Got Nothing Finished Friday

I realized I had not been here since Monday. I love being able to link up with all the Friday Finish posts and have people stopping by, but I seem to have so many things in progress that are taking longer to complete. Hence the title of today's post.

So here is what I have in the works right now...

 This is my Belle Waves quilt top. I finally got another couple yards of Kona white so I can continue on with the piecing of this. I am half way done. I did swap out the two partial blocks at the top for some made with the Essentials floral print in keeping with the pattern I have in mind.

 Then this guy got a backing an all pinned up in anticipation of quilting. I can't believe how many pins it took and how long. But my Aurifil 40 weight thread that I ordered came, so now I am ready!

And lastly, a bit wrinkled, here is the first half of the queen size Concerto quilt I am piecing for my daughter and her new husband. I love this pattern and each size requires different size blocks, so it is going together quite nicely and quickly too. These squares are 7 3/4 inches.  This one really gets me excited to see it together.

And so, these are the projects that are keeping me busy these days. Thank you for dropping by, even if a linky didn't get you here, I love that you did. Talk to you soon.

Summertime and the Living is Busy

I know things are supposed to slow down in the summer, but really, do they? I don't have kids at home any more and I am still very busy with work and projects and planning vacations. I know those who still have little ones at home are busy now that school is out. There are camps and swim lessons and trips to take and family to visit. When I was a kid, we had maybe one week or so where we took a trip, but other than that, summer was very unstructured and loose. I miss those days.

So in the land of projects, here is some (not all) of what I have going on:

 I cut out all the rest of the pieces for my Belle Waves quilt. I am about a yard short on the Kona white, so I will pick some up later this week.

 I changed the arrangement of the blocks to one I like better. I am putting all the squared elements blocks in a row and then the essentials block in a row and alternating them. I just realized this morning that the two partial blocks on top need to be switched out for essentials, so I will do that too.

 These are really making my heart sing! The fabrics are so very soft and the colors so joyful to me.

 Then, I got the fabric for the boys' quilt backs. I was able to take advantage of a Kona sale at Fort Worth Fabrics and bought 4 yards of these two. I love the blue. The yellow was originally going to be Kona Curry, but they didn't have that so I bought a brighter yellow, which I think will be just fine. For now they sit for a few days while I wait for the thread to arrive. I ordered some 40 weight Aurifil from Hawthorne Threads to do the quilting with. I want to test out other weights of threads. I am also looking for a project to use an even heavier weight thread for quilting.

And lastly, for today, I have made these. These are two balls of string scrap "yarn" to make a crochet rag rug like Crazy Mom made. The tutorial can be found here. This is going to be my beach project. I need a hand work project to take with me to the beach in August. For my rag rug I will need 3 balls of this that each weigh one pound. One of these is done and one need a few more ounces to weigh in at a pound. I am using my kitchen scale to weigh them. I can't wait to get started crocheting on this! Have a great week and I will see you back here soon.

A New Project-WIP Wednesday

I am so very excited to be working on a new project! It took me so long to piece the boys quilt tops and I tried so hard to stay focused. Now that they are done and ready to quilt, I am allowing myself to start piecing something new.
I saw a quilt on facebook and I loved the design so after some investigation I found it on Flickr and then found the person who designed it is Faith of Fresh Lemons and hooray, it is a free design so I am now making it.

 I just love Art Gallery fabric. So soft and pretty that I had to buy all the Squared elements I could find and then the Essentials flowers, all by Pat Bravo. They play so well together, don't you think? I was just waiting for the perfect idea to strike in order to cut into theses beauties.  So here it is...

The pattern is Belle Wave by Faith of Fresh Lemons. Easy to piece and each one goes together pretty quickly. I am still playing with the arrangement, but I am loving each block so far. This will be a nice size throw when I am finished. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Lots of Blocks

I am happy to have done my Sunday Morning Quilts Bee blocks already for June. I just packed them up to put into the mail. A good thing too, since they are traveling so far this month. Some to Australia and some to England. I love thinking of them going to live in a quilt in another part of the world. Here they are:

 Tessophia requested 16 patch blocks to put into a checkerboard quilt for her daughter. This is going to be a lovely quilt.

 Treewytch requested blocks like the Grass Quilt in the book (Sunday Morning Quilts) but in a different colorway. This is going to be a bright quilt.

And then,  Chelsea at Pins and Bobbins put out a call to make blocks for a Quilt for Aneela, using Aneela Hoey fabrics. So I dug around and found that I still had a few charm squares from Little Apples and Sherbet Pips and I made these to send:

If you want to make some blocks for Aneela's Quilt, go here for more information. Have a great day.

Sewjo Saturday-Twice as Nice

Well I have been pushing and pushing myself to finish these quilt tops. And today...they are done.

 What held things up was all these little pieces that had to be sewn and then trimmed down and sewn again.

 That made these, which I used as a border to enlarge the quilt on the sides. I am aiming for twin.

 Here is the quilt top for V. The fabric line is Riley Blake's Rocket Age. The quilt design is my own.

 I love the little diamond borders down each side. The backing of this will be a Kona solid blue so it won't detract from the busy design which is the star.

The next quilt top is the one that started the whole thing for me...B's quilt. When I saw the Sasparilla fabric line, I knew I wanted to make B a quilt for his first big boy bed.

 He just turned 2, so it will be soon. I bought half yard cuts of my favorites, got out the graph paper and went to work. I quickly found I didn't have enough fabric, so I bought some more.

 The quilt looks a bit more washed out here than it really is, but once it's quilted, It will be great. The back of this one will be a Kona solid yellow.

 The boys share a room, so to have two quilts similar, but not identical seemed a good choice. I counted how many fabrics I used for B's quilt and when I saw Rocket Age, I picked out the same quantity of fabrics for V. This time I knew how much to buy the first time.

I am so happy with how these came out. Once I get them quilted, I will be back to show them off. Linking up with Kim for Sewjo Saturday.

Quilt for Aneela

Chelsea over at Pins and Bobbins is heading up a campaign to make quilt blocks for a quilt for Aneela Hoey. Aneela is the sweet artist behind such fabric lines as Little Apples, Sherbet Pips and Cherry Christmas, just to name a few. Aneela is going in for surgery for breast cancer and Chelsea had the wonderful idea to make her a quilt to show the support of our wonderful community of quilting bloggers.


If you are interested in being a part of this project, visit Chelsea's blog here for more information. She would like to have the blocks by July 1 and all blocks will be made from Aneela's fabric lines. The directions on how to make the x and o blocks is also available through Chelsea's blog which has a link to the free tutorial.
Let's join together and show Aneela how loved she is in our quilting community.

My Favorite Quilt

Molli Sparkles did a post on his favorite quilt that is on Sew Mama Sew. Turns out, there is a link up for this, so I decided to write one up on my favorite quilt and join in.  Choosing my favorite quilt was easy. It is the first one that pops into my head.

What is your favorite quilt? When did you make it? What pattern? What fabrics?
This quilt is one that I adapted, just a wee bit from one shown in an issue of Quilter's Newsletter. It was in either 2005 or 2006, and called Hearts Afire. There was to be one heart on fire and I think there was supposed to be a ribbon swirling through the hearts, but I am not sure if I am remembering that correctly. All the fabrics were from my stash and it is meant to be very scrappy. I am not usually a fan of doing so much applique, but this quilt cried out to me to be made. I began piecing it in the winter of 2006. I wanted to have a hand quilting project ready to take to Savannah with me when my first grandson was born. I was going for the labor and delivery and to help out for a week or so afterwards. I can't live that long without something to work on.  It worked out well, since my daughter was put on bed rest for the last week. I sat by her side and stitched as we talked and watched TV, waiting for the time to pass.
Have you shown it at any quilt shows or entered it in any contests?
I did enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival one year. I was not blogging when I finally finished it in 2010, and I wanted to share it with people. I even worked on it some when I went to be with my middle daughter for the birth of her son about a year later in 2007. Lots of quilting on this baby.

 What memories or people does the quilt make you think of? My family, my grandsons. I remember that time, waiting for them to be born.

 What do you like best about the quilt? I like all the different fabrics. This is the scrappiest quilt I have ever made. I also love the hand quilting.

How did you grow as a quilter while making it? It taught me patience for sure. It takes a lot of time to had applique that many hearts onto fabric squares. Each heart is quilted with an eye to the fabrics used in it, so each is different. The only machine quilting on it is around the hearts at the borders.

If you could make this quilt again what, if anything would you do differently? I would like to have hand quilted the entire thing. My new found patience wore a bit thin near the end.

Where is the quilt now?  It is folded in a stack of smaller lap size quilts that I rotate on my couch and chairs in my living room.

Would you like to add anything? Just that this quilt is now extra special, since it is one my daughter chose to hang up and be married in front of a few years ago. That cemented it's position as favorite as far as I am concerned.

