Criss Cross

Criss Cross three yard quilt is a free pattern from Wood Valley Designs. This has actually been done for a month but I just haven't been able to get decent photos. The colors just are not true to what they really are. In real life the ones that appear yellow are a yellow green, the pink is really brighter, the blue is teal and bit darker than in the photos. The background is the only one true in color!

 Freehand flower swirl made for a quick and cuddly quilt at 41x52. I am now up to six quilts of various sizes for donation. They will go to my DIL's church group to hand out to those who need a snuggle with a quilt.  It makes me happy to be able to make and give these away. There are at least four more in progress. My goal is twelve for the year.

Linking with Beauties Pageant, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF, Finished or Not Friday, Off The Wall

As always I truly appreciate your comments, I read every one and try to respond if I have your email since blogger is saying everyone is a no-reply!

 

A string finish

Oh but it feels so good to be getting some of these quilts quilted and bound. Over the winter I pieced this one and it made it over the finish line this past week. Then I had to wait to take photos as the weather didn't want to cooperate.

Phone book pages were used to piece the strings to. Using a jeans needle and a small stitch length makes for easier tearing the paper off.

A large stipple sped up the quilting process a lot, it also keeps the quilt a bit softer.

So thankful for friends that give me fabric for my donation quilts, in this case the backing. 

Linking with Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings and Sew and Tell Monday. 

Want to see some pretty peonies? Oh I am sure you do;) This is what they looked like just a week ago. We started counting the buds, upwards of 200 on there!!!

Here there are as of yesterday, so pretty and many more to open yet.  I hope you all have a great week.

 

Scrappy Brick Finish

The scrappy brick flimsy is now a full fledged quilt! A quick all over larger stipple  on the longarm made this move along fast. A tan Signature thread called Mother Goose was used. I finished it off with a burgundy print binding. 

The backing was a pre printed panel that I cut apart and added the larger strips of tan muslin in two vertical rows and one horizontal row in the middle to make it big enough. 

The panel was given to me a few years ago, I am glad to finally have put it to good use.  I was pleased to see I was able to come very close to centering the top on the backing. This is donation quilt #four for 2025

The other scrappy project has moved along also. The blocks are all made, now it is time to sew them all together. The two borders have been planned also. It's good to use some scraps-it's like making a free quilt, almost!

Linking with Finished or Not Friday, Off The Wall, TGIFF, Beauties Pageant, Freemotion Mavericks, Oh Scrap!

 

What's on the design wall

Here is what is on my design wall-at least for a few more days. I had some free time and decided to bring out my featherweight for some mindless sewing. 

These began as string strips. 

Next I let my 12" Accuquilt cube companion set do the cutting of this shape. After I get a bunch I will add triangles to the two corners. No rhyme or reason as to the strips I use, it's grab and sew. 

When I tired of that I finished up this little quilt.  It's about 40" square. I used the kite shape from 12" Accuquilt cube. The blocks were all pieced in December and assembled recently. 

I was happy to find just the right size and color fabric for the backing.  This makes donation quilt # three finished for this year.

Monday Linky Parties:

Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew and Tell

 

It's not a UFO anymore!

The time had come for this flimsy to become a finished quilt this past week.  The blocks were made in 2019 and assembled back in 2020. At that time I couldn't decide if I wanted to do a border and if so what fabric to use. The prints are from a Sundrops Jolly Bar and I added the green polka dot from my stash.

Fast forward to last week while I was looking over my UFO's, this one jumped out at me and said 'it's my time to shine'!  I had bundled up the chevron coral, the polka dot coral and the coral backing with the flimsy. So I went with those for the border and the backing. The backing had to be pieced. 

On Saturday I loaded it onto the longarm and got it basted down by stitching the straight lines on both sides of the green zig zags. I quilted little by little each day since. Custom quilting can take a bit of time and patience. 

Yesterday I finished the last two borders and got it bound. Did you notice how I added a small piece of the chevron coral in between the polka dot binding?  That was done on each side with random placement. I used two layers of batting-one of 80/20 and one of a thin poly. This combo gave me the definition I was looking for to show off the quilting. That also makes it a stiffer quilt so no cuddling with this one. It's all mine to hang on a quilt ladder or maybe a wall since it is lap size.

When you have a quilt top, border fabrics and 5 yards of backing fabric bundled together you can actually see a dent in the 'to be quilted pile'!

Linking with TGIFF, Off The Wall, Finished or Not Friday Beauties Pageant. Free Motion Maverick's

Our Japanese Iris are open. 

 

Strippy UFO finish and a birthday

 Another UFO has crossed the finish line. This one is a spin off of something I saw on Pinterest. 

I pieced this one in November and quilted and bound it this past week.  The quilting is freehand all over swirl flower design, that will keep this quilt soft for a donation quilt. 

Since I used a pink fleece, that was given to me, I didn't use batting in this one and wow is it ever cuddly.  It finished at 39 x 48. 

It's my birthday today so hubby brought me flowers, hmmmm they smell so good!

I'll be linking with Wednesday Wait Loss and NTT. 

Scrappy D4P

 My scrappy green disappearing four patch (also known as D4P) has crossed the finished line and is ready for donation. I posted about the beginning of this quilt here. Since I started it this year and we are only into June(how did we get here so quickly!) I will say it was a WIP not a UFO;)

I had time and the desire to find a backing for this 40 x 50" top and before long it was finished. The backing is a flannel that was given to me. Flannel is a great backing as it gives a cozy feeling to the quilt. 

A quick stipple and a green binding completes this quilt and gives it great texture. 

There were also two other tops made into quilts but I will save those for another post.  This is what I will be working on this week.

Our Spirea was just loaded with blossoms this year.

Linking with:

Oh Scrap!

Sew and Tell Monday

Monday Musings

Design Wall Monday

Braided table runner

Another UFO worked on and finished! This was a fun project that started a long time ago, we are talking years and I have no idea exactly, but more than  four I am sure.   One and a half inch strips and the little braid template from Kate Colleran was used for this project. 

One length of braid was made and then all set aside until this past weekend. Why do we do this to ourselves, all sorts of reasons I guess! I am pretty sure I started it on one of our camping outings and wasn't sure how it would end up.  

I had no pattern for it, but I sure love how it came out. An Etsy customer thought so too and she bought it shortly after I listed it! I am thinking I might need to do another.

The front is all Island Batik fabrics while the backing, which I think went perfectly, is a batik from Marshall Dry Goods.

I did a little custom quilting on this one. Stitch in the ditch along each side of the dark teal sashing and then a feather type of quilting in each braid. The light teal borders received ribbon candy quilting. The first time I used Kate's little template was when I did a purse using her pattern and these same fabrics back in 2019. Kate now has a book out on braids

Linking with: 

Wednesday Wait Loss

NTT

Finished or Not Friday

Beauties Pageant

TGIFF

Off The Wall Friday

UFO moved to a flimsy

I am feeling the satisfaction of bringing a UFO to the flimsy stage.  It all began by cutting bricks from scraps last November. Such satisfaction, don't you agree?

For the neutral squares I did end up using a bit of yardage. And soon I had two strips pieced. Shortly after that I put it aside...

Until a few days ago when I wanted it off my design wall. I had a little conversation with myself that I should just sew up more strips first. I only needed three more strips and I could end up with a UFO crossing the flimsy finish line. But wait that would be a smaller top than I wanted. So into the stash for some solid blue for sashing strips and a little outer border. Ahhh satisfaction! Quilting will ensue at a later date as I am just in a piecing mood right now. 

Linking up with:

Oh Scrap!

Design Wall Monday

Sew and Tell Monday

Monday Musings

Sweetness

A few of you were wondering what I was going to applique on this table runner. 

Well you don't have to wait long as I finished it up yesterday! 

I designed this in EQ8 a few years ago and have made it a few times since. But this is a very recent make and now listed in my Etsy shop.

After piecing this I quilt it, then bind and applique it.

Browsing my stash for a backing and I found the perfect one!

We went to the Amish greenhouse again this year and planted this basket for the front porch. Such  pretty ruffles on this begonia. 

Check out these linky parties that I am partying with:

Wednesday Wait Loss

NTT

Finished or Not Friday

TGIFF

Off The Wall Fridays

Beauties Pageant

Tulips

My tulips are up and blooming-well they are in this runner not in my flower bed! The tulip block is from Center Street Quilts and is a freebie. While I have made this block before this is a new runner I pieced over the winter, in fact I pieced two identical runners but only quilted this one for now.

And the back.

On Saturday I hosted my local long arm group here, I had fifteen gals come. It was nice to see them all again as I hadn't seen them since November. We discuss things such as new designs we may have quilted, sharing things we learn along the way, quilt shows we might have been to and of course we have show and tell. I showed this tulip runner and a couple of patriotic runners from previous post. For a light lunch I served pulled pork sandwiches, chips and this cherry dessert... ok so hubby and I had eaten a couple pieces after they left:)

Also, after they left, I cut and pieced this table runner. It now needs quilting and applique so that is on my agenda this week along with quilting a few more.

Hope you all have a great week! Here are the linky parties I will join in today. 

Sew and Tell Monday

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

A little patriotic

It's no secret I like work with red, white and blue fabrics especially at this time of year.  I pieced three of these carpenter wheel toppers over the winter, they are all identical. This is the first one to the finish line. The Accuquilt carpenter wheel die was used to make this.

Quilted with my favorite freehand design called hook swirl.

The backing is from a bolt I bought at Marshall Dry Goods.  I really need to use up some scraps(maybe next time) and piece my backings but this was quick to finish with yardage.

The 10 degree wedge round topper is a favorite to piece and looks great in lots of fabrics. I have a tutorial for this under my tutorial link at the top of this page.

Also quilted with the hook swirl design.

The backing.

We took an ATV trail to this mining town,no longer in service, and took a tour.  Years ago there were 5000 people living here.  Henry Wickenburg discovered gold here in 1863. If you are curious you can read more HEREAt Vulture City mining town we saw several sewing machines(I am sure they had to patch those miners clothes). 

A look of the room it was in. You can see the same sewing machine in the left side.

Another machine. 

A fun surprise to see quilts on the beds.

This one looks pretty white yet!

Linking with Wednesday Wait Loss, NTT