Blue Embroidered Flimsy & Purple Embroidered Flimsy

I'm home from retreat but before I left, I completed two flimsies from my 'to do list' that I posted about in January. Blue embroidered blocks was #11 on that list.

I've pulled the blue embroidered blocks that I posted about in July. I purchased these embroidered blocks from the resale table at the Jane Stickle retreat several years ago. There were 21 blocks in the bag, I appliqued 4 blocks to make a square quilt.

The blocks finish at 12" and I used the sashing design that was used in the feathered star wall quilt aka known as Radiant Blues. The pattern for Radiant Blues is found in the January/February 2007 issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine and was designed by Marsha McCloskey. I had to modify the pattern to fit the size of the blocks.

The next picture is take from the side.

The flimsy size is 96" by 97".

There is a slight color difference between the blocks and the white sashing. 

After the blue flimsy was finished, it was time for the purple embroidered blocks (number 12 on the list). I used the same sashing design for these blocks as I did for the blue blocks. It's just an unusual setting and I think it brings the blocks to life. I also added applique blocks to the embroidered blocks so I could make the quilt square. All the blocks finish at 16.5".

I took some pictures to show you the progress as I worked. The first picture is with the sashing added between the blocks.

Now the sashing rows have been added. What a difference the sashing makes!

This is a closeup of a bottom section.

After the 3" wide sashing is added, a 1" finished sashing with a square finishes the design. That is boring sewing but so necessary. I didn't take a separate picture. Next a 2" finished background border was added then the 1" finished checkerboard border.

The embroidered blocks look rather blah in this picture. The outside border is a darker purple that will finish at 4.5".

Here is a close-up picture of the various borders. The fabrics look more blue than purple in the pictures.

This flimsy measures 98" by 99".

I'm glad to have these flimsies completed and they've been delivered to Calico Point to be machine completed. I'll be displaying the finished quilts to you sometime in February.

These are the last of the projects to be completed this year on the long long list of projects for 2025.

There will be a 2025 wrap-up in December. In January I will share the 2026 list with you. It won't be quite as intensive as this year's list.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

Fall Cleaning, Quilts in the Rafters

Fall cleaning happened several weeks ago. The living room furniture was moved back while the quilts in the rafters were removed, the rafters were dusted and different quilts put on display.

This is Star Dance. Her finish was posted here.

9-Patch & Hourglass. Here is a link to the finish. This quilt has been shown before, she was one of the original quilts displayed when we first moved into the new house.

Many of you watched my applique and hand quilting journey with Hearts & Wreaths.

While the tall ladder was inside the house, the farmer dusted the triangle windows. I didn't have him wash them, I thought streaky windows would bother  me more than dusty windows.

Some people have expressed concern about him climbing up such a tall ladder. His response is he climbed up to the top of the silo on the farm for 50 years to adjust the blower. He no longer wants to or needs to do that. Climbing a 12 foot ladder is not a problem at all.

The Christmas cactus have come out of their quarantine in the garage and are now sitting underneath the south windows in the dining room. This is actually the same place they occupied on the porch except now they are inside the house instead of outside.

They're still loaded with buds so I'll have blooms for a long long time.

I don't have many indoor plants. There are the Christmas cactus which are outside in the moderate seasons and one large fern that stays indoors all year round. 

The amaryllis bulbs have been dug up from the flowerbed, they're resting now in the garden wagon. I'll be potting them at the end of the month to bloom this winter, hopefully starting in January.

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

Stonefields, Blocks 55 & 56

Blocks 55 and 56 from the Stonefield's quilt are titled 'Dahlia'. It's a very pretty flower. 

Susan doesn't include detailed instructions with the patterns but she does have a few instructions for these blocks. She says to applique the bottom four petals then applique the other four on top. I didn't like those instructions and came up with my own plan.

Here is block one.

I wanted to applique the petals so they would overlapped each other but block wasn't quite right.

Block two went the way I wanted it to, all the petals overlapping.

And I fussy-cut the center circle.

She also gave some other directions but they made no sense to me. I simply traced the design onto my background fabric by using my light box and a black frixon pen.  Then I traced the petals onto the back of freezer paper, cut out the blades then ironed the paper onto the back of the fabric. Next I cut the leaves out leaving 'turn under' and appliqued them onto the background fabric.

I didn't have to worry about perfect points on the petals since there is a circle in the center.

Stonefields is designed by Susan Smith.

I won't have a Wednesday post this week, I'm leaving Wednesday morning for the Jane Stickle retreat in Shipshewana.

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

Stonefields

Section five from Stonefields has been started, there are 6 pieced blocks in this section.

The first 4 blocks are called Strasbourg Station.

Here are all 4 of them together. The blocks with the darker triangle corners look different than the ones with the light corners.

The next 2 blocks are named The Handkerchief.

I like to make a contrast between the blocks. 

The instructions called for 3 of these blocks but I'm going to make two of a different applique block because I like even numbers.

These blocks finish at 6". Stonefields is designed by Susan Smith.

I got way behind on the Laundry Basket Mystery quilt. I redid the corner blocks which was week 5 of the mystery.

Originally I had pieced pink blocks for the corners but changed them to blue. After I returned home from my vacation, I pieced the next round of blocks. After they were all completed, I realized I had made a mistake in cutting, they didn't work. 

I thought about it and decided I just don't like these fabrics, I don't like the faded look, I'm done with this mystery! However I do like the pattern, maybe I'll start again sometime and use fabrics I like. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with another blue & white quilt! 

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

Stonefields, Block 50

I took a break from hand quilting to applique block 50 of Stonefields which is called The Wreath. This was a challenging block for me to applique, all those in and out curves!

You have probably noticed that I often make two applique blocks instead of just one. One was enough of this design. 

There were supposed to be teeny-tiny itty-bitty applique circles in the center of the flowers. I chose to add a bunch of french knots in yellow. Yellow french knots did brighten the block up and were much easier to make than those circles! The blocks finish at 6".

Chris and Rebecca are also stitching the Stonefields blocks, good luck ladies with those little circles!

Stonefields is designed by Susan Smith. Susan has designated this block as the center block of the quilt. I'm not sure about that, this block may not even make it into the quilt, I'm not satisfied with my applique on the inner curves.

Even though this block is supposed to be the center block, I'm not halfway completed making the blocks. There are a total of 121 blocks in the quilt.

I was in Wakarusa last week and took a picture of the quilt garden, it's ready for the long winter rest.

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

Month 8, 2025 Designer Mystery Quilt

Block 8 of the Designer Mystery Quilt is completed. 

It used the same white background that has been in all of the other blocks. I was able to use fabric from former blocks and didn't need to cut into the white fat quarter included in this month's fabric packet.

This block was a quick sew. I didn't think to pay attention to the stripe orientation of the fabric in the inside corners or the outside corners. Oh well, does it really matter? 

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

Rhapsody in Blue

I've completed another row of hand quilting, the patchwork border is completed. I took pictures of the whole row this time, there are a lot of them! Going from the left side, the applique border to the right side, the quilted border.

The patchwork border is 9" wide so now I'm down to 95" to quilt, it's getting smaller!

The next border is a 9" applique border. Elaine and I had discussed if I needed to add background lines and she didn't think we did.  We'll have this conversation again after it's quilted. I can always add them after the quilt is out of the frame if we think they're necessary. There will be spaces in the border but not big spaces like what there would have been in the outside border.

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

Another Orphan Block Compassion Quilt

Returning from vacation can be overwhelming in catching up with quilting projects, where do I start?

I decided to start with the orphan blocks arranged on the display floor, I need room for the weekly Laundry Basket Mystery quilt. I had posted about the blocks in this post.

I have no memory of piecing those courthouse step blocks, I must have been at loose ends when I pieced them. I added several other blocks even though they aren't the same design. A couple of the blocks needed spacer strips added to bring them to size.

A search through the brown/green box didn't find good coordinating fabrics for borders but then I spied the bag with the brown/green fabrics I bought several years ago from the resale table at the Jane Stickle retreat.

This flimsy measures 56" by 75", the brown/green fabrics are perfect for this quilt.

It joins the rest of the flimsies waiting in the 'to be quilted' closet which will happen sometime next spring. 

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, UFO Party, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

Rhapsody in Blue

The first part of the patchwork section from Rhapsody in Blue is quilted. Here are the pictures from the left side to the right side.

First is the feather border behind the applique.

Then we have the patchwork made from 9 patches. I didn't photo all of the section, just a few pictures because the blocks looked all the same.

The space between the diagonal lines is 2" which is wider than the diagonal lines in the outside border. This is a nice contrast to the border. Unfortunately the pictures don't show the texture. The blue squares puff up slightly and show a nice contrast to the quilted border.

Next is the right feather border.

Here is a picture from the side, across the quilt.

I keep the quilt covered when I'm not quilting to keep the dust from settling on top.

It's starting to cool off in northern Indiana. We haven't had frost yet but it will be happening soon. I've brought the Christmas cactus into the garage to quarantine. I've been spraying them with an insecticide so I don't bring any bugs into the house.

I keep them on the south porch up against the wall for the summer. Apparently this is the perfect place for them, they're blooming!

These are the same type of cactus. The 'old' cactus is a different type and is not budded yet. The white and yellow cactus are smaller then the pink and orange ones. Perhaps next summer I'll repot the smaller plants into a larger pot together.

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

Twinkle

Calico Point called me, Twinkle is quilted!

For the quilting, I selected a Baptist Fan design. Baptist Fan is always a good simple design and shows nicely on the white backing fabric.

The binding is this light green stripe.  In the other pictures the small flower print shows as yellowish fabric. This bottom picture is the true color of that fabric.

Twinkle now measures 91" by 92" so it did shrink some during the quilting process. The fabrics are from the Summer House line. I bought the fabrics during my birthday shopping outing in 2024.

I know you guys are all probably in shock that I actually made a quilt without any blue in it, surprise!

I posted about the flimsy in this post dated November 2024.

Twinkle will be gifted to one of the grandchildren.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts