A Pair and a Spare of UFO Finishes for May

I surprised myself by finally finishing three UFO flimsies in the course of one week which included a three-day visit to the Grandparent House. I only planned on finishing just the one I committed for Country Threads’ Dirty Dozen UFO QAL which in turn prompted me to finally finishing the other two.

The first flimsie finally finished was my May Quilt which was my #8 for the Country Threads’ Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. The flimsy was finished in 2013 and was made from fat quarters and yardage of Lori Holt’s Gracie Girl collection. Aren’t these prints fun?

This quilt measures 39” square.  I’ve become fond of quadrant quilting ever since I did this on my Frosty Flakes Quilt and glad I thought of this when I was ready to quilt Gracie Girl. The only marking I had to do was drawing a “X” with a Hera marker across the top and then quilting it. From there, I quilted 3/4” apart on each quadrant with a Silver Aurifil thread. The backing was a gray polka dot from the backing vault and thankfully the binding, a grey and white mini check used in the top was found in the binding drawer. 

The machine quilting made my Gracie Girl quilt somewhat stiff and would be perfect for a play mat or a wall hanging. A funny thought came across my mind as I was finishing this quilt which was several years ago when I finished a baby quilt for a QAL, I found out my niece was expecting a baby as well as her oldest daughter was graduating high school. I brought the QAL baby quilt to the daughter’s graduation party. Now her son is graduating from high school and the party is next week so I’ll be checking with her to see if I need to bring Gracie Girl to the party. I’m pretty sure I won’t have to, but it’s going to be fun just to ask her.

After the Gracie Quilt was finished before we left for the Grandparent House and upon my return I thought it would be nice to finally finish the Glamping Flimsie which was made the same time.  I thought the fabric was another Lori Holt collection but actually was designed by Mary Jane Butters for Moda and came  out the same time. I only had a charm pack of this collection and yardage of the teal and white check.  I added some white with teal/green pin dots to make this simple baby quilt of squares and rectangles or modified coin quilt which measures 39” x 42”.

The quilting was a combination of straight lines 3/4” apart on the sashing and wavey lines on the squares and rectangles and Essential white thread was used.  The pink patchwork print was found in the backing vault and really fits the “girliness” of this quilt. I almost couldn’t find the binding which I swore I put it in the binding drawer over seven years ago. After clearing out the drawer I found it stuck in the corner; proof that Hubby is right that it’s always going to be in the last place you look and I say I really need to reorganize the binding drawer. My plan for this quilt when the top was made to gift it to good Quilt Peep Mary who goes camping and was also celebrating the birth of her first grandchild/granddaughter. Now Mary has four granddaughters and I’m having second thoughts of keeping this for myself since I’ve been dreaming lately of Class B Campers. Do I need another quilt- No, but I always want another quilt. The Glamping Quilt is definitely one for traveling and I’m looking forward to taking it on vacation when we travel to Colorado in August. I’m pretty sure we won’t be traveling in a Class B camper.

When I was pulling out the Gracie Girl and Glamping flimsies, I came across the Fireburst Mystery Flimsie which was finished in 2018.  This was a mystery quilt hosted by Tish’s Adventures in Wonderland and I know that it remained a flimsie because I did not know how I wanted to quilt it. After Gracie Girl was quilted, I knew I could do quadrant quilting for the Fireburst quilt. I used the Silver Aurifil which blended really nice with all of the colors. This quilt measures 32” square and the plan is to either to give it to my son who lives next door to the Grandparent House and has purple living room walls or my new neighbor on the other side of the Grandparent House who loves purple. For now, I think I’m going to keep it awhile since I love how it turned out. Also, I have to make sure I link up to Tish’s UFO Busting post.

Here’s a photo of the pair and spare hanging on the garage door which is a nice substitute for a clothesline as long as you have strong magnets.

I should mention that before I started on the final two flimsies, I had to get caught up with the Follow Your Own Path QAL hosted by Sandra, mmmquilts by sewing the blocks together. It’s ready for quilting and I’m pretty sure it going to be straight horizontal line quilting but do I dare do quadrant quilting? Either way, this quilt will be done in time to celebrate a famous Canadian’s birthday on June 15th. I know it’s going to be a wall hanging either in Demando’s bedroom, although he doesn’t know it or in the soon-to-be basement studio at the Grandparents House which is another post for another day. I’m not entirely sold on the idea, something to do with the long meat hooks found hanging in the basement. Good Quilt Peep Mary thinks since the  house is almost a hundred years old that meat, etc. was hung there because it was cold down there. Confession: it’s been two years and I have not yet set foot in the basement, Hubby shows me photos.

Finally, I am enjoying sewing my Glitter blocks and sew far have ten blocks done. It’s a nice project to do when traveling to and from the Grandparent House but as I tell Hubby, it would be easier if I was sewing in a Class B Camper.

As I tell Hubby, I saved 100K with the purchase of this Everything Mary Large Lap Desk for $6 which makes sewing the EPPs much easier but not as nice as it would be in a Class B Camper. BTW, Demando the Paramedic/Firefighter saids that I should not be using this tray in the front seat in case of an accident so there will be no sewing when road conditions are iffy.

Thanks for reading this rather long post and we’ll be leaving the Grandparent House before the Memorial Day Weekend. I’m hoping to have one more Finally Finished before the rather lovely month of May is over.

Sew Safe!

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation and Tish’s Adventure in Wonderland

Slow Stitching, Scraps and Small Quilts

I had mentioned in my previous posts of being inspired by the many posts from other quilters who shared their Kawandi, Kantha,  Boro, Sashiko, etc. quilts and since then have learned of Chiku Chiku stitching. You can find wonderful examples of these techniques on Pinterest. All of this to me translates to big stitching which I’ve been happily doing for the past months in between visits to the Grandparent house and during downtime (watching TV) when I am home. I thought I would share the projects I have been working on or have completed.

Although I liked the techniques behind the Kawandi, Kantha and Sashiko patchwork quilts, I thought I would work on the patchwork blocks, which were scraps I hand sewn to batting squares while traveling to Yellowstone in September of 2017 which you can read about it in this Post.

My original plan for these blocks were to either make coasters or pincushions and since there were around nineteen squares sewn, I thought I didn’t have a need to make that many of them.

After I trimmed them, there were at least twelve of them which were 6” square and thought I could make two rectangular quilts or placemats.

Before the backing was added, I did big stitch hand quilting with #10 white crochet thread.  I got this idea from BanjoFlannel Method of Patchwork Sashiko.  The rows were spaced 1/2” apart and after I quilted four rows, I skipped a row. After I was done big stitching, I then added the backing and machine quilted the binding. You can see in the photo above, the 1” spacing between the four rows.

The reason for skipping a row was that once the backing was added, I then quilted this row, which there were three, and I consider them to be the “tacking” row” since their purpose to hold the backing. This is something I learned from making several quilts with the  Quilt As You Go method, and that is, since the top and batting are quilted together and once the backing is added you only need to quilt it at certain intervals to keep the layers together.  I liked how these turned out and after all of the big stitching I did I don’t want to use them for placemat since I can’t bear to see them getting stained.

I’m really liking the big stitch hand quilting and used it for this small wall hanging which had been a flimsie for over ten years.  I did do some machine quilting in the ditch before hand quilting the three layers.  I will say big stitch quilting is much easier when only the top and batting is involved. This small quilt is what call my Patchbox Quilts which I someday need to write a Post about my idea behind these small quilts.

It’s funny that I went into 2021 subconsciously wanting to start making small quilts which is what I’ve been doing when I’m at the Grandparent House which is much easier to make than a large quilt. The quilts on the bottom of each row are ones made from patchwork blocks with batting and ready for big stitching and the others are machine piece and waiting to be machine quilted with some big stitching accents

Here’s another one I’ve been working on where I machine pieced scraps onto a piece of batting and did various stitches with #8 Perle Cotton which I love.  I left some areas unquilted and once I add the backing, I’ll add the “tacking” stitches. What I like about these projects is that I have several of them going on at once and I can switch between them when I get tired of working on one of them.

I now have assembled a project box containing patchwork blocks, batting squares and scraps which is ready to take when traveling between the two homes. The tools and notions are kept in a separate pouch. This is really a nice, portable project and a great way to use up the scraps that just keep on multiplying.

And here’s another small quilt just finally finished which is my #2 of Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge.  The top was finished in 2017, coincidentally the same time when the beforementioned Patchwork Blocks were first sewn.  This quilt measures 25” x 33” and is a combination of wool circles and squares made from Thimbleberries fabric.  This idea for this quilt was inspired by one I saw on Pinterest from orangesink blogspot and this is the second one I made based on this pattern.  When the Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge started last year in July, this is the one I really wanted to finish sooner than later since I  have a spot for it at the Grandparent House.

We’re leaving for the Grandparent House tomorrow for a four-day visit and upon my return, I’ll be setting aside my Slow Stitching projects for some serious sewing— Sandra of mmm quilts’ Follow Your Own Path QAL which according to me is the sixth QAL of hers which I have participated. More importantly, this is the fifth year I will be celebrating a Famous Canadian’s birthday and I’m thinking a special commemorative T-shirt needs to be designed. My fabrics have been chosen and surprisingly I have not yet started nor plan on doing any deviations.

Today would be a great day for stitching but sadly doing the Taxes are yelling at me.