Modern Quilts
Lions Roar! Modernized Disappearing 9- Patch Flimsy
Hi, I am happy to share the completed flimsy of my Lions Roar! Modernized Disappearing Nine patch baby quilt. It is just shy of 60 inches square. This will be a gift for my best friend’s niece whose baby is due at the end of October.
Lions Roar! Modernized Disappearing Nine Patch
I am choosing the name Lions Roar! after one of the prints in the quilt. It has lion’s heads and says Lions Roar! all over the fabric. Or I could call it Lions, Tigers, Crocodiles Oh My!, there are no bears on the other printed fabric but there are crocodiles. I did cut some additional bright solid squares and white background squares in hopes of making a bit larger quilt. I made 39 nine patches and they cut down into 156 quarters. I only used 81 quarter blocks for this top as it used all of the main focus prints. This top is made using Kristy Daum’s tutorial for the modernized disappearing nine patch. Her initial layout in her tutorial used 36 squares and I just continued the pattern on with in each row across and started the pattern over again with row 7 to get my 9 rows of 9 blocks.
Lions Roar!
I caught my daughter’s sinus head cold this week, and just lost steam yesterday. The baby shower is today, but I hope to get the quilt completed yet today and will give to the family tomorrow. I am thinking that I will quilt diagonally across the blocks in white, and then add some accents of orange, green and brown in straight line stitching ??? (I have those 75 extra unneeded blocks that I can practice on as a sample first. ) Maybe a plain white all over grid quilting?? It all depends on things go while quilting on cold medicine.
Baby’s Name to Applique on Backing
I am going to applique the baby’s name on to the backing of the quilt. I have 4 sheets of Lite Steam – A- Seam 2 pressed to black solid fabric ready to have the letters traced and cut out from.
Quilt Backing Layout with binding
I am going to be piecing a striped background with a white center with the baby’s name appliqued in black. This row will be between two rows of green multi dot print fabric and then a row on each side of that of chocolate brown mottled blender print fabric. I will be making a striped bias binding. I had the green multi dot print in my stash, and also the left over striped bias binding fabric. I used the striped binding on another brown, green and orange baby quilt. It’s great to be able to shop for almost all of the fabric from my stash. I only purchased the 2 yards of brown mottled.
I hope that everyone has a great weekend. I will be linking my flimsy finish with Crazy Mom’s Quilts and Can I get a Whoop Whoop?
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Wednesday WIPs: 3 Quilts
Hi, Hope everyone is having a great week. I discovered I have a baby shower to attend this weekend so I am hurrying to make a quilt as a gift. I also have cut out fabrics for a blue version of my Blue Island Tribal with the hibiscus flower appliques that I worked up a quilt design last week using the PhotoScape software program. While I am trying to work on these two projects, I am hoping to be able to sew more blocks for my Flying Happy batik quilt.
Lions Roar Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch layout
I am working on another version of Kristy Daum’s Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch quilt tutorial. I am making a baby quilt from a set of 5 fat quarters that I have had in my stash for 5 years and three bright solids with a white background.
Fabric Squares cut for Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch
These are my cut fabrics that I am working with. I cut 12 – 5 inch squares from each of the 5 printed fat quarters, and 16 – 5 inch squares from the three bright solids. I had a 2 yard cut of each of the bright solids in my stash. I had various left over cut strips of the white solid and managed to cut 80 – 5 inch squares. Since you use 5 white or background colored squares in each of your nine patch configurations, this should produce 16 nine patches. I have 10 nine patches made and cut into fourths so far.
Nine Patches
This shows 8 of the 10 nine patches that I have made so far. I am not sure how large my quilt is going to be yet. I am flying by the seat of my pants. I have made the tutorial before but with 4 inch squares and used it on the back of my Puppy Stars quilt. I have been thinking of possibly making a larger than standard baby size quilt that Mom or Dad can snuggle with the baby in and if there are extra squares also make a small car seat size baby quilt. I do want to incorporate the baby’s name “Thomas Owen” into the back of the quilt and could applique a large letter “T” in a circle on the smaller quilt. This all depends on how many blocks I get made. When they are cut into their fourths, mine are measuring approximately 7 inches square. Using those numbers, 16 nine patches would create 64 quarter blocks and that would make an approximate 52 inch square quilt. I would like larger than that, but if that is all that I can create with my fabrics that is fine. I am just going to make nine patches til I run out of my main fabrics. I can always cut more white squares. Whatever I do needs to be finished by Saturday afternoon.
