Five Shadows

Ugh. Allergies are so much worse this week. I’ve heard other people are suffering more than usual too with allergies. I love all the spring flowers blooming but this is getting ridiculous!  Sore throat started Sunday night and I woke up with out a voice Monday morning. And then a friend I was with Friday tells me she tested positive for Covid. I also tested positive this morning. So Bummed. I’m taking Mucinex per doctor’s suggestion since my symptoms are rather mild. My friend and I are fully vaccinated! Maybe that helps with keeping the case mild.

Lady Slippers blooming in our backyard. The little bit of purple is in the right upper corner is Jacob’s Ladder.

Before all the headache and sore throat hit I did have a successful week of stitching and quilting.

To-Do Tuesday, May 10, 2022

1. Keep plugging along on the EPP.  ✔️
2. Finish the Minky backed baby quilt.  ✔️
3. Meeting with my quilting group Friday – two of us will work on memory clothing quilts for a mutual friend’s family. But first we are meeting at a newly relocated quilt shop. I hear it is bigger and better. Quilts n Gifts in Bluffton, IN.  ✔️

1. English Paper Piecing

Here is week 12. No leaves this week. The leaves are a bit of a challenge for me.

And here is weeks 1-12 almost attached.

2. Baby quilt with Minky back.

I don’t know why I procrastinated so long on finishing this quilt. I didn’t have any problems quilting it using a walking foot. I do like how it turned out, Stitched-in-the-Ditch. Quilting and binding this quilt was my One Monthly Goal for May.

3. Shopping and quilting with my quilting group – The new location of Quilts n Gifts in Bluffton, Indiana is bigger and better. Owner Mary has over 6000 bolts of fabric and all the goodies to go with the fabric. I bought Sew Lazy cotton fusible interfacing for the clothing quilts a friend and I are making for a grieving family. We used up all we bought and have to purchase more. I really like this product better than the Pellon I’ve used for other clothing & t-shirt quilts. It’s more pricey but I think it is worth the extra expense as it is easier to use. When ironed with steam it stays adhered to the clothing.

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

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

Allergy Season! I’m feeling it today.

Here’s what happened this past week in my sewing room.

To-Do Tuesday, May 3 – 10, 2022

1. EPP attach Week 10 to the quilt, prep Week 11. ✔️
2. Baby quilt  ✔️
3. I’ve been given my Dad’s shirts to make memory items for family. Pillows? Aprons? I want to make two each to send to my siblings and then they can see if their adult children would like either. That’s the plan for now. I hope to have these four completed and mailed for Father’s Day.  ✗

1. English Paper Piecing

Weeks one through ten of Homage To Grandmother’s Flower Garden. I’m using 1/2″ paper hexies. The flowers are left over Fossil Fern fabrics from a quilt I made for the grand daughter.

Week 11 is almost ready to attach to the rest of the quilt.

2. Baby quilt for my new great niece.

I’m currently stitching-in-the-ditch. I’m using a textured Shannon Minky fabric on the back.

The quilting is going surprising well with using a walking foot. I’m thinking about quilting a flower in the center of the four blocks.

3. I’ve not gotten in to the bag of Dad’s shirts yet. At least I’m thinking of the possibilities. One little step at a time.

What will be on my to-do list for this week?

To-Do Tuesday, May 10, 2022

1. Keep plugging along on the EPP.
2. Finish the Minky backed baby quilt.
3. Meeting with my quilting group Friday – two of us will work on memory clothing quilts for a mutual friend’s family. But first we are meeting at a newly relocated quilt shop. I hear it is bigger and better. Quilts n Gifts in Bluffton, IN.

I’ve totally spaced my April OMG finish. I finished the quilt I made from a panel, pieced, quilted, and bound, and donated. I only took one photo showing the beginning of the quilting! Don’t know where my brain was on that one! Since I used circle templates for the first time for the quilting, you would think I’d take several photos. Nope.

Here’s the one photo -

Geo Zoo panel, Sew Steady circle templates.

For May, I’d like to finish a baby quilt that is sandwiched and ready for quilting.

I’m using textured Minky on the back. Another first for me. I’m hoping the quilting will go well. The binding will be a green Mode Grunge.

Goal for May – quilt, bind and mail quilt to my new little niece.

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

This week was filled with things not on my quilting list! But all is well!

To-Do Tuesday April 26th

1. Week 10 (and beyond?) of EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden ✔️
2. Quilt & bind baby quilt ✗
3. Lesson One of Next Steps template quilting course with Donelle McAdams✔️

1. EPP continues!

This is week 10 for Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. Oh! Oops! I sewed one leaf in the wrong place. It’s ripped out and ready to go where it belongs. I was hoping to have week 10 attached to the main quilt by now. It’s not. Yet I’m still finding stitching EPP relaxing in the evenings.

2. I didn’t touch the baby quilt. Something else popped up. While my grandson was building spool towers last week, my DIL commented on the disarray of my fabric.

And she was right! It’s a mess. In the above photo you can see scraps & leftovers from finished quilts. As I finish a quilt, the fabric has just been thrown onto these two shelves. Then when I need a bit of something I dig through the mess.

My DIL offered to help organize! Not just criticize! We took all the fabric scraps to my guest bedroom and sorted by color. Then I bought baskets for storage.

End result?

Fabric neatly folded and place in these baskets by color family. The baskets will be easy to grab to find just what I need for smaller projects. I might end up cutting some of the fabric into squares to sew together for charity quilts. That will be in the future as I have several UFOs that will be turned into charity quilts first.

And while I was being bitten by the organizing bug, I tackled this book shelf too.

I didn’t get a before photo. Just imagine where all the baskets are a disarray of quilty things. Top basket is wool projects. On next shelf the basket is holding sandwiched fat quarter size and smaller pieces for FMQ & template quilting practice. The basket on the middle shelf holds small projects I might get to one day. Bottom two baskets hold specialty fabrics & kits.

Trust me, it looks so much better and I’m feeling so much better about the clean up too! Thanks to my DIL for that one little comment.

Of course there are other areas of my sewing room that need tackling, but this is it for now. As I cleaned, my pile of projects to finish for charities grew! I’ll enjoy the process of reducing that pile. I should have taken a before and after photo of that pile as it went from neat to a mess!

3. Next Steps template quilting

I’m finding template quilting so relaxing! Who knew!

Here are three blocks quilted. The 12″ pieced block and elongated block are quilted with Sew Steady 6″ Spiral Template. The 12″ solid block is quilted with a straight ruler.

Photoed are the ruler, Spiral Template, and a spacing gauge used during quilting.

Close-up of quilting on pieced block. I’m using Fancy That Design’s Song Book fabric line. The background is by Benartex. I’m using Superior Threads King Tut 40 weight variegated thread Color 985 for quilting.

To-Do Tuesday, May 3, 2022

1. EPP attach Week 10 to the quilt and prep Week 11.
2. Baby quilt
3. I’ve been given my Dad’s shirts to make memory items for family. Pillows? Aprons? I want to make two each to send to my siblings and then they can see if their adult children would like either. That’s the plan for now. I hope to have these four completed and mailed for Father’s Day.

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

Warm weather, sunshine, rain, and migrating birds all equal happiness! This week I saw the first Rose Breasted Grosbeak in our backyard. We just put out the Oriole bird feeder as those south of us have reported seeing Baltimore Orioles. I hope they find us again this year as they migrate through.

On to quilting!

To-Do Tuesday April 19th

1. Finish Week 9 of EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden – the quilt-a-long is on Week 16. I started late, but I hope to eventually catch up. ✔️
2. Sandwich baby quilt with Minky fabric, start quilting. ✔️
3. Prepping 4 clothing quilts for grieving family. ✔️

1. EPP

Here are weeks one – nine all sewn together. I keep forgetting to take a picture of just the week’s progress before attaching to the growing quilt. I’ll try to remember this week!

Week 10 prep and stitching. I’m reusing papers, and glue basting with Sewline glue pen.

2. Sandwich baby quilt

I’m using a textured Shannon fabric for the back of this baby quilt. This will be only my second time to quilt on Shannon/Minky fabric. Last week’s experiment of quilting on Minky went well. I’m upping the game, so to speak, and moving on to the textured Shannon. Can you see the texture in photo above?

Baby quilt is spray basted with 505 Spray. I’m still pondering how to quilt. Yes, I might be a bit hesitant in quilting with the textured Shannon as the back to this quilt! Should I just do In-the-Ditch quilting, or some design in the geese? I will most likely keep it simple for now and do ITD.

3. Prepping clothing for quilts.

A quilting friend has asked if I would help make four quilts from clothing for a grieving family. We met last Tuesday to start cutting the clothes into 6 1/2″ squares. Here’s what we got from the cotton/poly items. The rest will have to be fused with webbing before cutting into squares. Turns out it will only be the two of us working on the quilts. Our plan right now is to have the four quilts ready to gift by Christmas time. For me, ironing fusible webbing is the most tedious part of the process and is the next step for these quilts. We will meet again on May 13th to tackle that job.

On to what I hope to do this week.

But first! – I followed a Squirrel this week.  I watched a free template quilting class with Donelle McAdams. And then decided to sign up for the 8 week Next Steps online course. I have most of the templates she will use for the course, but have not used them enough to feel comfortable with template quilting. So I jumped in and signed up for the course. It’s through Sew Steady University.

Block One sewn and prepped for quilting. Picking out thread. I’m using Fancy That – Song Book by Moda fabrics and added a Benartex for the back ground. The backing is a piece left over from my stash, Rambling Rose by Moda.

My grandson decided to help pick out thread for the quilt block. I did like his selection of yellows!

Picking thread evolved into building thread towers!

To-Do Tuesday April 26th

1. Week 10 (and beyond?) of EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden
2. Quilt & bind baby quilt
3. Lesson One of Next Steps template quilting course

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

Mug Rugs! Minky! EPP! And T-Shirt quilts filled my sewing time this past week.

Here’s what I planned on doing, and what I did accomplish -

To-Do Tuesday April 12th

1. Mug rug for an April birthday ✔️
2. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden ✔️
3. Charity quilt – I’m going to see if I can sandwich and quilt a baby blanket using printed fabric and Shannon/Minky fabric. I’ve never used the fuzzy stuff but hear babies love the soft fabric. If it works I plan on using it for a back of a pieced baby quilt. ✔️
4. More circle quilting on the Geo Zoo panel. ✗

1. Mug Rugs!

The Mug Rug on the left is for a friend whose birthday is in January. She and her hubby are snow birds spending the winter in Arizona. I’ll see her this Saturday to give her a belated birthday gift. Her favorite color is blue. I hope she likes this little 8 1/2″ square quilt.

The Mug Rug on the right is for a friend who just celebrated her birthday last week. Her favorite colors are blue and yellow. For both bitty quilts I used Bitty Barn Block patterns by This & That, there is a block for each month of the year. I thought they would work as little gifties for my quilting friends.

2. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden is moving along.

Here’s Week 8

And here are Weeks 1 – 8 all attached.

These rosettes are the beginning of Week 9.

3. Charity quilt

I used Minky fabric for my first time and it went well!

Now that I’ve experimented with Minky, I’ll use it on the back of a baby quilt I’m making for my new grand niece.

✗ 4. Geo Zoo Panel – I didn’t add any more quilting to this charity quilt this past week. Hope to finish it soon!

That brings us to what I hope to accomplish this coming week.

To-Do Tuesday April 19th

1. Finish Week 9 of EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden – the quilt-a-long is on Week 16. I started late, but I hope to eventually catch up.
2. Sandwich baby quilt with Minky fabric and start quilting.
3. Prepping clothing for 4 quilts for grieving family.

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

Just little bits of sewing did happen over the past few days. And a project for my One Monthly Goal was worked on too.

To-Do Tuesday April 5th

1. EPP continues on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.  ✔️
2. Three more seams to finish piecing Nebula.  ✔️

1. EPP. I’m working on week 8 of the Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden sew-along.

This is a background rosette sewn together and hexies that go around it prepped with glue basting.

Background for week 8 complete, and Rosette Flower underway.

2. Nebula! Pattern by Jaybird Quilts. The top is finished! I only had three seams left to sew to pull it all together.

Here’s the top, it will be a while before I get it sandwiched and quilting started. I want to finish up a few smaller projects before I start on quilting Nebula.

I pulled out a top from the past to quilt and donate to charity – it’s my One Monthly Goal for April.

After stitching around the preprinted blocks of Geo Zoo panel, I used circle quilting templates from Sew Steady in the first border. I did large meandering in the outer border.

That’s it for this week.

To-Do Tuesday April 12th

1. Mug rug for an April birthday
2. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
3. Charity quilt – I’m going to see if I can sandwich and quilt a baby blanket using printed fabric and Shannon/Minky fabric. I’ve never used the fuzzy stuff but hear babies love the soft fabric. If it works I plan on using it for a back of a pieced baby quilt.
4. More circle quilting on the Geo Zoo panel.

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

Wow! Can plans change quickly!

What is up for To-Do Tuesday March 22?

1. Focus on Nebula! ✗
2. Get guest bedroom set up. New sheets, new curtains. Rearrange some furniture. ✗
3. Continue growing Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. ✔️

My Dad passed on one week ago today. I’ll not repeat the details, you can read about Dad here and here if you are so inclined. My husband and I traveled from IN to PA to be with him. I took along the EPP, and did make some progress on it in the evenings.

Lawrence (Larry) G. Loper

December 17, 1926 – March 31, 2022

1. Nebula – not touched for obvious reasons, three more seams and it will be a top!

2. I still need to make headway on setting up a guest bedroom, but our friends who had planned on visiting this weekend had their own crisis, and are not traveling for our visit. We are all hoping a visit will still happen in the near future.

3. EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 7 minus leaves that go in those odd holes. I’m using 1/2″ hexies.

Weeks 1 – 7 again minus the leaves. I’ll get to those this week. I didn’t take leaf templates with me when I traveled to be with my Dad.

Week 8 progress.

This week I’ll focus on the missing leaves. And continue working on Week 8 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.

To-Do Tuesday April 5th

1. EPP continues on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
2. Three more seams to finish piecing Nebula.

It’s Thursday, so I think I’ll keep that list short.

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

I didn’t finish my March OMG. I traveled to be with my Dad and extended family for the last week of Dad’s life. Sadly we had to place him in Hospice Care due to diabetic complications. Monday, April 4th, we had a wonderful celebration of his 95 years of life. 60 of which he lived as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We laid his earthly body to rest next to my Mom who passed on 4 years earlier.

I saved a few flowers from one of the bouquets sent to the funeral. When I arrived home, added Daffodils blooming from my garden.

Strange, isn’t it, how life continues on uninterrupted all around us when a loved one passes on?

That said, on to my April OMG.

I do plan on finishing my March OMG, but for April I’m listing a top I want to finish for charity.

This is a panel called Geo Zoo. I cut apart the animal blocks and rearranged them. Then added a black border and then the wave coordinating print as the outer border. Not sure how I’ll quilt it.

Goal is to quilt and bind and donate.

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

Weather is warming up, Spring showers have arrived, and Spring flowers are popping up!

On to quilting, what did I accomplish this week?

To-Do Tuesday March 15, 2022

1. I’m putting Nebula at the top of the list. My design wall is in the guest bedroom. I really need to get that room under control for guests coming in April! ✔️
2. Prep and start stitching week 6 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. ✔️
3. Will I shop for fabrics to complete the baby quilt? ✗

1. Nebula, three of the 6 sections are sewn together. I really thought I’d have the top sewn together by now. Maybe this week! I’ll share pictures once I complete the piecing.

2. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 6 completed.

Weeks 1-6 all stitched together.

Week 7 under way.

3. Baby quilt. Again no shopping.

Instead I pulled out an older quilt that only needed binding.

I finished it up with a flange binding, and it is now ready to donate. 48 inches x 54 1/2 inches.

What is up for To-Do Tuesday March 22?

1. Focus on Nebula!
2. Get guest bedroom set up. New sheets, new curtains. Rearrange some furniture.
3. Continue growing Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.

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