Lavender Quilt

My Lavender quilt top is finally done! I can now focus on quilting it. In case you don't remember, or don't know, the Lavender quilt is an EPP quilt from Jodi Godfrey's book Seedling Quilts. When I saw this quilt, I just had to get the book and try it. It really made my heart sing.

This first picture, since I find it hard to rearrange in blogger, is a piece I got on sale for the backing of this quilt. I love that hot pink!

This is a (slightly wrinkly) picture of the whole quilt top. It is 54 inches square. I chose the honey ombre fabric for the borders, as well as th wedges inside the quilt design. I wanted lots of color movement.

The changes I get with the ombre are, I think, pretty cool. I love that it is not one flat color.

The triangles were all made from scraps from other projects. They are all low volume, which is not something I have lots of. I plan on lots of quilting, to tame these wrinkles and to really anchor the fabrics down since they are all hand stitched together.

The small triangles are Confetti Ombre Metallic in a deep red-ish purple color. Sorry I don't remember the name of the color. I chose that so I could use one fabric, and still have some color variation.

I love how this quilt to came out, even though it really doesn't look exactly like it did in my mind. I can't wait to get it quilted. I hope that part works out the way I have it planned.

Talk to you soon.

Penny Sampler Quilt Update

Working on the Dutch version of the new Penny Sampler Quilt Club is a monthly goal. We receive an assignment each month to complete the quilt, which is always the highlight of my month. When we finish, we will have another lovely quilt top. This quilt is all paper pieced and I am really learning to enjoy that technique for it's accuracy.

Here is part of this month's installment:

The top picture is some of the blocks on my design wall, with the friendship braid in the center. It was tough wrangling that long piece with the paper. It is 36 inches long!

This is the first of my houses. I was able to find enough of the raindrop fabric to do the sky in all of the three houses. Today, I only have one house done. I used Lola Dutch fabric from Sarah Jane. I had some leftover from Christmas gifts I made for Miss N.

The walls of this house are the library books on shelves. The windows are fussy cut from another border print in the collection. The part that is my favorite is Lola Dutch in the attic window reading, on a rainy day!

I will be back soon, to share the other two houses once I finish them.

Dear Dottie, Round Two

Ever since I did my Dear Dottie quilt, I have wanted to make another one in a more restricted color pallet. This is my attempt at that.

The Dear Dottie quilt has these wonderful dots that you create in several configurations. Some are light background and more saturated color inside, some are the opposite of that, and all together, they make for a very striking look. This was a QAL done with Rachel at Stitched in Color awhile back.

This block is a color dot with a darker border. I have made all the blocks in this category, so check that off the list!

This is the "white" background/dark interior block. I am done with this set of blocks also. You should know that I started with the blocks I needed the fewest of. I need to keep myself motivated.

This is the block that is whit interior/dark background. I still have a bunch of these to make. And this is not even the one category I need the most of. Oh, my!

This is the dark dot/ light background color block. I made these first, and the fabrics I used for the background do not appear anywhere else in the quilt. I chose the same colors, but in a much lighter tone.

I plan to just keep plugging along on this quilt. I don't seem to have it in me to put the pedal to the metal on a project of any kind right now. I flit from one to another. I am okay with that.

Have a great day, and I will be back here soon.

Monday Catch Up

So I wanted to catch you up on whats going on here in a crafty sense. I have many projects going in different mediums. I not only sew, I crochet and embroider. Here is a bit of what I have been working on.

This is part of the Dropcloth Sampler I am currently working on. I love her samplers. There is no color guidance on these, your imagination is your guide.

This is a new blanket I have started crocheting for Miss N. I hope to have it done for Christmas. I am using some of my leftover yarns from other blankets, but still did not have enough to do it all. I want all pinks and purples, since those are her favorite colors. So I had to order more yarn.

And this is my Dahlia blanket. I have finished all the rows, and am now working on round two out of six for a border. I hope it goes quickly and I can be done soon. It is hard to make myself work on this blanket for some reason. Well, it will get done.

I have other things going, that I will be back to share. Have a lovely Monday.

Testing Testing

So I decided to go ahead and switch to the new blogger format and see what happens. I am not deciding what I will ultimately end up doing, but I thought I should try it out at least.

So I finally started quilting the Good Fortune quilt that I began with Bonnie's mystery group in January of 2019. I did a couple of hours last week and decided to get it done this week. I did an hour or so each day, and yesterday it was finished.

And today the binding went on. I used a dark blue to frame the quilt and to make the blue in the final border stand out. I am pretty happy with it over all. I used an old Merimeko sheet for the backing. I have never done that before, but it worked out okay.

Over all I have to say I am glad it's done. I like the look of it. But I will never do another quilt with so many little pieces in it again. It was hard and quilting over so many seam joints was even harder. Still, I did use up a bunch of scraps and that's always a good thing, right?

I hope to talk to you soon. Many many projects are still in the pipeline.

650 Posts!

This post makes number 650 for this little blog. That is a lot of words and a lot of sewing and a lot of life. Every once in a while I go back and read the first few posts of my blog and I can't believe how far I've come.

Cindy from Live a Colorful Life used to do a series called the Name Game. She would interview a blogger and ask questions about the blog name they had chosen and whether they still liked it, etc. So I decided to tell you all that here, 9+ years into my blog.

When my first grandson was born, I wanted to decide what I wanted to be called. My grandmother was Granny. Her shoes were too big to fill, so I couldn't be a granny. I didn't want grandma, so I kinda mixed up the two into Grammie, but not with a y. When I told my children my choice, one of them said "Oh, like the award!" Ha.

A couple of years later, I wanted a vanity plate for my little yellow VW bug. I wanted Grammie, but it was taken. So I tried Grammie with a bunch of different letters behind it. Most of them taken. Then, my husband said "How about Grammie Q for quilter?" And that was it.

When I began my blog, about 3-4 years later, I was trying to find a name and there were so many good names out there, but again, my husband said how about Grammie Q? And so I became Grammie Q. I did worry initially that readers, if I ever got any, would have a perception of me as an old grandma and not want to read of follow me. But then I just forgot about it. And so here I am, all these years later, Grammie Q.

The Grammie who quilts, sews, cooks, bakes, reads and loves her grandchildren tremendously.

Blogger is changing its platform and I have heard it is not as user friendly anymore. We will see. If it's too hard to navigate, I may have to make a decision about the future of my blog. No promises.
So thanks for reading. I hope to see you all again soon.

Rain or Shine

Some months ago, I saw a snowball quilt and for some reason, I really wanted to make one. I had a couple of yards of Rain or Shine fabric from Wyndham, which I loved, and so I jumped in. I decided to do the in between blocks as a nine patch, adding color to the water color scenes. I used the dard blue Confetti Ombre Metallic for the corners of the snowballs.

 Here is a close up of the umbrella print. I love how cute and colorful it is. I used the umbrellas to help me choose the colors for the nine patch blocks.

 Here is a close up of the people walking with the umbrellas. It all looks like a water color painting and that's what I liked about it. I quilted wavy lines and then raindrops on the diagonal to mimic a rainy day.

 It's upside down here, but I quilted umbrellas free form in the borders and I have to tell you it really made me smile the whole time I was quilting.

 The blue dots are from Bada Bing by Me and My Sister. I wanted raindrops, but didn't have any, so this was the next best thing.

           These cute tea bags are part of the pieced back of the quilt.

                      This is the entire back of the quilt.

And one more close up of the border from the back so you can see the umbrellas. I am so pleased with how this came out, even if it did take me a long time to get it done.
Talk to you soon.