Blue Island Tribal Hibiscus applique blocks
I have cut out fabric to make a quilt with 20 blocks from my Blue Island Tribal quilt block design. I only have a portion of the half square triangles created. I have a stack of each hsts that need to be squared up. I still really dislike that process but it is necessary to have good fitting squares to piece with. I am using a bright blue solid instead of the bright blue mottled blender fabric I used in my demo block. I was not able to find more of that same fabric. I should have enough of the pink, yellow and green to make my 20 hibiscus flower appliques.
This is the version of the Blue Island Tribal quilt that I have the fabrics cut out for.
Flying Happy
I am hoping to find a way to work in making more of the Flying Happy quilt blocks. I have been using scrap material for leaders and enders when piecing my blocks this week. I just need to figure out how I want to layout my blocks and just sort the squares out so I can feed a few in at a time between piecing other blocks. I found the nice plastic basket at the Dollar Tree. It works nicely for laying out quilt projects in. I need to go back and buy more baskets. I only have two at the moment. The other basket has pieces for the Single Wedding Ring Block quilt, black and turquoise plus blocks for backing of 39 Shades of Charming quilt all in stacks in the one basket, separated by instruction sheets. I certainly would not want to dump over either basket.
Well, it looks like I have a lot of sewing to do this week. I hope to be back on Friday with a Friday Finish of the disappearing nine patch baby quilt.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am linking up with WIP Wednesday and Let’s Bee Social.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
More PhotoScape Quilt Ideas using my Blue Island Tribal blocks
Hi, I am still playing with PhotoScape today. My friend Jan O over at The Colorful Fabriholic suggested making a plain white block photo to make alternate block designs. This is a great idea and I really like how the designs work up. I also laid out my floral appliqued block with the full blue version block folded in half and snapped a new photo to show what a new quilt block with look like with the appliqued hibiscus center. It was kind of tricky to get the photo cropped correctly for this program’s useage so the design is not as clean as others but you do get the idea of what it can look like.
I have 20 blocks made up for this version. These blocks would be approximately 12 by 18 inches when finished so that would make an approximate 72 by 60 inch quilt???
Blue Island Tribal PhotoScape concept with alternate blocks
Here is my original Blue Island Tribal block set with alternate plain white blocks in a 25 block set. This should make a 60 inch square quilt. I really like this one.
Blue Version of Blue Island Tribal with alternate blocks
And here is the all blue version of my Blue Island Tribal block with alternating white squares in the same 25 block set. This would make approximately a 60 inch square quilt.
Be sure to check out PhotoScape as it is a free program. It seems to be pretty straight forward. It pulls up the photos on your computer and you can edit them and resize them all from same program. The Combine function button is how I am making my quilt layouts as described in Joy’s tutorial.
Be sure to check out my previous post on pattern options if you missed it.
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Playing with PhotoScape
Hi, Today I would like to share some news about a neat little program I came across today. It is called PhotoScape and it is a free photo editing software program that you can download. I saw a tutorial about it linked on Saturday’s Show Off Saturday over at Sew Can She. Joy who blogs over at Joy’s Jots,Shots & Whatnots did a tutorial on how to use PhotoScape to test a Quilt block design. Since I do not have Photoshop or an ElectricQuilt software program, I thought this was an interesting concept. I decided to download the program and in just a couple minutes after following Joy’s tutorial I had photos made of what entire quilts would like using the quilt block I designed for the Fabri-Quilt New Block Blog Hop. I wish I would have known about this a couple weeks ago.
My Blue Island Tribal Block
I discovered when playing with the program that it is best if you use a straight overhead view of your photo as if it is angled in anyway it can be hard to crop the photo properly. The tutorial has you crop your design at what should be the 1/4 inch seam so that the pieces mesh together like they should in an actual quilt.
Blue Island Tribal Quilt (30 blocks) approx. 60 by 72 inches
I am really excited to see all the blocks together. It would make a really neat quilt. This is 30- 12 inch blocks that would make an approximate 60 by 72 inch quilt. I have to reassess what I have left of my solid colors to see if I can make this in the near future, or I will certainly be purchasing more solids in the future to make a similar quilt.
My test block for Blue version of Blue Island Tribal
This is my test block of Blue Island Tribal using fabrics from my stash.
