Paintbox quilt completed

A Rainbow Scrap Challenge finish.

Paintbox quilt

These were fun blocks to make for the RSC, and it took me a couple (maybe even three) years to get all the blocks completed.

I seem to like making blocks, but when it comes to sewing them together into a quilt top I get stalled.  January always gets me in the finishing mode so I decided to tackle the sashing, and then when Angela challenged us to finish a Rainbow Project for the end of the month, I knew it was Paintbox. Quilted with the Baptist Fan pantograph by Hermione Agee and a white Glide thread.

I like the way Elizabeth Hartman designed her quilt back and followed as close as I could, however I didn’t have enough solids, so I completed three rows and left it at that.

Paintbox quilt back

The wind was blowing today, so it was tricky trying to get a photo without the quilt being tossed.  You might also notice that a portion of the scrappy binding is not sewn, it will be finished tonight!

I started this quilt from a tutorial on Elizabeth Hartman’s blog, however she has redone her web presence and Paintbox is not included.  For anyone who is interest, I was able to find a free pattern download at Robert Kaufman Fabrics.

Now over Soscrappy for the last day of the month Rainbow ScrapFinishes!

It is Finished

Yeah!  I have completed my One Monthly Goal (OMG), the Double Irish Chain quilt that I posted unfinished at the beginning of the month, hoping to get it quilted and bound by the end of the month, and here it is.

 

Irish Double Chain quilt

I had so much fun quilting it, I really enjoyed the continuous curves, the motif in the middle, not so much, it was very simple, however I was having so much fun with the continuous curves I just wanted to keep going and not stop after each row to complete the white centres. 

 

 

So many fun memories in the quilt of clothing and doll clothing from my childhood, and I love the yellows and blues.

 

I have one other finish which I will post on Tuesday January 31^st for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so stop by and have a look again.  So happy to be finishing with two completed projects in January.

Do check out our OMG group at Elm Street Quilts, maybe you will be inspired to join in the fun for February.  Now I must check my list to see what I plan on finishing next, I’ll be posting in the first few days of February.

Rainbow Studio

I have finished all but one of the projects on my purple Rainbow Scrap Challenge list, and I'm not ready to finish the last project as I just got tired of my purple scraps, I think I need some new purples to play with.  For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on finishing my Paintbox quilt so that I can participate in Angela’s Rainbow finish at the end of the month, so for now a rainbow of colours is what I see when I look into my Longarm quilting studio.

 

First the Paintbox flimsy, which is moving along quite nicely, as I am about two rows from competing the quilting, as of last night.

Paintbox quilt flimsy

I also have the top of Rainbow Rows finished and hanging on my 'Completed Tops' quilt rack, so perhaps it will be my February RSC finish.

 

Rainbow Row quilt

And a rainbow of Glide (my favourite) quilting thread, always brings a smile to my face to see these pretty colours.

 

Glide thread

No little RSC projects this week, I’m looking forward to finishing the Paintbox quilt and to seeing what colour we will be playing with in February with Soscrappy and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Purple Birch Tree quilt blocks

This week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and in the colour purple I decided to work on four Birch Tree quilt blocks.  The Birch Tree pattern is by Amada Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts.  I’ll trim up the blocks once I finish them all.

 

The background fabric that I am using is from a past Rainbow Scrap Challenge Give-away.  In 2014, I won this lovey rainbow of hand dyed fabric called ‘color wheel’ from Colorways by Vicki Welsh.  My plan is to finish a baby birch tree quilt.
 

Also sewed up a few purple leaders and enders.

 

I’m trying to finish up projects, and I think this might be the end of purple scraps for me this month unless I start something new.  I am looking forward to joining Angela's Rainbow finish on January 31^st so I spent a little time last evening completing the back for my Paintbox quilt, so I can get it on my long-arm machine.

Paint box quilt back

Have a look at this weeks Rainbow fun at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Jewel Box quilt

This is the first quilt I ever started working on, it is filled with the fabrics of my childhood.  Started long before rotary cutters and before I really knew anything about quilting.  

 

Jewel Box quilt

When I was nine years old my mom saw this pattern in a women’s magazine, so we drew out a diagram on some graph paper and I started cutting out little squares and triangles from any left-over fabrics from our home sewn clothing, slowly sewing them together.  It has everything in it, wool, flannelette, brocade as well as some cottons.  At times it would just get ignored for years, maybe I lost interest, or didn’t have the fabric, or just got distracted from the project (I think we’ve all been there).

 

So in my thirties when my husband and I had bought a new home, I started playing with the pieces again and in the month before our new home possession date I decided to finish piecing the top.  I guess I needed a distraction from packing.  I began just randomly making blocks, but that quickly turned into being selective and grouping colours, again I think many of us have done this ordering of random scraps. I put the unplanned pieced blocks in the corners, and arranged the coloured ones through-out the middle of the quilt.

 

The top got put away again, I didn’t know how to tackle the actual quilting.  After a few more years and another move, into our now home and after taking a ‘quilting on your domestic machine’ class I felt it was time to do the quilting.  I thought this old quilt would be a nice quilt to practice on and I wasn’t too worried about ruining it, in fact I thought it might end up being the dogs blanket!  That didn’t happen, as my teen-age son came home while I was basting it on the living-room floor and exclaimed – “That’s the most beautiful quilt you have even made” – he saved it from being the dogs blanket and I looked at it with new eyes.

 

With the suggestion of a quilter friend I decided to make a few curved lines through the middle of the quilt and then mimic them.  On the borders I extended the lines from the blocks.

I hung this Jewel Box quilt on the wall for one of my quilting Open Houses and it has been there since. One day while the sun was casting shadows across it I took these pictures.

The most precious jewels you will ever have around your neck are the arms of your children.

Purple Slabs

This week I worked on a couple of purple slab for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  You can find the method for making sabs in the book Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison.

 

Here is a close-up of the blocks, all kinds of purple bits in there.

 

Here they are on the cutting table.

 

Ready to join their buddies.

 

Altogether I have 20, which would make a quilt that measures around 56 x 70.  I know I could add a couple more colours, so I think I’ll keep adding through the year so that this can become a larger quilt, usable on a bed, I’m all about function.

If you like purple you might want to stop by this week’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge, there are a whole lot of pretty purple quilty pictures to look at..

Purple Wonky Churn Dashes

I’m glad to be back, participating in Soscrappy’s 2017 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I love working with scraps, and the objective of working on one colour a month and posting work accomplished on Saturdays helps me to get projects done.  I’ve made a list of some my unfinished Rainbow projects and this week I was able to check off the four Wonky Churn Dash blocks. 

I thought a picture outside on the snow would show them off, however between the natural lighting and my camera the colour is not quite right.

 

Next I pinned them to the fence in the sunlight, this was tricky as there was a bit of a wind, however the colour is truer.

 

Then I thought I’d give my Sewing room lighting a try and this colour is also closer to the actual purples of the fabric.

 

To see more lovely scraps of purple check out this weeks Rainbow Scrap Challenge and consider joining in the fun.

The best way to predict your future is to create it. ~ Abraham Lincoln

OMG – One Monthly Goal

I’m excited to have found a monthly finishing group and have joined up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal event, hoping to finish at least one project each month for 2017.

I have so many unfinished projects to choose from, so for January I have decided to work on what I believe is the oldest quilt in my stash of unfinished objects (UFOs), a Double Irish Chain quilt.

 

Double Irish Chain quilt

This top, which I still love after all these years is made mostly with scraps of fabric from handmade clothing from my youth as well as some other collected fabrics.  I used to sew most of my clothing, my doll’s clothing, some of my sister’s and friend’s clothing.

Why was this quilt so long in the making?  A few things, first I think I cut all these little blocks using a cardboard template and then individually machine sewed them together, this was started long before rotary cutters and quilting rulers, and it was also made with little odd shaped left-overs.  I got all the 25 patch blocks done first, then I started hand sewing the corners on the mostly white blocks, and soon tired of this task, so it got put aside for a very long time. 

 

When I decided that I wanted to complete the top I decided to rethink the white block and came up with a plan to machine sew those corners.

 

I finally got the top pieced and it was ready for quilting, however all my customer's quilts came first and this lovely top has being patiently hanging in the closet for the last four years.  Recently, I have started a full time job, consequently I’m taking a break from quilting for customers and looking forward to quilting some of my own quilts.

Interested in joining the satisfaction of finishing Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal event?  Check it out, and be sure to check back at the end of January to see my finished Double Irish Chain quilt.

Fig Tree Twister Quilt

One of my own quilts to start the year.  This quilt was made with the Twister template by Primitive Patterns, the larger template was used for the blocks in this Fig Tree fabric quilt, and the smaller template was used for the borders.

 

Fig Tree Twister quilt

 

Large twister blocks with small twister border

I thought that the Entangle pantograph by Hermione Agee added to the twisting look of the quilt blocks.

 

Entangle pantograph

On the back I added a row of little twisters, which come with a story.  I was working on these borders during a sew day at my friend Janet’s and unknowingly left one strip behind, when I got home and wanted to finish the quilt I was short a bunch of little twisters.  Thinking that I must of miscalculated I sewed up another border, two weeks later when I returned to Janet’s she had the missing strip waiting for me, so I incorporated it into the back.  A nice addition to the back of this quilt, as I always like back art.

 

Quilt back art

I find quilting is always adapting and often correcting little blunders. 

This quilt measured 57 by 72 inches and has been sold.

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. ~ Albert Einstein