I finally dug in last weekend and finished Ends n.21. Honestly, I needed the design wall space! LOL! Still, it is finished and ready to go to the meeting on Saturday.
This design is super easy, so there wasn’t really a lot to do. I just had to sit down and sew. Saturday was kind of a finishing up day as I didn’t have tons of time to sew, so I finished up projects that were already started and didn’t require a lot of thinking. I think this quilt looks fun. It is about 39 inches x 40 inches. Not huge, but a nice playmat size.
Ends n.21 back finished
I also grabbed a piece of fabric out of my backing fabric supply and made a quick back.
I finished Orangeade and turned it in at Sew Day. I was glad I had something to to turn in since I didn’t plan on working on the Community quilt project.
This was not a difficult quilt to make. I did play around a lot with the placement of the squares so that the eye roved around a little bit at least.
I am happy with the way it turned out and, as usual, am thinking of making more.
Orangeade back finished
I always want to make the backs as it means more fabric used. The pieces I have available to use are not as big as I have used most of the large pieces that didn’t have a purpose. I ended up piecing this one. I think that will become more the norm. I do have some backing fabrics, but they are a lot of large flower prints and I mostly don’t want to use them for donation quilts. We’ll see. More fabric out means I can buy new fabric.
I have started another donation top, this one part of the Ends series. Can you believe this is the 21st?
This is made from a random piece of background fabric and the edges of the Hugs & a Kiss quilt. The sparkles in the dots are fun.
I accidentally started this series in 2017 with the first one, made from what I called ‘dreg ends’. I have a box with the cut off edges of finished quilts. I still have it, though there are many fewer edges. I am trying to keep up with using the edges as they come back from being quilted, but that box still has old edges in it.
Another month, another Sew Day. I spent another Sew Day cutting up scraps, just like last time. I cut a big pile and made a dent, but I didn’t finish cutting up all of my scraps. I spent about 5 hours. My scraps are still not limited to the Desktop Cube I made for the purpose, which is disappointing. They need to be contained since my cutting table is small enough without it being overrun by scraps.
Mom and Jaye
My mom came with me. Yay! She was well enough to spend the whole day out! I kept her supplied with pain medications and food. She said it went well. I kept her quiet and at home the next two days and she is doing ok. I was so relieved that she didn’t have a complete relapse. It sound ridiculous, but I can’t help but worry about her.
Tim’s Jittery Wings quilt
Tim just got back from a retreat with Mitzi of Jittery Wings. He came over the other day to use my design wall and continued that work at Sew Day. His quilt is a whole bunch of HSTs and Flying Geese. Sounds like Old Town, right? LOL!
One thing I love about HSTs is how many different designs quiltmakers can sew using only HSTs. Of course, as I said, Tim’s quilt has whole bunch of HSTs and Flying Geese.
Mary’s Crisp Blue quilt
Mary was working on a quilt for a friend going into the hospital and it looks so crisp.
This is a simple Rail Fence design. She used a couple of jelly rolls she had and it looks so great! I also like how complex it looks. I just love block quilts. 😉
The guild was having a Community Sew Day. People worked on a variety of different designs. I cut up my scraps, as noted above, and didn’t participate there. I couldn’t bring Mom and my machine. I just wasn’t up for it. I did, however, bring Orangeade and several donation blocks. I definitely want to contribute but I don’t need to do it at Sew Day.
One of the quilt tops they worked on was similar to the Infinity Quilt I made for one of my nephews.
Community 9 Patch quilt
Claire is a great one for rescuing usable fabric. She had a group of men’s shirts and people were working on 9 patches out of that beautiful fabric. The fabric was very soft and had a nice weave. I don’t know what the ultimate design will be, but it will work very well for a boy or man once it is finished.
Mom was sitting across from Lynette who was working on these blocks. I wanted her to sit at the other table so she had some new people with whom to talk. I am sure it is boring just talking to me all day.
Community quilt design
The other design was similar to Mary’s Rail Fence. I couldn’t figure out why this was a such a weird shape. I think the rectangles were actually made in two parts, but I really don’t know.
Anyway the Community quilt team did a great job prepping for the event. There were a lot of people at Sew Day, which was nice. Mostly, I was pleased that Mom had a good time and was able to get out and see the world.
I almost didn’t make any donation blocks this month. As mentioned my mom is sick and it is taking up time (time I am glad to have the opportunity to use). I worked on a donation quilt for most of my leaders and enders time. I finished that and did get to a few blocks. Not the 31 I had hoped for, but some is better than none.
I have finished sewing the pairs together and am starting to make four patches.
As usual, I am rearranging squares as I go along. I think the top will be about 40 in x 40 in.
Yes, I added in a few pinks that snuck into the batch of wrongly cut squares.
The last orange top I made was either Orange You Glad or the Orange Improv. I like both of them very much. They are very cheerful. It must be the oranges that I buy – not as much orangey-brown as orangey-sunshine.
Despite taking care of my mom after her surgery, I have been able to get a little sewing in.
Old Town: QSTs
I finished all of the QSTs, which turned out to be mostly the correct size. I used pink instead of red, as mentioned, and am pretty happy with that choice so far. Some of the pinks in this batch are leaning a little more towards the lavender/purple range. I hope they won’t get mixed up in the final layout.
Since I finished all of these QSTs and the Baby Flying Geese, I decided to sew them together as indicated in one of the clues.
FG & QST units
I think this is the first assembly I have done beyond individual units. I got interrupted a bunch of times, but I finished them!
I had a moment of stress when I realized I didn’t have enough of the Baby Flying Geese to sew to the second side of the QSTs. They were neatly bundled in the box in which I am storing all of the units and I hadn’t pulled them out. YAY!
This is a great quilt for learning. I highly recommend Bonnie’s projects, especially the mystery quilts, if you want to practice basic piecing. She takes the time to help makers focus on getting the right sized units. Her clues usually have more than one way to make a unit so it works for you.
I spent some time over the last couple of weekends getting over whatever hump was preventing me from moving forward.
Old Town: 4 patches
First, I finished all the 4 patches, which was a lot! I thought I would never finish and I think that part of what was preventing me from moving forward. Now they are done and I think they look great.
I haven’t incorporated them into any blocks yet, so stay tuned for that.
Old Town: baby Flying Geese
I also finished some Flying Geese. They are the baby Flying Geese that I made using the replacement Wing Clipper** I got for Christmas.
This is the first group of lavender I have added to the quilt. In the photo they look nice. We’ll see how they look combined with the other colors. Fingers crossed it will be ok.
I got going on the QSTs. One of the clues said to combine them with another couple of pieces, so it was time to stop avoiding them.
I was really happy using Bonnie Hunter’s Essential Triangle Tool** to make them. It is a ruler I have had for awhile, but haven’t used much. I found it easy to use and helpful. I just followed Bonnie’s instructions on the clue and it worked perfectly. Well, so far, it is has worked perfectly. I liked the way she said where to put the ruler lines. I haven’t finished sewing the QSTs yet, so I’ll have to wait and see how it works out.
Bonnie put the Reveal up and it is a complicated looking quilt, but also cool. I am eager to see how my replacement of coral with lavender will look. If you are working on it, make sure to download your clues.
**N. B. : Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.
This is quite a few donation blocks! I am pretty pleased with how many blocks I made this year. I know you saw many of these yesterday. Scroll down to revisit the ones I made earlier this year. I made 149 donation blocks. That is less than half of my goal, but it is still a significant number. I hope to do better in 2025.
I am behind on Bonnie Hunter’s Old Town Mystery Quilt, but trying not to stress. I thought I would get more done at Sew Day than I did. As much as I love Sew Days, it isn’t a good environment when I am trying to concentrate. I am also trying to remind myself there is a LOT of piecing in Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilts and I’ll get there.
I did sit down on Saturday and Sunday and really work on various pieces. I decided to focus on Clue 1, so I could at least say that I was finished with one clue.
I am making progress on the Flying Geese, though I haven’t made many. One thing I had to do was figure out what pieces and parts I needed to make a set of four Flying Geese. That took a little time. I really got going once I reacquainted myself with the steps. It was helpful that I had already cut the pieces I needed. The picture above is my progress on Saturday. I had other stuff I needed to do, like make gift bags, so I couldn’t focus on this project all day.
Old Town Clue 2: Four Patches
I pressed some of the strips sets for Clue #2 that I made at Sew Day and was able to make a few of the Four Patches.
Tim got his longarm up and running again. To test it and practice, he quilted some donation quilts, including the one I talked about the other day. He showed them to me when I stopped by a few days ago.
The good thing about these quilts is that they are actual quilts not just tops. The bad part is that I can take no credit for any of them. Still, like the designs he used for quilting and the patterns are fun, too.
Donation quilt quilted by Tim
This one uses a similar block to my Corner Store quilt. The arrangement is different than the one I used and makes me want to revisit the block. Maybe it would be a good idea for a donation quilt?
On both quilts Tim used different quilting patterns in the foreground and background. I think that adds to the quilts.
The testing was good as he is ready to quilt his Courthouse Steps quilt. It also means more quilts for BAM to give to those in need.
Tim is getting his longarm back in order. In order to test it, he quilted this quilt, then handed it over to me to bind. I didn’t know he would do that, but I don’t mind.
He has had this quilt in his pile for a long time and doesn’t remember who made it. I think it is an interesting design.
I plan to cut off the excess back and use that for the binding. It’s small and shouldn’t take me that long. No fabric usage for me from this quilt.
There were 34 people at the Sew Day/Meeting the other day, which is some kind of record. I am not sure what generated the interest, but I am glad so many people came. We have four new members and they came, too.
BAM Pouch swap 2024
The swap was really successful. I was amazed that almost 20 people participated!
Some were wrapped and some weren’t. Mine was very popular and got stolen twice. It finally ended up with the guild president.
People did nice work, too.
Swap pouch 2024
I chose a pouch made by SueG. It matches the Poolside tote I was gifted by Angela a few years ago.
I worked hard at posting different patterns on our member forum and trying to generate interest. I guess it worked!
I did finish the Ends n.20 top and back in time to take it to the guild sew day to hand in.
I cut the piece in half and rearranged the strips as I described the other day. I think it looks a little better, but it isn’t perfect. I know someone will like it and it is certainly improv!
I used a large piece of a sea green solid with some added white strips to make the back.
I have only one more set of strips to use up, though I should be getting some quilts back soon.
