Quilting Progress This Week

Hello Everyone! I’m a little late posting today because we took an unexpected shopping trip to Charlottesville yesterday. I was getting ready to throw in a load of laundry when my husband said he found a pair of shoes he was looking for at half price in a shop in Charlottesville. He didn’t want to wait until a weekday to go so off we went. We had a nice lunch then bought his shoes. We did a little shopping at the same center, then I wanted to go to Joann’s for a pillow form. Mine did not have the size I needed. I was able to get it then we went to Plow and Hearth on the way home. We bought a cabinet I had been keeping an eye on, which just went on sale. We saved $100 plus a huge shipping fee. The only one they had in the color I wanted was the floor model so we don’t even have to put it together. All in all a good day and we had a pleasant drive through my favorite valley.

I also had a very productive quilting week.

I finished the top of the Vintage Side Spool pillow by Joanna Figueroa from the book “A Scrapbook of Quilts”. I made mine with a twist, as in turning some of the spool blocks to form a star. In the book, the spool blocks were all turned the same way. I’m participating in the two color challenge in the Fig Tree and Friends Facebook group. This would probably be considered a finish, but I am going to quilt it this week before I call it a finish. The pillow form I bought is two inches longer than what I made, so I’ll add an extra inch to both sides.

I also finished the first Stars My Way block for the blue/tan quilt. I had already made a group of star points so I needed to make the center block. I didn’t use a pattern for the center 6″ block, I just made it up myself. I have the It’s Sew Emma (Fat Quarter Shop) foundation paper piecing pack to make 3″ square in a square units and that’s what I used in the center. It came out perfectly. I left the paper in until I had pieced the unit into the block for more support. I love the way this block turned out!

I also started a new mini quilt, Bouquet by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life. I had pieced the hexi flowers last year and had picked the fabric I was going to use for the mini, but never had a clear idea of what I was going to do with them. I made five of the flowers, but ended up only using four. I had designed a basic layout to use with the flowers, but thought I would check out Sherri’s patterns because I knew she had several quilts that used the flowers. I found one I liked so then I needed to decide on the fabrics. I had pulled some fabrics last year to use, but added in a few new ones. I’m still using the Minick and Simpson’s Taupe Portsmouth and the Spotted by Zen Chic, but plan to use some fabrics from Edyta Sitar in the sashing and border that I’ve had for a long time. The hexi flowers were made from a mini charm pack by Kate and Birdie, Return to Winter’s Lane.

I wanted to get Mini Bouquet started because I needed to applique some stems to a unit for some Cinnamon Splendor blocks. While I had my machine set up for applique I wanted to go ahead and get the flowers appliqued to the background. This week, I’ll add the sashing and borders the squares so I can start quilting the Vintage Spools Pillow top, then I can quilt this one, too.

Just one more thing before I go, don’t forget about all those extra squares you can make from your flip and sew corners. I sewed an extra seam about 3/8″ inside the original seam before I trimmed the corners, so now I have 16 HSTs. I will use these and the extra hexi flower to make a mug rug.

That’s it for this week. I hope you all have a great start to your week and may you get a lot of quilting and stitching in. Thanks for stopping by.

Brenda