Noah with his new quilt

All tucked up! I made this with the leftover blocks from his parents wedding quilt: this one was machine quilted, his parents king took nearly three years to do by hand, way overdue!

A hiccup.

The moral of today's post-don't trim your quilt at night in poor lighting without your glasses especially when the fabric is black!  Doh. Fold on the corner perfectly sliced through!

What a pain! I wanted to hand sew the binding last night so I did most of it and left this corner until this morning. 

Insert new binding on corner. Fiddly.

 This was my first free motion scribbly filler, it didn't turn out too bad.  Using neutral thread in case it was awful meant that I couldn't really see what I had already sewn. Catch 23. 

The border is my  all purpose border filler, a very forgiving pattern, especially when you use matching variegated thread on scribbly fabric!  I need to work on a consistent stitch length.

I am calling this  a finish for today as I only have to sew down a few inches of binding. Charity quilt for Linus, about 40" square.  

These are  orphan blocks from 'The Big Green One'

Verbose backing, my favourite kind. 

This week I have pieced some flimsies for charity quilts.

Borders are recycled fabric, but you would never know. 

 Another hiccup that I am calling a deliberate block placement-it wasn't until I took the photo that I saw the red corner block was the wrong way round, but as the fabric says BLAH I am calling it a design feature!

Leftover blocks from 'Kiss in the Corner', with a wide binding, for a larger charity quilt. 

And another, this on has leftover grey strips on the border from  'Moth in a Window'

I used the burgundy block settings that I unpicked from the leftover 'Sisters Choice' blocks for the border. 

Orphan blocks , a larger Linus flimsy. White with orange scrappy border. 

And another. That uses up all but one random broken dishes block!

Crabby border fabric-you can find a use for everything! 

OQD

This week I have had obsessive quilting disorder, I finished another one!

Half and half backing..............

Last stitch in, aagh! A buried safety pin. Just have to sew the seam back up. Rest of the quilt now checked for other spiky prisoners. Loving the border and binding.

Quilted in the ditch with some surface detail. Not bad for orphan blocks.

I think Paddy will like it.  

The pink and blue log cabin is a duvet cover I made over 20 years ago, still going strong, though I had to replace the recycled sheet backing once.  It's nicely faded and soft now.

And another

 

Charity quilt, about 40" square, finished this morning. 

This one was pieced from leftover blocks from 'Kiss in the Corner' a wedding present. This lap quilt will go to an amazing 84 year old who is now confined to a wheelchair: pinned and ready to go under the needle this afternoon.  

Hopefully I will be sewing the binding down this evening. I pieced the batting, waste not want not! 

More exhumations

I tackled another tub of unidentifieds.........

33 blocks left from Sisters Square Dance top (not yet quilted).

Sisters Square Dance

May be enough for a lap quilt?

77 moth blocks from Moth in a Window. Oh dear.  

I made 3 small charity quilts from the leftover blocks that had sashings on as well! All not yet quilted.

 

Kiss in the Corner

Six of these at 12 1/2" square from Kiss in the Corner. plus one crib charity quilt......and ..........

45 of these three patches!  

And stupidly I did not take a picture of the  finished hand quilted Kiss in the Corner before I gave it away! 

I found the strips I had pieced for Bow Ties and put them together today: I only needed 7 of the 10 I made to complete the bed topper at 66 x 84". 

I am happy with it at this size with no borders (it's for ME!).  616 bows and 3, 696 pieces!

But. 

I have enough left to make an even bigger quilt!

Recent excavations have brought my issue into focus, I don't plan properly and end up with too much stuff made!  

Meanwhile, more box kites-

these are so ugly I truly love them, no one else that has seen them does, another one for me!

I also made the decision on the filler triangles for the next leader and ender, Garlic Knots, at the bottom of the picture. I thought I had the perfect fabric, but it was really UGLY when I tried it out!  Then I found this blue and white, enough variation not to be a solid but it has movement.  Because I used white sheeting as the background, whichever way I laid out the blocks there was a glaring  white area in that corner, it needed something. Problem solved.

I am going to shelve this now it has been kitted up and decisions are made and use the bow ties I found as leader-enders with the box kite project, to get the second top put together!

