Geese at Sunrise ~ 2, Precut Challenge

This is the layout I chose for the leftover HSTs from the Geese at Sunrise Quilt Top.  I initially thought I'd make pinwheels from the 16 giant HSTs; nope I didn't like that layout.  So I fooled around with the layout for a couple of days, sort of tweaking the design as I walked by the dining room table.  This quilt top measures 45" square.

My "normal" LAQ now has 3 of my quilts to work on, so I'm going to contact someone else about quilting these two.

May your bobbins always be full,

Geese at Sunrise, Precut Challenge

I'm still challenging myself to use precuts from my stash.  The focus this month is Jelly Rolls. I have at least 5 more jelly rolls in my stash, so I'll be busy for a while!  The jelly roll I used for this project is called Sunrise Colorstory by Kona Cotton.  The blue fabric is from stash. This measures 45" x 57". 

I have enough of these giant HSTs leftover to make a small baby quilt; I'm leaning toward pinwheels but that's a decision for tomorrow. 

May your bobbins always be full,

Pre-Cut Challenge

I have tons of precuts, from when I started quilting. I've decided to challenge myself to use them up.  I'm calling it the Pre-Cut Challenge.  Feel free to join in.  Here's the hashtag:  #precutchallenge

These are from a batik jelly roll and a Kaffe Fassett jelly roll. The Kaffee roll only had 29 strips while the batik one had the normal 40 strips.  I removed the black batik because who needs a black batik and added 12 solid strips that I cut from my stash.  Then I shuffled everything a couple of times and divided them into two stacks.  This is the result, 2 Jelly Roll Race Quilt Tops. I love how they turned out!  Boy, is my LAQ going to be busy.

 I have a couple more Jelly Rolls I'm going to use, before moving on the Layer Cakes and the Charm Packs.  I have tons of Charm Packs.

May your bobbins always be full,

Jelly Roll Fun

My quilt guild, The Temecula Valley Modern Quilt Guild, is a lot of fun.  This month we all brought our sewing machines and a jelly roll, and we made Jelly Roll Race Quilt Tops.  I love the way mine turned out, especially the "movement" created by alternating dark and light strips.  I'm donating it to the guilds Charity Quilt Drive.  What do you think of it?

May your bobbins always be full,

Simply Woven Quilt is finished

The push has been on!  I really wanted to get the bindings on three quilts before 2015 arrives, and I've done it.  This quilt is the final finish of 2014.  Most of my quilts are originals, made without a pattern, this one was an exception, the Moda Bake Shop tutorial was wonderful to follow.

Front, back and the quilting, and YES, we had snow overnight, right here in Murrieta.  It's after 1 PM, the snow is melting, but it's still here.  Great fun for SoCal people.  We got a light dusting about ten years ago, and when I was a little girl about 65 years ago, we had snow in Long Beach.

Name of Quilt:  Simply Woven
Start Date:  July 6, 2014
Finish Date:  December 31, 2014
Measurements: 59" x 59"

May your bobbins always be full,

Progress Report on the Simply Woven Quilt Top

I'm making good progress on my latest project, the Simply Woven Quilt Top.  So far, I've added four of the stripes by cutting, joining and pressing my seams open.  There are two more stripes to be added in, then I'll be able to join all the blocks together, after a bit of "trueing-up"; a necessity with this many pieces in a block.

I wanted to point out that if you comment on my blogs and you don't hear back from me, you are most likely a No-Reply Blogger.  It's frustrating to a small blogger like myself, not to be able to interact with you, if you've been gracious enough to leave a comment.  If you do a google search of  "no-reply" blogger, you'll find lots of people willing to tell you how to fix this.  I do want to mention that not everyone uses the Blogger platform for their blogs; the other free platforms that I'm aware of are Wordpress and Typepad.   One good solution is to have an account with all the the blogging platforms, the account is free; that way it's easy to leave comments on all three types of blogs.  Here's hoping you become a Reply Blogger, if you aren't.

Now, I'm going to slash and add stripes to all 25 Simply Woven Blocks.

May your bobbins always be full,

Workin' on the Chain (Piecing) Gang

I'm making progress on the Simply Woven quilt.  I've sewn things together, cut them in two, then joined them together, again.  I'm liking the way these blocks are looking, so far.  Now, I'm off to make more cuts and joins.  Sounds like carpentry instead of quilting, when I write it that way.

Today's my birthday, I'm 70.  I've been celebrating for one week, by not cooking.  Today is going to be an ordinary Tuesday, with some sewing and in the afternoon I teach my Tai Chi class.  Since I teach on a voluntary basis, I never cook on Tuesdays or Thursdays, that's my reward.  Tonight we'll play cards with our regular group, so it really is an ordinary day.

May your bobbins always be full,

New Project, Simply Woven

A former bookseller friend, who lives in AZ suggested a quilt design for the two memory quilts I'll be working on later this summer.  Nancy is a very experienced quilter, here's a photo of her, stolen from FB, that her daughter posted.  The quilt was entered in the Arizona Quilt Show in Phoenix.  Isn't it fabulous?

The quilt design she suggested is Simply Woven Quilt by Jessica Kelly for Moda Bake Shop.  The "recipe" makes a twin size quilt and uses two Jelly Rolls.  I'm using stash, and chose Tranquility by Michele D'Amore for Benartex.  I only have one Jelly Roll, so I cut the "recipe" in half.  I'm using black for the background fabric.

I got busy with the cutting, and carefully labeled each strip size.  

Jessica doesn't mention strip-piecing in the directions but I'm thinking that's the way to go.  So, I'm off to start stitching.

If you're interested in the half numbers, here they are:

Fabric

(1) Jelly Roll or (40) 2.5" strips, WOF

1 1/4 yard of background solid.

Cutting.

from 12 Strips cut: (2) 8" strips (24 total) and (2) 12.5" strips (24 total)

from 12 strips cut:  (4) 9.5" strips (48 total)

from 16 strips cut:  (3) 11" strips (48 total), you'll have a leftover 9" strip that you can use for the quilt back design or put in your scrap bin.

May your bobbins always be full,

Houses from scraps

I used the rest of the Citrus Marbles Jelly Roll for this quilt, plus two houses from this project.  I used more scraps for the back.  The finished size will be small, 39 x 39.

May your bobbins always be full,

Small reflections

I'm still using the jelly roll of Citrus Marbles.  (There's more to come from this one jelly roll!)  This is sized for a baby or lap quilt.  This week I took 4 quilts to the long arm quilters, so this one will be in the next round.  I'm using the rest of this jelly roll, Iove these colors, to make some house blocks.  There's not enough for an entire quilt, but I'll come up with something, (she said with confidence.)

May your bobbin always be full,