Stash bee 2020 - Hive 1

I'm the Queen Bee for our hive this year, so that means that I got my blocks first!  I really love how this turned out, although I did a slightly poor job with the instructions.  The ladies sent me a 3 patch block, so the repeat didn't work out correctly.  I took several apart and resewed them so the lightning would work well.

I originally saw this quilt at Quilt Vine.  I'm trying to do one quilt of every color but had already done a green one (like the original).  I don't have many reds in my stash, so it was a great choice for a bee.

It's been done for a while and just waiting to have it's picture taken.

 

I used red thread in the red in the red parts to quilt a jagged stipple.  As normal, I bound it in sateen.

Flower garden

My mother-in-law made these beautiful flower for her friend.

I quilted four petals on the flower part and leaves on the leaves.  I matched the thread color to the flower and leaves.  It was a little extra work with all the tails to bury, but it is so fun to use multiple colors of thread.

In the white part I put little tufts of grass.  I did a sideways wave thing to correct the grass...I don't love it.  It kind of looks like water.  I decided to go with it anyway because it's just white on white and it doesn't really matter that much.

Rainbow log cabins

I finally finished up one of my older quilts.  (There are still two that are older, but we're not going to talk about those.  Yet.)

I was going to tell you who the original designer was, but after looking it up I found out it was...me!  I guess that's what I get for leaving it to sit for so long.  It was part of a QDAD (quilt design a day) design.

The reason it took so long is that I didn't know what I wanted to do on the back.  I ended up making it reversible.

A summer side and a winter side.  I quilted it with squares and rectangles, although I did use two different thread colors.  The summer side has yellow thread and the winter side is a variegated blue.

Here it is above my kitchen window.  Two people have now told me that they keep trying to read it though, which is a bit of a problem.  Hopefully the summer side won't have that problem quite as much.  Anyway, it it's current orientation it says pop_o_ - we're still figuring it out.  Next winter maybe I'll turn it over so the diamond is on the other side. 

I put it up with some 3M clips so that it is easy to change.

Stash Bee 2019

I finished last year's Stash Bee quilt fairly quickly this time around.  I really like how it turned out.

The original idea was from a different stash bee quilt. I modified it a little bit to match the current requirements, but it is still the same idea.  This block was nice because if the block was a little bit too big it was easy to cut off a side; there weren't any points that had to line up once I put in the sashing.

 

I found some cuddly fabric with almost the same colors.  It's missing green, but I thought the vehicles would be nice for the baby boy.

I accidentally bound it with a normal binding instead of sateen.  Oh well.  I used Kona Nautical for the sashing so worked very well as a binding too.  Oh...the quilting.  I knew there was something I forgot to mention.  It is just wavy lines, but not in the sashing.  Nothing too special, but it's been a while since I've used wavy lines and it went quickly.

Ryan's bargello

This was my first attempt at a bargello quilt.  I really like how they look, but I went through a lot of patterns before I found one that I really liked.  The patterns is Harmony Bargello Quilt by Quilting Treasures, designed by Shannon Ownby.

Of course, to make it harder I made it into a mini quilt.  Probably not the smartest move, since it isn't square by any means, but it still turned out ok.

I quilted it with squares and rectangles.  It was a rather hard quilt to quilt, as I kept getting wrinkles.  I finally just decided I could only quilt from the center out, and that solved a lot of the problems.  It also gave me a bunch of threads to bury, but at least the wrinkles aren't bad.

And with a cat.  Just because.  Oh!  I used a lot of Kona scraps in this...Carrot, School Bus, Cinnamon, Grellow, Citrus, Highlight, Kelly, Basil, Clover, Chartreuse, Mint, Honey dew, Nautical, Riviera, Pacific, Water, Blue, and Sky Blue.

Q1 - 2020

Last quarter was surprisingly productive!  I'm not really sure what the difference was from previous quarters, but I'll take it!  I dropped my number of WIPs from 16 to 14 and even made progress on eight of those!

So the QAL has moved solely to instagram. It's probably a good move on their part, but I tried Instagram and honestly, didn't love it.  I think there are several reasons for that, which I'm not going to go into here.  So I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do...I could go back to the monthly one, I could still participate in the QAL on Instagram, or I could not do anything.  In the meantime, I'm going to publish my Q1 list because I find it useful for myself as I keep track of where all the projects are.


1. Meshing solid HSTs: I just finished binding it (by hand!) and need to take pictures.

2. Stash Bee 2019:  The blocks are put together and it is on the quilter.

3. Scrap bee blocks 2017: The backing is all done; I just need to quilt it now.  (No picture because I couldn't find the backing.  I think it's in my pile of big stuff (backings, almost finished things, etc.) but since I couldn't easily find it and I'm not linking up to anything, I gave myself a pass.)

4. Rainbow Log Cabin.  After debating for way too long, I made a winter side too.  It needs to be quilted.

5. Winter quilt.  I started this, but am just not feeling it.  I think it'll look neat when finished, but am having a hard time staying motivated.  I've been finishing up other items in the meantime, so it still all works out.

6. Black scrap quilt.  I finally trimmed it up and it is ready for binding.  I'm planning on getting the binding fabric today.

7. Quilt for Ryan.  This was finished a few days ago and just needs some pictures.

8. Red quilt (stash bee 2020).  I have January...I finished one block and the rest are slowly coming in!  I'd like to give this as a baby quilt for a baby around February or March. 

Items that I haven't worked on for a while, but maybe this will be the quarter for them!

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

10. Scrap quilt. It needs to be quilted.  Along with so many other things.  It has actually been started, but then I took it off due to other priorities and it hasn't been put back on for a while.

11. Green stripes.  This isn't square.  I don't really know how to square it up well (or easily), so it's been sitting around for a long time.

Things that don't count for the Finish-a-long but I want to remember them:
12. Jeweled floors
13. Trying to fit in - left over triangles
14. Fabric from Christmas

Heidi's wedding quilt

The wedding quilt is finished!

It's large and therefore hard to get a picture of.  However, it wasn't too large for my quilter, so that was awesome.  The pattern is from the July/Aug '19 issue of Quiltmaker and designed by Sylvia Schaefer.  (The official name is Glow Tiles.)  I'll admit, I didn't like the pattern in the magazine.  It's one of the first patterns I've made from a magazine, so they might all be this way.  There were a few details that were missing so I had to do a lot of flipping the page and using the process of elimination.

I also don't love the quilt.  This also has a few reasons...I'm used to working on smaller quilts and I think I just got bored.  I had some significant problems with the quilter also really threw a damper on things, although by the end of the quilt they were mostly fixed.  There are also a few mistakes in the quilt that I just really don't like.  I'm not sure anyone will ever notice, but...they're there.

Ok, enough of the negative.  Let's talk about the things I do like.  I do like how I quilted this.  In the glow tile part I did a dense stipple, which really made the glow tiles pop.  Outside of that I did some zig-zags, but also added some thread fireworks to make things a bit interesting.  I like using thread so that it stands out from the fabric, but it's a bit nerve-wracking too.  The fireworks on the bottom should be on the bottom side of the mattress and not on the top.

The colors that were used were Kona's Teal Blue, Dark violet, Violet, Orchid, Gold, Curry, and Mustard.

I backed it with minky.  As always.  Because adults love the softness too.

Linking up with Q4 Finish-A-Long (#1)