I Used to Like Ironing

 The fabric I brought home last week had all been washed then stuffed in the tote boxes. Some were so wrinkled I had to wash them again. I spent four days ironing. After ironing and neatly folding everything there was a box of yardage, a box of flannel, a box of fleece and a box stuffed with less than one-yard pieces. I ended putting a lot of the fabrics I had originally picked out for myself back and kept mostly the 30's reproductions and some yardage for backs. Most of the fabric was from the 1990's and early 2000's. It was fun to go through, but I was very happy when Joann came by yesterday and took everything.

My quilt top count was up to 32 so the last two days I have been busy loading and quilting a couple of small donation quilts. I did not make either quilt.

Both are a little wonky, but I think they turned out cute. Double loops in the above quilt. I love the flannel I found for the back. 

Simple meander in the second quilt, Another fun flannel back. Both still need binding attached. Both will be donated on Friday.

Now my count is down to 30. If I quilt one top a week, with a few weeks off for the holidays, and not finishing or getting any new tops, I should finish this group sometime around March 28, 2023. Yikes!

Quick Trip

 I took a quick trip to California over the weekend.  Long drive but had lots of fun.

I visited Angela. She picked up 9 tote boxes of free fabric at an estate sale a couple of months ago. We sorted through them and divided them up: fabric Angela wanted to keep, fabric I wanted to keep, fabric for the Goodwill, fabric and other odd stuff for a charity thrift store, and fabric I will donate to my Quilts for Kids group. 

I ended up bringing 5 tote boxes home. One of them has my fabric in it, one has flannel, one has polar fleece, one has novelty fabrics, and the last has miscellaneous fabrics including 4 finished kids quilt tops that I will finish and donate.

I also brought home 3 of Angela's finished tops to quilt. I'll show them when I finish quilting them.

I visited Stephanie also. We set up and organized her sewing space one day. The next day, she sewed while I played with a bunch of excess blocks she made and gave to me to make donation quilts.

This is the quilt top she finished while I was there. So pretty! She started off making a rail fence quilt but then decided to change it up. So creative!

These are the "extra" blocks she gave me:

These will be fun to finish.

I'll end this post with the ugliest / weirdest fabric I have ever seen. In was in one of the tote boxes.

Hahahahahaha. Don't you wish you could unsee that. Hahahahahaha. 

Bits and Pieces

 Or maybe odds and ends. Or just plain old miscellaneous stuff...

As predicted, it was HOT all week. I went through two boxes of frozen fruit bars (yummy and cold). Last night we had a thunder and lightning storm - scary. There were several lightning fires in my area. All were quickly put out. We also got a little bit of rain which helped.

I've never seen Bella hide from loud noises before. She came out after the thunder stopped.

This is not fog, it is smoke from the McKinney fire in California, just past the border. Per Cal Fire it has burned over 55K acres and is zero percent contained.  Sad and scary.

I did get a bit of sewing done.

I made lots of progress on my July UFO Challenge quilt. The pattern is called Four Patch Charm by Kathy Schwartz. It is a free pattern that can be found here. I like the pattern but the method she uses to create the blocks you end up with all bias edges. I have about 8 rows sewn together so far. It shouldn't take long to finish the top.

My August UFO Challenge project is last year's Project Linus mystery quilt Oliver in the Doghouse. Good timing since the new mystery will be starting the end of this month. I have over half of the quilt done so hopefully I can finish the top this month.

Do you use leader-enders? I've gotten so that I really like having a leader-ender project or two. I put the placemats together as a leader-ender.

I think this will be fun to quilt. Now I need to find a back for it.

I picked up a bunch of 1.5 inch squares at the guild last month and put these 4-patches together as leader-enders.

I'm going to continue using them as a leader-ender as I sash them with a narrow 1 inch strip of white. Unless I add a border, it should end up measuring 12 inches square.

Hot!

 I thought Oregon was supposed to be rainy and cool...boy, did I think wrong.

It didn't get to 107 today but it did reach 103. I'm not a big fan of the heat, I have a huge picture of ice water in the refrigerator, a fan on in every room, and the air conditioner set low.

Joanne, the Quilts for Kids project coordinator, gets a lot of donated fabric, yarn, and other stuff. She puts everything out and expects, with some exceptions, for the items to be returned as finished blankets and quilts to be distribution to a number of local children's agencies. Every time I go to a meeting, I swear I'm not going to bring anything home, but I'm a sucker for other people's UFOs.

I'm not sure what the person was making but there were six very nicely made table toppers / placemats (??) at 18 x 24 inches. I think I going to put them together into a single quilt top.

There was just one 12 inch basket block. Again, nicely made. I have an idea how to make it bigger but not sure if I want to, I may just border it.

This is 16 inches and had a handful of yo-yos and stems with it. I don't know what the original plan was or what I will do with it.

I finished all of my Aunt Daisy square-in-a-square blocks and put together the guild community service quilt.

I just finished piecing the top a few minutes ago. It is made from fabric that was donated to the guild.  I'll pick up batting and a back at the next guild meeting and quilt it sometime in the near future.

I think it's time for some ice cream.

Random

 The last two weeks I've used a random number generator to determine which quilt top goes on the Moxie next - yes, I have enough tops to make using a random number generator useful. Last week it was #3 the fall string leaves.

I love how this quilt turned out. It's a little on the large size for a table runner 25 x 50 inches, so maybe a wall hanging. I quilted wonky oak leaves in the border with a variegated thread, in the ditch (using my in the ditch ruler), stippling in the block background, and spikes in the leaves. In person, the colors are really rich.

This week was #17 the Winnie the Pooh panel.

I haven't decided if I'm going to play and do a bunch of different designs or just get it done with an all over design.

You would think I would have made a dent in the quilt tops, but I haven't, I really need to stop picking up new tops from the guild and Quilts for Kids.

I think I'm going to take a break from quilting tops and get some piecing done. I haven't touched my July UFO yet, and I'm behind on my Aunt Daisy units. 

I laid out the units I have finished. OMG, I'm in love. Even once I get all the units pieced making the blocks is going to take some time. The blocks will be 28 inches finished with 49 units in each block. I'm making the king size which is made from 16 blocks. Yikes.

Quilting and Blogging

 Sometimes I wonder if I would sew / quilt as much as I do if I didn't blog. There are a lot of Sunday afternoon panic attacks and a mad rush around here to do SOMETHING before my Monday evening blog post.

Case in point...the birdie quilt I loaded almost two weeks ago. It took two more days before I braved using my rulers in the banners...okay, that wasn't too bad. I decided to meander all the open space (hurt my brain trying to decide on something more unique). I got about a foot into the first pass and the thread broke. I decided I was done for the day. Then a few days later came the Sunday panic attack. I told Bella, that I need to at least finish the meandering so I can show some progress. Meandering is quick. So, then I thought, okay, let's do the house roofs. That's where I stopped yesterday.

Today I told Bella that I would get at least one house finished.

Six houses later it's all done except for the binding...which I never made. It will probably be scrappy leftovers.

Playing with rulers was interesting. My lines aren't evenly spaced but for my first attempt I think it's pretty good. Three of the houses were longer than the reach of Moxie with the ruler base attached. I had to baste the sides and bottom before I could work on the houses. Then there was a long of scrolling up and down as I completed the quilting one house at a time. Lots of learning and new experiences.

Stuff

 I've done quilty stuff but not much actual quilting.

Laid out the guild community service quilt on the design bed...my phone camera has really been washing out colors lately - strange.

Loaded a quilt to the Moxie...three days ago. I want to play with my new rulers in the banners and houses but I have no idea what to put in all that open space, so I just go into the room and stare at it for a while every day. 

July's UFO Challenge number is 4. I started this quilt over a year ago when I was visiting Donna - haven't touched it since. The pattern has a weird method to make the semi-hourglass blocks. The blocks are about half done. It shouldn't take long to finish them.

I did get 20 out of 80 square-in-a-square blocks made. Paper piecing is definitely the easy way to make these blocks.

It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow (it is summer - right?). So hopefully I'll make some progress on something.