Two More

I've been busy trying to become better friends with Fiona, my new Innova. Two more tops have been quilted.

First up is a QOV mystery quilt-along from last summer that Alycia hosted. The quilt was designed by Vicki Welsh. The quilt called for five fabrics but I was determined to use only fabric from my stash. So, here's my scrappy version of the Allegiance quilt along which I'm calling Stars of Valor. It still needs binding.

Also finished, bound and on the guest bed is Winston Ways. This was a Bonnie Hunter class I took at Block Party in Portland in March of 2013 -- just before we moved. I seem to be cursed when it comes to red. All of the fabrics in this were pre-washed, some more than once. I washed this with color catchers yet some of the reds still bled and a few of neutrals, but not all wanted to pick up the red. 

I'm still working on Janet's challenge to finish up more of my Bonnie Hunter UFO's before our class in April so yesterday I managed to finally get Dancing Nines into flimsy stage. Yay! This one measures 93.5" square and all those autumn nine patches started as 2" squares. I think it will be next up to be loaded and quilted -- just trying to figure out how to quilt it. I doubt the quilting is going to show up much so I'm perusing freehand quilting videos trying to find something to use. 

Meanwhile, it's back to yet another Bonnie Hunter UFO -- do you sense a theme here? 

Catching Up

Back in early November, I know, I know....almost 2 months ago but hey, I was sick for 4 weeks with lingering aspects of the awful crud even now....Anyway, BEFORE I got sick I met my quilting "partner in crime," Alaska cruise roomie, Janet to "look at" the Innova long arm. You guessed it, there is now a lovely, 26" Innova taking up the space where my ancient old HandiQuilter 16 used to reside. I really was going to get the smaller one, the 22".....but the Bearded One along with the Innova rep pushed me to go larger.....

Here's Fiona, all happy in her new home complete with her hydraulic lift table and PantoVision.

Due to some "issues" with our dealer who is actually just a rep, and misrepresented several things, Fiona has already taken a trip south to McMinnville, Oregon to Boersma's exceptional shop to be upgraded and have the "issues" ironed out. I foresee a long and happy relationship ahead of us now. 

Meanwhile after a brief stint playing around on boring old muslin I quickly loaded my first quilt, a top I had completed for Project Linus. 

Once that was completed the Christmas Sister's Choice from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville was loaded up and completed. Nothing like waiting to the last minute. 

Every block has two different Christmas fabrics with no two repeated. I had started these blocks back in 2013 in between steps of the Celtic Solstice mystery. Once the blocks were complete and on my design wall I decided I wanted some sashing. Remembering the trunk show that Debbie Caffrey had given at Block Party in Portland back in 2012, I used her skinny sashing idea between the blocks. Yes, the sashing between the blocks has a finished size of 1/2" complete with cornerstones. 

I also reversed the two colors for the binding and piping. Since we had a lot of car travel time a good portion of the binding was completed then. Luckily for me, my sister doesn't come in from Denver until December 30th. 

I apologize for the photos, they were taken with my iPhone and the lighting at Dad's house isn't the best. Linking up with Bonnie's Linky Christmas Party. Maybe I will be a better blogger in 2015 -- we will see but don't hold your breath. 

Lest You Think I've Been Slacking.....

....Yeah, I know, I'm a terrible blogger. Lately I just don't seem to have any blogging mojo. Anyway, I thought I'd pop in and share a few of the latest projects I've been working on.

First up is Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery. I ended up enlarging mine to a 7x7 block setting to give me a larger quilt for our queen size bed. I still need to put the borders on this but I'm mulling over what I want to do. I'm not sure I want to go with Bonnie's design for those.

In between clues for the mystery, I've managed to get 2 of 3 needed baby quilts worked on. The first one is from one of the "Quilts From the Heart" books by Karen Renaud. (She has two and I don't have the book in front of me to tell you which one it's from.) 

This quilt is for a friend I've known since she was a little girl. I used to work with her father and I believe the twins were about 6 when I first met them. Her twin told me she loves polka dots and blue even though she's having a girl, due any day now. 

I backed this with a wonderful, soft Minkee also in polka dots and quilted it with a feathered pant. Even the white squares are a white on white polka dot. It's a fun quilt. 

Next up has not been quilted yet. This one is for some friends we know through our VW camping group. They're expecting a little boy on my birthday. Everything except the border fabric came out of my stash for this I-Spy. 

A VW bug since they have one in their fleet. 

A VW bus -- another vehicle in their fleet. 

And, as close to a Greyhound as I could find in my stash in honor of their late, much beloved Bridget. 

So, that about does it for now. There are a few other projects in the works that I can't show yet so stay tuned to that. Meanwhile, it's back to more Olympics and knitting or hexagoning.....Hope those of you in the path of this monster storm are safe and warm. 

Celtic Solstice - Reveal

New Year's Eve those of us participating in Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery quilt along were gifted with the big reveal. For the most part I had managed to keep up with each clue as they were published. The only one I didn't finish were the 4-patches of clue #4. Since I had changed my colors from Bonnie's, I knew I was in trouble when this clue had me putting together my reds and mossy greens into 4-patch units. They started giving everything a Christmas look which is not what I wanted for this clue. So, I put them aside and continued on with the rest of the mystery.