Blue-Blue Island Tribal quilt concept
This is what 30 of the blue blocks look like in a quilt. This too makes a striking a quilt. I more than likely have material for this style of quilt in my stash.
Appliqued Hibiscus Flower version of Blue Island Tribal
Here is the last block that I made as a possible verison of my Blue Island Tribal design.
Appliqued Hibiscus-Blue Island Tribal
This is what 30 of the appliqued hibiscus flower blocks looks like in a quilt top. I tried to flip my block photo with the program and you can change the direction of it, but it does not end up looking right. I tried mirroring the block but the seams did not match up in the photos. You may be able to work around that but I do not know yet. This is just my first attempt with the software. I am wondering how this design would look with every other row with the tribal triangles block flipped the opposite direction and ending up with a row of tribal triangles blocks on the right outside row as well???
I have been working on calculating how much fabric is needed to make a decent size quilt throw from my block designs. I am looking to be able to share a pattern in the near future.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I appreciate all comments. I will be linking up this post with various weekly linky parties that you can find links for on my Linky Party page at the top of this blog.
Update: Also check out my next post for more pattern options.
Hope you are having a great week.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Flying Happy Quilt in Batiks WIP
Hi, I would like to share what I am working on in my sewing room this week. I am cutting out fabric for a new quilt. The quilt is called Flying Happy and it is a design that is part of Positive Trio by Melissa Eubanks of My Fabric Relish. I loved all three of the quilt designs in the Positive Trio quilt pattern so much that I purchased the pattern the first day that Melissa released it back in May. Flying Happy is my favorite so I decided to play with that one first.
Flying Happy (first block)
This is my first block that I have pieced. There are four sizes of quilts that you can make (mini, baby, throw and large throw) and I am making the large throw. This is a fat quarter friendly pattern.
My Fabric Pull, all fat quarters
I collected over a dozen new batik fat quarters and added extras I had left from my Catawampus quilt top.
Flying Happy
This is a chart from the pattern showing what the quilt will look like. I needed 18 fat quarters. Two or more of them were under the needed 18 inch width so I am adding a few extra squares from my stash to get the needed pieces. Melissa’s instructions have ample room and what would be scraps I am able to cut carefully and get a few extra pieces.
All my cut squares and rectangles
Here all my lovely batiks cut into the necessary pieces. I am choosing to use cream solid as my background. It would look lovely in gray or black, but cream is what I had. It took a bit to cut the well over 500 squares needed for the flying geese background. I have everything cut and placed in a basket hoping to not lose a precious single square to Miss Katie, who loves to eat fabric.
This week I finished up the September instructions for the Midnight Mystery quilt along by Meadow Mist Designs. We were to create square in a square blocks. They were fun to make and they went together well with almost nothing to trim off to square up the blocks.
Midnight Mystery quilt along September blocks
I really like my blue star fabric with the gray. Adding in the red solid background should make an interesting quilt.
Today is my Father inlaw Lee’s birthday. He is 78 and we think he is one of the best. This is one of 3 (I think) Speeder cars that he and Uncle Max own. This one is a two seater with open doors, and I know they have a four seater with closed doors. They like to ride the rails on what are usually abandoned railways or there are special events that railroads let the speeder car groups use their running rail lines when no trains are in the area. My husband has gone a few rides but I have not managed to get to ride yet.
I hope that everyone has a great weekend. We are excited that we get to spend time with some good friends out of town. They moved across the state last year at this time, and we only managed to see them once back in February, so it will be great to see them. They are the couple who are the big Minnesota Vikings fans who received the Boxed In and Out quilt in Vikings colors. It will be cool to see the quilt again being used in it’s natural habitat. Haha
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. I do greatly appreciate all comments.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
My Sometime Soon Saturday WIP Projects
Hi, There is Throwback Thursday, Flash Back Friday or Finish It Up Friday and today I am starting Sometime Soon Saturday for my WIP projects. I hope to have these finished sometime real soon.
I have worked a little bit on my Single Wedding Ring blocks made from Fat Quarter Shop’s tutorial . I enlarged my squares that were cut to make the half square triangles from their 3 3/8 inches to 3 1/2 inches. It is just easier to cut 3 1/2 squares. I drew my line diagonally with a pencil and stitched on either side with what should be a scant 1/4 inch and did not have much trimming to do to square up my HSTs.
