Brutal Honesty {April 2019}

April means springtime and baseball for me -- what does April mean to you? My daffodils started blooming on Sunday.

Park Ranger Husband has been out of town for a few days and I've been busy sewing and spring cleaning.

Ready to Bind:
1. Drift Away Scrap Quilt -- My mom brought this quilt back to me, quilted and ready to be bound!

Sent out for quilting:

When my mom was here, I pulled all three of these tops out and sent them off with her to be mid-arm quilted by her or sent to the long arm quilter.

2. Double Delight -- will have a navy or tan backing
3. Good Fortune Mystery Quilt -- will have a red backing
4. April Showers C2C Bee Quilt -- January UFO project -- Final border has been added -- will have some sort of a blue backing

Completed tops:
5. Magnolia Mystery QAL -- No progress
6. Breezy Blooms C2C Bee -- No progress

Tops partially finished:
7. Romantic Garden Quilt -- No progress
8. Monthly Wall Hangings -- March UFO project - No progress
9. Pineapple Stash Bee Blocks -- February UFO project -- Sashing fabric has arrived, not cut yet

Just blocks and units:
10. Sew Kitschy Blocks -- No progress
11. Cubicle Quilts -- No progress
12. Happy Houses blocks -- No progress
13. Birthstone blocks -- No progress
14. Radiant Jewel Quilt -- No progress

Quilt alongs and long term projects:
15. Monthly Island Batik Ambassador projects -- In March I made a vintage inspired baby quilt. This month I'll be making another baby quilt -- this time focused on using my new Accuquilt Go! Cutter.

16. Daisy Chain Mystery Quilt -- The Daisy Chain QAL is in full swing! As of Monday, we've had three sets of block directions released: Unit A, Unit B, and Unit C. Are you playing along? Do you have guesses on what we're making yet?

17. Coast to Coast Bee 2019 -- I added a round of Rocky Mountain Puzzle blocks to Stephanie's quilt. I have received Karen's quilt to work on in April/May (since we are doing 6-week rounds instead of monthly rounds!) and I am starting to do some brainstorming.

New Projects:
18. Jingle Bell Square -- I have five blocks made of my goal of 50ish. I'd like to have at least a dozen finished blocks by the end of April, but this is not a high priority project.

My UFO for March was my September monthly wall hanging and I didn't even touch that project. :(

My UFO for April is my Radiant Jewel quilt. I have all of the blocks done for the center of the quilt, and now need to make the units for the pieced border.

Daisy Chain QAL {Unit C}

Update 8/11/2020 -- This pattern is now available in our Etsy and Payhip shops. Please visit one of those sites to purchase the full pattern.

No April Fool's Day jokes here, ladies and gents -- just QAL fun!

This week we are NOT making four patches -- we are making a member of the quarter-square triangle (QST) family that I call a ribbon block. We’ll only be using our focal fabric and background fabric this week. These units will need to be trimmed but should be quick and easy to sew together!

My baby size quilt has the orange floral print for my focal fabric. 

My second quilt has a single aqua batik for my ribbon block units. I managed to remember to take some in-progress pictures of these units before pressing, before trimming, and after trimming.

Let's see some of the QST units made by YOU!
-- Michelle also has aqua QSTs.
-- Stephanie's Halloween themed quilt is taking shape!
-- Gail is working on trimming her blue floral QSTs.
-- Christina has floral QSTs in progress.
-- Kate used a gorgeous paisley in her QST units!

Schedule

Fabric Requirements - February 4th

Cutting - February 18th

Block Units- March 4th

Block Units - March 18th

Block Units - April 1st <--- That's today!

Block Units - April 15th

Catch up week link up - April 29th

Top Construction Part 1 - May 6th

Top Construction Part 2 - May 20th

Link up/giveaways/quilt parade starts: June 3rd

Link up/giveaways/quilt parade ends: June 17th

Stephanie's Quilt {C2C Bee 2019}

Being a part of the Coast to Coast bee is one of my favorite things! I just finished up the first assignment for the year.

Stephanie of Quilt'n Party made a beautiful quarter log cabin block as her quilt center. She requested a Southwest inspired quilt featuring richly colored fabrics. She sent a few additional fabrics in her quilt kit in addition to the ones featured here.

I decided to add a grey spacer border before I added my blocks to her quilt.

No Southwest-themed quilt is complete without a bevy of Rocky Mountain Puzzle blocks -- so that's what I got to making! I pulled yellow, orange, magenta, and a aqua/navy print from my stash and used a light blue and a second navy from the fabrics that Stephanie sent for the half square triangles. For the block centers, I used two fabrics left over from my Odori quilt, which I made last year.

Making these blocks from small cuts and scraps was a nice change from the other things I have been working on in recent weeks.

I also used three different backgrounds -- the Art Gallery tribal stripe, a white-on-white feather print, and a white-on-white stripe.

I did plan ahead a little bit so that most of my seams would nest (although not all) so that adding the blocks to the top was not as bulky or cumbersome.

This is ready to go in the mail and get sent off to its next destination -- Texas! I'm excited to see what Audrey added to my quilt and to see Karen's quilt and start planning what to add to it.

Have a lovely Tuesday -- don't forget that the next edition of the Daisy Chain mystery QAL comes out next Monday!

Sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!

Four Patch Quilt Top {Charity Sewing}

Way, way back in January, part of my push to organize my new sewing room included cutting up some of my older Island Batik fabrics into squares and rectangles for charity quilts for the Carolina Hurricane Quilt Project.

I had significant chunks of fabric left from two different lines: the Jungle Cruise line, which I used for my Summer Patio quilt and the Bazaar line, which I recently used to make my new Dashing to the Chapel quilt.

From the Jungle Cruise fabric leftovers (and a few additional fabrics mixed in), I cut 9.5" squares and then made gigantic 18.5" four patches.

20 of these four patches made a 72" x 96" quilt top, which is either a very large twin or a moderately sized full quilt.

I'm now working on turning my Bazaar scraps into another quilt top. I have all of my squares stacked up and read to sew into a top. As of right now, this quilt would only be 60" x 80" so it might need a border added.

Happy Friday!

Sharing at Oh Scrap!

Twirls and Stripes {Finished Quilt}

It's time to show off my finished vintage inspired quilt and compare it to its inspiration!

My finished quilt:

The original quilt:

After finishing the quilt, I decided to see if I had any Hobbs batting in my Island Batik Ambassador box that would be the right size for my 40 x 48 baby quilt -- and I was in luck! As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics and Hobbs batting to use and share with you!

In my box, I had a crib size (45" x 60") cotton batting that fit the bill perfectly. I also got flannel for the backing, which I did have to piece but better pieced than too small, right?

For the quilting, I just did a simple bubbly meander in white thread, starting in the middle of the quilt and working out. I trimmed the batting and backing 1/2" beyond the edge of the quilt to prep it for binding.

I don't always manage to get a good photo that shows off the quilting as well as this one does! All of the straight lines in the quilt begged for some curvilicious quilting.

I cut yellow strips from a dotty batik print for my binding and decided that I wanted to sew the binding by hand to the back. And what luck! I had some perfectly colored yellow thread too!

This baby quilt hasn't been earmarked for anyone yet, but I doubt it will be waiting long for a little miss or little mister! This one seems to be a perfect gender-neutral quilt.

I'm also sure that I will make more baby quilts using this two-block quilt design! It's always good to have something quick and easy like this in the arsenal for baby quilts.

Quilt Stats:
Name: Twirls and Stripes
Pattern: self-designed, based on a vintage quilt
Size: 40" x 48"
Fabrics: Island Batik basics and blenders, flannel backing
Quilting: bubble meander in white thread
Started: February 2019
Finished: March 2019

Sharing at Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle and Thread Thursday, Brag about your Beauties, and What I Made Monday! Oh and this is also my Favorite March Finish!