Once the final quilt was revealed, I tested a couple blocks. Here's what my original color choices looked like:

I didn't like the red and green surrounded by the brown. First it has too much of a Christmas look to it. Second, I felt the circles formed were too dark and heavy. The green squares are almost washed out in one direction. So, I mulled things over, discussed it with a friend who is also doing the mystery and settled on a new option. Replace the green in the 4-patches with more of the yellow/gold from the  alternate blocks. 

Here's what the result looks like: 

Much better! The overall look is lighter and brighter and doesn't scream Christmas to me. So, now I'm plodding along putting more blocks together along with making more units of all the clues as I want to make this larger than Bonnie's small size but not as large as her king size. I'm hoping that I can keep with this and finish it up before I get bored with it and put it aside. Considering the amount of ufo's that I have reacquainted myself with during our recent moves, I'm hoping that should be sufficient motivation to keep me plugging along. 

I've enjoyed quilting along with everyone else and love seeing all the different color combinations and ways people have tweaked things to add their own special twist to things. Quilters are a very creative bunch. 

Plodding Along - Celtic Solstice

Today is the first day of the link up for Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery quilt-along. I got a delayed start due to Thanksgiving company that didn't leave until mid-day Saturday. However, I did manage to steal an hour or so on Friday to get started. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't happy with contrast between the browns and the wine reds. So, then I tried a couple test blocks with brighter reds. 

Brighter reds are on the left -- much better. However, DH had other ideas and wanted to finish up a series we had started watching on Netflix. So, this is all I managed to accomplish so far. I'm hoping I will be able to get them all completed by Friday when the next clue comes out. 

Gifting Quilts

One of the greatest joys I receive from quilting is gifting a quilt. Last week not one but two quilts were received by their recipients so I can now share them here.

First up is this Happy Scrappy Houses, a Bonnie Hunter Quiltville pattern. This was a joint project project with my dear friend on the other side of the state. Janet & I became friends through the HandiQuilter Chatters list. Happy Scrappy Houses was made for another mutual friend from that list who has recently moved into a new home. We decided she needed a house warming gift. We each made our house blocks and then Janet put them together  into the top and I quilted it and sent it on it's way.

Can you think of a better house warming gift? I certainly can't. This quilt just oozes happiness.

I also sent out a baby quilt the same day. Little Eden wasn't due for another week or so but she surprised everybody and arrived early. Her quilt arrived just a day later. I had a hard time deciding what to do for her quilt. All I knew was that it had to be predominantly pink and had to have Minkee on the back because that's what I put on the back of her brother's quilt almost 7 years ago. And yes, he still uses his quilt everyday. I've known little Eden's mama since she was about 6 or 7. She's an identical twin and her Mom used to paint their toenails to tell them apart--yup, pink & blue. To this day, Mom's favorite color is still pink. After several false starts, I started seeing granny square blocks popping up all over the internet. Inspiration struck and I started digging into my stash.

I pulled out a pile of pinks and lavenders and set them with some Kona pink. And yes, the backing is pink Minkee -- it is so soft. I am definitely going to be putting some Minkee on the next quilt I make for myself.

Meanwhile, today I got to actually see the little babe thanks to the wonders of  Facetime and her Grandma who was visiting and had her iPad with her. She's a little sweetie.

Yeah, I think she will probably be using her quilt at least as long as her big brother and that makes me very, very happy.

What's on my Bed

Yea, I know--I've been neglecting this poor blog lately. There's been a lot of other distractions in my life lately. Fear not, I have been doing quite a bit of quilting and as soon as some things get in the mail I will be able to share them here.

I also need to share pictures of my new quilting partner--my new Bernina that all your votes helped me to win.

But, in the meantime, Bonnie over at Quiltville is having a link up with "what's on my bed". I still haven't figured out how to include a clickable link into blogger when writing from the iPad. So here's her post: http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/04/whats-on-your-bed.html

Since it's still pretty chilly at nite, there are two quilts on our bed.
First up is the red & white/cream snowball. There was an online quilt along a year or two ago with Fat Cat Quilts & Sister's Choice.


Under this quilt is a quilt from yet another online quilt along from a few years ago sponsored by Crazy Mom quilts. I had a batik Bali pop jelly roll that had been languishing for far too long and it gave me the color palette for the quilt along.


However, in all honestly, I really do have to show what is usually on my bed.....


The Bed Slug, otherwise known as The Spotted One. He actually prefers to be UNDER the quilt rather than on top.

Truckin' Along

Well, it's Monday. That means it's "link-up" day for Bonnie's Orca Bay Mystery. I'm afraid I don't have a whole lot to show for the latest part. I admit, I've been a bit distracted with trying to finish up some Christmas projects. WHY do I always wait till the last minute for these?!?

Anyway, here's where I'm at:

The top portion is all the half square triangles awaiting the addition of the black triangles. The bottom pile is the ones that are partially completed. They still need a second triangle attached.

Here's my box of completed steps. You can see just a few completed units from this last step in the upper right corner. I have a LONG way to go and I seriously doubt much sewing will get done in the next few weeks....

