Five Shadows

For the Vibrant and Vivacious Challenge I selected a pattern and ruler I had purchased a few years ago, but never used.

Pulling fabrics & getting it all cut is always fun.

Pieced and spray basted. There are orange curtains in this room, so the color is not exactly correct in the photo.

I used a piece of clear vinyl to place over the quilt and then drew out some ideas for the quilting using a dry erase marker. The marker wipes right off so you can use the vinyl repeatedly. If you look in the above photo, you can see I sewed binding around vinyl to finish it off, 18″ square.

I used a variegated green Guttermann thread I had on hand to quilt the leaves. I used Aurifil gold, 2147, for the center checker board.

Binding is made from batik scraps from center of quilt, and also others on hand.

I used a Grunge yellow for the back.

I’ve enjoyed the challenges! This was my first year to join in! Nice that I happened upon the challenges the first week of this season and could do all six! Thanks Kim and Trish for hosting!

Linking to Project Quilting Season 11.

This past week I spent some time quilting Bat Moon Rising. Bats are outlined, Moon has circles, the background has alternating horizontal and vertical lines. Do you see the mistake in the lower left corner? It was supposed to be vertical. Time for some ripping out!

I actually messed up on my quilting pattern twice. Rip rip rip.

Close up of moon. The stray threads you see in the quilted area will be knotted and buried.

Bats top all quilted, black binding waiting to be attached. I have one extra bat block that will be the label. Almost done! Pattern by Sew Kind of Wonderful. I used an ombre, Daiwabo Selection for E.E. Schenck Company, in gray blue to tan for the background fabric.

Aurifil threads for piecing and quilting,  1158, 2021, 2692 & 5021. Don’t think I’ll have enough black to attach the binding!

Sunday, March 15th, Project Quilting announced the final challenge for the season, Vibrant and Vicarious.

For this challenge I’ve pulled fabric for Cut Loose Press Pattern Cabin Leaves Table Runner.

I hope to have it finished to gift to a friend for her birthday by Thursday! Wish me luck!

After finishing the table topper, I’ll get that binding on Bat Moon Rising.

With the Covid19 shutting almost everything down, and now my grandkids having colds, I won’t be doing child care this week. I am still cat sitting for a few days.

I hope and pray you are all staying healthy. Have patience, and be kind!

Last To-Do List:

1. Finishing quilting Bat Moon Rising. ✔️ I completed the quilting, even with a few setbacks, rip rip.
2. Maybe cut, make and attach binding to Bat Moon Rising. ✔️Binding made, not attached.

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Project Quilting 11:6 Challenge – finish and post
2. Bind Bat Moon Rising

Linking to Home Sewn by Us To-Do Tuesday Party!

I have a helper visiting this week.

Meet my DIL’s cat, Toulouse. He will be staying with us as the bedroom floors at his house are being sanded and refinished. Toulouse likes to be where the action is, which means he follows me all over the house. If I sit down, he thinks my lap is up for grabs. I’m a cat person, so I don’t mind. My son and DIL will also be staying with us as the floors are refinished.

In photo above Toulouse is “helping” me put the binding on my OMG. Happy Little Things is quilted, and binding is on!

Here’s one of the quilted blocks.

I participated in Project Quilting Challenge 11:5.

Take a look here for the story behind this quilt.

After completing Happy Little Things, I put Bat Moon Rising under the needle.

Bats are quilted, moon is marked and ready to quilt.

That’s it for this week!

Last To-Do List:

1. Since I’m going down another rabbit trail – quilt and bind Jelly Roll quilt and write a post by Saturday night, March 7th, Project Quilting 11:5 Challenge. ✔️ Completed and posted.
2. I don’t think there will be time for anything else, but maybe do some quilting on either Bats or HLT.  ✔️ Happy Little Things is quilted and binding is on! Plus the Bats are quilted on Bat Moon Rising!

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Finishing quilting Bat Moon Rising.
2. Maybe cut, make and attach binding to Bat Moon Rising.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

Project Quilting 11:5 Challenge Give it Away

I bought a jelly roll a while back. I had not plans for it, but on sale at 50% off – I could not pass it up.

This jelly roll is nautical with anchors, stars, waves, moons. I wanted to make the top using only the jelly roll

Alternating the lights and dark strips seemed like a good idea. And then for a bit of interest, why not add in yellow squares?

Here’s the finished top using the gray strips from the jelly roll as binding.

I found a gray print and a black solid in my stash to use for the back.

For fun, and to add to the nautical theme, why not add an anchor? I’ll be donating this 40″ x 50″ quilt to Project Linus.

This has been another fun challenge! Thanks Trish & Kim for hosting!

Linking to Project Quilting

When I went back and read my February One Monthly Goal, I found out that I did complete it just by finishing the piecing of the top of Happy Little Things (HLT). I got further than that by piecing the back, sandwiching it, and starting the quilting. For March I’ve listed my goal to finish all the way to the binding, which is made and waiting.

Bat Moon Rising – border sewn on, back made, sandwiched.

Now it’s just another quilt of many waiting to be quilted. (evening lighting distorting color of quilt, sorry) But hey, I worked on that troublesome row of lights above the moon, and I’m much happier with it now. And note, small 1  1/2″ border.

So why do I keep hopping around from one project to another before finishing the first one? I really don’t know! That said, I am also participating in Project Quilting Season 11 Challenge. It runs for 12 weeks. We are on Challenge 5 of 6. Another rabbit trail perhaps? The challenges have been fun, I’ve had no problem coming up with an idea for each. This week’s challenge is Give it Away, make a quilt and donate. I pulled out a jelly roll -

And made this top yesterday -

Tomorrow, piece a back and sandwich.

Last To-Do List:

1. Final week to complete my OMG! Happy Little Things is pieced, now to quilt and bind. ✔️ Sandwiched!
2. Sandwich Bat Moon Rising. ✔️ Ready to start quilting.

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Since I’m going down another rabbit trail – quilt and bind Jelly Roll quilt and write a post by Saturday night, March 7th, Project Quilting 11:5 Challenge.
2. I don’t think there will be time for anything else, but maybe do some quilting on either Bats or HLT.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

Hello fellow OMGers!

First up, I did finish my February goal of completing the piecing of my version of Happy Little Things, but I didn’t get a post written. The top is pieced, the back is pieced, it’s sandwiched and quilting started! That means I completed more than just my OMG. Ha ha, but like I said, no post.

For March I’ll finish quilting HLT and binding it.

Oh! I already made a scrappy binding!

And the back is scrappy too.

I’m using up most of the Fat Eighth pack. I do have some bits and pieces left and 3 Fat Eighths I didn’t include in the quilt. They might show up in some quilt some time in the future.

What is your goal for the month?

Linking to One Monthly Goal hosted by Elm Street Quilts.

After two Thursday quilting days being canceled due to weather, this past Thursday we did finally meet. I took along Bat Moon Rising and got it to this point -

I thought the top was complete. But then I got to thinking that the binding might interfere with the two bats that are along the edge of the quilt. I referred back to the pattern, and there is a small 2″ border. I got busy cutting 2″ x 4″ rectangles to match the ombre flow for the outer border. Yes, I’m going to have a narrow 1 1/2″ finished border instead of a 2″ border.

Now that I’m looking at the photo, I’m not liking the row of light squares above the moon. Hmmm. There might be more ripping out to replace them a shade darker. (Borders are on, sorry no photo, light is all wrong tonight.)

I jumped in and participated in Project Quilting Season 11 Challenge 4 this past week. The challenge was to use the block Birds in the Air in a quilt. Here’s my finish entry -

Read about it here. Next Sunday at noon central time the 5th challenge will be announced.

I won a pattern and charm pack through Living Water Quilter‘s blog hop to promote her new pattern! Isn’t it pretty?

My name was drawn from Heart Sing Handmade blog. The charm pack is from Island Batiks.

Last To-Do List:

1. Bats! Maybe this Thursday’s sewing day will not be canceled. That’s when I plan on working on this quilt. ✔️Top done!
2. Happy Little Things is my OMG - finish it and post before deadline Saturday, Feb 29th!
3. Project Quilting  11:4 Challenge - finish before deadline noon Sunday, Feb 23. ✔️ Created and linked.

This week’s To-Do List:

1. Final week to complete my OMG! Happy Little Things is pieced, now to quilt and bind.
2. Sandwich Bat Moon Rising.

Linking to To-do Tuesday hosted by Home Sewn by Us.

For this week’s challenge, using the Birds in the Air block, my mind went to the Beatles song Blackbird.

Here’s my interpretation -

First up, I found a 6″ finished paper pieced Birds in the Air block with a tutorial on Wombat Quilts. I decreased the size of the pattern to 2 1/2″.

After piecing two blocks, I fused them using Misty Fuse along with a blackbird to background fabric. I blanket stitched around the blocks. After sandwiching the quilt, I outlined stitched around the bird.

Then I stitched in wings to represent them broken and needing to heal. I fused and stitched around the heart, and then free motion stitched the words to Blackbird by the Beatles around the edge of the quilt. This is Black History month here in the USA. Paul McCartney said he wrote the song in 1960s, after hearing about the civil unrest in the US.

“Blackbird”

A friend made her first ever quilt and asked if I would quilt it for her. She bought glow in the dark Northcott Solar System fabric. She asked for glow in the dark thread, but I just could not find any dark threads to matched her quilt. I bought one spool of Superior Threads NiteLite Extraglow thread in white and used it in the panel of orbiting planets.

I never actually took the quilt into a dark room to see how the fabric and thread glowed. My loss, I’m sure.

After stitching the orbits, I stitched circles in various sizes in the rest of the panel. Then did straight line diamond quilting in the first border.

And then went back to more circle quilting. In the next border I did squiggles and circles.

Here’s the back of the quilt, showing the circles.

I gathered dishes from my kitchen and traced them for the circles using a Sewline white ceramic lead pencil.

I didn’t get a picture of the outer border, but I continued the same circle quilting in a meandering line. My friend is happy! I’m happy!

Next up I worked on my Happy Little Things BOM. I’m attempting to use a Fat Eighth pack of Carolyn Friedlander’s fabric for the BOM.

Doing so, I don’t have enough of any one fabric to complete the sashing on all the blocks as I would like. So it’s getting very scrappy.

Close up of blocks -

The centers are hand embroidery stitched on white prints, which were the only fabrics not in the Carolyn Friendlander line. Next will be a blue border. Then I won’t have enough fabric for the larger border, so I’ll put my thinking cap on for how to change up the pattern and finish this quilt top. Maybe I’ll even buy Carolyn Friedlander yardage? But I’d really like to challenge myself to use just the Fat Eight Pack for the top.

My husband got an early birthday gift!

More Melissa and Doug wooden train pieces! Something he can enjoy with the grandkids!

One last thing

This pretty Africa Violet is blooming again!

Last To-Do List:

1. Keep working on Bat Moon Rising ✗  Thursday quilt day was canceled b/c of weather. I just didn’t get to the bats this week.
2. Get going on Happy Little Things ✔️ Small progress, but progress was made.
3. I have not been listing customer quilts, but I have one to finish quilting. I was hoping to finish it last week. But sometimes family comes first. ✔️ Finished quilting friend’s solar system quilt.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday. Go take a look at what other quilters are working on this week!

Just a little bit of batty.

I managed to rip out bats to reposition them on one of the latest quilts I’m working on.

Here is where I left the quilt, thinking I just had the rows to sew together.

But as I looked at the above picture, I thought the quilt would look better if I did some rearranging. So ripping happened, leaving 3 rows to sew back together.

I think I like the placement better, but might still rip out and move the second bat from the bottom on the right side. I guess there comes a time when you just have to say it’s good enough! Not sure I’m there yet!

I picked out a UFO to finish the top for my One Monthly Goal for February.  It’s the Happy Little Things BOM from last year. I posted about it here.

Last To-Do List:

1. Continue piecing Bat Moon Rising ✔️
2. Select a UFO to work on ✔️

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Keep working on Bat Moon Rising
2. Get going on Happy Little Things
3. I have not been listing customer quilts, but I have one to finish quilting. I was hoping to finish it last week. But sometimes family comes first.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday. Go take a look at what other quilters are working on this week!