Today is the last day of May 2024. I tend to think of May 31st as Memorial Day, not just the last Monday in May. Memorial Day was always the day the town beach opened when I lived on the other coast. So exciting to get all the beach things together and walk down the street with chairs and umbrellas in tow. Claiming your spot on the sand and daring each other to go into the water, too cold usually. Fond memories of sandy baloney and mayonnaise sandwiches, sunburned shoulders and the scent of cocoa butter.

Today I am going to start a different memory trail, for someone else. I have a bag full of baby clothes and little girls dresses to use. It is going to be fun, I keep telling myself, yesterday I came up with a plan/pattern. That was bugging me, that I didn’t have a plan, I wasn’t going to fall into the puzzling together pattern. I had thought of doing the potato chip quilt pattern, but when I showed the client, they encouraged me to make the pieces bigger. The “chips” are rectangular 2″ x 3″, but that scrap quilt will have to wait for another day. I decided on 10″ squares made up of smaller pieces, 4″ squares being the smallest. I recently made a quilt, I’ve been calling it Sage baby quilt, and it is a random pattern of such blocks. What I need to do this weekend is get the clothes organized and see what needs SF101 stabilizer applied and get cutting pieces.

A few days ago I came across this blog post from Krista Moser at The Quilted Life called Just Four Fat Quarters. I had four FQs plus a few scraps left over from the Sage baby quilt, so I was able to make a cute top, quickly. I added borders and voila! all the scraps from the original two 4-FQ packs are gone. I am looking forward to making another of KM’s quilts called Fall Foliage. I recently found some ombre fabrics that I hope will work for leaves and a sky blue grunge type for the background. Also purchased this week, a few more Cotton and steel fabric for the clamshell quilt top. The color way of those fabrics is a bit different from the ones that Moda, Riley Blake and most of the other big fabric houses use. I keep trying to get to the bottom of that box of scraps, but end up adding to them. This box started out as a bargain fat quarter pack, rabbit hole.

The treehouse is being built, board by board. The Good morning blanket is being knit row by row. I just got into section E, lavenders and purples. There are nine sections, so I am about half way through now. On the long arm this week is a client quilt, a Christmas jelly roll strip quilt. This client really likes to iron and this top it so well pressed and pieced it is like quilting a whole cloth top. After this is done I’ll get the two Halloween tops on and hopefully have them done when I get a chance to do a photo session next month-ish.

Speaking of Sage baby quilt, it has been quilted and bound. It joins a pile of finished quilts for this week. Yesterday I bound the last quilt, Morning Flower of the pile from last week’s picture of quilted tops. Funny how things you are procrastinating doing get pushed to the front of the to-do list when other projects are behind them in the line up. I would like to get these quilts photographed and on the shop site. But that may not happen until next week, I have too much going on this week to spend a day snapping, editing and posting.

This morning I am planning on washing some windows, as I think the rains are done for this year. I turned on the garden drip system so the summer has begun here.

Be Kind.

I managed to keep myself busy in the sewing room this week. Last night I took a bunch of quilted things off the long arm. Originally I had planned on doing four quilts on the 108″ x 118″ backing piece, using a king size batting. But the math wasn’t in my favor, and I had to change plans and make it three quilts and three runners. The baby quilt top from last post, the flower garden top, and the Tessa top all got their stitches done. Now I have a pile of quilts needing bindings.

I can’t remember when I bought the lemon themed border/stripe fabric, but I finally cut it up and sewed it into three runners. Using the 60 degree ruler made this simple, and I got some ideas from the pattern “Easy Striped Table Runner” by Karen Montgomery. I was able to use most of the two yard piece and only had two triangles left over.

I then moved into Halloween mode. I have sort of been collecting J. Wecker Frisch fabric, it started with the kit, The Costume Makers ball, which used a fabric line by the same name. I then moved on to the Hungry Animal Alphabet made two quilts with that. Recently I bought a fat quarter pack of the Art Journal, jelly rolls of Sew journal and Queen of ‘Ween. Some yardage of Queen of ‘Ween and Mad Masquerade also found its way into my stash. The Colors (orange white black)and themes of MM, QofW and Costume Makers Ball all go together, so I made two scrappy quilts with them. I’d like to get them finished for the shop to sell for the season of Halloween. I probably have enough scraps to do two more throws, I need to look through the pattern library. Then I may start working on some Christmas themed quilts. Although, I have bought background fabric for the Fall Foliage Quilt from Krista Moser.

The Hobbit house is done and the Tree House started. There is a lot of patterning in the house boards of this one. I think the door had five different colors in it, keeps it interesting though. I am continuing to use bees wax on the threads before sewing with them. It really does make a difference with the sharpness of the colors and the definition of the stitches. Plus the threads don’t fray or break. The Facebook group I follow for this SAL got their patterns a few days after I got mine, so I am ahead of the game there. It is mid May, and the sixth house of 12, I need to keep the momentum, otherwise this will become a giant UFO quickly.

The Good Morning blanket is growing, I started the fourth section. The rows in this section are longer, so only 8 ridges of garter for each color. The Cotton Chirp mini skeins have 58 yards in them, so there is very little waste. I may use it up for some wash cloths, the colors are very nice, and the pima cotton is soft. It’s on sale this week too.

Be Kind.

I got up at 4:26 this morning, had woken up around three, but after a while, decided that I should just get up and start my day. I would like to get this small quilt (below) together today. I saw a simple design a few days ago and thought it would work for the two 5 fat quarter packs I picked up on sale last year. I ended up only using one pack, adding a few pieces from a different line that coordinated and a few solids. I may use the rest on a backing, or maybe just make two. I haven’t had the time to sew it all together since putting it on the design board.

I have been adding stripes to the Good Morning blanket, I should be finished with the blues and turning the corner for the tan-beige-brown rows. This yarn is so soft and springy, I almost want to make one for me. I also bought a few small skeins to make some booties and hats.

I got a few quilts bound this past week, the Picnic one, Noel, and the dream big dahlia. I am a little disappointed in the quilting on the Noel quilt. There are a few areas that the dark blue bobbin thread is pulled through to the front. I might just wash it and see if the fluffing of the batting will adjust the tension a bit. I would like to finish up the three quilts on the long arm, and free it up for a custom order I just got. The Kaleidoscope panel is looking pretty good, although the center is a bit off. I thought it was on point, but its up too high by a half inch or so. Also I am a bit bummed that since I basted the top and sides to the backing, I found a wrinkle in the backing. It was created by starting the quilting in the center and when I advanced it to do the top, some excess fabric tucked under rather than smooth out, it had no where to go due to the basting line. A learning experience, and a free quilt for a friend. I have another kaleidoscope panel in a darker color way, it’ll be perfectly stitched.

The Hobbit house is creeping along, it just seems like I stitch and stitch, but there is no progress. The next pattern is on the way, I have all the floss, so I can start as soon as I finish this one. I don’t know how people work on the full coverage projects, it’s like weaving a tapestry. These houses are on a six inch square, 120 stitches by 120. If they were full coverage, that would be 14,400 stitches. Sometimes I feel like these houses are too much, but I like how they turn out.

Be Kind.

My goal for today is to sew a giant four patch. This action will complete the Split Nines quilt top. I carefully webbed/pieced together four quadrants of 8 blocks by 8 blocks rather than doing 16 blocks across and down. Each quad took about an hour to complete and I think it was much easier to wrestle through the harp. I did end up changing the layout, and added 12 plain nine patches to make all the rounds repeat the center one. I still have an about a thousand 2 ½ inch squares left, but all the Hsts I made are used.

The Noel quilt got quilted and I put the Moondance top on and quilted it with a simple Baptist Fan design. I played bobbin chicken on the last row, and lost on the last fan. I had a bobbin with only a few yards on it so I popped that in and finished it. Since this quilt is only 60 inches square, I was able to roll it up on the frame and add two wall hangings to the same 108 wide backing piece. The kaleidoscope is a digital Hoffman print and the top I made from the Strawberry Fizz rolls fit on there too. I think I am going to call that one Strawberry Basket, the green squares remind me of the plastic baskets the berries are sold in. I have a set of digital designs for the kaleidoscope, similar to the Big Dream Dahlia I did recently. That reminds me, I need to bind that. I think I want to do a clam shell or orange peel on the SB quilt.

I started the Good morning blanket, after dutifully finishing the pink scarf, the yarn was delivered a few days after I ordered it. Sadly, the first block is the white rectangle and I didn’t get to break into one of the 32 colors yet. The hobbit house got a little less attention this week, but I really want to finish it before the next pattern, the Treehouse, gets here. It’s funny to me that when I signed up for this stitch-a-long, I thought I would have time to stitch other smalls while waiting for the next installment.

I bought some fabric this week and a quilt kit. The kit is for a quilt from the Tilda Fabric company, the pattern celebrates their 25th year in business. I hadn’t really heard of them until recently, but they have beautiful colorful fabric lines. The pattern is a free download at Tilda’s World, along with a lot of other nice ones. I bought a jelly roll of Mad Masquerade to add to the few yards I have from that line. I also picked up a few things at the sale at Green Fairy Quilts. Through looking for a appropriate pattern for the Halloween themed collections, I found a new to me online retailer called Bear Creek Quilting Company too, They are in Oregon, and also have lots of sale items this week. I found this free pattern there called Under A Spell. I think it’ll work with the Mad Masquerade line well.

Time to start my sewing day.

Be Kind.

I have been sewing blocks like a mad/crazy person these past few days. I only have 26 more to do, I have sewn 230 so far of the 256 I need for the split nine’s quilt top I have in mind. Amazingly enough I can see the bottom of my 2 ½ inch squares box, there are still plenty of squares in there for another project or two. I am excited to finish these, and put it all together. I figured out how many yards of fabric the 2 ½ inch squares would be if they were all cut from the same piece. There are 224 in a yard, and I used 6 per block so 1536 (white and colors)that makes about 6 and 3/4 yards. There are 6 half square triangles in each block, also 1536 pieces. There are about 336 – 2 ½ inch triangles in a yard, so 4 ½ yards for those. 11 and 1/4 yards for this top, it makes a dent in the stash.

The Hobbit house is slowly being built, I didn’t stitch last night. I did get the first window done, and I think I have about ten more days until the Tree house (#6) pattern arrives. The picture is posted on the web site, Cottage Garden Samplings. It’s pretty cute, I like the birds, especially the cardinal. I have all the called for flosses for it too.

The weather has been so nice lately, that I can’t seem to find time to finish the quilting on the Noel quilt. The room that it is in looks out to the back yard and this time of the year is when it looks its best out there. The sun is shining and there is still some moisture in the ground from the winter rains and everything is blooming and green. Maybe tonight I’ll get it finished. I have to finish knitting a scarf I started in February. I think I wrote about the yarn I had ordered in November and that it finally got here in February. I started a simple scarf with it and then decided I needed it to be larger, so I ordered another skien of the recycled cashmere and I am down to the last few rows. It’s mindless knitting, stockinette, but it will be a soft and cozy scarf for me. I would like to finish so I can start a new blanket that I bought the yarn for today. It’s a cotton yarn from Purl Soho called Cotton Chirp. I am going to make the Good Morning blanket and a few other goodies. The 32 colors seem vibrant and saturated, plus it is machine washable. Simple garter stitch, more mindless knitting, but the colors are exciting.

Be Kind.