Sunday Stash #20

Only one thing new in the stash this week. I am trying to back off buying so much fabric since I have to start using what I have more. Wish I could sew faster. I did buy a roll of Warm and Natural batting from Joann for half off week before last. That should help make lots of quilts. This week, I bought this:

 Six yards of Gail Kessler"s Dimple Dots in vanilla. This is the main/background fabric for the wedding quilt I am making for my daughter and new son-in-law.

 All the rest of the fabrics are fall colors in Dimple Dots as well. I can't wait to see this queen size beauty come together. She requested that it be quilted with leaves all over. I think I am going to let my longarm quilter do that.

And this is the great pattern I will be using. Once I finish this one, I may make a few smaller ones in other colorways. That seems like fun, right? Linking up with Sunday stash at Quilts from the Attic.

Sewjo, So Slow

So it seems my sewjo has slowed considerably this past week or so. I have had the most awful cold and haven't felt like sewing or much of anything else. I have done a little bit, so here I am to share that with you today.

 I got this baby quilt quilted. I still need to bind it, but I think hubby helped me figure that out, so that is up on the agenda for the coming week. I will share once the whole thing is done.

 And then V's quilt went from this earlier in the week, to this today....

I have a skinny red with white stars border ready to attach and then tons of HSTs to sew together for the final border. I will be working on that aspect of his and B's quilt together, since they are the same pattern with just different fabrics. Can't wait to see these two done. They are going to be so cool. Linking up with Kim at My Go Go Life for Sewjo Saturday.

WIP Wednesday Early June Edition

Well, we're half way through the year now. Isn't that a kick in the head? So what's happening in your house these days? I am still pushing to get through some things so I can begin a few others that kinda have deadlines.  Here's what I have going on:

 I am finally quilting baby quilt number 3 out of 5. I actually just this minute finished it, so next it will be on to the binding, as soon as I decide on that fabric.

 I am finally putting the rows of this quilt together. After that there is one more little bunch of triangles to assemble for the border and it will be ready to be quilted.

 And my middle daughter finally decided on the fabrics for this quilt, so as soon as the background fabric gets here, I will be starting on this one, which will be queen size for her wedding quilt. Can't wait to start this one.

Here is a close up so you can see the dimples on the fabric. Happy Wednesday everyone. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

My Perfect Picnic

Okay, I took way to many pictures and it's hard to cull some out. So I am including lots here. Consider yourself warned. This is what I started with:

A picnic quilt, to me, needs to be red and white. I sorted by saturation of color and drew it out before I began. That is a first for me. Here is what I ended up with:

I wanted gingham, but I had none. So I used only fabrics from my stash. Didn't buy a thing. And I. Love. It.  I even had the perfect backing fabric in my stash:

So I used it.  And my perfect picnic quilt is also perfect for the beach, which is where it got it's first test run.

 Mr. GQ and I went to the beach to participate in a race on our anniversary weekend in mid-May.

 We took the quilt and the picnic basket, which is soooo awesome, with us. It made the perfect little table between our beach chairs and a perfect place to stash food an beverages out of the sand and sun.

 And the backing being a beach print was serendipity. I loved every minute of it and said so often.

Mr. GQ agreed with me. It was perfect.  Now, it was time for the next test, an actual picnic.  We picnic in our yard or on our deck.  That is where we set up and you will see why.

 This is my favorite planter in the deck area. I can't seem to capture the beauty with my camera, but those flowers are so blue!

                           These little guys come around often.

                                 Pretty...

                         More pretty...

                           And here is our picnic...

 We love snack style picnic meals in the summer. Cheese, sausage, wine, fresh fruits...

                          More pretty...

             Best purchase ever...thanks Madame Samm...

 So cheers! We listen to Pandora with some of our favorite music; sometimes lite jazz, sometimes Frank Sinatra and other great stuff our parents listened to...

 Relax and enjoy. You don't have to travel far to do this. And clean up is easy. We can spend the day, or the evening after a long work week.

          The black and white stripes made a perfect binding to capture all the red and white.

                            Here is the back and front together...

 And this is the view from my deck, so you can see why it is our favorite place to be. It took a long time to get it this way.

So now, I bid you adieu...go and visit all the other wonderful picnics taking place.  I must thank Mary for a wonderful job as our head cheerleader on this one, and Madame Samm, I can't thank you enough for coming up with such an exciting and fresh idea for a hop. I have loved every minute of this one and will continue to enjoy it for a lifetime, with my quilt and my picnic basket. Here are the wonderful quilters I share my day with:
Monday June 2

Sew Incredibly Crazy
How Art You?
The Reluctant Quilter at Hazelnut Deux
GrammieQ's-you are here
I Piece 2 -Mary
Pig Tales and Quilts