Jade Garden Flimsy

The Jade Garden flimsy is finished. 

This is a large 96" square quilt. It's too big for one person to hold it up, but I'll try to take a better photo once my husband returns from his business trip.

I pulled an all-nighter to get this one done since it was too hard to stop sewing once I got started on the borders.

I had thought to quilt it with an edge-to-edge but my husband convinced me to come up with a custom quilting plan. It may take me a while to settle on a design because I often make several options before I decide I like one well enough to stitch it out.

Linking up with:
TGI Finished Friday

Fibonacci Fleurish Flimsy!

Jeff's fibonacci quilt has been pieced! It actually went together pretty quickly. I spent a bit of time fixing a mistake I made when I assembly-line pieced these block sets, but it didn't add more than a couple hours. 

I think these fabrics are really amazing. As I recall, they are Island Batik's Morris Mist fabrics I bought on clearance last year.

I'm going to let my husband quilt this one. He wants to do a nerdy math-inspired custom quilting job.

Linking up with:

Brag About Your Beauties
Finished or Not Friday
Off the Wall Friday
TGI Finished Friday

Another Shopping Bag

The bag is based on Sew4Home's Zippered Thermal Picnic Tote. This was actually my third time sewing this pattern and it went much better because I didn't follow her directions for putting in the zipper and instead did a recessed closed-end zipper. It was so much easier to sew into the bag because those bulky tabs weren't in the way. I also didn't bother to sew in the interior pocket since I won't need it.

By the time I had finished building the bag exterior, I was out of the denim rectangles (I actually had to cut a few more) so I just did the pockets with a larger scrap I had lying around. The lining is some leftover trigger cloth from many years ago. The batting is Insul-Bright Mylar/Poly Batting to help hold in the cold when we buy freezer items. (I actually bought a bolt of it a couple years ago, so I'm happy to finally be using some of it.)

Now that I've gotten the hang of making this bag pattern, I might just make a few more as gifts. These really are great shopping bags. And I found a couple more canvas remnants while spending the last week cleaning up my sewing room/closets.

Linking up with:

Brag About Your Beauties
Finished (or Not) Friday
TGI Finished Friday

Fall Foliage Spectacular Flimsy!

I finished my Fall Foliage Spectacular flimsy! Yay! I'm really happy with how it turned out. Had I remembered to pre-wash the backing fabric, I could already be putting it on the long arm frame, but I didn't. LOL

I have figured out how I'm going to quilt it, so once I get this fabric washed and pieced, I should be able to get this one finished fairly quickly.

I'd still like to make one more quilt in this same color scheme so now I need to choose what pattern to use. There are so many good options.

Linking up with:

Brag About Your Beauties
Finished (or Not) Friday
Off the Wall Friday
TGIF Friday

Chilhowie Quilted!

Chilhowie is quilted! 

I do think this one needs a label so I'll be setting it aside until the next time I do a batch of labels, and then I'll finish binding it. The backing I ordered turned out to be perfect, so I'm glad I took a chance on it.

I'm quite pleased with how this one turned out.

I quilted this quilt primarily with Christy Dillon's Orange Blossom set, but the original plan done entirely with these blocks felt like too many of the same flowers so I substituted in the alternate blocks with Donna Kleinke's Lady of the Lake 2 Block 1.

As usual, I used Quilters Dream Green batting and MaxiLock thread in the Lauren color. I had intended to use Glide thread, but I just didn't find a color I liked among my supply.

Linking up with:

Wednesday Wait Loss
Put Your Foot Down
Brag About Your Beauties
Finished (or Not) Friday
Off the Wall Friday
TGIF Friday

Easy Street Finished...and Gifted

In usual fashion, I was in such a rush to get the Easy Street quilt finished that I didn't get good photos. It was really big and my husband didn't have enough reach to hold it up for me.

It was gifted right after Christmas when my husband drove down to see his family.

My brother loved it and I'm happy to have finished a UFO.

I used the Quilter's Dream Green batting and lavender Glide thread. I quilted it with Anne Bright's Feather Garden. It's a beautiful pantograph, but it took so long to quilt. It was more than an hour for each row, plus the time to advance the quilt and fiddle with realigning the design.

Linking up with:

Brag About Your Beauties

Finished (or Not) Friday

Off the Wall Friday

TGIF Friday

Chilhowie Flimsy

My husband's mother is in her 90s, so he's made a point of visiting her every Fall to help her sift her belongings and spend some one-on-one time with her. This year, because he was busy working on election campaigning he didn't have time to go until December so I found myself alone on Christmas. 

Of course, that meant I didn't have to fuss with making food, or cleaning house for company. I just had a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, a couple of cookies, and called it good. After about 12 hours sewing, I finished the Chilhowie Flimsy. Yay!

