Trip Around the Cottage

One of the stops on my birthday shop-hop was at Caroline's Cottage Cottons where I purchased two kits. Are you seeing a trend here?

Today's post is about one of the kits, a store kit called Trip Around the Cottage, a play on the store name.

Caroline this kit in several colorways, I liked these shiny fabrics so that's the kit I selected.

This quilt top sewed together so fast. I could have easily pieced the flimsy in one day but other responsibilities took part of my time so it was a two day sew.

It measures 68.5" square and is hanging in the to be quilted closet. Eventually I will quilt it with my sewing machine then donate it as a compassion quilt. I think this quilt will be a good one for a man.

There was yardage of the dark blue fabric (which looks black in the pictures) for the binding. That has also been made and is waiting with the flimsy.

Linking to Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

Elegant Garden, Block 2

I did complete the applique on Blueberry Pie this week but I didn't get a picture taken, sorry 😔. Since the Blueberry Pie applique is finished, I pulled another project.

Last August I wrote about starting a new applique project to use as a take-along project, Elegant Garden, an older applique pattern by Edyta Sitar, Laundry Basket Quilts. I had completed block one.

I finally finished block 2 which was started in September.

There was a LOT more applique on block 2 than block 1 and those pieces are very small, at least for my fingers. There was supposed to be more leaves on this block but I left several of them off, I thought this was enough.

When I opened my tub of civil war fabrics, I found several fat quarters of background fabrics I had purchased some time but I don't remember when. I cut the squares for each block then arranged them on the display wall. This way I shouldn't end up with the same background fabric next to each other.

Elegant Garden will be my main hand work project for now. Next Sunday I hope to show you Blueberry Pie.

I brought all of my Christmas Cactus into the house last week after they spent a week of quarantine in the garage. I sprayed them several time with an insect spray.

Most of the plants have buds and the yellow cactus is blooming! I normally get a second round of blooms after the new year.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Craftastic Monday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings, To Do Tuesday

Blessed by Nature

My birthday is in July and again, like last year, I went shopping/browsing at several local fabric stores to celebrate. This year I took Donna along.

We made several stops in our birthday celebration and made several purchases. You'll hear about those during this autumn but today I'm going to tell you about our stop at Lolly's.

At Lolly's we both thought the Blessed by Nature sample quilt on the wall was very pretty. We both purchased kits and made plans to get together this autumn to sew them.

Basically the blocks are sewn using the 'stack & whack' or 'one block wonder' method. I suppose those are copyrighted terms but that is the method for cutting the block triangles.

I cut my fabrics at home, I can concentrate better when I'm on my own. But I did sew two blocks ahead of time to make sure I had cut them correctly.

I do need to say that the instructions are not clearly written and are hard to follow. This is definitely not a project for a beginning quilter. 

We persevered in spite of the challenging directions and have finished flimsies. My flimsy measures 64.5" by 80.5" but we all know it will shrink when it's quilted.

My quilt has been delivered to a long arm quilter. It will be 8 weeks until it is quilted and ready for display. That means I should be able to show it to you just before Christmas.

I needed to go to Shipshewana Tuesday so I stopped at Lolly's and looked at the original quilt. What I thought I had cut incorrectly was exactly the same as the sample quilt. Obviously that sewest had the same problem I did. 

Lolly's no longer has any kits but they have quilted the sample. The quilt is for sale at $675 in case any of you are interested.

And yes, on the way home from my birthday shopping, we did stop at the Essenhaus bakery to buy a raspberry cream pie to celebrate my birthday. Birthdays only come once a year and I only have raspberry cream pie once a year. 😋

Linking to Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

Blueberry Pie

I really thought I would have this corner applique finished by today but I was distracted by another project instead.

Just one more leaf needs to be stitched onto the right side, that should happen today. 

Then I need two leaves on the left side and it's finished!

The problem (of course there's a problem!) is I can't find this fabric! I know I didn't use it all but I just can't find it. I could substitute another fabric but I'll need to take three leaves off, I don't want two different fabric leaves.

I'll look again. 😞

I was in Wakarusa last Wednesday and was surprised to see the quilt garden hadn't been cleared yet. The participating garden committees decide when their garden is 'finished'. They can't be cleared before September 1. Most leave their flowers in place until the middle of September but some want them cleared because they're ready to be finished for the season. 

We had the first frost of this autumn Thursday morning but it wasn't a hard frost. The farmer didn't have any frost on the truck windows when he went to the farm to milk his one cow at 6 AM.

Some of the flowers in the front look finished but most of them are still colorful.

I'm sure they will pull the flowers this week. Cold weather is coming!

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Craftastic Monday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings, To Do Tuesday

More Comforter Binding

Elaine dropped off seven comforters for me to bind. I used this tutorial for binding.

Sometimes the comforters are rather bland but these comforters are very pretty! 

Fern pieced these tops then passed them along to Elaine who then took them to be knotted at Prairie Street Church. The bindings have been turned, stitched and delivered to the Depot to be sent with the next shipment to wherever they're sent.

Isn't it interesting how we all have our different niche in the process?

Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

Blueberry Pie Applique

Applique on the blueberry pie border is making slow progress. I've lost my enthusiasm for some reason. 

The original plan had been to applique all four corners. This is the second corner and that's going to be it. This quilt will be hand quilted and feathers will quilted in the other corners.

The pattern for Blueberry Pie is found in the Red, White and Sometimes Blue book but it's not called Blueberry Pie, you'll find it listed as Writer's Block. I thought the name was rather unimaginative so I changed it to reflect the blues used in my quilt.

The pattern in the book does NOT have an applique border, this is my addition. The border is a variation of the center medallion from the Lady Jane pattern, designed by Nancy Rink.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Craftastic Monday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings, To Do Tuesday

Radiant Blues Finish!

Radiant Blues is finished! The binding has been hand stitched, the sleeve is hand stitched and the label is hand embroidered.

Coleen Gall did a wonderful job with the custom long arm quilting. For the quilting designs, I told her what I would do if I were hand quilting the quilt, she took my suggestions from there and adjusted them to machine quilting. Radiant Blues measures 76" square, a perfect size for a wall quilt.

The next group of pictures are closeups of the quilting. Some of the pictures are long and narrow but I don't know how to put them side by side.

A light blue fabric was used for the backing.

And a close up of star quilting on the back.

The label is hand embroidered. I don't know what I was thinking that  one line is over to the left side but it is how it is. The small tree and bird is a design by Gail Pan.

Several years ago my friend Linda and I were perusing through a tub of quilt magazines when she came upon a pattern that she said was me. She was so right, Radiant Blues is definitely a quilt for me to make.

I started the piecing at the end of March, the flimsy was pieced then sent to Colleen Gall to do her wonderful quilting the first of June. She was returned in July but it has taken me several months to sew the binding and attach a sleeve. 

In January I posted a list of projects for 2024. One of those projects was called Radiant Blue hereafter to be known as Radiant Blues. The pattern for Radiant Blue is found in the January/February 2007 issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine and was designed by Marsha McCloskey.

Marsha is famous for her method of piecing feathered stars, however I did not use her method. I'm a foundation-paper-piecer and I used the free 16" no Y seam feathered star fpp pattern from Threaded Quilting Studio. I used the same pattern for the first time when I made this little quilt.

The 16" star is a different size than the size star Marsha specifies for her pattern. I made a sashing change. Another change, my wall quilt is larger than the pattern and includes 9 stars instead of the original 4.

Radiant Blues is going to hang on the east wall in our living room but not until after the Jane Stickle retreat in November. I want to present her at show & tell.

Thank you Linda for alerting me to this lovely pattern.

I love this quilt so much, I'm going to post it on every linky party I'm involved in this week!

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Craftastic Monday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings, To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

If you didn't get enough of quilt show quilts from my posts on September 22 and 29, click here to view pictures from the Quilted Twins visit to the Jacksonville show.

Blue Pineapple Flimsy

The blue pineapples are now a flimsy. This quilt is more of a scrappy quilt than I had originally planned, the corners don't look the way they should. The flimsy measures 98.5", I wonder how much it will shrink during the quilting?

A picture of the back, there are a LOT of seams! A lightweight batting is going into this quilt. 

There are 57 pieces in each block, times 64 blocks is 3648 pieces.

These blocks were foundation paper pieced. I purchased the papers from Gigi's Thimble. Her quilt looks different from mine. She made sure each block was shaded the same and she put the light blocks in the corners. I won't say I will never make another pineapple quilt, but if I do, I'll switch the corners.

The flimsy has been delivered to the long arm quilter at Calico Point, they said it would be 6 weeks - two months. 

1.5" strips were used to make this quilt, I have a LOT of strips left! I foresee a blue/neutral log cabin happening sometime in the future, but not right away.

Linking to Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts