I'm a Winner! (and other stuff)

You all know about (The Constant Quilter) Wendy Reed's "Montly Mini" challenge, right? which in itself is loads of fun and results in many very cool mini quilts every month. Then a few months ago Janet Olsen  (Rogue Quilter) challenged us to make a mini from a baggie of scraps left over from another project, which we referred to as "The Baggie Challenge". I jumped on board right away. Even more fun, right?

At the end there was a drawing, and lo and behold, my name was drawn! The prize was this darling tiny quilt made by Janet. I just love it!

This little beauty came in the mail a couple of days ago, along with an array of other goodies, including ...

Two bars of Janet's handmade soap! Any of you that have been lucky recipients of Janet's soap know how wonderful it is. All natural ingredients, and smell heavenly.

Also included were a purse-size hand lotion, two Utah Chocolate Truffles, one of which I ate immediately, and mini charm pack. How fun! 

Let's go back to the quilt. How cool is the back!

And check out her corners. Talk about perfect! 

Thank you so much, Janet!

😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

OK, on to other things. I thought I'd go ahead and give a sneak peek of my  Quilt Show entries, and Auction quilts.

First up, "Amish Inspired" which started as a Block of the Month in 1999. I won the blocks, and right away proceeded to build them into a quilt. Its quite large, measuring 76 x 100". I had intended to hand quilt it, a daunting prospect even back then when my hands were still good. Meanwhile I got stuck on a backing. Long story short, it got put on the back burner and I moved on to other things. 23 years later (ahem ... ) I decided I needed to move it out. I enlisted my friend Claire (cspoonquilt) to baste it for me on her long-arm, I machine quilted it on my Janome, and we are donating it to our live auction as a fundraiser for our guild.

(psst ...  our Quilt Show and Auction is in two weeks! Click here for information.)

Next is my Scrappy Log Cabin, which I've posted about before, also going into the auction. 

I also completed two quilts for the general exhibit. The first one was a sew-along with Temecula Quilt Co, which I'm simply calling "Log Cabin". I haven't been able to get a good picture of the full quilt yet, but here's a detail picture. 

Its based on this antique quilt.

I've seen many versions of this on the internet, as many folks sewed along. I just love the colors. 

Lastly, I made Road to Oklahoma, out of the book A Dozen Variables my Marsha McCloskey and Nancy Martin. 

Here's a close up

Again, those blues and browns I love so much. This one is going to my niece, Hana.

That's about it. Wow. Two posts in two weeks! I'm exhausted.

love,

Sandy

ps ... don't forget our Quilt Show and Auction is in two weeks! Click here for information.

Better late than never: my January mini

  

Do you ever look at a picture of a quilt, let's say in a book or Pinterest for instance, and say to yourself, "I want to make this quilt, like... right now!" ? 

That happened to me a few weeks ago. I was browsing through an old quilt book of mine, American Doll Quilts by Kathleen Tracy, and got stopped at this one.

I don't know. I've looked at this picture dozens of times, but for some reason this time it grabbed me. Its just so ... innocent, and simple. And darling. The thought occurred that it might be a fun little project to do at my upcoming quilt retreat, which was in a couple of days. So I immediately started pulling fabrics and quickly (if that's even possible) kitted it up. I did cut lots of extra pieces, so I could pick and choose as I went along. 

Fast forward, here's my version of Kathleen's Prairie Quilt:

Of course I didn't have her fabrics, but I did try to capture the feel of her little quilt. I was lucky I had a nice small check for the border, as I feel that was/is intrigal to the look. I auditioned a pink binding, but I didn't have the right pink, so I went with another "oldie" light, having the slightest tinge of green in the print. I think it works nicely. 

But then I had leftovers. Of course!  Ha ha ...you know what's coming, right? 

Naturally, I made another mini!

So ... late as I am, these are my offerings for January's Monthly Mini challenge. If you haven't already done so, go on over to Wendy's blog to see all the other January minis. 

There is one other item I finished last month, something I've been wanting to make for a long time - a homemade cover for my sewing machine.

I had been visualizing this, made with postage stamps, but didn't know quite how to go about actually making it. It was serendipitous timing that Lisa Bongean offered up a pattern on her Blog recently, which is exactly what I was visualizing. It was also lucky that she made her pattern to fit her Juki, which is the exact same model that I own. Anyway, I simply sewed together several of my postage stamp blocks and adapted them to her pattern. Voila!

Looking forward, my guild's annual quilt show is only three weeks away. We took a leap of faith and made the decision months ago to hold a real "in person" show this year, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that this will actually take place. I'm thinking with Omicron on the wane (here in central California, at least) and no new covid varients for now ... yet... we should be OK. Meanwhile I've been busy getting my entries and auction quilts ready, and I'm just about there. My quilts will be hanging, which gives a nice opportunity to take some decent pictures, which I hope to post at the end of the month. 

That's it for now!

Love, Sandy

Monthly Mini December 2021

I hope you all had a nice Christmas, and were able to spend time with family and friends. Ours was quiet, but we connected virtually here and there for some fun times. I'd never done Face Time before, and my sister caught me off-guard when she called on Christmas day. I was totally unprepared a (ie looked like a hag, lol!) but who cares! My two nieces were there and we had a great time!

For my Monthly Mini, I thought I'd do something more light and festive for Christmas. 

 

I think this has kind of a mid-century vintage look. The green is another Cranston print probably from that era, I wish I had more of. The center shirting is from Sheryl Johnson's Delightful Dozen (Temecula Quilt Co.) a beautifully done repro of a classic print. The rest are ... well, anyone's guess. My friend Pam shared her pattern for the tiny star, which finishes at 4 1/2". I will be making more of these in the future. 

When I thought of lining up the three stars, I had in mind a horizontal orientation. But it seems to be perhaps a little happier standing straight up. I never hung it up for Christmas (no decorating at all this year) so its future remains to be seen. 

I had just finished machine quilting a huge monster of a quilt, and another not-so-huge but still large one, so I'm not looking forward to any more large quilts any time soon. I'll try to get some pictures of those two later. 

Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying working small, and especially working with scraps.  As you know, I love antique doll quilts, and love making little quilts inspired by them. I wanted to try to recreate this one, but my reds are all wrong. I need to find some brighter reds, that look old.

 So I went the other direction and used black.

This little quilt falls right into Janet O's scrap challenge. The hourglass blocks were leader/enders made from the bonus triangles left over from my Flying Geese quilt a few years ago. You haven't seen the last of these, as I still have lots more. 

I have a quirk when it comes to binding. I like to machine the binding on to the back, then fold it over to the front and hand stitch it down. There are a few reasons I do this. Often I want the binding to have more of a presence on the front of the quilt and this way I can make it a titch wider, if I desire. It also lays flatter, which I believe lends a more organic look. Also, I feel I have more control of the corners this way. Yep, after 35 years of making quilts I still struggle with the corners. 

For Christmas, in an effort to pare down some of the bigger pieces in my stash that have been hanging around too long, I made everyone shopping bags. It was sort of a last minute hairbrained idea, so had to plow through and get them done in a hurry in order to get them in the mail on time. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a single picture! But fret not, as I went ahead and kitted up several more bags to assemble at my upcoming quilt retreat, and hopefully I'll remember to take a few pix. 

Now I'm back to the scraps, making little gift-y items such as mug rugs and pot holders. 

Not a very good photo shoot, but there you have it.

Happy New Year, my friends! 

love, Sandy

Ooops ... I almost forgot the link to Wendy's blog for the rest of the Montly Minis!

Ps. None of the comments I left today have shown up on the blogs where I left them. I hope this is just a fluke  

 

November Mini

 This little quilt has intrigued me ever since I first saw it on Pinterest.

Looking at it closely, I've come to strongly suspect it was a piece cut off a larger quilt or top, that someone cleverly framed in a complimentary fabric. (Note all the cut off triangles on the left and bottom edges, due to damage? or to the wonkyness of the mother piece itself?) But what makes this little quilt so interesting is the layout of the triangles. I wonder what the original quilt looked like. I also wonder if the "salvager" fussy cut the section for its design effect, or if it was just a scrap she found. However it came to be, its very intriguing, don't you think? I was smitten at first sight, and developed a deep fondness for the little guy, and for a long time I've wished I owned it. 

So I started thinking about reproducing it. I have fabric very similar to the border fabric, so that's a good start. I also have shirtings that are very similar to those in the quilt. I was halfway there, right? But when it came down to the other colors, it became more challenging. 

 

The only thing I could do was to try to approximate the look of the various fabrics the best I could. Some of them I got pretty close, others, well ... not so much. But I went ahead and forged forward, knowing that it would not be perfect. It was not too difficult to piece, and of course the wonkiness of the original worked in my favor. Ahem ...

After I got it all pieced together and trimmed (including several chopped off pieces for authenticity, ha ha) I brought out the border fabric and .... the one I had previously thought would be perfect didn’t work so well. The tone was wrong, or something. 

It looks better now that I look at it again, at least in the photo. I think I have a bit of a “vision problem” as another blogger put it, 

 

 

Anyway ... I ended up with a darker fabric which shows off the colors nicely, but takes it even further away from the look of the original. 

Hand quilted, simple diagonal lines

Still I'm happy with it, especially all washed up and crinkled. It could be the original quilt's smart cousin.

But you know what? I still covet that funny little quilt that inspired it!

Now go check out Wendy's blog and see the other minis for this month!

love, Sandy

October Mini, and Mini Scrap Challenge

I always look forward to Wendy Reed's Monthly Mini Challenge, as I adore these little gems which are darling to behold and really fun to make. 

Then right on the heels of last month's Mini Reveal, Janet O. challenged us to make a mini out of just scraps. A baggie of scraps, to be more precise, being leftovers from a previous quilt. I jumped on board right away. This is right up my alley, as I have made many tiny quilts with exactly this sort of thing in the past. I could probably do a whole post about them.

But lets just stick to the present for now. I've been obsessed with the four-patch lately. I am also in love with antique doll quilts, which may explain my obsession with four-patch quilts. So simple and innocent, and so very cute. What's not to love.

