Quilting update: Dec 2024

The last few months were extra busy and I barely touched my sewing machine.  It felt rather odd, because for the last many years I usually do something quilt related at least six out of seven days.  Life is still busy, but the cause of the extra-busy has finished and I'm slowly getting back to normal.

Quilts I'm actively working on:

1. Surprise quilt.  It's all put together and needs to be quilted - it's up next

2. Black and pink.  A friend's grandma died, leaving behind a few unfinished quilts.  This quilt was all put together and just needs to be quilted and bound.

3. Stash Bee 2024.  I put this together, only to realize that I put it together incorrectly.  I also need to make another column of blocks to make the proportions work out a little bit better.

4. Fabric from Christmas.  The quilt finally got bound and just needs official pictures.

Quilts with no progress since last time:

5. Stash Bee 2023.  I chose dark greens and yellows as the colors, thinking deep forest with yellow flowers, but several people said they were reminded of Green Bay Packers instead.  I think for 2025 Stash Bee I'll ask for some of the same pattern in different colors.  Blue/orange?  Red/orange?  I have until May to decide.

6. baby quilt. I had started this for a baby of someone in my Mom's group, but I've only seen her a few times and I'm not going to finish it before the group disbands for summer.  I think I'll put it aside for the next baby.

7. Scrap quilt. Last time I wasn't expecting any progress in the next six months; that was correct.  It's still waiting.

8. Trying to fit in - left over triangles. I put this on the quilter and got some done, but then had to take it off.  It might be off for a bit yet, but hopefully not too long.  It's small, so easy to take on and off as needed.

9. Winter quilt.  Needs to be quilted

10. Temperature quilt.  I need to quilt this.  It's from 2017, so it's rather low on the priority list. 

11. Other grandma quilts: There are still quilts from my friend's grandma to be finished and/or quilted

12. Jan's quilts: A different friend found some quilt tops...I forget where.  They're on the older side, but just need to be quilted up

13. Duvet into quilt.  I gave my parents a new quilt, and so I took their duvet cover back.  (I made the duvet cover ten years ago.)  I'm planning on making it into a light quilt.  I need to separate the front and back and then quilt

Quilts I haven't started but don't want to forget

14. Nephew
15. Christen

A new bed quilt

I've been quilting for a while now, and realized that's been at least 10 years since I have given some bed quilts to people.  I recently changed my quilt and realized that these other family members might also like a change.  One of them took me up on the offer.

They previous had a duvet cover (project 19!) and didn't want a duvet anymore.  They also liked one of the baby quilts I had made a few years ago, so I went with a larger version of that.   This is project 108, so probably about 80 quilts later.  (There are some in between that I still need to finish up.)

I enjoyed making this quilt because I got to use a bunch of my scraps.  I still have a lot of scraps, but the scrap bucket went from overflowing to manageable.  I had also gotten some fat quarters as a present soon after I started this quilt, so I included those liberally to pull things together at least a little bit.

It was quilted mostly with just a basic stipple because the quilt is already pretty noisy, but I added some leaf-pairs in too.  I thought it would give the quilt a bit of interest while not taking too long nor adding too much quilting.

Since I'm tracking my solid fabric usage, the light brown is Kona Sand and the green binding is Julip.

And now it's at it's loving home!  We think I'm going to take the duvet cover back and make a light quilt out of it - and then it can change with the seasons.

A Grandma's quilt

A friend of mine had a grandma that quilted, but passed away in the middle of several projects.  She commissioned me to finish several, starting with this one.  This one was given to my friend's mom, the daughter of the person that made it.

This one came to me all basted, so it was pretty much all set to go.  I had to undo the basting, and I decided I didn't like the batting.  It is more of a polyfil and I couldn't pull it like I normally do.  However, the quilt weighed much less at the end than normal.

I did get to choose the binding, so I choose a matching pink: Kona Rose matched really well.

I quilted a square maze in the log cabins.  It's hard to see, but there are leaves in the white and green borders and wood grain in the pink.  The thread colors were matched in the borders and a light tan in the log cabins.

Nathan's round robin

A long while ago, Liz suggested that I make a quilt hanging for Nathan's office because it was cold and boring.  She had made a blanket for his office, so Christmas 2022 she brought the yarn she had used and I color matched it with fabric so that I could match the current blanket.  I decided to make a round robin style quilt.  I thought that all the different shapes on the blanket would lend themselves well to that style.

Here's the original blanket:

The colors I used were Kona putty, old green, bluebell, taupe, dresden blue, saffron, and ochre.

I took my time with the quilting (for once).  There is a tiny stiple in the center, the blue squares have back and forths, there are some echoes in the chevrons, and figure 8 in the green borders.  Not all of my quilting is nice and straight, but it is good enough. 

I matched the thread to the fabric color too.  It just looks nicer.

April 2024 update

Once again, it's been a while since I've done an update post.  Some has changed, a lot hasn't.  But it helps me remember where things are.

Quilts I'm actively working on:

1. Pat's quilt:  I just finished putting together all the scrappy blocks.  I have a few blocks to cut apart and then sew back together (as is a quilter's life) and then I can start putting the blocks together.  This quilt is taking a bit longer than I expected because it keeps getting interrupted.

2. Christmas tree quilt: post the pictures

3. Surprise quilt.  Last time I had just gotten the fabric.  As of right now I have about 70% of the blocks finished.

4. Nathan's quilt.  I need to post the pictures.

5. Stash Bee 2023.  I chose dark greens and yellows as the colors, thinking deep forest with yellow flowers, but several people said they were reminded of Green Bay Packers instead.  I need to lay out all the blocks to see if that really comes through and, if it does, figure out what to add so that it doesn't scream Green Bay Packers.  Or find a baby that will be a Packers fan.

6. Stash Bee 2024. Blue and white lines.  There's some improv, so I'm excited to lay them out and see what it looks like.  I've been holding off while I try to get some other items finished.

Quilts with no progress since last time:

7. baby quilt. I had started this for a baby of someone in my Mom's group, but I've only seen her a few times and I'm not going to finish it before the group disbands for summer.  I think I'll put it aside for the next baby.

8. Scrap quilt. Last time I wasn't expecting any progress in the next six months; that was correct.  It's still waiting.

9. Fabric from Christmas.  I've finished burying some threads, but have a few more to do along with binding it.  I'm currently using it in it's unfinished state, which has surprisingly made me less motivated to finish it.

10. Trying to fit in - left over triangles. I put this on the quilter and got some done, but then had to take it off.  It might be off for a bit yet, but hopefully not too long.  It's small, so easy to take on and off as needed.

11. Winter quilt.  I thought I'd working on this during the winter and haven't touched it.

12. Temperature quilt.  I need to quilt this.  It's from 2017, so it's rather low on the priority list. 

Quilts I haven't started but don't want to forget

13. Nephew
14. Christen

Finished: Diabetes quilt

Over a year ago, I put out a call for quilts on Facebook.  I enjoy making quilts for people, so it's nice to make one for people that want one.  Today's quilt goes to someone from my church.  We were in a small group together for a short time, before COVID hit, and we have two sons the same age.  Well, two of her children were diagnosed with Diabetes I within a year.  So to say that is a huge part of her life lately is an understatement.

And so when it was her turn for a quilt, she asked for a diabetes themed one.  I found this ribbon quilt and used the blues that recognize diabetes.  I'll be honest, the making of the ribbons was tedious.  It's the same subblock six times into the same block 30 times...I had to take several pauses and work on other things.  It's the first time I remember dreading a quilt quite so much, although a quilt with broken dishes was close.  I used an assortment of solids and prints, but the kona solids include: alegria, blue jay, blueprint, candy blue, copen, horizon, Niagara, peacock, stratosphere, water, and waterfall.  The background is white.

But after that things started getting interesting.  I had been sewing the triangle clips together, and realized they would make a cute border.  Then there was math (and mistakes) and figuring out how to best put everything together.  It was fiddly and took a while, but I started to fall in love with the quilt again.

For quilting, I did loops (although I tried to make them look ribbon-y).  I also put some flower things in the middle of the ribbons.

The weather was finally warm enough to dry the quilt outside, and there were some pretty images coming through.  I used minky on the back for a good snuggle.

Finished: black to purple and green

Black to purple and green.  That's not a great name, but a good description.  In any case, the quilt is finished!

 It's a very large queen size, so it was hard to get a picture of it.  Anyway, you can see that it starts out in the top left with little black, and as you go down you get more and more.  Although it's hard to tell, the quilt was divided into four diagonal strips, each one getting darker.  In hindsight it looks like I could have graduated it a bit more in the second and third sections, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

I used a loop pattern to quilt it.  It was a large quilt, and I know I didn't want to spend too long on the actual quilting.  I chose a medium grey color for my thread.  It obviously blends in better with the colored fabrics, but I like how you can see it on the black too.

I had my grandmother (in-law) come with me to pick out some of the fabric and that was so much fun!  It's always fun to pick out the fabric, but it was a nice thing to do with her too.  As for my Kona solids, I used black, titanium, graphite, medium green, crocus, mulberry, dark violet, cosmos, palm, kelly, hunter green, clover, peridot, and holly.

It took a while to get to the recipient because she lives in Canada and we decided to save on shipping by having her mom bring it to her during the next visit.  But I was able to see some pictures of it on the bed!  People don't always share photos of their quilts being used, which is fine, but I do love it when it happens.

Oh!  I just realized this is quilt 100!  Although I used my spreadsheet and then found out it only has number 100; I've only finished 98.  I'm getting close!