Vintage Soft Blue Single Wedding Ring block
Vintage Soft Peachy Pink Single Wedding Ring block
Single Wedding Ring blocks
I have gone back and forth on whether I liked the colors or if I want to continue. As I put more of the blocks together, I am liking the soft colors and vintage feel of the design.
Now for the sometime soon finishes that are works in progresses, I have pulled out my 39 Shades of Charming king size quilt top that is made from Meadow Mist Design’s Charming quilt pattern and previously blogged here. I am working on piecing a back for it. I need at least 108 inches square.
39 Shades of Charming Side View 105 inches square shown on a King size bed
Front view of 39 Shades of Charming
The previous blogged photos of this quilt were shown on our then full size poster bed. 105 inches square does fit the king size bed better. I kind of wish it was a bit shorter. I guess I could tuck it under the pillows like a bedspread in the future? I am sure it will shrink up some after quilting and washing and drying so it may eliminate the length problem all together.
Backing and Binding Fabrics
The teal/turquoise solid shows up lighter here than it actually is. It is a tad darker shade than the main quilt. The other teal mottled print will be the binding. I have over 4 yards of the black French text print and 3 yards of the teal solid. I need to design at least a 108 inch square backing.
Charming Pluses
Charming Backing Ideas
My plus blocks finish out at 11 3/4 inches. I am looking at having 8-9 plus blocks in a row depending on what I add for sashing. I do not have much black solid left. I am thinking 5 teal background blocks and 4 black background blocks in a row. I am still working out how to use the over 4 yards of French text. The text will run in wrong direction if I run it in one length across the quilt. I can run it the length of quilt. Either way I have a swatch 44 inches by 108 inches. I just need to decide what to do with the plus blocks and how to set them in quilt design.
I hope everyone has a good weekend. It has been a rough week here. A friend of our family passed away in her sleep at only 48 years old. The family is still waiting to hear what her actual cause of death was. Most of the state of Iowa got hit by some very heavy rains yesterday. We received between 3-4 inches of rain and some areas had upwards of 9 inches of rain in one day. All that rain certainly added to the somber mood at the cemetery.
I am off to work on designing my quilt block tutorial for the Fabri-Quilt Block Hop that I am supposed to be participating in on September 1st. I lost two weeks to working on all our household projects and now this past week could not be helped as we spent quality time with our friends and their family. They gave me a lot of support when my Mom passed away. This is supposed to be a fun project but I am struggling and drawing a blank as what to create. I have found the graph paper and sharpened up my colored pencils that match my colored fabrics. Wish me luck! See you again in a couple days with my results.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Zen Gardens Bento Box Quilt Finished
Hi, I am excited to share that I have my Zen Gardens Bento Box quilt completely quilted and bound. I really like how it turned out. I won the set of jelly roll strips back in December from the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day in a package of fabric with a solids charm pack and three mini charm packs. I loved the bold graphics of the black and white prints and the red certainly adds lots of interest to the mix, but I was just not sure to do with them and they sat for months in my stash.
Zen Gardens Bento Box Quilt Completed, Quilted and Bound
I really love the red binding as it pulls it all together. I would like to thank my friend Cheryl @ Meadow Mist Designs for suggesting adding the gray solid. Gray has become one of my favorite go to colors and I need to restock as I am down to less than a yard.
Plus and Dash pieced back to Zen Gardens Bento Box
As much as I love the actual front to the Bento Box quilt, I almost love the back more. I love all plus and cross quilt block designs. This particular plus block is one of my favorites and I have numerous pins on my Pinterest boards of quilts made with this block. It started as fly by the seat of your pants kind of idea to possibly use miscut fabric from my mystery quiltalong project. I actually used the leftover fabric and cut the plus and dash blocks and the binding from that instead. I will be using my miscut squares in a new plus quilt project since they were the perfect size. I would like to thank my quilting friend Sandra @ Musings of a Menopausal Melon for helping me to decide on whether to add the dash to my plus blocks I had made up.
Front and Back together
I think the two sides would make a cool quilt together??
Zen Gardens Bento Box back on the bed after quilting
I quilted in a mock plaid or argyle pattern with double rows in the center of each block and where each block joined the next. I almost did not follow through with adding the diagonal center quilting as it looked good with out it. I am glad I did finish it as I planned as it makes a really cool design. I had to fill 21 bobbins to get all the stitching completed.
Full back of Zen Gardens Bento Box
I love the red, white and black paisley print I found at Walmart. I have a small portion left that will be cut into 3.5 inch squares to go into my black and white prints with red solid plus quilt project. I saved the extra black solid from cutting down the quilt backing after quilting and it will yield a few squares for the plus project as well.
