.5".

May your bobbins always be full,

Progress Report

Carrie's quilt top is half done.  I'm really loving this pattern.

I think all the low-volume prints are working out great.

I started out trying to get some shots that showed out beautiful blue sky.  The sky looked great but the quilt looked unacceptable; so we moved to the other side of the yard, in the shade.

May your bobbins always be full,

One Quarter Together

It's a very blustery day, today.  When I took my walk, I had to dodge the tumbleweeds.  I have the top quarter of Carrie's quilt stitched together.  I'm very please with how it's going.  I pinned it to the wall hanging on the front door, took some photos then rotated one, so you can see the it from the top, instead of sideways.

May your bobbins always be full,

Carrie's Quilt

I've spent the last two days creating HSTs and truing them up, then cutting 4" squares.  If nothing goes wrong, I'll start piecing the quilt top, tomorrow.  I've come up with a plan; I'm going to sew them together in sections, instead of rows.  I think that will be much more manageable.

May your bobbins always be full,

Carrie's Quilt

I thought I'd share my process for Carrie's quilt.  I spent some time on Excel at the computer before I started cutting.  I decided that I'd work with 4" squares, so the finished squares will be 3.5 inches and I shaded in the colors; the tan will be the white background prints.  The column on the right indicates how many HSTs, I'll need altogether.  Then I determined how many of each color combo I needed. 30+36+30=96. Next, I figured out how many squares of each color were needed.  114+102+102=318.  96+318=414 total spaces; so my math is correct.

I'm using this method for making my HSTs, I'll have some extras to fool around with.

Click on chart to go to blog post.

I'm also planning to cut a few extra of each color, just in case.

May your bobbins always be full,

A quilt in non-colors

This is from an email from my daughter, Carrie, who lives in North Carolina:

"I've been thinking about a quilt and I think I want to go with non-colors. For example one dark charcoal gray fabric on the back; on the front have a quilted pattern of whites and off-whites, maybe pale, pale, pale pinks and yellows, too. Then have the stitching in a white thread so it would be subtle on the front, but dramatic on the back. Maybe in a floral pattern. What do you think?"

After her son Brett received his quilt, she asked if I would make her a quilt about the same size (twin).  I said sure, just let me know what you want.

These are the fabrics I've pulled together.  I think there's a good balance.  The gray and white stripe will be for the binding.  I thought that would tie the back and front together.

I'm very smitten with this quilt image, I think it's from Fall Quilt Market, but I'm not sure:

I think I may try something similar with squares and HSTs.  Of course with the "non-color" fabrics it'll be very subtle.

May your bobbins always be full,

Do you have any extra quilts?

Do you like the new look?  If you only read this blog, one of many of my blogs, you may not know that my oldest daughter, Carrie, is a fabulous blog designer.  She recently debuted this design, and I told her I loved it.

Being the great daughter that she is, she asked if I was ready for a change.  I said, "Yes, please; but let me pay you this time".  Not only is she fabulous and great, she's generous.  I'm frequently open to being her guinea pig when she wants to try something new in blogger; I get a great new look and she doesn't charge me.  (She works on all the blogging platforms, and more.)

Carrie lives in NC, and I'm in SoCal, so we frequently "converse" via email.  Yesterday, she called to get my access codes to start the do-over on all my blogs, and she asked, "Do you have any extra quilts?".  I about fell off my chair.  That was a pretty funny question to a quilter!  I calmly said, "Why yes, what do you need?".  She's going to a baby shower and the Mom-to-be doesn't know the sex of the new addition.  I told her I had the perfect quilt.  It's one of my favorites, and it's now on it's way to NC.  The baby shower is on Saturday.  I hope everyone loves it.

That's how we barter in the Prytz Family.

You still have time to enter the 100 follower giveaway, if you're a follower.

May your bobbins always be full,

news

• I've done 3 tutorials, over the past several months, so I decided to create a tute-page.  I mentioned it to my blog designer daughter, and told her she didn't need to do anything until the next spruce-up campaign for my blogs because it's really not a big deal - 3 tutorials.  She was like - Let me do it now, while I have all the html and codes fresh in my head.  So, we settled on a color and I had to come up with a new F word.  I kept it simple with "Fun Tutorials".  You can see she added it to the bar at to top of all my blogs.  Carrie's smart and amazing.
• I'm getting new quilt racks for the living room.  For some reason I blogged about it on the family blog, I guess because the wonderful and handsome Bob is involved.
• I haven't been ordering much fabric, just trying to use what I have; but today FQS added two great lines to their 40% off page, and all my will power went out the window.  But really, $5.99 a yard for fun organics!  Can you blame me?

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May your bobbins always be full,