Hands 2 Help 2018

I forgot to post earlier, but I sent off two quilts for Hands 2 Help about a month ago. 

 First quilt was the quilt I made from rows gotten in last years row-by-row shop hop. 

 Second was this quilt that I made from flannel scraps for the most part.   Two pieces of flannel yardage were used for the borders (the floral and the blue).  this finished out at 50" square.

Backing for the flannel quilt was a piece of 60" wide flannel that had been in my stash for years.

Both quilts have gone to the Little Lambs group in Utah. 


Gratitudes:

1. That little quilts such as these can be used to bless others.

2. for the rain that is predicted for today and tomorrow.

Weekend sewing amidst the packing

This past weekend was one of packing and house-cleaning alternated with sewing.    The kitchen and pantry are well underway in the packing games.   Lots of jars and boxes emptied out of things that were out of date.   I can really tell how much my diet has changed by how little I actually eat things that are kept in a pantry.   This is definitely a good thing!  And the stack of sealed moving boxes in the living room is growing.   Good thing I'm not having company over any time soon....lol.

First sewing project to be worked on this weekend was to get the binding sewn down on this wall-hanging.   Only one more to design and make to have the series complete. 

And next up was the wolf.   I finished 12 more rows completed on it and added to the rest.   That makes 28 rows completed out of 50 rows in the quilt.  

It is now complete through the eyes and the design is starting to be clearer now.   I'm now starting on the forehead of the wolf and will soon be working on the ears.   At this rate I may get this together before the move happens.

At the rate I'm using the squares I've got cut out I have a feeling that I'll have to cut more to finish off this quilt because there are probably close to 300 black pieces in the top 14 rows alone and I doubt I have enough cut to get it finished.   I figure though that any extra ones will give me a head start on what I'll need to cut for the next scrap quilt which will be a panda - lots of black and white in that one!

Gratitudes:

1.  Drove by the house yesterday and the new roof looks good......YEAH!

2.  Weather has been wonderful.

Wolf, Part 2

I've been working on this quilt in the mornings before I leave for work.    I'm now have 16 rows completed for a total of 528 squares sewn together so far.   Only another 1122 squares yet to go before this quilt is finished. 

The black in the top, center of the quilt section shown below is the tip of the nose of the wolf. 

Gratitudes:

1. For my foot not hurting as I did a not-so happy dance when the sewer roach crawled across my bare foot last night.

2. For making progress in my packing.

New scrap quilt

When stressed I sew......and it's easy to get distracted and even with multiple projects in progress start something new.    And that is what happened this weekend, although technically this project was already in process because I had cut the squares for it weeks ago.

6 weeks or more ago I had gone through and cut a bunch of scraps, as well as pieces from fat-quarters and yardage in assorted blacks, greys and creams.   I'm not sure how many different fabrics, although I will be counting each color as I use down on them.

I do know that I need at least 2 times the amount of black squares because I'm almost halfway through what I've cut and I've only got 8 rows done out of the 50 needed for the quilt. 

I'm am working on putting this cross-stitch chart that I found free on the internet into fabric.

Progress of the quilt as it hangs right now on my design wall.  Eight rows have been completed which means I'm 16% done with the quilt.  The finished quilt is 33 squares wide by 50 rows long.   So this will be a large quilt.   I am planning on selling this one after it is finished.







Gratitudes:

1.  Good time of fellowship at small group tonight.

2. Trip to doctor tomorrow will hopefully get meds changed to control the edema better.

Block Lotto Blocks for May

Over the years I've participated some in an online Block Lotto hosted by Sophie who is a quilting friend.   Time has been at a premium this year so until this month I had not been able to make any blocks.   But in cleaning up & trying to get ready for my coming move I found enough scraps to make the block for May.

This months block is a scrappy variation of the rail fence block and makes a 6.5" finished block.  We were to use blues and greens for the squares and a solid white (no WOW's) for the final 'rail'.   All fabrics came from my scraps.

Gratitudes:

1. 7 weeks or so till I have to be out of the town house if all goes well with the sale.

2. I think all is done with getting paperwork in for the house.........

String Blocks

I love making quilts with many different fabrics in them.   No, they aren't all scrap quilts in the truest sense of the idea because I'll cut pieces from fat-quarters or yardage to get the tones & colors that I need.  But at the same time I hate getting rid of my scraps because they add so much fun and life to my quilts.



I save almost all of my scraps as a result.  Scraps that get used in my applique blocks and ones that get trimmed further down into usable sizes.

One of the things that I do is to take similar width scraps and sew them together to form strips and chunks of fabric that I then use for things such as sashing.   One example is this quilt that I made years ago.   I used longer, but narrow green strips to form the center panel of the quilt and hen bordered it out to get the final size that I wanted.  I then appliqued flowers on top of it for added interest.

Recently I came across a 1-gallon sized ziploc bag of small green scrap strips that I had pulled together years ago and then never done anything with.  Instead of just tucking them into one of the packed  scrap bins that I have at present I decided to do something with them.











I added flower appliques to the blocks and then trimmed the blocks to a finished size of 10".   Flower shapes were made by using two different cookie cutters as templates.  Fabrics for the flowers came from the bag of scraps that already have Wonder-Under ironed onto them

For now these will go into the tote that has other string "fabrics".  I'm not sure what I'll eventually do with them.

Gratitudes:

1. Living room is packed and the kitchen is started.

2. I've been able to make headway on getting projects finished up before the move.