Last week, I ran across a batik fabric at Hancock's Paducah that appeared to have the same color palette as this quilt. I've been burned by batiks before, but it was on clearance, so I decided to go ahead and order some, even though there's a high risk the picture is a poor representation of the actual colors. I won't be receiving the fabric until after the first of the new year.

While waiting, I've been playing with my long-arm computer program to create a quilting plan. I spent an entire day trying to create a fall-themed design, but I couldn't come up with anything I liked. So, I'll probably compromise and use a nice set of pantographs from Christy Dillon with flowers. This is my tentative plan at the moment.

Broken Bricks Flimsy

My lesson has been learned; that "light" blue doesn't quite work. I definitely should have used white for the little blocks, but I had a ton of that blue scrap leftover from the Queen's Jewel quilt I made a couple years ago. I thought/hoped it would work. It looked so light in the original quilt, but next to the yellow and light blues, it looks dark. Oh well. I'll probably go ahead and quilt this one and pass it on to Comfort Quilts via the Northwest Quilters Guild.

I used what scraps I had that went with the color scheme but I did cut a few strips off yardage. And the borders and backing are from stash. It's nice to use some of these fabrics that have been in my sewing room for decades. 

I also made progress on another quilt from my friend who visited a couple weeks ago. She left me fabrics to make another of these Broken Bricks quilts for her niece. It went together quickly, but I set it aside when I didn't really like the arrangement of fabrics. I would have to do a bunch of ripping to rearrange the blocks though, and since I'm only willing to spend so much time on a freebie, I'll go ahead and put the borders on it today for Friday Night with Friends.

Since this is the third broken bricks quilt in a row, I'm ready for something different for the next project. LOL

Linking up with
Finished (or Not) Friday

Friday Foto Fun

TGI Finished Friday

Paducah 2 Finished!

I recently completed my second Paducah Log Cabin quilt, but the tight schedule didn't leave me any time to think of a new name or make a label before attaching the binding. This was because I needed to send it off with my husband, who was heading out to visit his elderly mother for the holiday.

I must say, I'm quite smitten with the final result. For this piece, I used another chunk of my William Morris earthtone fabrics designed by Barbara Brackman, from around 2012. Back then, my grasp on fabric quantities for a quilt was a little hazy, leading me to buy way too much. I'm grateful I found someone who appreciated them as they are beautiful fabrics, the colors just aren't in style. (Though, I am seeing a lot more browns lately so maybe I'm at the front of the trend this time.)

This quilt design was created by Judy Martin and is available in her Extraordinary Log Cabin Quilts book. I've really become an admirer of her incredible designs.

In the rush, I managed to snap a quick photo before my husband's departure, but alas, the lighting wasn't ideal—too shadowy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed he'll capture a better shot for me upon delivery.

For a change, I also took a photo of the backside. =) I thought it looked interesting.

For the quilting, I chose the Buffalo pantograph from Quilter's Niche, primarily because it was my brother's favorite. (Though I suspect it’s more bison than buffalo in shape.) The pantograph stitched out smoothly, but if I were to nitpick, I'd say I wished for a tad more detail in the bison, especially to fill the large unquilted space inside the body. Should I use this pantograph again, I'd opt for a smaller overall size.

I used Quilter's Dream Green batting, as usual, and stitched it out with soldier green Glide thread. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good photos of the quilting. That's one of the problems with rush jobs.

With this quilt off to its new home, my gaze turns to the rest of the year. I might just be dedicated to taming the chaos of my sewing room and tackling the mountain of scraps that's reached knee-high proportions. I'm contemplating participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge next year, and Bonnie Hunter's scrap saving system seems like an efficient approach. Pre-cutting my scraps into uniform strips will surely make my next scrappy quilt project smoother. Here's to orderly chaos and colorful creations! 🌈🪡

Linking up with 

Brag About Your Beauties
Finished (or Not) Friday
Friday Foto Fun
Peacock Party
TGI Finished Friday

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.

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

Rose Lane Quilted

Just as June is coming to an end, I've managed to wrap up my One Monthly Goal! Taking inspiration from the floral theme and the original pattern name, I've decided to name this creation "Rose Lane". The pattern, Diamond Lane, was a free one from Wilmington. Although I made adjustments to the size of the blocks and the border, the final quilt still holds true to the spirit of the original pattern. This was my focus for June's One Monthly Goal.

I used a variety of rose and garden theme pantographs to quilt it. I'll go ahead and list them here for reference.

