A Work in Progress

These items have actually been finished for a couple of weeks, but since my stitching time has been limited this month, I have nothing else to show.  The pincushion and scissors fob were made for my sampler guild's exchange from Blackbird Designs Wild Lilies pattern.  They're sitting on a square made by my grandmother who crocheted and did tatting.  I own three pieces of linen from her and they have  a  special story that I'll save for another post. This seems to be the season of finishes or milestones in our lives.  My daughter turned 20 on Wednesday and that marked the end of having teenagers in the house.  My husband is the one with the big "finish" as he will be officially retired on December 31.  We've been thinking about this and planning for it for at least 18 months, but the transition has not been without its bittersweet moments.  My husband and I are of a generation who  spend their entire careers with one company.  He...

X-block quilt Close-up of block Here's one of the quilts I took to the long-armer last summer.  As yet, it has no name.  This quilt was one of the projects from my monthly "scrap club" and I did indeed use some of the black and white prints in my stash.  The block is made with an X-block ruler.  In the case of this pattern, I made a nine patch and then placed the ruler so that the outside patches would be cut at an angle.  Those pieces were used in the border.  The whole time I was making the blocks, I thought about how to put a little color in the quilt.  My choices were running to lime green or yellow as I don't tend to like the red/black/white quilts I've seen.  Then I spotted this perfect red and black print and it all came together.  Good thing, as I wasn't loving this quilt in its pre-border stage.  Now it's a family favorite.  It resides on the back of our couch and each of the kids tried to make off with it whe...

Peace Comfort Quilt I finally finished this quilt a few weeks ago and donated it to my quilt guild to give as a comfort quilt.  I made this quilt "pillow style."  That is, I sewed the front and back right sides together along with the batting and turned it rather than binding it.  That sounds easier than it was for me.  I had all kinds of problems measuring the backing and batting correctly and as a result this quilt sat in my WIP pile for quite a while.  To quilt it, I used one of the decorative stitches on my machine and stitched little half circles along the seams.  It turned out OK, but it's not my best work by any means.  I learned some things about machine quilting and keeping the back smooth.  I think it would have been easier to quilt if I had planned to do a binding on the edge.  Thanks to all of you for your well wishes.  I'm getting better each day and have been assured that I will be happy someday that I had the or...

I'm introducing what I hope will be a fairly regular feature of this blog, the Friday Finish. Here's a recent quilting finish, a project for my "Scrap Club" class.  We focused on applique for a few months and used a book that had lovely patterns for "toppers" for quilts and banners.  For once, I decided to start much smaller and made a placemat.  All the pieces were done with double-sided fusible interfacing even though we were encouragd to do at least one piece with freezer paper.  I felt it was better to stick with one method at a time!  I used my machine to stitch a blanket stitch around all of the pieces except the "string" on the balloon (which is in kind of a weird position, but I can live with it).  The string is zig-zagged.  I drew some stars on the background to add extra quilting there.  I had hoped to finish this one in time for my husband's big birthday, but missed that deadline.  I also missed my birthday.  Looks like...