Modern Log Cabin Quilt is finished

This is the fifth of the six quilts I needed to put bindings on.  I made the quilt top in April and finally got the binding on it yesterday.

I used Cotton + Steel Moon Rabbit in Navy for the center of each log cabin block.

There are several scraps included in the binding.  Below is the pieced quilt back.

The finished size is 62" x 76".

These two quilts really go together.

May your bobbins always be full,

Bouncing Baby Boy Quilts

In the past month I've gotten word that two of the young women in my life, non-relatives, are both expecting their second baby boy, early next year.  One is my haircutter; I met Emily when we both worked at Barnes and Noble.  The other is my youngest daughters' best friends' daughter-in-law, Shauna.  The girls don't know each other, Emily lives in Lake Elsinore and Shauna lives in Iowa, so I thought I'd make my life easier and make them duplicate quilts.  

This is the fabric I'm going to use, Camp Sur by Jay-Cyn Designs for Birch Fabrics.  I purchased this stack of half yard cuts, a while ago, just in case!  I'm going to make a mini, about 40x40", of this quilt.

I debated a bit about which "white" to use for the background strips; I think I'll use the top jelly roll, of "natural".

I've been busy cutting away.  I cut a 5" strip WOF from each fabric, and sub-cut 3 5x5" blocks; then cut the remainder of each strip in half, for the two reflection quilts.

I have a couple of ideas about what I'll do with the 5x5" charms, so as long as I was cutting away, I thought why not cut them all at once.

May your bobbins always be full,

Plan B Quilt Back or Top!

Would you believe I still have some strip-scraps left?

Would you believe I really considered turning this quilt back into a quilt top?

Both statements are true.  I love the way this turned out.  I'm still pondering creating two quilts.

 My dilemma is, what would I do for the backs!  What do you think, two quilt tops or one of each?

May your bobbins always be full,

Plan B Quilt Top, next step

For this block, I really recommend pressing your seams open.  This morning I chained stitched all sides of my matched blocks.  The next step is slicing.

Cut all the blocks crosswise, on each diagonal, creating four HSTs from each block.....

Once the HSTs are pressed open, you can see how different they look.  My next step will be to mix the HSTs all up, then stitch them all together.  Wish me luck.

May your bobbins always be full,

Scrappy Trip Around The World

This funny photo shows how I pieced my blocks.  I decided to strip-piece the whole shabang; and it worked.  I didn't cut them apart until after I had a chance to take this photo.  Bob said, "That's gonna be one skinny quilt.  The entire quilt-snake was over 12 feet long.  The photo below shows the thread leading to the next block.

When I joined the blocks together, I was really happy with how they all looked.  I wasn't happy with the size, 35 x 46 inches.  I decided a border was in order.  When I purchased this jellyroll, I also purchased a coordinating print; so I was in business!

This is Dudley, my photo taking interrupted his sunbath, this morning, so he was forced to supervise, instead.

Here's the quilt top, with the border.  Now, it measures 47 X 58.5, a great size.

I had enough of the border print to use as a backing; I also had 13 little 6 piece strips leftover from the quilt top, so I decided to piece the quilt back.  

I love using all the scraps.

I'm linking up to this weeks' Let's Get Acquainted Monday Link Up.  Click on the button, below, to go to the Party!

May your bobbins always be full,

Scrappy Trip Around The World

I've started on my own Scrappy Trip Around The World.  (follow this link to get to the tutorial.)  It's been catching on like wildfire with many quilty bloggers.  I decided not to use scraps, instead I'm using a jelly roll, trying to use up the "stash", after-all.

The jelly roll is A Breath Of Avignon by American Jane, I purchased a long time ago.  I've already used 8 of the strips to make potholders,  I divided the rest into groups of six and did a whole lot of strip piecing.

I've cut the strip groups into 2.5 inch pieces.  From each group I'll get two Trip Around The World blocks, with 5 units left over.  We'll see how I use those; I haven't made up my mind.

May your bobbins always be full,

Practicing

When I was trying to install the yet untried walking foot on my fairly new Janome sewing machine, I felt a lot like Lucy looks in this photo.  With success, I felt confident I could actually do some simple straight line quilting; something I'd failed at with my old clunker of a Brother.

I'm working on a small  project.  For many years Bob would paint a watercolor scene for us to use on our Christmas card.  They were very nice, and we even had people collecting them.  

(All quilted, ready to be trimmed then use the backing for the binding.)

When Bob's health took a turn for the worse, he stopped painting and still hasn't resumed.  In spite of not receiving cards from us, several young families have continued to send us picture Christmas cards of their families.  These are not relatives these are blog friends and bookseller friends.

I expressed to my daughter Sharon how much I appreciated receiving these photo Christmas Cards.  She joked, why didn't I make them a fabric card.  That was the comment that started this project.  Instead of a fabric card I think I'll send each family some potholders or hot-pads.

I'm getting ready to make a scrappy strip quilt, and these were good practice.  The quilt blocks use 6 strips, and my potholders used 4 strips.  I hope I made all my mistakes with this small project.

May your bobbins always be full,

Productive

 This is the stack of FQ's I won.

I used every bit of this fabric to make these three quilt tops, plus some of it went into the quilt backs.

Kites, HSR quilt

Stash-busting Random Patchwork

Modern Rainbow.

Today, I work in the morning, and there's a "planned" power outage at home, (this is a scheduled post), so no sewing.  I think Bob and I might grab a bite to eat and see a movie this afternoon.

What are you doing this weekend?

May your bobbins always be full,

Modern Rainbow

What do you think?  I really love this modern quilt.  It went together super fast, too.  For the quilt back, I was in a quandary, too many ideas.  I finally settled on a simple solution.  I was totally out of the solids from the FQ's; I used two grays from my stash and a bit of one of the prints from the last quilt.

May your bobbins always be full,

Quilt Back for Simply Solids HST Quilt Top

I had two options for the back of this quilt.  One, I had 10 leftover HSTs, I could use; two, I had eleventy hundred small strips of about the same length and of various widths I could work with.

I obviously went with the second choice.  I paired each strip with a 2" wide strip of white, and strip pieced  everything randomly.  I'm happy with the result.  It looks like a Pendleton blanket on steriods, to me.

Simply Solids HST Quilt Top

May your bobbins always be full,