Baby Quilts

I have been getting a few things done, but not many are fully completed. I did get a call from my CPA saying my taxes are done, so that’s one thing! Unfortunately, I owe money again. Bummer. It does not make me happy to have to give even more money to the IRS, but there aren’t any other choices other than to pay it. 

Here are three things that are completely finished. Baby quilts for the church fall festival.

I showed these tops before, but now they are quilted and bound. I quilted them all three at the same time on a 108” width piece of white flannel. I pre-washed it first. The quilts aren’t big; 30” x 42”. I think they are pretty cute. It was a little dark when I was taking pictures so not great lighting.

These will go in the craft sale at church. I still have three more to bind, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m okay. Especially since I have these three done and ready to go. In the meantime, I have been working on the silent auction (also for the church fall festival). I am the chairman for the silent auction, and we aren’t doing a live auction this year due to not having a chairman for it. Bottom line, I am hoping to make up the revenue difference with the silent auction. I got my quilt top quilted, and today I made the binding. I hope to have pictures of a completed quilt soon! Once again, I have taken on more than I should have. Pray for me! I don’t want to be the one who messes up! 

Weekend Update

The days are passing so fast I can hardly keep up with what day it is! I got a couple of quilts finished last week that I did not post any pictures of. Both are baby quilts. This one was for a customer. 

I know the pictures don’t show the nice embroidery work very well. Her stitching is beautiful.

Another was one I did.

If it looks familiar, it’s because I did one with half of this layer cake a year ago. This one is what was left of the layer cake. I put a purple binding on it. I wanted to get it finished and add it to our Gabriel Project display for the Quilt Guild open house, which I did, but it’s so pretty I don’t know if I am ready to donate it or not. I have no immediate use for it, so I don’t know why I’m being so silly about it! 

I did a little sewing Saturday and Sunday. I cut up a Kaffe Fasset charm pack and started a bag. I used the free pattern I posted Friday, but of course I modified it to make it bigger. I got the back and the front pieced and quilted both of them. I just did stitch in the ditch on my domestic machine.

I have the perfect fabric for the lining so that will happen soon. I also added another row to the pink Irish chain. 

I will work on the black one this week and see if I can get another row added to it. Then I will have to piece some more blocks.

I went with a friend to a Santana tribute band concert on Sunday night. It was really good. 

 

Very talented band! I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Saturday evening I was outside taking pictures of the harvest moon. Of course, I don’t have the photography talent or equipment to get good pictures, but I did my best!

Linking to Melva Loves Scraps.

Scrappy Saturday

It was a busy week, so I wasn’t able to do as much sewing as I had hoped. The Quilt Guild Open House was Thursday and Friday, and of course, I spent part of Wednesday getting all my stuff together. More on that at the end of this post. 

I did get a few Rainbow Scrap Challenge block done. I was able to finish another aqua/turquoise one before I moved on to purple.

I could use a few more of these, but it may not happen. 

Once I moved to purple, I made two of the 16-patch star blocks.

Purple is not really my favorite color, but I do like these purple stars—a lot! If I can dig up a few more purple scraps, I will make some more this coming week. I’m not sure what the October color will be; I guess we will find out soon. 

Now for the Quilt Guild Open House. We decided not to do a show this year and just do an open house to try and attract new members. We held it at our regular meeting place which is Christ the Victor Lutheran Church. They let us do an Airing of the Quilts display in their sanctuary.

Our goal was to show the community what we do. We had a table showing our programs and workshops, a display of the collage quilting we taught to the 4H students, a membership table, and a Community Service table. I am the Community Service Coordinator, and this is this the display I set up. 

The plastic sheet holders on the left table show which organizations we support and what we donated last year. There are four community organizations we support.

Anyway, we signed up 11 new members, so I guess it was worth all the effort, and believe me, it was a lot of effort! I came home about 3 yesterday and took a nap!

Free Pattern Friday

I haven’t done a Free Pattern Friday post in a while. How about a tote? This is a cute one.

You wouldn’t have to use the featured fabric. I think it would look great with a more scrappy look. The pieces are potato-chip size, and I have boxes of those. LOL. 

You can find the pattern here.

I was thinking about all the free patterns I have posted over the last few years. I haven’t found the time to make most of them, although I have made a few. I have tags (labels) on all the posts I think, and I would like to make more of them. I think that would be a good goal for next year.

Another Diversion

I’m trying to get some things cleaned out around here and either donated or thrown away. Trust me, it won’t last long! I don’t have the attention span for it. For now, I have a couple of boxes ready to go to the donation center, and I have a large garbage bag of stuff that just needs to be trashed. I was trying to get one of the bedrooms cleaned out and found an Our Generation Doll from back when my friends and I used to sew wardrobes for them and donate the dolls and clothes to Toys for Tots every year. 

I think I have another one somewhere, but she hasn’t turned up yet. I mentioned it to Betty, and she said she still had one of the dolls in her closet too. We made so many cute outfits over the course of several years.  Here are a few I did:

We would dress them in the Christmas dresses we made and put the dolls back into the boxes with all the clothes plus extra shoes, socks, and panties.

These were the My Life dolls. Alan donated the one on the left, Betty the one in the middle, and I donated the one on the right. If you blow up the picture, you can see the boxes are filled with the extra clothes.

We did it for three or four years and then got tired of it. Betty and I decided we would make a wardrobe for the dolls we still have and donate them to the church auction. It won’t be this year, but 2027, as we both have projects we need to finish before we get started on this. I got out all of my patterns, and I’m starting to get excited about it. 

I have plenty of patterns to choose from! I should have a box of extra shoes and accessories—just need to find them!

Weekend Update

I hope your weekend was good! Mine went pretty well. I took my stepdad to Corpus Christi for a doctor appointment on Friday. Would you believe it rained all day in Corpus? I got back to Victoria around 5:30, and it hadn’t rained any here. I was so disappointed! Oh well. I’m tired of watering the grass, but I keep doing it. Especially around the house foundation. 

I put together another baby quilt on Saturday.

The picture really doesn’t do it justice. The fabrics are so pretty. I’ve had those five fat quarters for a while. I don’t remember if I got them from JoAnn’s or Hobby Lobby. I think I had two packs but not sure what happened to the other one. Anyway, I decided the pack I had left wasn’t doing anyone any good sitting on the shelf, so I came up with a way to use it for a baby quilt. I had to add a border to get it up to a reasonable size. It’s 40” x 43”. 

I ordered a bolt of 108” white flannel to use for backing, and I think I can put the baby quilt tops three across and two down on top of the backing and batting. I had five tops ready to longarm, and needed a sixth one. That was the motivation to get this one done.

Here are the six I have done now:

I cut off 3 yards of the 108” flannel and surged the ends so I could wash and dry it. When I get a chance, I will load it on the longarm and get these done. I’m not sure about thread color—maybe light gray.

I am continuing to work on my Irish chain blocks as leaders/enders, so needless to say, it’s not going real fast. I needed to see some progress so I started sewing blocks together into a row.

I don’t know if you can tell what I’m doing with the black and white. My concern with the pink blocks is that I have all that white space that will need custom quilting to do it justice. Not that I can’t do the custom quilting, but it does take a lot of time.  So this is what I came up with. Everywhere you see white on the top row, I subbed multi-colored squares. Everywhere you see pink, I subbed black, and for the 1930’s prints, I subbed white. It’s hard to keep up with, and I have made more than a few mistakes. Luckily, I like a challenge. LOL. I hope to add another row to each by the end of the week if I can get enough blocks made, but I’ll have to see how it goes. Doing it this way, I will have two Irish chain quilts instead of one, but it will take a little longer to finish. I will be linking this to Melva Loves Scraps. 

Scrappy Saturday

I’m so happy I was able to get the borders of the quilt I’m making for my church’s fall festival auction. I really like the way it is turning out! 

The border fabrics I ended up using are not what I had originally chosen. I purchased fabric specifically for the quilt, but once the center part was pieced, I didn’t like the way they looked.

The colors in the center are more vibrant, and made the border fabrics look muddy and washed out. I was a little frustrated, but my friend Betty came over and helped me pull some other fabrics from my stash. We decided on the daisy print for the first border.

Then a narrow strip of yellow, and a wider border of navy tone on tone. I think I can still use the stripe for the binding.

I’m hoping there’s enough.

I spent a few evenings catching up on some of the aqua RSC blocks. I think aqua was the July color. I did a couple of the big stars. 

I have almost enough 2.5” squares of aqua to do some nine patches, but it will have to wait. I took my stepdad to Corpus Christi yesterday for some neurology appointments, and I was so tired when I got back I didn’t get anything done. I just sat in the chair and vegged. Maybe I’ll make some progress today if I can get caught up on my rest. I have some purple cut for more big stars so I have plenty to do this weekend. I’m linking to So Scrappy.