Closeup of mock plaid quilting
Smokey, my cat helped hold down this quilt top this week every chance he could get. It did not mattern how many safety pins he was laying on.
Smokey does not mind the safety pins
Ugh, looks like a new project…need to reupholster my Mom’s sewing chair. I do have vinyl upholstery and foam cushions in my stash of supplies. I need to decide on whether to make my own vinyl piping to add back to the chair.
No Pins is more comfortable
I always try to wash my finished quilts before they are presented. This way I can determine how well they are going to hold up. There usually is alot of praying involved, especially when combining white and red together or other dark colors. I have had trouble with bright blue doing more bleeding of color than red like in my Dr. Seuss quilt. I live with two cats and two dogs so there can be lots of shedding of hair, and not everyone loves them as much as we do. Smokey did shed on to the black backing and I somehow picked up some dirt from my outdoor bench onto one of my white blocks. So into the wash it went.
A Quilter’s Life saving Trick
I decided to throw 3 color catchers in to the wash with the quilt. This is the end result. No red transfer to any of the white fabrics that I could see. I actually think this is color bleed from the black fabric. I got this result when I washed other very black based quilts.
Washed and Ready to Go.
Here is my quilt all washed and ready to go. It ended up finishing up at 82 inches square. It started out at 86 inches square. I really like how it turned out using a cotton bedsheet as the batting. I am now looking for a California King white sheet so maybe I can use that in my Charming quilt that is 105 inches square. After making the plus and dash block design for this quilt backing, I am thinking it would be awesome to use it over in the back for Charming. I have a lovely black and white French text print and turquoise solid that could have black pluses added to it fairly easy.
One Last Peek
Thank you for stopping by and checking out my quilts. I have heard that some of you have had trouble leaving comments. I am not sure why or what is happened to the comments. If you click on the blog post title and open it up, that is where the comments show. You did not have to use to do it that way. Comments are open. I do appreciate all comments and do my best to get personal responses back to all.
I will be linking up this quilt finish with the various mid week linky parties that you can find the live links to in my Linky Party tab at top of the blog.
I hope everyone is having a great week.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Weekend Sewing/Quilting Projects
Hi, I hope everyone had a great week. I have a couple things to share with you today that I am working on as projects this weekend.
I have my Zen Gardens Bento Box quilt basted and have it half quilted or the length of the quilt top. I have decided to do some straight line stitching in a plaid type pattern. I am sure there are numerous ways to quilt this kind of top. I needed something that would be fairly quick to accomplish as I am on a short undetermined schedule. Our friend who will receive the quilt is moving out of state at the end of the month and I was not given a definite time she would be able to visit to receive her quilt. I did not want to mail it to her. I also decided to go with a lighter alternative to batting since she is moving from Iowa to Arizona. I am using a cotton sheet as batting. It is stitching up nicely with a 100/16 needle. I generally sew and quilt with a 90/14 but since I am stitching through 3 layers of cotton I decided to go up a size. The walking foot is working nicely over all the seams this quilt has.
Quilting Design Mockup using Paint program
I am quilting top and bottom with gray thread and the pattern is showing nicely on the black backing fabric. I took extra care to attempt to make sure my red crosses I pieced ended up in straight rows across the back. So far it looks good.
I am looking at starting a new quilt project. My friend Jan over at The Colorful Fabriholic posted a tutorial on how to make a neat plus quilt. It uses 3.5 inch squares and that really caught my attention since I recently came into 150 red 3.5 inch squares when I accidentally cut my strips into squares instead of the long rectangles needed for the Midnight Mystery Quiltalong that Meadow Mist Designs is currently holding. I have had numerous squares and strips of black and white print fabrics leftover from making my Charming quilt top and my Broken Frames finished quilt.
Future Plus quilt project
My print strips are leftover from fat eighths and I will have just enough width to get my 3.5 inch squares. I have thirty prints and should be able to cut 6 squares from each strip. So that gives me 180 print squares and 150 red solid squares. Jan used 437 squares in her quilt. I have a stack of 157 5 inch squares that are in the same prints plus some extras that were also in my two previous quilts. I had originally wanted to keep them for another quilt, but my strips here will only make 30 print pluses. Hopefully there are multiples of some prints so I can make additional print pluses.
Black and White prints by Moda
White and Black prints by Moda
Gray and White prints by Moda
I am going to finally get my design wall made and put up so that I can utilize it to arrange all the squares to build the various plus blocks.
I have one non quilting sewing project that I want to get started on this weekend. I have been wanting a new purse to carry and I really prefer the cross body style of bags. I have seen numerous versions and have not been able to decide on just one pattern so I hope to combine the ideas of a couple I like to make a bag that will work for me.
Crossbody Purse project supplies
I have a remnant of a soft brushed canvas that has been in my stash many years. It is 30 by 60 inches. I have three colors of webbing as possible straps, and three shades of leather remnants. I bought a 3 pound package of leather remnants at Hobby Lobby. They are nice sized pieces and all seemed to be light enough weight that I will be able to sew on them with my domestic home machine with a leather needle of course.
Vintage print brushed denim/ painters canvas cloth
I am thinking of adding some of the painters canvas tarp cloth I found at Walmart as a coordinating fabric. I have two shades of denim blue thread that I could do some free motion quilting on for detail.
Gray, dark navy and creamy butter colored leather remnants from Hobby Lobby
I bought two of the 3 pound bags of leather remnants and got many pieces of black, gray, navy, cream and maroon leather. The bag sells for $8.95 and I used the 40% off coupon for a better deal. Many leather projects will be in the future for my daughter and myself.
Purse strap choices
My purse strap choices in tan twill and brown and bright blue nylon webbing.
I should be able to complete my Zen Gardens quilt tomorrow. I am going to be binding it in red. I am looking forward to seeing it finished. I will begin cutting fabrics for the plus quilt top and work out some purse ideas.
I hope everyone has a great weekend.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Zen Gardens Bento Box Flimsy Finish
Hi, I would like to share my Bento Box quilt top that I finished today as my WIP Wednesday project (updated for Friday). I have decided to call my quilt Zen Gardens Bento Box after a couple of the prints that were amongst the jelly roll strip set it was made from.
Zen Gardens Bento Box
I got 49 blocks made to make the quilt top 86 inches square. I certainly did not plan on a quilt top that large but it had a life of its own and this is what it has become. I really, really like it. I think my friend should really like it as well. This size of quilt will work on whatever she uses for a bed in her new house.
Bento Box Closeup
It took a bit to figure out how to lay out all the blocks to get the patterns to be spread throughout the quilt. I tried to not get too much intense red or black clustered in one area. I did discover after all pieced that on the one side I ended up with two opposite coordinating bentos right above each other. I did not want to take it apart so it will stay that way. They look enough different that it doesn’t stick out too much.
Zen Gardens Bento Box 86 inches Square shown on a King Size Bed
When I won this set of jelly roll strips, I had no idea what I would make from them. I questioned using the red with gold metallic fans on it, the bright red solid and the black solid strips that were in the set. I now think they help add an extra pop of interest. The gray solid does that as well.
Smokey Approves!
It is officially Summer in Iowa this week with temperatures over 90 and the heat index in the 100’s. It’s been hard on Smokey and Buddy. They are hot and want to lay on you as to say make me “un-hot”. Last night it was quite lovely outside after 10 PM and we thought Smokey almost was Coyote food. My daughter and I were out walking the new puppy one last time, and we heard the Coyote and pups start calling and yipping up a storm. This is a usual occurrence but then we heard an odd screech. We rush the dogs inside but Smokey is unaccounted for. My daughter gets the wild hair to hop in Dad’s truck to drive down the road and see if she can scare them off, hoping that Smokey is not a goner as the Coyote are sounding like they are just across the road in the field. My daughter pulls into the farm drive and here is ol’Smokey standing in the middle of the driveway with a wide deer in headlights look. The silly cat starts his yeowling and chortling. Nothing like giving the Coyote something to find you easier with. As a joke, we have taught our Black Lab to howl like a Coyote and the new Aussie puppy is having a good time yipping with other dog. It is not likely that the cat is confused by the two sounds. Smokey thinks he is a big hunter, which he actually is. His most recent kill find was a Least Weasel. I am not sure where he found it, but he brought it home to me. He has a definite call he makes when he has caught something. You can hear him coming across the farm yard and know he has some sort of mouse, vole or even rabbit. After his week, I will allow him to test out the new quilt.
I am trying to decide what color of thread to quilt this with? White, gray or red? I am running low on white thread so am leaning towards the gray.
Friday Update: I have the backing for this quilt made. I pieced a dozen cross blocks in the remaining red solid yardage I had from cutting my Midnight Mystery Quiltalong fabrics. I cut binding strips out of it as well. I used the wild red,white and black paisley yardage that I found at Walmart as my focus fabric for the back.
Pieced Back of Zen Gardens Bento Boxes
The back is straight, even if photo is not. I may have extra black solid on top and bottom that is not needed. It seems way bigger than my quilt top.
Cross block closeup
I really like how the backing turned out. What started as a fly by the seat of your pants idea seemed to work out quite well. Adding the dot or dash just came to me, and it was an easy add for sashing.
I will be linking up my flimsy finish with Freshly Pieced’s WIP Wednesday, Let’s Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday and Crazy Mom Quilt’s Finish It Friday.
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all comments and am doing my best to send personal emails to everyone.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Bento Box Progress
Hi, I have been hard at work this week putting together my Bento Box quilt top. I am creating my Bento Boxes from a jelly roll set of red and black prints that I won back in December during the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day contest. I added 4 more black and red combination print fat quarters and white and gray solid yardages.
Zen Gardens Bento Box
Here I just laid out some of the blocks that I have pieced so far. I intend to mix up the blocks more. I tried to divide my jelly roll strips up and combine half with gray and the other with white. I ended up with 52 gray and 46 white quadrants. I was shooting for making 49 complete bento box blocks. I was one short because I ended up with 3 gray blocks and no white ones to add to it. I quickly pieced together two white quadrants to make my missing one.
I am not sure what collections all these fabrics came from. I was not told whether it was something that the blogger I won it from purchased as is, or pieced the collection herself? A couple of the selvage edges had Zen Gardens on them. It seemed fitting for the collection. Zen Gardens would be a great name for a Bento Box quilt.
Bento Box block mockup 1
A set of pieced bento blocks laid out in a mockup placement.
Bento Box Block mockup 2
I was thinking of leaving out the red jelly roll strips with the fans on them, but I ended up needing that number of strips to make the amount of blocks I needed. I rather like the prints now with the touch of gray. One jelly roll strip gives you enough pieces to make the colored pieces for the two coordinating blocks. So two red fan strips made 4 bento boxes.
Serenity Now
There are numerous ways to lay out bento boxes when in their block quadrant stage. I thought about having all four pieces be different, but it was too wild and confusing. The more traditional style use one print/one solid and then opposites in one set. You can use two prints and one solid as well. I am going to piece mine as two prints and two solids. My version of a controlled chaos.
In my honest and true fashion with quilt projects the past couple months, I ended up sewing something wrong and had to rip 46 white strips off a set of quadrants that I placed and sewn on the wrong side. Thankfully it was an easy fix. I consider myself quite lucky, since I am only using a tutorial for making a bento box block to make the entire quilt from. When I first was calculating fabric needed, I figured I could get three sets of 1 – 2.5 inch sq, a 2.5 by 4.5 inch rectangle and 1 – 2.5 by 6.5 inch rectangle. That was not going to work to make blocks. More pencil scratching led to that I needed 4 – 2.5 inch squares, 4- of the 4.5 inch rectangles, and 2 – of the 6.5 inch rectangles. I could get those all out of one jelly roll strip. One colored jelly roll strip and one solid led to making 2 complete bento boxes or eight quadrants.
Sewing with my Viking 990
Here is my sewing set up. It can be a bit dark on a cloudy day. I would love to lighten up the paneling color.
Bento Blocks waiting to be sewn
I have 11 of 49 blocks pieced. I hope to finish the rest today and assemble my flimsy.
Backing Fabric Idea
I found this red,black and white paisley floral print at Walmart of all places yesterday. I thought it would be awesome pieced into the back of the quilt. I am thinking about piecing in a row of red plus blocks made from some of the red fabric I cut wrong from my Midnight Mystery Quilt along quilt. I have 34 4 inch squares that I can play with. I am keeping the major oops of the 150 3.5 inch squares for a future project. The 4 inch squares were not cut wrong, but since I did not have enough of that red to replace the wrong pieces. I just started over with a different shade of red. I have black solid yardage to fill out the rest of the backing of the quilt.
Monday is the start of week 3 of the New Blogger’s Blog Hop and I will be participating this week. My post will be up Sunday night.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I will be linking up with the various weekend linky parties that are listed on front page.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