There are going to be so many huge quilts to try and stuff under the tiny space of  my Bernina this winter, I probably wont need to put the heating on  as I will be swamped in them for weeks as I wrestle them through!

Good job I bought two full rolls of batting! 

I am going to count the quilts that have to be machine quilted next week......

Linking for quilterinthecloset.blogspot.co.uk Building blocks Tuesday
and
WIP Wednesday  http://www.freshlypieced.com

Stripping

 I think I am almost done with  stripping!  I have emptied three large bins: I now have three large bin bags stuffed to the top with sewn up 10  1/2 " units ranging from 2" to 15". 

I have sewn over 2km of seams and used up nearly 5km of gifted poly-core thread in some really ugly colours, and used lots of shirts!

Kiss in the Corner

Then I found 8 yards of moo trimmings from Kiss in the Corner backing. In it went.

 I have made the 8 scrappy houses I found into blocks to be sewn into the top row of the quilt and included some small  random trial blocks.

 Things often got out of hand. 

And who bought all that ugly fabric? 

There was always a way to blend it in.

 I will not be ironing and cutting into crumb strips until the winter, as it will take weeks.  The next job is to clean the sewing room!

Then I need to maintain the Singer 201 mum gave me, she bought it second had with all the attachments at a boot sale 15 years ago for £12!  Runs like a dream, and is quieter than my Bernina.

Dedicated space.

Yipppppeeee!  I now have a dedicated sewing room, though in true quilter fashion, its too small, even though it's the biggest bedroom in the house!  In the reorganisation, I found lots of orphan blocks that I have sewn up for Linus, just to get them out of the way.   Now I'm webbing a double, that was ready to go, Dancing Sisters Choice. 

Sisters Choice blocks, this will be a gift.

 

Orphan red moth in a window blocks, with orphan four patch centre strip-all of this was either assembled or pre-cut. Easy!  I just had to cut an outer border.

 

 

Mauve moth blocks, with pre-sewn mini moth centre, border was all that needed cutting.

 There are another three moth Linus quilt tops assembled, in various colours.

Four orphan spiderweb blocks: I tried out the seagull background fabric and it didn't pop enough. I like the juxtaposition of the seagulls with their distant dinosaur relatives on the inner border. Outer blue border was leftover from another project.

Orphan twisted nine patch blocks, Linus size!

I now have seven tops ready to be quilted for Linus. 

I have a few of these done, about 40 of 400 or so, for Perkiomen daydreams. I am really trying to do this as a Leader-Ender project.

So far, so good...

A few quick pics, I want to keep up the momentum!

The learning curve-a finish!!

1/ Take a picture of the finished quilt before you give it away!  This post will have to make do with old pictures from the making of 'Kiss in the Corner, until I can get a picture from the recipients.

This quilt went everywhere, including on holiday to the Premier Inn. It was my first full size double and my first hand quilted project.

2/ Start small when you are a novice!  Especially with hand quilting, it became overwhelming!

3/ I learnt why hand quilting is done in long lines, mostly. I spent a lot of time wrestling it in circles, as each of those white patches on the twisted nine patch block has two hearts on! And I quilted in each of those small blue areas (I need not have) and the brown squares. Total overkill, but it has a very unique quilting design, as the hearts are all random shapes and sizes and the quilting of the brown patches was governed by the fabric pattern of each.

Making the top was relatively quick, all with fabrics from the stash.

That was the idea, of course, as it was a last minute wedding gift for my sons friend (he was best man at his friends wedding). I was contributing the work and he paid some of the cost.

4/ For me, this is a big lesson, don't tell the recipients something is on the way. I'm a terrible 'finisher' always starting something new, so many ideas, so little time.  It' 3 1/2 years late!!  The SHAME!!! 

This is the closest picture I have to what it looks like now, minus borders. I chose a busy backing, as the quilting was an unknown entity and I didn't know what it would look like. That was a GOOD choice!

Here is a picture with the borders- I didn't quilt the border, controversial! There are small hearts printed all over it so it ties in nicely with the quilting. 

For the binding, I used navy blue, with a backing fabric crumb catcher, I'm really pleased with how that looks.  Sewing the binding down only took a couple of evenings, so it went off with my so yesterday to give to his friends just before Christmas.  Phew!