Donna Kleinke, One Song Needle Arts

Carmen's Roses Block
Carmen's Roses Border
Carmen's Roses Frame 2-Quarter
Carmen's Roses Motif (with an edit to add extra leaves)
Wind Dance Sash

Darlene Epp

Chloe's Garden Frame 5

Patricia Ritter

Rosebud Border (free right now)
Rosebud Border Corner (free right now)

The batting was the last bit of Hobbs Heirloom 80-20 batting. And I used Madeira Aeroquilt Red #8380 thread.

All in all, I'm thrilled to have reached my goal for the month, and I'm even more thrilled with the final outcome of Rose Lane. The floral patterns truly bring it to life, and I'm eager to start on my next project!

Linking up with:

Brag About Your Beauties
Finished Or Not Friday
Friday Foto Fun
Off the Wall Friday
One Monthly Goal Finish
Peacock Party
TGI Finished Friday

Comet's Revival Quilted!

Get ready for a comeback story – the tale of my second finish from the Comet blocks of my May UFO goal! It had a rough start; a quilt flimsy riddled with pleats and puckers that was far from perfect. I can't even imagine what possessed me to finish it in such a state (though, honestly, I probably just couldn't wait to be done...LOL).

Now aptly named Comet's Revival, this quilt breathes new life into the purple Comet blocks with fresh sashing and corner blocks. I'm thrilled that I didn't purchase a single new fabric for this revival! Instead, I used only fabrics I had on hand and I recovered the purple paisley fabric from a square dance skirt I made years ago for the sashing corner blocks. It was a small sacrifice to make, considering the skirt was gathering dust in my closet. For the backing, I unearthed a hefty piece of green marble-look fabric, a relic from the early 2000s.

For the quilting, I experimented with various feather blocks. Admittedly, I'm not completely in love with the result, but the idea of disassembling the whole thing never really took a serious hold. After spending an abundance of hours earlier this month unraveling the quilt stitch by stitch, I simply didn't have the heart for another round! The main culprit of my dissatisfaction is the large square feather block – it lacked symmetry, and with a nine-patch design, it's all the more noticeable. Nevertheless, I decided to stick with it.

But it's not all bittersweet! I adore the outer border feather from mycreativestitches; her Midsummer Dream Simple Border and Corner worked wonders. For the sashing, I went with a pantograph called Flipped on Feathers that came with my long arm. And the adorable corner blocks are the Funky Feather block by Anita Shackleford, another that came with my ProStitcher software.

The batting is my go-to – Quilters Dream Green 100% recycled batting. I paired it with another MaxiLock serger thread, this time in a Churchill green shade. For these low-stakes leftover block quilts, I see no need to splurge on pricey threads.

What a relief it is to have completed my May UFO before the month's end! There were moments of doubt, but I pulled through. And now, with a quartet of quilts piled up, I'm considering dedicating a few days to creating quilt labels and binding them all. A perfectly productive way to celebrate the completion!

Linking up with:

Midweek Makers
Needle & Thread Thursday
Brag About Your Beauties
Friday Foto Fun
Off the Wall Friday
TGI Finished Friday

Cosmic Cabin Quilted!

I was on a real roll from Sunday afternoon straight through to Monday evening, only pausing for a well-deserved sleep break! I've been absolutely set on completing these two quilts by month's end, and that resolve has turned me into a quilting powerhouse. It's been all about stitches, patterns, and fabric - until these quilts are done, my world revolves around them!

It's 92x92 so a little large for one person to hold it up

Here's a glimpse into my quilting strategy...

I employed Donna Kleinke's Spiral Pantograph (slightly tweaked to make it a block design) on the Comet blocks, while her Simone's Gems Corner block brought the log cabin blocks to life. The border was adorned with her Simone Feathers Border and Corner Set, and oh boy, did it turn out beautiful! It was rather thread-hungry, practically devouring a whole 3000-yard spool, but it was worth every inch.

The backing of the quilt sports the 108" Dream Cotton Solid in a rich Hunter Green from Marshall Dry Goods. The quality-to-price ratio is just stellar, and I'll likely incorporate more of their fabric into future projects.

As for the batting, I opted for Hobbs Heirloom 80-20 Premium Cotton Batting. It was the perfect width, so no piecing necessary! I bought a 15-yard bolt several years ago and I've been slowly using it up. After this quilt, there is just a remnant left, freeing up some much-needed space in my long arm room.

And let's not forget the stitching! I used a budget-friendly MaxiLock serger thread in a delightful Tea Rose shade. It was conveniently on hand, and this year, I've been on a mission to finish projects without splurging on extra supplies.

So there you have it, the cosmic journey of my Cosmic Cabin quilt. I should have just enough time left to finish quilting my Comet's Revival before the end of the month!

Linking up with:
Wednesday Wait Loss
Brag about Your Beauties
Friday Foto Fun
Finished (or Not) Fridays
TGI Finished Friday
Off the Wall
Peacock Party