Five Shadows

This was the week I realized I had a few gifts to make that I had totally forgotten about!

15″ canvas bag with 7 1/2″ pocket.

This is not the prettiest item I’ve ever made. A young-in-mind friend asked for a canvas bag with a pocket and the pocket should be a bear. This is fabric I had on hand. I think the results will make her happy.

She also requested a doll quilt for one of her stuffed animals. This is a block I had in my box of orphan blocks – we all have those, don’t we!? I added a border to make a 16″ square doll quilt.

I also have a Halloween Panel to finish up for her to hang on her door. If I don’t finish it by Saturday, I can just gift it to her early October. I’ll be attending her birthday party Saturday.

Plus I have to get a little mug rug sewn up for a birthday gift for one of my quilty friends who will be here Friday for our quilting day.

Her September birthday snuck up on me! I’ve made Bitty Barn Blocks for the gals in my quilting group in their fav colors as mug rugs for their birthdays. This will be the last one of six.

Along with all the “extra” sewing, here is what I accomplished from my To-Do list.

To-Do Tuesday, September 6, 2022

English Paper Piecing continues on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. This is my almost nightly routine. After clean up from supper, I gather the EPP supplies and stitch while watching TV, or a movie, listening to a book, or talking to Hubby if he is not busy on one of his hobbies. His hobbies are native plant gardening and building train models. Sometimes walks or bike rides are added in to the evening.

Here’s my To-Do list from last week -

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 meaning 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. ✔️

1. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 21 sewn and attached to the quilt but I forgot to take a photo of the growing quilt.

2. EPP

Week 22 – stitched and ready to attach.

Weeks 1 – 22. The rosettes are now showing they will be a ring of flowers!

3. Heart pillows

The tag says Blessings & Love, Made for you, Christ’s Community Church.

Here are just a few of the 24 heart pillows made to donate to Lutheran Hospital where they are given to patients who have had mastectomies. The heart shape pillow fits under the arm to add comfort while healing.

A few more hearts cut for pillows. This is an ongoing project ladies at CCC make through out the year.

4. Longarm quilting clothing quilts

A friend offered her longarm for me to use to quilt the 4 clothing quilts. Since I don’t know anything about using a longarm, other than what she taught me, here is the setup with quilting in progress. She only attaches the backing to the rollers, and lets the batting and top hang free. This worked well for these smaller size quilts, 54 x 60 inches. I’m not sure how it would work for a bed size. Any longarm quilters reading this? Your thoughts?

Quilted, bound, laundered.

Close up of one of the quilted shells. The quilts are ready to gift to the grieving family. Prayers lifted for them as they grieve the loss of their mother.

5. PUP - Previously Unfinished Project!

I worked on two PUPs yesterday. A few weeks ago I volunteered to do a simple quilting to finish tops that are made for two charities to which our CCC group donates. I used stitch 99 on my Janome for the diagonal quilting. Hopefully I get to the binding today.

To-Do Tuesday, August 23, 2022

1. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Week 23
2. More PUP charity quilts. I think I offered to quilt and bind 6 total this Summer.
3. Select a PUP from my own on going projects.

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

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.

Yesterday my hubs had a speaking engagement at a Master Gardener’s event. His topic was Native Plant Gardening. I tagged along taking my EPP. With three people speaking on different topics during three hours, I made some good progress on the Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.

Here’s my list from last week -

To-Do Tuesday, July 12, 2022

1. Prep week 18 and start stitching EPP for Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. ✔️
2. Continue work on T-shirt quilt for my nephew. ✔️
3. Meeting with quilting friends – I’m taking along my EPP.  I’m 10 weeks behind on HTGFG and would love to catch up, but am beginning to wonder if that is at all possible! ✔️
4. Sandwich a charity quilt or two? A gal from church is making the tops and backs, and I volunteered to do quick machine quilting. I better get to them as she is faster than I am! ✗

Here’s what happened -

1. Week 18 Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

There are two leaves that need to be prepped and attached, along with the 4 little hexies. I always save the leaves for last so I’ve not cut them out yet.

2. T-shirt quilt for my nephew –  it’s moving along but not photo worthy yet.

3. Meeting with quilting friends – I took my EPP and sat with a friend while we both worked on our hexies. Two other gals worked on machine appliqué. Then we sat by the pool to eat lunch. It was a lovely time and day!

4. Sandwich a few charity quilts – This didn’t happen, but our meeting for tomorrow has been postponed, so I have a few more weeks before I need to get to these. I hope to add these to my To-Do list next week.

To-Do Tuesday, July 19, 2022

1. Finish Week 18 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach to quilt.
2. Prep and stitch Week 19
3. Nephew’s t-shirt quilt
4. Meeting with friend Friday to work on 4 clothing quilts for grieving family.

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

Happy July everyone!

We had more high winds & thunderstorms passing through our way Tuesday & Wednesday.  We lost power again, this time for 14 hours. I must say I am very thankful for modern conveniences!

Here’s my list of hopeful quilting for last week -

To-Do Tuesday, June 28, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, work on week 17. ✔️
2. 4 clothing quilts – Friday meeting with another friend to add the embroidery.  ✔️
3. Shirts to aprons from my Dad’s shirt for my grand nieces and nephews.  ✔️
4. Maybe get back to the whole cloth table runner.  ✗

Here we go -

1. Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 17, missing the background to the green leaves.

2. Four clothing quilts - embroidery

As requested, four identical quilt tops have been made from clothing and with the rose fabric center from pillow cases.

Then this embroidery was created by a friend who bought the new M17 Janome. The Mom represented by the clothing loved the beach, shells, sunsets. With help, this heart with Love you Mom with shells was stitched on to the rose fabric. I’m happy with the progress made on these four quilts this past week.

Also, my friend and I bought fabric for the quilt backs. A beach scene was requested. We won’t be getting to piecing the backs until later this month.

3. Shirts to aprons

I’ve made child size aprons from my Dad’s shirts. They will go to his 17 Great Grandchildren!

4. Whole cloth table runner – didn’t touch it.

What’s up for this coming week?

To-Do Tuesday, July 5, 2022

1. Finish week 17 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. And start attaching it to the growing quilt.
2. Time to get serious about prepping t-shirts for a quilt for my nephew. That was my June One Monthly Goal and it did not happen!
3. Play with something – maybe a UFO – maybe the whole cloth table runner.

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

Clothing being cut into squares and aprons.  It seems that is just about all I’m working on lately. I’m happy to report that the four clothing quilts are finally taking shape.

Before I share those, let’s see what else happened this past week.

To-Do Tuesday, June 21, 2022

1. Finish Week 16 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, and start Week 17. ✔️
2. Finish quilting and bind whole cloth table runner. ✗
3. Friday meeting with a friend to make headway on the 4 clothing quilts.  ✔️
4. Back to shirts to aprons from Dad’s shirts.  ✗

First off, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I would have liked because I came down with a bad headache last Tuesday night and it worked it’s way into a full fledged migraine. I really have no idea what brings them on. I’ve blessedly had so few this year, so this one took me by surprise.  After recovering from that, I did get busy.

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week one – sixteen all stitched together. Week 16 was all but finished so I did get it attached to the growing quilt.

Week Seventeen coming together.

2. Whole cloth table runner

I did some playing yesterday on the table runner. I decided I wanted to quilt in the background and am attempting a half inch grid. Slow going! Not perfect, ripping out did happen.

3.  Four clothing quilts

This is the big project that I want completed! Friday my friend and I met up to work on the four quilts for a grieving family. Their mother had passed and we were asked to make quilts from her clothes. One request from the family was for all the quilts to be identical. That meant cutting squares from all the clothing divisible by 4. Here is what we came up with after measuring and figuring out the largest squares we could use was 6 1/2″ cut, 6″ finished.

As is, the quilts will measure 54″ x 60″ which I think is fine for a memorial quilt. That is being debated as my friend wants to add a border using a sea shell print if one can be found. Another request from the family was for the back to have a sunset or sea shore panel on the back because the mother loved the beach and sea shells. I’m just thrilled to have the four quilts to this stage. Shopping has to happen for the back, and an embroidery is planned for the large rose print center.

4. Aprons

Working on them today! Photo next week.

And this week I plan -

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, work on week 17.
2. 4 clothing quilts – Friday meeting with another friend to add the embroidery.
3. Shirts to aprons from my Dad’s shirt for my grand nieces and nephews.
4. Maybe get back to the whole cloth table runner.

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

What a week! Besides missing a trip to visit friends and attend a graduation party, with too much coughing and getting over the Covid sore throat, the week went pretty well. When I sat down to write this post, I realized I did way more quilting & sewing than I thought!

To-Do Tuesday, May 24, 2022

1. Finish Week 13 of EPP for Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden ✔️
2. Prep Week 14 EPP ✔️
3. Keep cutting up t-shirts. Buy the fusible I need for the quilt. ✔️
4. Stitch more shirts to aprons. ✔️
5. Get rid of this bug! ➞ Hope so! Retested negative for Covid!

1. Finished Week 13 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Once again I forgot to take a photo of the week’s rosettes before attaching it to the growing quilt. But Week 13 is completed and attached.

2. Prep Week 14 EPP

Week 14 not only prepped but sewn together and …

attached to the ever growing quilt. Weeks 1 – 14!

3. Prepping t-shirts for fusible.

T-Shirts cut up and woven fusible purchased. I’ve not used this fusible before, so hope it works well. The LQS will order a bolt for me if I like it!

4. Shirts to Aprons

One of Dad’s two Hawaiian shirts turned into an apron. With a pocket front and center.

5. Get over Covid – I tested negative! So that’s a plus! But I have a lingering cough that I’m so looking forward to getting over! Sore throat is a thing of the past too.

________________________

I actually got back to template quilting with the Sew Steady Class The Next Steps Template Quilting with Donelle McAdams. Here are four blocks from Lesson three.

Finished, this block will be 12″ x 6″. Straight line quilting with the rulers I used. An appliqué will go on this block. I’ll get to that later.

12″ when finished HST pieced block with Orange Peel quilting using the curved edge of ruler shown.

12″ finished whole-clothe block using the Spin-D-Flex Feather 7.5″ template, 1/2″ circle, 4″ arc templates. Fanciest block in this set of lessons.

Friendship Star with straight line quilting.

Looking through my photos, I didn’t take any of Lesson 2! Guess I’ll go back and do that. All the blocks will be sewn together using the Quilt-As-You-Go method.

To-Do Tuesday, May 31, 2022

1. Prep and piece week 15 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden
2. Test out fusible I bought on a few t-shirts.
3. Photo Lesson 2 of The Next Steps Template Quilting, blocks & templates.

Linking to Linda’s To-Do Tuesday over at Texas Quilt Gal.

This crazy Sore Throat is lingering on from Covid. Good thing, Hubs continues to test negative even though he has an ongoing cough. We are supposed to be visiting friends in Knoxville, TN this weekend, but canceled that trip. Our friends say they will come visit us later in June. That will be fantastic!

Did I get anything accomplished this past week?

To-Do Tuesday, May 17, 2022

1. Prepping week 13 EPP for Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden ✔️
2. That might be all I get done as I don’t know how I’ll be feeling with this Covid virus.
3. but …
4. Work on Lesson 3 of The Next Steps Template Quilting ✗
5. Experiment with Terial Magic liquid stabilizer – make a pillow from a t-shirt ✗

1. The only quilting I did this week was hand stitching English Paper Pieced hexies.

Week 13 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden still needs a few stitches to be completed. Then it’s ready to attach to the slowly growing quilt.

Oh! I did accomplish a few other things. I pulled out some of my Dad’s shirts and started cutting them up to turn into aprons.

Here is the first of the aprons. Since I’m starting with medium size shirts, they will end up being aprons for Dad’s 17 great grandchildren. I want my 7 year old granddaughter to try this one on, but since I had Covid this past week, family are all staying clear from me! So soon, soon we will be back to normal and family visits. I might add pockets, I’ll see what granddaughter thinks once she tries it on. The oldest grands are 8 yrs old, so I think this well work for all 17 kiddos.

I also started cutting into t-shirts for a quilt for a nephew. Besides those little bits of crafting, I spent a lot of time lounging with library books and walking in our backyard.

Here’s a small garden tour for you -

Hubs is all about native plants. Here is a woodland area. Columbine are doing well this year.

This week the cultivated Iris are opening up. Here are three of my favorites -

Michigan Pride

Rustler

Purple Pepper

What do I hope to accomplish sewing wise this week?

To-Do Tuesday, May 24, 2022

1. Finish Week 13 of EPP for Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden
2. Prep Week 14 EPP
3. Keep cutting up t-shirts. Buy the fusible I need for the quilt.
4. Stitch more shirts to aprons.
5. Get rid of this bug!

What do you have planned for this week? Take a look at To-Do Tuesday Link up hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal for all the craftiness happening around the web.

Valentine’s Day caught me by surprise. I had nothing special planned. With grandkids here over the weekend, we did do some crafting, coloring, Lego building, Barbie doll-ing. Then I saw a little heart bookmark tutorial on The Crafty Quilter and grands and I got busy making one each. They had fun digging through my extra charm packs to find just the right fabrics. The hearts were made and packaged up to gift before I thought about taking photos.

Also, hubs had oral surgery yesterday and is to be on a soft diet for a while. I just didn’t cook anything special last night. Today though, I’ve made a Copycat Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup and homemade bread for supper.

What did I accomplish sewing wise this past week?

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 ✗

1. Nebula background

18 sections completed and 8 more underway

2. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week three progress. I have a long way to go to catch up. This might be a two year quilt in the making.

3. I didn’t touch Grandmother’s Flower Garden this week. Maybe this week I’ll get back to it.

I might be getting boring as far as posting as I’m keeping my to-do list the same for 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. Grandmother’s Flower Garden

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

This week the new block presented by Sew Kind of Wonderful is Rock Star. This is for the quilt-a-long called Rock the Block if you are interested in following along.

The block this past Thursday was made in two sizes.

The blocks measure 11″ and 7 1/2″ unfinished.

All the blocks have curved piecing.

I think this is my favorite block so far out of the 5 blocks presented.

Sandwiching the Clam Shell borders should have been easy. For some reason I can’t get the measurements right. After two mistakes I have walked away from the task of sandwiching for now. I’ll have to attempt it again soon as I really do want to finish this quilt! Frustration!

Spring blooms continue in our yard  …

These are all in Hub’s native garden.

Blue Bells

Celetine Poppies – their bright yellow make me so happy!

Blazing Stars – this is the flower Hub is so excited about! Planted last year and survived the winter.

Happy Sewing & gardening all!

Last Week’s To-Do List:

1. Sandwich Clam Shell Borders. ✗  Not working out for me this week. One side complete. Three more to go.
2. Next block of Rock the Block QAL. ✔️

This Week’s To-Do List:

1. Finish sandwiching Clam Shell borders & maybe start quilting.
2. Next block of Rock the Block QAL

Linking to To-Do Tuesday