So Many Charity Quilts

I didn't actually stop working on projects, I've just been too busy to take the time to post. I've been working on 11 charity long arm quilting projects.

One of them was for Pacific Northwest's Quilt Guild's Comfort Quilts program. I provided the backing, but the quilt was made by someone else. I quilted this one with the Avril pantograph from My Creative Stitches.

I also accepted ten quilt tops from Quilts Beyond Borders. I've finished eight of them so far.  I must admit, my quilting effort definitely reflected how much I liked the individual quilts. (These were all made by someone else, I only quilted them.)

This one was my favorite.  I spent all of a day quilting this one and used a variety of Donna Kleine's pantographs from her Gabriella set, though I did actually create that small sashing from elements in her sashing and border designs.

I also had fun playing with this quilt. The blocks were really large⏤about 14" in diameter⏤so I decided to try out the Bouqet de Fleur Bundle from Kim Diamond. The blocks are really pretty and stitched out well. I'm quite happy with how this one turned out too and I'm glad to see how lovely those pantographs are. I definitely need to plan my own project that will use them.

The rest of the quilts were just finished with edge-to-edge designs and I didn't even remember to take photos. I still have two more quilts left from the Quilts Beyond Borders charity then I am definitely going to take a break from unpaid gigs.

In the midst of all this, I also wrapped up two commissioned quilting projects. I wish I could share the beauty of these pieces through pictures, but I forgot to ask for permission.

So, it’s been a bustling couple of weeks, albeit not with my personal endeavors. Once the final two charity quilts receive their final stitches, my focus will shift back to my anticipated Snake River quilt. I have a pretty firm deadline on that one.

Snake River Log Cabin

My brother has decided to get remarried and I'd like to make him a wedding gift. It turns out his favorite colors are drab green/olive and brown so I thought it would be a good excuse to use more of my leftover William Morris fabrics. Back when I bought them, I really had no idea how much fabric you needed to make a quilt so I bought about four times as much fabric as I actually needed. LOL

I'm probably a little crazy, but I've decided to make another Snake River Log Cabin for him. The pattern is designed by Judy Martin and published in her Judy Martin's Log Cabin quilt book. I'll be making it really scrappy and focusing on olive greens and browns, with a little bit of rust/reds, something along these lines. I won't go quite as wild with the cream fabrics as I did last time because I didn't like how dark some of them were.

I've spent a couple hours digging through my scrap bins and fat quarters to find all the useable pieces, in addition to the yardage. Now I have so many hours of cutting ahead of me. It seems like the hardest part of this quilt is managing all the pieces.

If you want to take a look, the finish for my first Snake River is found here. This version will largely be the same, but I will be using the dark green instead of rust for the second curve of blocks.

Chocolates and Roses

Like a nice date with Chocolate and Roses, I spent my Friday Night finishing up my squirrel from a couple weeks ago! I have no more flimsies left to finish! It's taken me more than a year, but my closet is now bare. =)

Inspired by the name of the pattern, Chocolate Dip, I named mine Chocolates and Roses. I used the last of my Quilter's Dream Green batting for this quilt and I used inexpensive MaxiLock thread in a dusty rose color for the quilting. 

I chose Donna Kleinke's Carmen's Roses 3A pantograph because that curly tail reminded me of the knots in my quilt. Once I'd started, though, I'd rather wished I scaled it a little smaller. (To be honest, that's my one gripe about Donna Kleinke's pantographs, they are sized so huge that it's hard to know how much to reduce them to make them look good.)

Originally this pantograph had another row on the bottom, but when I realized it was exactly the right size without it, I edited it out with my ProStitcher Design software.

Linking up with:

Brag About Your Beauties

Friday Foto Fun

Off the Wall Friday

Peacock Party

TGI Finished Friday
Whoop Whoop

Morris Garden Quilted!

Hip-hip-hooray! 🎉 I managed to get this beauty quilted just in the nick of time—right before the month's close. Binding, however, will wait until after I do my next round of quilt labels. 

It's another really big quilt so it's hard to hold it up to get a good photo.

The quilting shows up better in dim light

This project pushed me into uncharted waters, throwing me design and alignment curveballs. It was a fantastic practice session, letting me flex and explore the alignment tools of my ProStitch long arm computer. What a relief it is to wrap up this quilt—it's been patiently waiting, making it the last 'flimsy' in my pile, urging me to summon the courage to quilt it.

Squirrel!

This week began with the sole intention of diving into my insulated bag project. However, life's little detours led me to a pile of scraps from my recent Rose Lane quilt. Pawing through these beautiful remnants, I spotted a stack of triangles and four long strips of patchwork-look fabric. The creative muse whispered, "Why not craft something fresh with them?"

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a pattern that seemed tailor-made for my scraps. Titled 'Chocolate Dip' by Lesley Chaisson, this design can be found in her book, "Charmed, I'm Sure: Quilts and More from 5" Squares." Most of my scraps were too small for her design, but with a little tinkering, I resized the blocks to fit. 

With my trusty Cricut by my side, I carved out the beige hexagons, while the remaining pieces were fussy cut from the pile of scraps. Admittedly, I indulged a bit too much time snipping those 2"-squares from the backing remnants. 

After assembling all the pieces, I found myself with a charming but modestly-sized quilt (30" wide). That's too small, so I decided to add another row of half-blocks around the quilt's perimeter. 

I played around with the arrangement of pieces and came up with this creative knotwork layout. I like how it makes my version unique.

I think I'll just do one more time around the perimeter with the small blocks before I add the borders. If I have enough of the grey floral outer border, this is my plan to finish this.

Finishing this flimsy seems like a good Friday Night Sew-In project.

Update: I stayed up insanely late and finished the flimsy.

Linking up with Finished (or Not) Friday

Friday Foto Fun
Peacock Party
Whoop Whoop
Patchwork & Quilts
Oh Scrap!

Insulated Bag, Take 2

After making three zipper units and wasting two zippers, I gave up putting a zipper on my first insulated bag project. I cut everything with the dimensions given in the pattern and they just don't end up the same lengths. So, I decided to cut my losses. I spent an hour or two putting the insulated lining and exterior bags together and added binding around the top edge. It's not my best project, but in this case, done is better.

But, I am still determined to make an insulated bag with a zipper so I decided to try again. I bought a ByAnnie pattern called Every Day Every Way, which is basically a diaper bag. 

Today I quilted up fabric for it. This is some very old Hoffman Fabric called Kaleidoscope and it looks like peacock feathers to me. For the batting, I used Pellon Insul-Fleece and a second layer of Quilter's Dream 70-30 batting. I used 100% cotton Harmony Violets Variegated thread. The manufacturer claims it produces minimal lint; that was not my experience.

I quilted it with the Modern Peacock pantograph from Kim Diamond. It is a really creative pantograph, but OMG it uses a lot of thread. I quilted about a yard and a half of fabric and it used SIX bobbins. 

Now I get to spend a couple hours cutting everything out. I'm hoping this one goes as smoothly as the last two ByAnnie bag projects I've made.

Flapper's Fancy Finished!

Flapper's Fancy is Finished! I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, but I've been too lazy/distracted to finish my blog post.

I originally designed and pieced this quilt in April 2021. I tried to find blocks in Electric Quilt/Blockbase that aligned along the edges and I think I was pretty successful. I'm quite happy with how it turned out. 

As I previously reported, all the quilt pantographs I used were from Donna Kleinke's Genevieve line. For the extra large blocks, I stitched them out in two pieces, as shown in this Handiquilter video on how to stitch Oversize Blocks. For the sashing, I was fortunate it fit (just barely) in my quilting space and I was able to do the sashing strips without rotating the quilt on-point, so this project actually ended up being easier than anticipated. It really did help that I selected pantographs which came in smaller pieces.

This is basically what I stitched out, though the outer flower border sashing is better aligned on the actual quilt.

This quilt has already been gifted; my brother visited last week, and I sent it off with him to deliver.

But its departure is a little bittersweet because I do really like it so I may dig through and see if I have enough of the Deco Elegance border/medallion fabrics left to make another for myself.

Linking up with:

Finished (or Not) Friday

Friday Foto Fun

Off the Wall Friday

Peacock Party

TGI Finished Friday

Whoop Whoop