Just a quick post

Years ago when the Florence Peto quilts first became the rage, my friend Marlena and I decided to do a block exchange and make our own version of FPs quilt.

We decided to exchange two 6 1/2" appliqued blocks and two 9-patch blocks each month for 6 months.  We did great the first few months and then we slowed down.  I think our big gardens and canning season had something to do with it. 

Anyway, she eventually gave me 11 pairs and I gave her 9.  I made a birthday cake block (very wonky) to exchange and I'm thinking the birthday was a significant one.  I turned 60 in 2011 so that tells you how long ago it was. 

I made and gave her another pair of blocks over a year ago.  Saturday I decided I didn't want this to be a UFO anymore and so I made another pair of blocks for each of us and sewed this little quilt together.  It measures 47 inches square.

I'm going to use one of her blocks for my label and one of my blocks won't get used, another weird one . . .

So I have officially finished another UFO to the quilt top stage.  That makes 7 tops completed from my list of 16 UFOs that I made last August.  The original list was 15 but, alas, I found another one to add.  That means I have 9 more to go.  Again, nine sounds a lot better than 16.

I was in a hurry to get this put together.  The bobbin above proves that when I hurry I always make mistakes.

Slow down Robin

Just a little groggy~

Sometimes sleep is so elusive.  Tuesdays always finds me waking up numerous times during the night because I have to get up early and my body wants to make sure I don't sleep in.  Not only do I not sleep in but I don't sleep.  Frustrating to say the least.

At least today I'll have some extra time to work on my hand quilting before I have to leave.  I'm using the baptist fan template from Barb Vedder's Etsy store for the background of the applique.  I didn't want to do a grid again and this is fun to do.

This is a picture of the side border.  Progress is slow but anything worthwhile takes time.

Hope you're all sleeping while I write this and will enjoy a peaceful day when you wake up refreshed.

Robin

An older cheddar project

I'm working on the Cheddarback SAL on Setimental Stitches blog but I'll comment more on that at the end of this post.

I have been slowly replacing the squares in the quilt above.

I unpicked all the alternating white squares because there was just too much white.  I originally wanted to use cheddar fabric for the squares but I couldn't find any.  I settled on gold and then some fabric I thought looked like cheddar but it was just orange and some honey colored fabric.

It looks 100% better with the cheddar squares but that's 100 little pieces I'm having to replace.

I've come up with a new mantra. . . "Do not remake a finished quilt top".

I seem to age my tops for a few years before quilting them (having 20 tops waiting to be quilted might have something to do with it) and when I get them out again they get a labor intensive makeover.  Crazy, I'm just crazy!

I gave this quilt to my DIL but she liked another one better so we traded and this quilt went to one of my grandson's (top left).

Some mornings it just pays to get up early!

I'm working away at the handquilting on this quilt.  No name yet.  The whole quilt can be seen on my sidebar.

We've got another storm coming in.  In fact, it's already started to rain.  The snow is due tomorrow.  Hopefully the apricot blossoms can withstand the cooler temps.

And here is my Cheddarback progress.  I love the way the first set of blocks turned out.  I would smile at them every time I walked by my design wall.  But, this second set has given me fits, both with color placement and unpicking.  I made the center pinwheel too small in the block on the lower left and so I had to add a little border.  The jury is still out on whether to leave that stripe fabric in the corners.

Going clockwise - I kept cutting the backgrounds out backwards for the black block.  Argh!  The basket went together fairly well, thank goodness.  The lower right block has been made twice and I finally just decided to leave it.  And then I used the extra block that Gay gave the facebook group instead of a pinwheel block and I really like it.

Hopefully next month I'll be more focused so I can do these blocks in one day instead of three.

Skipping quiltfully along,
Robin

I don't usually make

quilts using such bright spring colors.  I'm more of a dark and deep color quilter.  But, it's spring.  At least that is what the calendar says and I wanted something cheerful to put on the wall for the Easter season.

I machine appliqued this in 2014.  After finishing my Christmas quilt during the Christmas season I thought it would be fun to hand quilt another project appropriate to the next holiday.  Although I have a Valentine colored quilt top

that I could have chosen, I wanted to work on something that would only take a month to quilt and not three.

I hand quilted little swirls to give the bunny fur more texture.  I then cross hatched the basket.

This basket got a little scallop treatment.  It doesn't necessarily look woven but I like the texture the scallops give.

This picture is a little dark but I want to show that the little pink basket got a zig-zag treatment.

I just did echo quilting for the cat.  It might of been nice to give him a face but I didn't think it would show up.

I think my wing placement is a little off for these ducks/chickens but it's a folk art type pattern so anatomical accuracy is not the main focus.

A little swirl on the tail

and more scallops around the border and it's done.  AND, it's still four weeks till Easter so the little quilt will be hanging a little while.

And while we are talking spring I thought I'd give you readers who live in the midwest and east a heads up.  This is what I woke up to this morning and it's headed your way.

Happy Spring!
Robin

I'm linking up with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching.

I finished the Broiderie Perse!

Just wanted to share the finished applique.  This picture is a little bleached out in the afternoon sun.  I'm pleased that it's done and I think it looks much better with the Broderie Perse than without it (below).  I'm surprised at how long it is,  72" X 94".  I wish it was a little wider,

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday.  Check it out here.

This is the picture before I cropped it.  I had to wait till one of my sons came over to hold the quilt up for me.

This is where he was standing for the picture.  Gotta love those long legs.

This is my youngest grandson in his leprechaun T shirt for St. Patricks Day.  Cute little chappy face!

Thanks for checkin' in,
Robin

Mapping Challenge finished

When the Adhoc quilters came up with "Mapping" as the challenge last July I was at a loss.  I guess I'm just too literal.  I haven't quite got the improv part of the challenge in hand.

After giving it months of thought I came up with the idea to map out the neighborhood I grew up in.  Then I thought about it some more and remembered that my great grandparents had lived in the same neighborhood 50 years before I did.  The challenge turned into a genealogy project.

It is just over 1/2 mile square.

I located my great grandparents (and my great great grandmother) on the 1910 Census for Logan, Cache, Utah.  I had heard that this area was called "Little Berlin" at one time because of all the German speaking residents.  The people were really Swiss not German but their dialect called Swizter/Deutch was very German-like.  My genealogy project became finding just how many households in this area spoke the Swiss/German dialect.

The red background/white cross squares are the Swiss flag.

I was quite surprised to find such a large number in this small area.

So I made a small map quilt 21 1/2" X  25 1/2" using the grid of that area, marking streets using the Swiss flag in the intersections, putting in the canal, and sewing buttons (white for Swiss and red for other languages) where the houses are listed on the census.  I thought it would be fun to make a path from my home in 1960 to my great grandmother's home in 1910 using flying geese.

I machine quilted an easy grid, bound it with the same red as the flags, made a label and it's done.

It's my 5th finish of the year.  I'm on a roll. . .

An interesting side note, after my family moved away from Logan, I came back and lived in the same block my great grandparents had lived in while I was attending Utah State University.  Years later my oldest son lived in an apartment house across the street while he was attending.  So that makes six generations that lived in that same small area.

On to the next challenge (or maybe I should finish up the Scale challenge which was before the mapping one -ah!).
Robin

Love to quilt!

I have been anxious to see what the next project that Gay of Sentimental Stitches would be presenting.  I have postponed starting something new until I knew what she would do.  I have checked her blog weekly since the beginning of January and she finally posted.  She is calling the new quilt "Cheddarback".  The antique quilt that she is copying has a delightful cheddar backing, hence the name.  It is mostly pieced but there are a couple of appliqued pieces I think.  

Here are my blocks from Month 1.  I wanted to add a little cheddar fabric just because of the name.  And I really like the design element that the original maker added by choosing a different sashing to go between the outside blocks of the quilt.  She used a pale blue sprig patterned fabric.  I didn't have any blue that would be appropriate and I wanted to use fabric in my stash.  I found this cute little pink sprigged fabric and I think it will add a cute design to the quilt.

I haven't sewed with my CW reproduction fabrics for well over a year.  It feels good to be playing with them again.

I'm still hand quilting my little bunny quilt.  It's coming along.  It's a good thing Easter isn't till April 21st.  I quilt on it almost every morning but I'm going to need the extra time to finish before the holiday.

I've been trying to complete the Broiderie Perse motifs around my Wheel of Fortune quilt.  I have to admit. . . I loved making the wheels - so fun, but appliqueing these little motifs is like shucking corn; well worth the effort but no fun at the time.  I'm over half way done but my lack of desire to stitch is making this project last much longer than it should.

It snowed again last night.  That means that the air quality is green so some of the grandkids are coming over this afternoon to roast marshmallows in the fire in the fireplace.  It's always hectic but fun.
Robin