A Churn Dash Day

Last week I had a morning set out to make my guild's Block of the Month (a churn dash variation called Paths and Stiles):

That same day I saw Beth's churn dashes in plaid  over at  Love Laugh Quilt, and I couldn't help making a few for her project too:

Ready for the show

 My half log cabin quilt is done, and just needs a hanging sleeve before it goes into our guild show in 2 weeks. I named it "Hawaiian Memories" because it was made from leftovers of all the benefit quilts we made from donated Hawaiian fabric. This is also a benefit quilt, so I will be saying aloha and happy travels to it....

Another one done and ready to go into the show. I made this to test out my basketweave pattern for the February benefit workshop. It was hard to limit myself to only 5 fabrics, but it certainly came together faster than my usual scrappy mess.

Melissa and I laid out scrappy trips blocks at the September benefit workshop.  It was her great idea to turn the blocks so the lines of black squares made a much more interesting pattern. You can see what it looks like all sewn up over at her blog Scrappy Stitches. 

Miscellaneous

Summer is almost over...

more of those 1/4 log cabin blocks finished

trying out a twisty pattern

a cool brick wall 

And the best part of my summer:
having fun with my PH sister at Vogue Fabrics!

Finished!

seeing the light of day at last!  

the back is nice too

the best part is getting something done

thinking about stripes and scraps

A reminder to myself:
My goal this year is to COMPLETE projects.

Some projects are currently a collection of fabrics in a box or bag. 
I have been collecting stripes, with the idea of using them in a simple project like this or this from Red Pepper Quilts.

Some projects are just a bag of scraps waiting to be used. 
Check out this tutorial: monochromatic improv log cabin
and then take a look at this scrappy inspiration from Lori:

and from Jane Norberg:

 Lots of ideas....

saturday

Added to the Hawaiian scrap quilt:

(thinking of 3.5" white borders to finish this off)

Made blocks for Kevin the Quilter's QOV block drive:

2 BOMs for RSQ meeting Tuesday done:

Progress!

More blocks

scrappy half log cabin blocks

something new

(Started last year)

Benefit quilt in process:

Started with 2.5" strips, light and dark. Half of the dark strips are blue, half are red. (Some of the dark blue ones might be green or black, to add to the mix.) Sewed pairs of dark and light strips together, and then cut strip pair into 4.5" blocks. Made a lot of these blocks. 

Sewed blocks together as shown below.

I wanted a red zig and a blue zag, so I was careful about my placement of red and blue.

And then into larger blocks:

So far I have made 30 of these larger blocks. 
(Aiming for a good-sized bed quilt.)
Next step, put them together....
This quilt is based on Mary's two-rail fence.

(Started last Monday)
Another benefit quilt in process:

From Hawaiian fabric (leftover from our last benefit bee workshop), and solid white, I have been making Beth's freestyle half log cabin blocks. They use up a lot of scraps and are fast and fun to make. Both colored and white strips are various widths, from 1" to 2.5" and the unfinished block measures 8.5". I kept the block roughly squared up as I went along. Sometimes the outside row was colored, and sometimes white.

So far this measures 39" x 39"----I think I'll make more blocks to make a more generous sized baby quilt.

Jelly Roll Race

Here you see my entry in my guild retreat's jelly roll race.
Made all from 2.5" scrap strips.
(I came in 2nd to last.)

Liberated Round Robin step 1

I had the idea of making something round,
so I started out with an asterisk block

and thought I'd add to it, make it more of a starburst 

After cutting again, turning the blocks around seemed more interesting, so I abandoned the starburst and went with the idea of a wonky square in the middle.

This needed something else, so I added triangles to make it a square in square. 

From circle to square---completely different from my starting idea.

Hope I can make it work with the second step.

Big and little

Big Blue made it to the Lowell Quilt Festival last summer.

A little quilt went into our guild show last fall.

For 2012, I hope to finish some of the BIG projects currently hiding out in my upstairs closet.

a late valentine

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but I hope it's not too late to spread the love:

Have a chocolate covered strawberry!

What do you think of this for a doll quilt?
  It's 18 x 18.
Does it need more blocks?
Does it need borders?

I added more zig zags to this top. Again, it's from leftovers. Not sure what size it will end up being.

The blocks are 3" finished, so if I do the math, this is about 21 x 30.

 I have some green borders for this.

.

Don't get too close to the screen:. there's been a lot of coughing going on around here. This has messed up our vacation/travel plans.... waaah!

After the snow

Here is my snow storm quilt trying to keep the Silver Blur cozy. I was working on this during the snow days using the never-ending pile of leftovers from the triple rail experiment.

This measures about 48 x 48, and I think I am going to make it into a wall hanging for our pink dining room. It goes into the "Needs to be quilted" pile, which is huge.

It's a beautiful sunny day today but super cold. The snow piles are solid ice.

I thought I'd pick a better name to sign in and out with. Big Sis and Old Sis didn't seem quite right, although I am Big and Old.

"Old Patchy" appealed to me, because I"m feeling very worn to bits, but that didn't seem too positive.

And then I thought of my old friend, Raggedy Ann, and "Raggedy Sister" sounded good.

So that's it.

Doll quilt progress

I'm trying to get myself to finish more projects. I have so many undone and I'm feeling stuck. I had the big idea of making up a batch of doll quilts from the leftovers of my larger projects, so I'd have something done. In order to test out the pattern I wrote for a twin-size split rail fence block quilt for the guild's benefit night last week, I made up the following top. Colors don't really show well here, it's very light and cheerful.

This needs borders, etc. But meanwhile, in the spirit of getting something done, I made up a doll quilt::

Simple gets it done. I'll keep on with more doll quilts.....

Here we go

My sister and I have been talking about making a little place to share our enthusiasm for fabric and quilting and general craftiness, and since we are now too big to fit in the clubhouse under the stairs, I thought this would be a good spot for sharing our fun. 

Ready or not, here we come!