Five Shadows

Ok, friends. What is up with the weather and allergies this season? I’ve been fighting dizziness off and on for over a week. Last Wednesday it was so bad, I spent the day in bed sleeping. Now I’m having a rather rough day – dizziness building – as the day moves along. I hope whatever I share today makes some sense. I’m going to head to bed as soon as I post this.

To-Do Tuesday, August 1, 2023

1. Play with stripe fabrics. ✔️
2. Back to working on our daughter’s house. ✔️
3. Pull out a PUP? ✔️ Or two!

1. Stripes!

I sewed the stripe blocks together I shared last week, and added a border with blocks in the corners. The local quilt shop is having a customer appreciation sale Thursday – Saturday. I’d like to go and buy fabric to finish this quilt top. 37″ square, I think I’ll add another border. It’s a bold one!

These stripes are much calmer. I have a ways to go on piecing this one.

2. Things are really moving along at our daughter’s house!

Paint!

Primed and starting to paint. (That’s cardboard on the floor, so don’t worry about seeing paint there!) She might have mentioned painting one wall with an accent color.

Outlets and switches installed through out bedrooms and hall!

Daughter spent sometime cleaning out castoffs that had accumulated in dining room. She still has a ways to go cleaning there & back porch too.  No photo. Not worth showing the clutter!

Bathroom floor slowly progressing. Daughter wanted to tackle installing the tile floor. It’s a bit more difficult than she expected.

3. My grand daughter pulled out a PUP! We shopped together for this quilt back in November 2022. We have worked on it a little here and there. I thought we would get it finished over summer vacation. When I mentioned it this summer, she didn’t want to work on it. Now this being the last week of vacation, she asked to work on it. We made progress but still a ways to go.

Piecing houses. Adding roofs previously sewn, to house squares. The quarter inch quilting foot with the metal flange and tape strip are really helping her sew accurate seams. Oh and slowing down the speed of the machine!

Her Layout. After about 4 different tries! Just like a real quilter! Next up white tone on tone sashing.

Here’s my PUP! Previous Unfinished Project for those wondering.

While looking for something else, I came across this wool kit I started years ago used for teaching a class at a retreat. This should be good for evening stitching!

To-Do Tuesday, August 8, 2023

1. Stripe quilts.
2. Shopping LQS appreciation sale.
3. Work on circle quilts.

Happy Summer!

Phew, the heat is here. I’m thankful the temperatures cool off during the night!

Here’s what is happening in my little quilting world.

To-Do Tuesday, June 13, 2023

1. Sandwich and quilt anniversary quilt! ✔️
2. Daughter’s house – finish sanding drywall mud. ✔️
3. Other quilting? ✗

1. The Anniversary quilt is sandwiched! And quilted! And binding part way on!

First up, echoing appliqué in center of quilt.

Then quilting Grannie Square blocks. Can you make out the flower? I use Amanda Murphy’s Good Measure Every Oval Template.

And Westalee Spin-E-Fex ruler for another flower.

In the outer border I use Amanda Murphy’s Good Measure Ribbon Candy Template.

Here you can see FMQ curls in the inner 2″ border, and the Ribbon Candy design in outer border.

I did meandering in the outer border corners of pieced blocks. Quilt is ready to be trimmed and binding attached.

Quilted and trimmed!

Binding ready and wound on Missouri Star Quilt Co clear acrylic bolt tool. I found it works well for binding. The tool was gifted to me by a friend. The binding is sitting on the floral print quilt backing.

2. At our Daughter’s house, bedrooms are mudded and sanded. AND ready for primer! I hoping she has a painting party with friends to complete all the painting. BUT she has a bathroom to complete first. So hubs thinks I should do the priming. Gah! I do not like painting! Hubs is working on building two closets in the eves of the front two bedrooms. That means there will be touch up work in painting anyway if it is done now.

3. I didn’t do any other quilting.

To-Do Tuesday, June 20, 2023

1. Finish binding the anniversary quilt to gift this Friday!
2. And off we go on another short trip to the anniversary party and a retirement party.

See you next week!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Another week flies by! Sunday was Mother’s Day here in the United States. Some of my family picnicked with Hubs & me at a state park. We went on a hike, and played at the playground. It was a nice day, somewhat cloudy with the high of 68F.

I hope you all had a good week, and if celebrating Mother’s Day, I hope you enjoyed the day!