So I made two little quilts featuring the four-patch this month. They started with a pull of reds and neutrals. Simple, simple, simple. Arrange them with a coordinating setting block, add a border (maybe) and binding. Simple hand quilting. Its hard to go wrong with this formula. 

This is the first one I made. I actually made two of these, but I used the alternate fabric for the binding on the other one and gave it to a friend. Sorry I never got a decent picture of that one. 

Meanwhile, I saw this on Pinterest, made by Cheri Payne.

I thought, what a darling little quilt! Then I realized its a single block from her 2015 sew-along, Everyday Patchwork. Which I sewed along with, the resulting quilt now living with my MIL.  I fell in love all over again, and thought it would be fun to make this block again, as a mini. I had lots of extra scraps from the above quilt, cut in the form of strips, so I was ready to go.

 I love it. Of course, now I want to make more. Of course.

But then ... Janet had issued her challenge. I still had leftover scraps.

Not in a baggie, but still corralled, only in a plastic tray. I hope that's ok. Does it count that they might have ended up in a baggie if I hadn't had a plan for them right away? 

By now I didn't want to get redundant with the four-patch idea for these particular fabrics, so I thought I'd try flying geese. 

The green strips are the one "extra" fabric that Janet allowed. I did simple hand quilting, and installed a butted binding. I'm loving this one, too! 

So, three for the price of one, and triple the fun! 

Now scroll back up and click on the link to Wendy's blog, so you can look at the rest of the little quilts!

love,

Sandy

September Montly Mini and other things

 First up, my Montly Mini for September.

Another easy-peasy little scrap quilt that was a lot of fun to make! 

The hourglass units were made from scraps from my Flying Geese quilt from a few years ago. The orange and blue border fabrics you might recognize from my stash haul at our Bargain Garden sale last June. In fact ... my June mini features the same orange. Very simple quilting: machine in all the ditches, and a single line of big-stitch hand quilting in the border. 

The back is from a freebee pile I brought home from my small quilt group meeting a couple weeks ago. 

(psssst ... go here to see more "Monthly Mini's" on Wendy's blog)

 

Meanwhile, I finished the following top, which was accepted by Quilts of Valor.  (sorry about the crappy photo.)

Its made almost entirely from a line I fell in love with called Hickory Road, by Jo Morton. I still love it, but it grew to a size I can no longer handle in terms of basting and quilting. I was unsure QOV would accept it because its not "patriotic" colors, and not a completed (ie quilted and bound) quilt. But I got a resounding "yes" from the woman in charge in the Bay Area, so off it went.  It might have helped that I sent along a 108" backing piece to sweeten the deal. At any rate, I'm happy I won't have to struggle with it, and it will be going to a veteran.

Another top that grew out of my control was this one.

Made from another line I fell in love with, Upstairs at the Manor House by Jeanne Horton. I had bought a bundle of the entire line plus several large pieces, with the intent of making a large bedspread for my guest bed. I don't know what I was thinking as there was no way I was going to be able to baste and quilt a top of that size. Plus it was not planned out very well, as you can see. 

So I decided to divide it into two quilts. 

 This is the first one, which is going to a young mom I met up in Crescent City last July, who had lost her home in the Camp fire (Paradise, CA) two years ago. She told me she like muted colors which is right up my alley, right?  I'm calling this "Sand and Sea" because that's what it reminds me of.

I quilted wavy lines, which, to me, are evocative of waves on the ocean. 

Plus, I have a big enough piece left over from the original top for a second quilt, which will be a throw, or topper for my guest bed. Win-win, as they say!

All for now ...

Sandy

August Mini

 I sewed along with Pam Buda earlier this summer, and made my version of Abigail's Doll Quilt. 

 

I intended to make this in blue. 

Actually, I did make it in blue. I had just enough of this really pretty indigo pin dot to make an abbreviated version of Pam's quilt. I wish I had taken a picture.

Pam's inspiration

So what happened is, I tried to "age" mine. I dipped it in a coffee bath to give the muslin a stained look. The muslin wasn't having any of it, but the back turned a very dark brown. Not wanting that, I went ahead and re-dipped it in a diluted bleach solution, and watched in horror as it sucked the color right out of that beautiful blue. Leaving it a very lovely ... gray.

Let me say that I'm usually pretty successful when it comes to using bleach. I know how to properly use it to get all sorts of stains out of clothing, etc. and when soaked in a weak solution, I've even be able to ever-so-slightly fade the commercial color from a cotton fabric. Never in my life though, have I seen what happened here. I was, and still am, stunned. 

 

At least I got the brown out of the back.

I can't say I'm entirely unhappy, as it is still a nice little doll quilt, and it really is a very lovely shade of blue/gray. I even found a little cubbyhole to hang it in.

 

Meanwhile I finished yet another scrappy Log Cabin top:

I'm debating whether or not to fix my mistake, or leave it and call it "quirky". Thoughts? 

And a sneak peek at another project I've been working on:

 

That's about it for today, now go check out Wendy's blog for more Monthly Mini's!

love,                                                                                                              

Sandy