Hi,

I am happy to share some of my latest completed quilt tops. I have been sewing and quilting along  with the #swoonalong and #swoonqal2017 groups on Instagram since the middle of January. I have four different Swoon quilt tops made in around 2.5 months time. I have made two of the original Swoon pattern that is made from 24 inch blocks and I have also made two of the scrappy patchwork Swoon pattern which is one large 72 inch patchwork pieced block. I will blog in a different post about the scrappy patchwork tops.

This Swoon is created from Denyse Schmidt’s Hope Valley fabric line that I had in my stash since 2010. This was the first of the Swoon’s that I started piecing. I had the blocks all pieced before I started on my memory quilt Swoon quilts. I  had the other three completed before I finished sashing this one. I actually just finished this one last night. The sashing fought me on this one. I added the small pieces between the blocks and added the full sashing strips to the first and second rows. The first and second rows didn’t want to join properly the first time.  I had to take apart the middle of the row and flip it over and attempt to  ease it back together. This seemed to work. Thankfully adding the last row went alot easier.

I always have to take a photo of the quilt on our king size bed to get the allover look of the  finished top. It finishes at 80 inches square.

I decided to use up the extra six fat quarters in my set and make three additional blocks that  I will piece in a strip across back of the quilt.

Block 1

Block 2

Block 3

These three blocks were made from more contrasting prints than the rest of quilt so they have a bit of different look to them. Actually the best Swoon blocks have lots of contrast or you can lose the design.

I haven’t decided yet how I want to quilt this top yet. I originally wanted to try QAYG but after piecing the other tops decided to just get this one sashed as well so we could call it a completed top.

I have been making memory quilts from my Father inlaw’s shirts since before Christmas. I had four quilt tops created  so far and decided to ask my three sisters inlaw what they might like. I had plans for the next one but asked them if they liked the idea of it or gave them some options. I told them about the Swoon quilts and shared some photos off of Pinterest and Instagram. One sister  decided on the original size Swoon and the other two decided they both liked the scrappy Patchwork version. I actually own all four Swoon patterns and said I would have been fine making the 24 inch, the 16 inch and a scrappy. Both liked the scrappy one.

I love this quilt so much! It is the 24 inch block version of Swoon but I used the faster piecing technique from the Swoon 16. Boy,do this make it so much more fun to piece. I got inspiration from a photo on Pinterest to add the colored sashing stones. I have seen a really neat version where they added  half square triangles to corners or snowballed the corners and with adding these sashing squares or stones, it will create a small churn dash block. Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Co has shown this technique on some of her quilts. The denim blue points in each of  the Swoon blocks is all cut from one Carhartt denim shirt. It is wonderful material but added extra bulk I didn’t need. I really think the Swoon 16 way of piecing the blocks helped eliminate even more bulk of the denim.

My husband really likes all of the memory quilts made so far, but when I showed him this one he said Wow! It is really going to be hard to give this one up. But I will… I have set aside what is left of these fabrics and I have extra of the solids (I  really liked the pop of red, which surprised me). I hope I have enough to make myself a Swoon 16 since I haven’t made that one yet. I would want to make extra blocks to make a larger quilt. I have to make a couple other family members quilts yet before I cut into this project.

I apologize for having been away from blogging the past couple months. I have been busy and dealing with some personal and family issues. Unfortunately many things on my blog have been taken care of and I hope to get back on track and share more of what I have been working on.

I am hosting Thank God It’s Finished Friday this week. You will find a separate blog post for the linky party. I look forward to seeing what everyone has been working on this week.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

Hi, I am happy to share that I have completed all my quilt blocks for the Swoon Quiltalong. I have been making the original 24 inch blocks and have my nine completed.

Here is block 4

Here is Block 5

I pieced the first 5 blocks one at a time and for  the last 4 I decided to try to chain piece them all at once. It really wasn’t too hard and made light of the work except when I had to square up 80 HST at once. There really wasn’t much more than trimming off the dog ears on most of the HST so even that wasn’t too bad.

Here is Block 6

Block 6 ended up being my least favorite as the two prints blend too much together but it will work in the mix. There are three different green combinations and I will either place them diagonal or vertical in the quilt line up.

Here is Block 7

Here is Block 8

Here is Block 9

I do have 6 fat quarters of the Hope Valley fabrics left and they are an odd color combination that I wouldn’t know how else to use them so I will be making 3 more Swoon blocks for the backing of the quilt. I do have another full set of Fat Eighths in  same color prints that I can use in a different quilt design.

I plan to work these blocks in while chain piecing my Uptown “memory” quilt blocks together. I ended up cutting too many of my plaids for making the blocks so by trimming off a 1/2 inch I can make up HSTs for a pillow design I have been working on.

Here are the Swoon blocks laid out on our bed. Early morning sunlight casts a shadow across the blocks so some are hard to see.

I decided to put my blocks into a Pixlr collage in the same layout I did on the bed so you could see the colors all together.

There are three color combinations and three different print combinations. The block No 6 which is in the 9th position could be moved to 5th position?? I kind of like all the striped centers in a row though?? Decisions, decisions.

I am thinking I want  to try Quilt As You Go with these blocks. I purchased a cotton batt that I can cut down into 9  30 inch squares. I need to figure out how to handle the sashings first. Maybe piece this into 3 rows and quilt the rows???

Have any of you done QAYG? Any Suggestions???

Hope everyone has a good weekend. We do not have plans to watch the Super Bowl game tomorrow. We don’t really follow football. I do hope to get a bit of sewing in this weekend. My sewing time comes in spurts the past two weeks while working on training  our puppy Gracie. She really keeps me on my toes. She now is coming upstairs at night and sleeping in the closet with Lyric. Gracie can climb the stairs but going down is too scary so let’s us know by barking and whimpering.

I will be linking up this post with Crazy Quilt Mom’s FIF and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? linky parties. Links at top of page.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

(Updated as of 6:45 PM 1/21/17)

Hi, I decided to start off 2017 big by participating in the 2017 Swoon Quilt Along that is currently running on Instagram. There are actually two Swoon quilt alongs, one by Camille Roskelly of Thimbleblossoms and Melinda who is known as Mel_is_a_swapaholic on IG. You can follow them and see all the lovely photos by searching for #swoonalong and #swoonqal2017. I think Camille’s has been running since beginning of the year and Melinda’s is running from January 8 to April 9th.

I have decided to make my Swoon using the original pattern making 9 of the 24 inch blocks. I am using my Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley prints that have been in my stash since March 2010. I am using white as the background, this photo shows ecru.

Here is one combination of prints that I am using for my blocks. (this is what block 3 is made from.)

Another block combination. (this is what block 1 is made from.)

The last block combinations (this is what block 2 is made from.)

This is my first Swoon block created. I was not sure about the orange print. I really didn’t care for it much. I was contacted by Camille of Thimbleblossoms on IG and she said she wouldn’t change a thing with my block print combination choices, so that gives me a more faith in the final outcome of the quilt.

This is my second Swoon block. I really like it. 

This is my third Swoon block. I cut all my pieces with the green stripes going vertical as the fabric comes off bolt. As I was laying them out to piece the HST, I decided to turn them horizontal as it appeared then they would be up and down as I thought they should be. Well, that works on half of them and half of the flying geese sides. I was told it looked neat that way, even if it wasn’t intentional. I guess I will have to remember what I did so the other two color ways of these print combinations turns out the same way.

I have taken time off the end of this week to try and get back sewing on my memory quilt project. I have one in the process of cutting out the fabric. Another I have it planned out (another of the workshirt mosaic design but reversed where all plaids and one denim). I also have a rather different idea for a quilt for my son but the pattern is not released until late February. I need to be caught up with the others before then. My deadline is by March 19th.

I have chosen to use Uptown by Cluck Cluck Sew as another pattern for one of my memory quilts. I am making the twin size quilt and it takes 39 blocks. I am making 13 of them with denims as the outer rings and plaid shirts as the middle rings. The other 26 blocks includes 6 half blocks, and all of these will have a plaid outer ring and denim inner ring.

I am still in the process of cutting more plaid and denim rectangles.

Here is a layout of the two different style blocks.

This is Dogs in Sweaters, a new pattern from Elizabeth Hartman that is to be released for sale in February. I think  it would make an awesome quilt for my son and his fiancee. They have a little dog who loves wearing sweaters. I am thinking it would be possible to make each dog sweater from a short sleeve’s worth of material. Not sure as I haven’t seen the pattern but I am setting aside sleeves just for that purpose.

Speaking of Dogs, we have a new family member as of December 30th. Meet Gracie, our new Black Lab/Australian Cattle Dog puppy.

Don’t let Gracie fool you! She looks so cute and sweet at times….But oh boy, can the Heeler part flare up and she is a real pistol. She gives poor Lyric a run for her money. She can be quite mean to Lyric, biting and wrestling with her and on her. But then you will find them curled up together and sleeping. We were thinking getting the puppy was helping Lyric come out of her shell,  as she started playing with Gracie. Lyric still will not let my husband touch her other than taking food from his hand. We can tell that Lyric was likely a pretty good Mama when she had her batches of puppies. She is pretty tolerant to all the chewing and climbing on her. Last night, Lyric took over Gracie’s woodchip lined dog bed (which had been Abbey Rose’s) and also started chewing on her toys. The girls started playing tug of war.

This is what I come home to tonight after being gone for 5 hours shopping/errands.

Oh, no who ate Daddy’s slippers??? These were deer skin slippers lined with wool batting and Woolrich wool blankets. My husband wasn’t wearing them anymore as the rubber on bottom was cracked and had a hole started. I am thinking that Lyric had to be the big party to this mass of destruction. No way that Gracie could have done all that damage. This worrys me as my daughter owns numerous pairs of expensive cowboy boots. Lyric has never shown an interest in chewing on anything. The Heeler puppy has ruined her in a matter of days. LOL

I will leave you with this. Ihope to get sewing up some of the Uptown blocks tomorrow and layout more of the Swoon blocks so I can make up some of the HSTs ahead of time.

Thanks for reading my blog posts.

Have a great weekend.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

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