Here’s how I did on my list -

To-Do Tuesday, May 9, 2023

1. Continue on daughter’s house!  ✔️
2. Back for Trip Around the World variation quilt. And quilt it! ✗
3. Stitch applique in place for the Granny Squares quilt.  ✔️
4. Create labels for two quilts.
5. I’ve been asked to make 3 t-shirt quilts by the end of May. I don’t have the t-shirts yet but hope they are delivered this week and I’ll get going on those! – Still don’t have the t-shirts.

1. Daughter’s house!

Third bedroom. Before -

Another wall came out. While pulling out the closet walls, our daughter decided to work on the bedroom wall as well. Apparently all the wall paper, several layers of paint and more wall paper and paint was what was holding up the plaster! So down came the wall in the bedroom and in hall going up the attic steps.

After

Drywall up! And in closet too. What a difference a little unfinished drywall makes!

The attic side is completed too. And the wall is insulated.

Mudding is next.

2.  Trip Around the World variation, I didn’t work on this quilt at all.

3.  Granny Squares quilt

The appliqués I cut out last week are all stitched in place! I used a blanket stitch for all the appliqués.

Oops look what I did! I missed stitching a flower center. And the top got flipped under into the way. So I had to rip out the stitching and start again.

Applique completed! and Granny Squares stitched on. This quilt will get more borders.

4.  Create labels – nope.

5.  I don’t have the t-shirts yet, so can’t work on the quilts.

So that’s my list from last week. But ya know, there is always something else to work on. Dear Daughter asked if I’d make two baby quilts, one for a long time friend, and one for a co-worker.

For a jungle theme quilt I pieced 36 – 5″ charms from a Jungle Paradise pack I had on hand. Then using Latifah Saafir’s Clammy Ruler I cut out a circle from the background piece, and cut the pieced section into a circle and stitched them together. This went together so easily! Look Latifah up on Youtube for instructions. Top is 35 x 43 inches.

The second is a panel by Penny Rose Fabrics called This & That. I just added the polka dot fabric to widen it. Top is 36 x 43 inches. DD says she will do the quilting for both quilts.

And for this week -

To-Do Tuesday, May 16, 2023

1. Daughter’s house!
2. Labels – I really need to get those done.
3. Wednesday, meeting with church sewing group.
4. ???  I guess I’m tired and just don’t know what I’ll get to the rest of this week.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Daughter’s house is moving along, as you will see in photos below. That’s the big news for now!  I only did a bit of stitching in my sewing room this week. Not much, but some!

To-Do Tuesday, May 2, 2023

1. Daughter’s house – guess it should go at the top of the list now that we are hanging drywall.  Drywall up makes it look so close to finished! Which is deceiving, as there will still be so much to do. But once it’s finished, painting!  ✔️
2. Sewing with my church group Wednesday morning.  ✔️
3. Granny Square quilt – keep at it.  ✔️
4. Hand work at night – hexies for now.  ✗
5. Backing for Trip Around the World variation quilt. ✗
6. Sew Clammy Tote.  ✗
7. Sew Featherweight Embroidery borders so it can be framed.  ✗

Stuff happened!

1. Daughter’s house

Main bedroom – south wall ready for drywall.

West walk is also ready for drywall. Hubs peeking into room.

Drywall up. Not mudded. But doesn’t that look great!

Tada! Another wall up! And not photoed is the drywall up in the second bedroom. It’s been a productive week!

2. Wednesday morning sewing group – oops forgot to take photos! We worked on stuffing heart shaped pillows for cancer patients. Delivered 15 quilts to hospice, and other misc diddly jobs completed.

3. Granny Square quilt. So, my ideas for this quilt keep evolving.

Latest thought -create a basket of flowers for the center.

Something like this. I cut out the appliqués on a friend’s accuquilt cutter this morning. Currently playing with layout.

On to this week -

To-Do Tuesday, May 9, 2023

1. Continue making headway on daughter’s house!
2. Back for Trip Around the World variation quilt. And quilt it!
3. Stitch applique in place for the Granny Squares quilt.
4. Create labels for two quilts.
5. I’ve been asked to make 3 t-shirt quilts by the end of May. I don’t have the t-shirts yet but hope they are delivered this week and I’ll get going on those!

Between working at my daughter’s house and working on the t-shirt quilts, I might not be getting anything else completed this week!

I hope you all have a good week! Happy stitching and enjoy the great outdoors!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Another week speeds on by! I’m still hoping to get caught up on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, pattern by Katja Marek. But, alas, I’m actually falling more behind. I started several weeks late waiting for supplies to arrive. The quilt along is on Week 33 and I’m just on Week 22. Oh well! I do enjoy my evenings of EPP even if it will take longer than a year to complete the quilt.

Here’s how my sewing and quilting week progressed -

To-Do Tuesday, August 9, 2022

1. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach week 20 to quilt. ✔️
2. EPP – start week 21 ✔️
3. Wednesday, meet with DIL to cut backing and batting for mug rugs. And maybe some heart shapes for pillows. ✔️
4. Meet with quilt friends Friday for a sewing day. Take EPP. With a full day to sew, I’m hoping to get to week 22 and maybe even 23 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden! ✔️
5. Stitch “Gene” on to bag. ✔️

Progress made this week -

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Weeks 1 – 20 all attached!

2. Week 21

Stitched and ready to attach to Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.

3. Mug Rug kits all made and packed for a future sewing day.

My DIL and I cut batting, backing, half hexies, and used precut hexies for 43 kits for Mug Rugs. These will be sewn up later in the Fall by ladies at our church to gift to school teachers at Christmas.

We also cut out 39 pairs of hearts for pillows that will go to a local hospital. Some one has to sew these up and stuff will poly fill! Wink wink!

Update! DIL came over Monday and made great progress on sewing heart pillows together!

4. Sewing day with quilty friends. Apparently I get more handwork completed at home than while visiting with friends!

Some stitching did happen on Week 22 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. But I didn’t get to Week 23!

5.  Canvas Bag

“Gene” stitched up nicely on the canvas bag. My machine didn’t have any problems stitching through the heavy straps.

Other quilting that happened -

With two of the four clothing quilts for a grieving family actually quilted, I got busy with making flange bindings and got one quilt bound.

I made a flange binding using 1 1/2″ strips of orange for the binding, and 2″ strips for the flange.

Binding strips sewn together and pressed, ready to sew on to quilt.

Binding is sewn on to the back of the quilt and then flipped to the front. Machine stitch in the ditch between the flange and binding through all layers of binding and quilt. Photo above is showing part of the quilt top with simple meandering quilting with an occasional sea shell, and flange binding.

This photo is showing front of quilt with flange binding and the back where it looks like a regular binding. The ditch stitching between flange and binding shows up as straight line stitching on the back. I’m pleased with how the binding turned out. The flange is looking black in the photos, it is really a mottled dark blue fabric.

I just got word that one of the recipients of the clothing quilts is in town this week. Perfect timing to gift a finished quilt!

To-Do Tuesday, August 16, 2022

1. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach week 21 to quilt.
2. EPP – continue week 22
3. Wednesday – meeting with church friends to finish some heart pillows.
4. Friday – friend graciously allowing me to return to use her longarm and quilt the last two clothing quilts.
5. Maybe work on a PUP – Previously Unfinished Project! Isn’t that a cute acronym? Coined by a quilting friend. I’ve not heard anyone else use it. So I’ll give her credit. Hello Ruth! I like it better than UFO.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal.

Another week has flown by. It sure has been a hot and muggy one here in NE Indiana. I’m continuing with handwork in the evenings doing English Paper Piecing (EPP). Plus, that’s when I turn the AC down to try to get our bedroom on the second floor to cool off for the night.

Here’s what happened in my quilting world this past week -

To-Do Tuesday, August 2, 2022

1. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach week 19 to quilt. ✔️
2. EPP – start week 20 ✔️
3. Wednesday quilting day with friends, I’m taking the EPP project to work on, oh and cutting out “Gene” on friend’s accuquilt cutter since that didn’t happen last week. ✔️
4. Charity quilts, need sandwiched and being quilting. ✗
5. Meet up with friends to start quilting clothing quilts this Friday. ✔️

Week 19 attached to the growing quilt.

2. Week 20 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 20 all stitched and ready to attach to quilt.

3. ”Gene” cut on friend’s accuquilt cutter

“Gene” cut and fused in place. Next up,  stitch around the letters.

4.  Charity quilts, need sandwiched – didn’t happen.

5.  Quilting clothing quilts

Two of the four are quilted with large meandering and an occasional shell. These two are now waiting for binding.

I added in an unplanned project this week. I’ll be getting together with some gals from our church some time in the Fall to sew together 40 mug rugs to gift to school teachers. My DIL and I cut and kitted 40 some hexie mug rug kits.

