Another one prepped

     When making comfort quilts, I always try to have some that are more male oriented in fabric and color. When I find a reasonably priced jelly roll in this vein, I will purchase it for the big variety it gives. This is another kit I made for my mother. The pattern is a freebie, Meet in the Middle. Originally, I cut all the strips 10" long and had her sew 5 of them, short ends together, and then sew a white piece, 2 1/2" x half WOF, to make a tube.
     I cut the tubes randomly and layed them out. Then I numbered them. I glued the strips with dots in pairs, down the long sides and hung them on a hanger. Next time I see my mom, she can sew the long pair seams and press them open. Then I will have to glue up the next seams until all the strips are joined. It may need a white strip at top and bottom to make it long enough for a comfort quilt.

All numbered. I glued the long edge of pairs, 16 pairs of them.

Postscript: My mom did not sew all the edges I glued, but sometimes on the opposite open side which means the numbers do not line up across. I thought by glueing the one long edge, like the one between 1 & 2, and 3 & 4, and 5 & 6, etc., there would only be one side obvious to sew. If I would have pinned all the right edges, it would have been a nightmare transporting and untangling them. My plan did not work, and so I have to rip long rows that are not sewn on the glued edges in order for the strips to be in numerical order. Sigh.

More HSTs in the bag

     Another HSTs bag was found marinating and these had black, white and greys. These also were parts of 2 layer cakes that were sewn all four sides and made into HSTs. I used the perfect slotted ruler to trim the HSTs befor ironing them open, so there were just 2 sides to trim. Much easier.
     I thought the black and whites had a lot of energy, so that gave me the idea to do zigzags. I used all the HSTs for this quilt. All numbered, clipped, and ready to web piece.

Modern stars swap complete and mailed!

     Every once in a while, I will participate in a block swap. I have to know it is going to be run well before I commit and I have to love the blocks. I am doing the O My Stars Swap with the modern version. They are due on Jan. 11th and I am thrilled to have mailed them out Tues. 7th, because the last time I tried to do a swap with Barb, I had a heart attack and had to drop out.
     I have no idea what kind of quilt I will make. I had to make 32 for the swap and I made an extra 10 for myself, but it won't be enough to make a quilt.

All of the solid colors I used.

We were instructed to press the last seam open.
I used my Seam Stick to do this as it works fantastically when there are lots of interesecting seams.

Assembly required

     In trying to get a handle on the new year and kick the can farther down the road, I gathered the bags containing all the pieces for a comfort quilt, but were not arranged and clipped for web construction piecing. There were more than a few. Yikes. 
     My mother can sew small straight seams and is bored a lot. I try and give her pieces to sew that I can trim later or don't have to match. Making kits for her is time consuming and then I need to trim, arrange and finish- a reason the pieces get bagged and piled up. 
     Every once in a while, Missouri Star reels me in with a great deal on a layer cake. If I cut the white 10" squares myself, my mom can sew the color and white squares on all four sides so I can make HSTs and trim them. I have to glue the corners with Elmer's washable glue because she won't use pins and pushes the fabric through zoom, zoom. Glued corners or seams work for her and they make less work for me ripping in the long run.
     The first one is the Disappearing Hourglass from MSQC. The blocks were from Kaffe and white HSTs. Once arranged on the wall, I realized I royally screwed up the blocks in rotating the centers most of the time incorrectly. I have made this pattern before- I must have been brain fried. I am not ripping out as the bias would kill the blocks. So, what you see is how it is going. They are clipped by column, numbered and ready for web piecing. It will have a 3" border.

     I have about 12 blocks left, so I will use sashing and cornerstones with a big border for a second one. I like to make my adult comfort quilts about 60 x 72-80" to actually cover them. 
     Next, I had batik and cream HSTs. I chose Supernova that Sarah shared. I had made one before with all kinds of blue and white. However, when I pinned these up and asked my husband what he thought, he said it was confusing and awkward in spots where it changed direction. Because this will be a comfort quilt, I want the design to be calm and comforting, so I took it apart. Sigh.

     I looked through my pins and drew up an idea giving a star look. Trusty old graph paper.

     Put this one on the wall and I think it is a winner. Some colors maybe need rearranging, so I will let it hang for a while. It used 120 HSTs- the exact same from the quilt above. There are about 48 HSTs left, so I will have to figure out another idea for those. This one will be about 60 x 72 with no border or maybe a thin one. I have to number and clip it together because I need the wall. Another one ready to web.

FMQ quilt quickly for comfort

     A few days before Christmas, a woman in my class at church asked if I had a quilt or book or resources for her cousin's daughter, Ana, who is 4 and in the last stages of brain cancer. I ransacked my tops for one to finish quick and found a top  a friend had made for a FMQ presentation we made to our guild and I had never finished. 
     It was not my first choice for a child, but I had to have something now. I was able to finish the quilting on one of my Singer 301s with a new old foot that I bought online. The foot is a Singer darning foot that was sold for the 401s and the seller told me it would fit. Well, not exactly. I had to take off one of the thread guilds and crank down on the needle screw so it wouldn't hit. The foot itself was very stable and worked flawlessly. It cost a small fortune. I don't like the cheap ones that flop around and don't stay tightened. I have asked my husband to carefully grind down one corner so the screw holding the needle in will not have to be cranked so hard to be out of the way. Hopefully, he can do it.
     I used lots of thread colors because when I did the presentation, I tried different colors so it would show up on our projector.
     I was able to quilt, label, bind and pack it in a bag with one of my books and a couple of pocket quilts. The woman in my class was able to get it to her father when he came back to the Buffalo area to get more things because Ana was in a hospital in NYC.
     Last Sunday, the woman showed me a photo of Ana with the quilt over her in her hsopital bed. I am so grateful I persevered and was able to get it out although it was not my first choice.

 

Catching up

     I am trying to surface after the Christmas season. The week before Christmas, I got the second part of the shingles shot. I was just as sick as the first time, bedridden again. I know so many people who said, "All I got was a headache." Well, good for you. It is not like I chose to get a reaction. 
     Also, I traveled to PA to babysit my grandson the week before Christmas so everyone else could go to the Pittsburgh Steelers-Buffalo Bills game. My grandson and granddaughter gave me a respiratory virus that struck me during the whole Christmas week. So, I have been trying to get done what needs to, but little else.
     The week before I got sick, I made all the flannel pillowcases that I make as presents for the family. I had washed and zig zagged the edges previously. I cut them all out assembly style and sewed them up. Everyone loved them and I got requests from a couple of others. Great.

They are all folded up here so I could get them all in the photo. I picked fabric for each person's interest. I buy the flannel in August on vacation in the Adirondacks in Inlet at the Crazy Moose.

      The other request I had was for t-shirt pillows. I do not like sewing with t-shirt material. I will never make a t-shirt quilt. There are plenty of other people that do that well.
      My son in law had some old Mario game t-shirts and asked me to turn them into pillow gifts for his nephew, my grandson. I bought some very lightweight stabilizer, ironed it on, layered batting and put a backing on, and then free motion quilted it on my newest 301. I enjoyed that part. Then I bought 18" pillow inserts with a coupon- Joanns, and hand stitched the closure with a ladder stitch. 
     When I showed them to my son-in-law, he claimed one of the pillows.

Doing the free motion

One side quilted and cut out

All pinned, ready for quilting

All the layers- t-shirt, stabilizer, batting, backing

One of the sides

Another one quilted

The happy recipients

New Mystery Quilt done

     Alycia posted a new mystery quilt- A Winter Quilt Along, with each step supposedly taking one hour. Some of the steps were longer for me, especially since I had to do a lot of ripping as I sewed together parts wrong. Sometimes I am angle challenged, especially if the design is not symmetrical. 

     It started out with lots of HSTs. It was divided into three sections- top, bottom, middle. 

     The center section was last. When I laid it out, the center did not work for me. I thought the center should pull all the diagonals together and have some points, instead of a truncated star. 

Testing out the new design

     This meant I had to make more HSTs (half red, half blue) and leave off a few half red/white. 

Going to choose the red fabric

      I was happy with the result and choose the red fabric for a border. I won't be able to sew this on until after Christmas.