On another note, we finally had a nice day that coincided with my having a quilt holder available to get a picture of the new Christmas quilt with free pieced words in the border. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to take pictures of a 96" square quilt when your house is really small and you live in the Pacific Northwest where it rains 2/3 of the year?!?

I also attempted to get some Christmas pictures of a certain Spotted One. This time without help. Note to self, don't hold the cheese in the same hand with the camera!

I did finally manage to get a good one for use on our annual Christmas card and it's not this one -- yeah, I know, nothing like putting things off till the last minute......

Ah well...maybe next year I might start thinking about these things sooner. But then again, knowing me, I doubt it. But now I must go make some cookies for the Quilting Broads Christmas party and challenge reveal tomorrow.....

Red!

Part 4 of Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay mystery has finally brought us some red. Unfortunately, it's red strings. So, even though I have an extensive selection of red fabrics in my stash, none of them were in the form of strings. I was finally able to start cutting some strings Sunday and finished cutting them Monday. So, today at quilting I finally started on part 4. Here's my progress so far--just need 98 more!

In other news, thank you for your votes--keep 'em coming. Right now I'm in first place. Thank you for supporting my entry--I'm getting really excited but it's going to be a long few weeks... VOTE here. Here's another picture of my entry just in case you don't remember which one is mine. It really is so stinkin' cute--but sheesh, those 3" pineapples have 37 pieces each!

And now I'm going back to my red strings.........

Joined the Party

I caved--I joined Bonnie's Orca Bay mystery. I didn't really NEED another new project but I love Bonnie Hunter's quilts and I didn't do last year's mystery but wished I had. Besides, I always seem to actually get things done quicker when I'm doings mystery. It must be the anticipation of awaiting the next step or something....

So, despite joining the party a little late, I managed to get everything done. I finished step two on Wednesday which actually gave me time to start a baby quilt that needs to be completed before April.

Despite having to make 350 units in step three, I completed it by Saturday afternoon. Here are all my pieces for the three steps so far.

I can't wait to see what we will do with the red. I'm hoping the next step uses red.

And now I'm going back to working on that baby quilt.

LizA .

Finally! Some Quilting

At long last, some quilting has finally been accomplished. The last few months have been incredibly busy and it's been quite a dry spell as far as quilting is concerned. However, now that that damn has been broken, I'm hoping it takes awhile to contain the "flood". There are several projects that have been "in the works" for far too long. I'd like to see some of the completed.

So, without further ado, here's the first of what I hope will be a long line of completions:

This spring when Quiltmaker came out with Bonnie Hunter's Christmas Lights Mystery quilt the QB's decided we would all make it. I was finally able to do some serious catch up sewing this weekend and here it is.

I also realized that I have yet to post a picture of our little teardrop actually camping. Since The Bearded One wasn't crazy about calling it Honey Bee, Ms. BackPorch Quilter suggested Woodstock -- it fits. So, here's Woodstock actually camping:

Too Many Projects

First off, the trailer....final varnish coats have been put on hold the past few days due to weather. It's tough to varnish when it's rainy or windy. We're hoping to finish up the varnish this weekend and move on to the floor construction.

Meanwhile, another bus project is the curtains. Here's what I'm doing to the curtains. You can see the old, loose weave curtains on the right. I'm using those as a base and covering the inside bus portion with this cute Happy Camper fabric from Clothworks. Look, it has a VW bus AND a teardrop trailer! How cute is that. My neighbor says I need to make yet another quilt for the bus with this fabric.....hhhmmmmm.

Also in the works is Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery, Christmas Lights. This is a 3-part mystery being published in Quiltmaker magazine. Most of the QB's are joining in on this mystery. Here is the first part, all complete. I had the paisley in my stash so that will be my border. I then pulled a brown from it to use instead of Bonnie's suggested black print.

See the brown in this closeup. I'm sticking with Bonnie's scrappiness, but not using strictly all Christmas fabrics. At least that's the plan right now. Naturally that is subject to change if I decide the quilt is calling to me to use more Christmas fabrics. They do that you know, call to you as you're working on them, or when you've put them aside for awhile. Only a quilter can hear the call of fabrics though. Ain't that right Quilters?

Also in the ongoing projects pile are these polka dot 9-patches. Crazy Mom Quilts has a One a Day quilt-along. I joined figuring it would give me the motivation to move these little guys along. Yes, they are little -- they will finish at 3".

I'm using setting blocks instead of sashing. As you can see, even the setting blocks are polka dot! Unfortunately this project is stalled until I get more of my polka dot fabric cut. I have quite a stack still waiting to be cut for this other polka dot project that's been lingering for quite awhile.

And then there are the couple Christmas gifts I thought I would get an early start on. But, I can't show them here. There is also the request from a fellow Dalmatian owner to make her some more doggie panties, a.k.a. Bitches Britches. Years ago, when we had a female show dog I made panties for her to wear when she was in season. They became quite a hit among the Dalmatain crowd and I made countless pairs to sell to help support rescue.

So many projects, so little time.....Have a great weekend, and for those of you in the hot parts of the country, stay cool.