Flower Patch SAL Finish

The Flower Patch SAL mystery quilt has been completed!

The last block to be made was block 16 which is a repeat of block 1.

For the border, Denise had us add fabrics borders, nothing pieced which surprised me. I was really expecting a flying geese border. For my border, I cut a 3" strip of background fabric and sashed the center.  

As of now, the flimsy measures 69" square. However my quilt isn't completely finish, I'm planning on added a flying geese border but that takes some time to piece. I'll be sure to update you on the final finish when the borders are attached.

This sew along started last September and is finished now. I don't normally participate in sew alongs or mystery quilt but I did for this quilt and I enjoyed myself. Of course I do enjoy foundation paper piecing.

Linking to Flower Patch SAL, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap

Blue Ridge Beauty Flimsy

The last time I posted about Blue Ridge Beauty, I told you I had to turn one of the HST's in all of the blocks! Once the blocks were corrected, it didn't take to sew the blocks together for the center of Blue Ridge Beauty.  All I needed to do at retreat was add the two borders.

He measures  99.5" by 110.5" and will be donated to a charity auction. They will quilt him before the auction, I'm very happy I not to do the hand quilting.

All the fabrics for this quilt came from my stash except the outside border, I didn't have a large enough piece of yardage on hand. That striped border fabric has been in my stash forever! I was glad to finally find the perfect use for it.

I also pieced the binding at the retreat so that's finished. I always try to piece bindings right after I finish the flimsy so the fabric isn't used in another project. Otherwise you can be in for a nasty surprise later on when you look for fabric to bind a quilt.

I like to piece the auction quilt early in the year so it's done and ready to go. I will be hand delivering this flimsy to our DIL in August who will then deliver it to be quilted. I don't deliver quilts through the mail.

Blue Ridge Beauty is a Bonnie Hunter pattern and is found in her book Leaders & Enders.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Stitch Sew & Show, Put Your Foot Down,  Needle & Thread Thursday, Oh Scrap

Double Delight, the Finish

The Monday before I left for retreat, I was texted by my long arm quilter to tell me the quilting on Double Delight was finished. I picked the quilt up and took her along to the retreat.

Early morning is a great time to use the cutting tables, no one else is up! I trimmed the quilt then attached the label. I always sew my labels into the corner of the quilt so it is machine stitched on two of the label sides. If anyone tries to plagiarize my quilt, I'm going to make them work hard at it!

After that, the binding was sewn to the front. I planned on turning and handing stitch the binding to the back at home which I did. Of course I put the quilt on my bed at the retreat even though the binding wasn't finished.

All other handwork came to a complete stop this week while I sewed the binding, this is a big quilt at 107" by 118.5". It did shrink during quilting.

This is a view of the back of the quilt. Since the quilt was so large, I used white whole cloth muslin since that comes in a 120" width.

Double Delight is designed by Bonnie Hunter and is found on the free pattern page of her website. You need to scroll way down to the bottom of the page. Double Delight is one of her older mysteries, if not her first one. She had plain borders on her quilt.

I don't take credit for Bonnie's pattern but I do take credit for the 9 patch border which I designed. The math actually worked out for me!

The overall machine quilting was by Three Sisters Fabric, New Paris, Ind. The quilting design is called Raindrops. I love all the swirls, they really do look like raindrops that have fallen into a puddle!

Of course I have to show a picture of the quilt on our bed. I've heard several people complain that they get too hot when a wool batt is used in a quilt. We weren't too hot at all, just nice and comfortable.

And yes, I am very pleased this border. Math and I do not always communicate well. In this case we did!

Here is a link to all my posts about Double Delight.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday, Favorite Finish Monthly

Pink Shoo-flys

I intended to piece pink shoo-fly blocks for Star Dance at retreat. All the HST's were pieced but when I went to sew the individual blocks, I had forgotten the squares for the center!

Here are the pink and red shoo-fly block even though they were supposed to have been made in April. Better late then never! I'm only showing half of the blocks made, 30 in pink . . .

32 in Reds. I don't want to take a whole year to finish Star Dance so I'm making the color of the month along with a related color.

Green and teals have been pulled to make the shoo-fly blocks for May. The blocks will finish at 4". 

This is a link to the Star Dance pattern. My Star Dance quilt won't look exactly like the pattern. 

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap.

More Arrowhead Blocks

 I originally intended to make a larger throw quilt with arrowhead blocks using the directions from Susie's Scraps but I changed my mind and decided to make a small lap quilt. I pieced 10 more blocks at retreat and sewed them together. 

I made a mistake piecing the last block so I needed to improvise. You won't see the mistake in the little quilt, it just meant I needed to trim all the blocks to 7.25", smaller than I intended.

The little flimsy measures 25.5" by 32.5". Sometime this little quilt will be quilted and I'll drop it off at a local nursing home. Hopefully the colors will brighten one of the resident's day.

There is one step in Susie's tutorial which she omits so the directions can be confusing. Nanette has written a tutorial for that step which you can find here. You do need to scroll down in the comments to find it.

I used a couple green Kona fabrics with Harper's Garden pre-cut squares. Here is a link to a previous post about Arrowhead blocks.

Linking to Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

String X Blocks

Another project that made progress at retreat were the String X blocks. I sewed the dark red triangles onto the scrappy rectangles.

Each individual blocks measures 7.25" because I messed up and cut the red triangles 5" instead of 5.5". It really does make a difference! 

I'll add red borders when the center is sewn together. Two red fabrics were used from my mom's stash. All of the darker red is gone, a different darker red was used for the rest of the blocks. 

Now I need to sew the individual blocks into larger blocks using 4 blocks.

String X is a free Bonnie Hunter pattern. I did not use paper to piece the string rectangles, I used old thin muslin.

Linking to Stitch Sew & Show, Put Your Foot Down,  Needle & Thread Thursday

Jane Stickle Retreat

I worked on several different projects at retreat. One of the projects was to sew the scrappy Indian Hatchet blocks. I made 15 blocks.

The triangles are all scraps from flippy corners or bias triangles from binding. There were a lot of black corners in this bunch, they'll be mixed with the rest of the blocks and won't be so somber looking.

Here is a link to more posts about the Indian Hatchet blocks. 

Nineteen more blocks are needed to reach my goal of 80 blocks. I think this project will come to an end this year.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Stitch Sew & Show, Oh Scrap