I had three sets of Moda Honey Comb precuts, which are hexagon shapes, prefect for quick mug rugs. I’ll be looking through my stash for backing and I’m sure I have enough batting scraps for the mug rugs. Other gals from church will contribute too. Honestly, I’m just happy to be using up what I have on hand which helps clean out the sewing room! Anyone with me on that?!

To-Do Tuesday, August 9, 2022

1. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach week 20 to quilt.
2. EPP – start week 21
3. Wednesday, meet with DIL to cut backing and batting for mug rugs. And maybe some heart shapes for pillows.
4. Meet with quilt friends Friday for a sewing day. Take EPP. With a full day to sew, I’m hoping to get to week 22 and maybe even 23 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden!
5. Stitch “Gene” on to bag.

Now that I’m sitting down to write a post, I see that I have accomplished some quilting this week. I had a two day headache and wasn’t ‘braining’ well. Oh those severe changes in weather do bring on those headaches. Blah. After tempts in the teens, we swung up to 50F and all the snow melted. Now we are back down in the 20F and expecting more snow.

Anyway, here is what I did sewing wise this week.

To-Do Tuesday February 15, 2022

1. Continue piecing Nebula background  ✔️
2. Keep hand stitching EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden ✔️
3. Granny’s Garden ✔️

1. Continue piecing Nebula background

Piecing is coming along and I’m playing with the layout. My design wall is not big enough to hold a queen size quilt! Top pieced triangles are folded under. I have more background pieced, but not pinned in place.

Poor photo, showing the original layout with no background. I’m liking the open star in the first photo.

Finishing background is my One Monthly Goal for February, so that is priority now. Get ‘er done!

2. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 3 complete. 1/2″ hexies.

Week 4 progress.

Where I’m heading. Weeks one – three lay out with bits of week four in progress. I work on this for an hour or two in the evening while watching tv or a movie. The quilt along is on week 8, I’m slowing catching up.

3.Granny’s Garden

This is the second block for Granny’s Garden almost ready for machine stitching.

I still need to organize the pieces for the next 40 blocks to streamline production. Each of the 42 blocks will have flowers appliquéd to the cream background circle. I’m thinking of prepping all the backgrounds first. Then they will be ready for each flower. I started by prepping the flower pieces, switching to the background might get me to seeing more finished blocks!

To-Do Tuesday February 22, 2022

1. End of month is coming 5 days! Have to finish background pieces for Nebula, my OMG.
2. Hand stitching EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, finish week 4.
3. Granny’s Garden, prep background circles if I finish Nebula background.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal.

Last week the snow arrived! About 7 inches at my house, but more like 12 inched a half hour north at my daughter’s house. Last night we received just a dusting more. I do love snow!

Here is the progress I made in quilting this past week.

To-Do Tuesday February 1, 2022

1. Continue piecing Nebula background  ✔️ cutting & some sewing
2. Slow stitching EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden ✔️
3. I started prepping another quilt last year to make this year – before I jumped onto the Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden wagon. I’d like to see if I could do one block a week for this 42 block Granny’s Garden quilt by Lori Holt. ✔️

1. Nebula – last year’s BOM. I’m working on the background.

Pieces cut and stitched. Slow going, but moving ahead.

2. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week One completed

Week Two completed

Week Three progress.

These are 1/2″ hexies. I’m behind, but supplies did not arrive until about week two. And I’ve not attached Week One & Two together. I’ll get there eventually!

3. Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Block One of 42. Progress! I am rethinking the construction. Instead of doing one block a week, I might prep all the back ground circles first. Then stems and leaves. Otherwise I’m doing a lot of thread switching for each different fabric color. And yes, I know I could use invisible thread, just not going there … yet.

I’ve selected two labor intensive quilts for this year!  My goal for this week will be the same as last week. Progress on the three quilts.

To-Do Tuesday February 8, 2022

1. Continue piecing Nebula background
2. Keep hand stitching EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden
3. Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal.

Finally gifted! A quilt I started in August 2020 and put in time out, or was it ME that went into time out?!

Here is where I left the quilt in December. Pieced and put together with a quilt-as-you-go method, I still needed to add sashing over the seam between the Clam Shells and appliqué vines.

Above shows the seams that need to be covered with sashing. And the mitered seams at the corners to be covered with leaves.

Sashing sewn over the inner seams.

Prepping leaves to cover the mitered seam corners.

Leaves appliquéd in place. Quilt is ready for binding.

Happy dance! I completed quilt! This is on my bed. It will look much prettier on their bed with a Amish made head board. But I don’t have a picture to share of that, so this will do!

The quilt is a Sue Pelland pattern, on the cover of her Hearts and More Book. I enlarged the quilt to 99 1/2″ x 107″ to fit a queen size bed. All appliqué is turned, not raw edge, center Drunkard’s Path blocks are pieced, not appliqué. I used Pauline Rogers’ Quilt As You Go method. The center was pieced and quilted, then the vines where appliquéd and quilted, and attached to the center. Then the clams were appliquéd on background, quilted, and then attached to quilt. Doing this method I could quilt each section on my Janome machine having smaller sections to quilt instead of fighting the queen size quilt as one whole piece.

This was my first time to do the quilt-as-you-go method to construct a large quilt. I like how this quilt turned out and will consider doing a large quilt in this method again.

Oh, and if you are wondering about the time out I mentioned in the beginning of this post, let me explain. When I got to the part of sandwiching the Clam Shell sections to the backing fabric, I miss calculated and cut the fabric with not an inch to spare. Then I sandwiched the wrong size back to a Clam Shell front. Ripped it all out and then attached the back to another wrong front! Gah! At that point I had to set the quilt aside and wait for a clear head to rip it apart again and hopefully get the sections paired together correctly on the third try. It sat for several months before I was willing to pull it out and complete it. And of course once I did pull it out and get going on it again, all went well. So, yes it was me in the time out!

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

Oops! I forgot to post on Tuesday and now it is Thursday! My sewing group was canceled for today – Covid again. The hostess of our gathering has been exposed to Covid and her husband tested positive. We moved the meeting to my house, and one friend had planned on coming, but her daughter went into labor, so she is happily at the hospital with her this morning! That all said, I’ll take time to write my belated post this morning.

So what have I been up to stitching and quilting wise?

To-Do Tuesday January 11, 2022

1. Finish quilt for son & DIL! Only have the binding to complete and then launder!  ✔️
2. Quilt and maybe bind Hungry Caterpillar quilt. I’ll share its story next week.  ✔️
3. Prep fabric for EPP project I hope to work on through out this year.  ✔️

1.  I DID finish the quilt for my son and his lovely wife! They just celebrated their 3rd anniversary yesterday!

I started this quilt August of 2020. I used a quilt-as-you-go method. Meaning I first pieced the center, sandwiched and quilted it. Then I appliquéd the four vine sections, sandwiched and quilted. Then attached the vine sections to the center. Then four sections of appliquéd clam shells, sandwiched and quilted were attached to the quilt. Doing the quilt is sections made it possible for me to quilt each smaller section my domestic machine.

Not the best photo. I hope to get a better one with the quilt on their bed.

2. I’m currently working on getting the Hungry Caterpillar quilted.

This quilt was created by my daughter more than 10 years ago. She never finished it and gave it to me to finish. The Women’s Ministry group at my church is putting together a basket to donate to the local rescue mission’s auction coming up this Spring. Someone suggested a children’s quilt and I said I thought I had the perfect quilt to build on. Also added to the basket will be pillows, pillow case, Hungry Caterpillar book, and hopefully a stuffy. I have the outer border to quilt, and binding to attach.

3. I think I’m crazy to start another project before finishing last year’s BOM. I’m so slow at English Paper Piecing.

Prepping 1/2″ hexies!

Stitching progress in the evenings. I’m following along with Katja Quilt Shop Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. The flowers will make a wreath. Go take a look at her quilt along! The pattern is written for 1″ hexies to make  a 82″ quilt. Doing 1/2″ hexies should give me about a 42″ wall hanging. I’m only on week one, and this is week three of the quilt along. I was waiting for supplies to arrive in the mail. I might switch to machine piecing if I continue to fall behind. But this handwork is supposed to be relaxing, right!?

To-Do Tuesday January 18, 2022

1. Finish Hungry Caterpillar quilt
2. Start piecing background for last year’s BOM – Nebula
3. Work towards catching up with EPP

I’ve been asked to sew together a t-shirt quilt top. But have not received the t-shirts or fabric yet. And I have the appliqué quilt Granny’s Garden started, but currently on the shelf. I want to finish the BOM  Nebula by Jaybird Quilts then I can go full steam ahead on Granny’s Garden and the EPP quilt.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal.