Little Lady Quilt {Finished Baby Quilt}

I have a finish to share today, and I'm going to embarrass myself in the process!

I have been in a major "sort it, use it, organize it, clear it out" mood with my sewing room and quilting supplies. Before we moved, I did not get to to the reorganization and purge that I envisioned -- because we moved up our moving date, everything went from the shelves and bins straight to the moving boxes and then back on the shelves.

So imagine my surprise when I was looking for something else and I found this baby quilt top at the bottom of a pile of projects:

I had to go back three and a half years to find when I had made this quilt top. This was two apartments ago! I made this quilt top using the Jelly Roll Jam 2 pattern from the Fat Quarter shop using scrappy fat quarters left over from other baby quilt projects and I just made as many blocks as I could make with the scraps that I had.

This project somehow has escaped being placed on my running WIP list; I decided that instead of adding it to the list "officially" I would do my best to finish it up in October.

I found a piece of fabric big enough to use for backing left over from my Summer on the Coast quilt. I guess that I had really over-estimated how much backing and binding fabric I needed!

I didn't find light brown thread in my stash that I liked (the ones I have are too yellow/too gold), so I just used white thread to quilt this one instead. I decided to use a red solid fat quarter to make bias binding for this quilt.

Zippidee do dah -- a finished baby quilt!

Sharing at Peacock Party and Brag about your Beauties! And Needle and Thread Thursday too!

Quilt Stats:
Name: Little Lady Quilt
Pattern: Jelly Roll Jam 2 from Fat Quarter shop
Fabrics: fat quarter bundle of baby girl fabrics
Techniques: strip piecing, free motion quilting
Quilting: Free motion meanders
Size: 40" x 36"
Batting: scrap batting
Started: February 2016 (yikes!)
Finished: October 2019 
Future: Baby quilt/TBD

Progress Potpourri {Borders, Blocks, and Batting}

I didn't have a ton of motivation (or time) to sew this weekend, but I did manage to get a few productive things done, even if it wasn't just finishing a quilt.

First, I made bias binding from a fat quarter and added it to a baby quilt that I quilted *last* week. I am hand stitching the binding by hand, so expect that finish later this week or early next week.

Next, I used the backing cut-offs from the aforementioned baby quilt as the (first) border of my Ribbons quilt.

I maximized the width of border I could add using this fabric (2.25" was what my scraps would allow) and now I will decide if I will add another border or not. I have one brown and green fabric that might work, but I think I want something blue for the border so I will need to go shopping.

Next, I pulled out the scraps from my Baseball Baby Quilts. I had strip pieced these quilts, so I actually had rather large strip pieced chunks left over! I found that I could undo a few seams and end up with four 16" blocks. 

I pieced these together and used the last bit of the remaining white print as a border. I still have some of these fabrics left, probably enough of to make a small table runner or topper. I will probably donate this quilt once finished. This is a small quilt -- only about 37" square.

Finally, I layered and basted my Radiant Jewel quilt. I ordered the backing fabric for this quilt about a month ago. The fabric is actually from a holiday line from Robert Kaufman but is just a black and metallic gold marble print, which looks great with the other fabrics of the quilt, which are also RK prints (just very, very old!). I have enough to also use it for the binding.

In this picture, you can also see something else -- the black batting! I got a black queen-sized batting from Hobbs in one of my Island Batik Ambassador boxes this year and I used a sizable chunk of the batting for my Plus Sign quilt in May.  I pieced the batting scraps together (I had two large pieces of the batting to work with) and was able to layer and pin this quilt on Saturday. 

That was slightly for naught because I do not have a thread color in my stash that I am thrilled to use with this quilt. I am thinking either a goldish cream like the fabric in the center of the stars -or- a lavender-pink like the background fabric, but leaning towards a goldish-cream. I think I would get more mileage out of cream thread. What do you think? Pink or cream?

Have a happy Monday!

Sharing at What I Made Monday! 

Spooky Halloween {Finished Table Runner}

My October Island Batik Ambassador challenge is complete!

For the machine applique stitching, I used a simple blanket stitch in black thread for all of the blocks.

I then pieced everything together and layered it with backing and batting, only to realize, that yes, I was a couple inches short on backing length using a single width of fabric. Oops.

To remedy my problem, I added a strip of black fabric approximately 5" wide to my backing to get the necessary length.

Here's my quilted table runner, after trimming and before adding the binding:

In the block backgrounds, I used black thread to free motion quilt meanders around the applique sections; I did not do any quilting within the applique sections. In the strip pieced sections and in the black cornerstones, I used orange thread to quilt loops and swirls.

I used the same color in the top and the bobbin throughout; here's a peak of the backing with the pop of orange thread:

For the binding, I also used the black solid batik.

This is ready to adorn my dining room table!

Thank you to Island Batik (as usual) for providing me this lovely fabric!

Quilt Stats:
Name: Halloween Spooks table runner
Pattern: Halloween Spooks by HBD
Fabrics: Island Batik fabrics -- scraps and black solid
Techniques: machine applique, strip piecing, free motion quilting
Quilting: free motion meanders, loops, and swirls in black and orange thread
Size: 45" x 18"
Batting: scrap batting
Started and finished: October 2019
Future: seasonal decoration

Sharing at Peacock Party, Finished or Not Friday, and Brag about your Beauties!

Topping it off {October Island Batik Challenge}

This month's Island Batik Ambassador theme is "Top It Off" -- and we are making seasonal table toppers! There have already been a number of adorable projects already posted, too!

I decided to make another Halloween themed table runner -- using our Halloween Spooks pattern! I actually made one table runner using this pattern and some fun non-batik fabrics in May!

This time around, I changed up the color scheme slightly -- I decided to use solid black batik in place of the green prints and use some of the other applique designs included in the pattern.

This time, I decided to use the pumpkin and candy corn applique templates. The color scheme is "candy corn" and black!

I used various orange, yellow, and white fabrics for the scrappy piecing. I strip pieced the sections and placed my fabrics sort of randomly, but used slightly more orange fabric than yellow and white.

Now comes doing the machine applique stitching of my applique blocks and putting the table runner together! One slight wrinkle will be the length -- the pieced table runner is 45" -- so I will probably need to piece the backing.

This weekend was full of activities so I was not doing a lot of sewing, so hopefully this week I can squeeze in a bit more sewing.

Sharing at What I Made Monday and Moving it forward Monday!

Mosaic Mystery Quilt {Squares and Triangles}

It's time to check in with my progress on the Mosaic Mystery Quilt hosted by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs!

I didn't post an update in September, so I decided that I would combine my September and October clue progress together in one post.

September's clue was to make stitch-and-flip "house" blocks. These were very quick and easy! Since I am using fat quarters instead of yardage, I used three different fabrics for the stitch and flip squares, so half of the units have the pink and burgundy scroll fabric, a quarter of the units have the burgundy mottled print, and a quarter of the units have the dark pink Fairy Frost.

An aside: I absolutely LOVE Fairy Frost. I had a lot of scraps of it years ago and used a lot of the scraps in my Harry Potter quilt, which I realize has never actually been shared as a finish, and I will do that eventually.

For October, our assignment was to make two different sets of square-in-a-square (SIAS) units. These were quick and easy as well; it seems like I have done so much itty bitty piecing lately -- it's so nice to work on something with bigger piecing! All of the green/brown and background fabric SIAS units are the same; there are two each of each of the four different pink fabrics for the pink/background SIAS units.

Now the long wait to November begins!

Stretching Scraps {Christmas Ribbons}

When I posted my Not Quite Christmas Ribbons quilt last week, I was trying to decide what else to do with the quilt.

I did some quilty math and figured out that I could squeeze out enough units to add half blocks on each side of the quilt, but not enough to make full blocks to make it a square quilt. Adding blocks on both sides instead of one side allowed for the secondary designs in the quilt to be symmetrical throughout the quilt.

Here are my half units:

Except that sewing these all into units was the wrong move! I actually found that I needed to take half of the units apart and turn the units 90 degrees. Oops.

A little bit of seam ripping, resewing, and chain stitching later, I had a slightly larger quilt top!

Now instead of a oddly skinny 32" x 48" quilt, I have a 40" x 48" quilt top -- which is perfect for a baby quilt. If I decide to add borders, it would end up closer to 50" x 60" -- which would be perfect for a cuddly couch quilt.

Happy Monday!

Sharing at Oh Scrap and What I Made Monday! And Wait Loss Wednesday and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Moxi Charm Baby Quilt {Finished Quilt}

After the short detour as a result of running out of thread, I finished my Four Squared baby quilt!

Once my thread arrived, I was able to finish up the quilting in about five minutes!

For the binding, I used the leftover fabric from the backing. I like to cut a 2.25" binding, and for this quilt, I sewed the binding to the front by machine and hand stitched it to the back.

I really am wishing that I would have had another charm pack or two to make this quilt bigger and keep it for myself! But I'm sure that this will end up snuggled by one of our friends' babies eventually!

Quilt Stats:
Name: Moxi Four Squared baby quilt
Pattern: Four Squared from Moda Bake Shop (pattern no longer available)
Fabrics: Two Moxi charm packs + solid white
Techniques: using precuts, free motion quilting
Quilting: free motion swirls using Mint Aurifil
Size: 40" x 48"
Batting: scrap batting
Started: August 2019
Finished: September 2019
Future: Baby quilt/TBD

Sharing at:
Beauties Pageant
Finished or not Friday
Peacock Party
Favorite Finish

Ribbon Candy {Units to Blocks}

I've had a lot of fun working on my "not quite" Christmas Ribbons scrap quilt and the project has gone from units to small blocks to large blocks in a rather quick fashion!

The blocks are built from the units I showed previously:

There are two of each unit in each smaller block. I paired the units and paired the pairs to make "four patches" made up of my scrappy units.

And in turn, the smaller blocks were paired and then paired again to make the larger blocks that show off the pinwheel secondary design.

While it might have been nice to have another three blocks to make this square, I definitely don't have enough background fabric to make that happen. I'm not sure what kind of borders -- if any -- I should add to the blocks.

What do you think I should do? Borders or no borders? Add other piecing with a different background fabric? The quilt would measure 32" x 48" without borders.

Also make sure that you check out Autumn Jubilee hosted by Carole of From My Carolina Home! There are going to be great prizes, tutorials, and fun throughout the month of October!

Sharing at Wednesday Wait Loss and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Brutal Honesty {October 2019}

September was slightly less productive than July and August but I am excited about quilting some of my long-waiting quilts this month after getting backings for two completed tops.

I have finished my Moxi charm pack quilt, but I have not been able to get pictures of it yet!

Completed tops:
1. Breezy Blooms C2C Bee -- July UFO project -- I ordered and received the fabric I plan to use for the backing of this quilt! Now to start planning how to quilt it.
2. Radiant Jewel Quilt -- April UFO project -- I got the backing fabric for this quilt too! Hooray!
3. Daisy Chain Quilt -- no progress

Tops partially finished:
4. Romantic Garden Quilt -- no progress
5. Monthly Wall Hangings -- March UFO project -- no progress
6. Pineapple Stash Bee Blocks -- February UFO project -- no progress

Just blocks and units:
7. Sew Kitschy Blocks -- no progress
8. Cubicle Quilts -- no progress
9. Happy Houses blocks -- September UFO project -- no progress
10. Birthstone blocks -- June UFO project -- no progress
11. Jingle Bell Square -- no progress
12. Big Block C2C Bee Quilt -- no progress
13. Marigold Quilt -- no progress
14. Pave the Way Quilt -- no progress

Quilt alongs and long term projects:
15. Monthly Island Batik Ambassador projects -- In September, I made an Ohio Star baby quilt (or small throw) using Quiet Shades fabrics. This month our theme is applique table toppers. I have a whole collection of Honey, Bunny, and Doll patterns for table runners and place mats that feature applique! Which one should I choose?

16. Mosaic Mystery Quilt -- I have completed the September directions and am ready for the October directions to come out on Thursday! I'll do a real update post on this project once I complete my October units.

New projects:
17. Faceted Churn Dash -- Our "sort of QAL" on Facebook is in full swing. I have been making a LOT of HSTs.

18. Not Quite Christmas Ribbons -- I have been making units for this project and it is going a *lot* faster than I anticipated!

My UFO for September was my Happy Houses blocks. I did not make any progress on this project.

My UFO for October will be making use of some of my orphaned blocks and abandoned projects that I don't have listed as UFOs. Some of the orphaned blocks will be made into table runners and mini quilts -- and this will also hopefully use up some batting scraps as well.