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
Been Dreaming of Quilting
Hi, It seems like forever since the last time I wrote a blog post. I think it has actually been 24 days. I have been dreaming of sewing and quilting. But… We have been busy working around our house and farm fixing things up. We are going to refinance our mortgage and the new company required us to fix some things first.
We had to take down a 115 year old barn that was in disrepair. There really was no way to save much of it. We did pull out some old beams and lumber that was stored inside but that was about it. We had two other small sheds and an old building that was once a chicken coop that needed to be taken down as well.
Our Barn: End of an Era
Caved In, Pushed Down and Up in Smoke
All that Remains
There were several nuisance trees that grew along that barn and some actually up through the back of the barn. Some branches of the trees that did not fully burn are all that remains other than some old straw that was in the haymound. It burned and smoldered for days. It is really strange to be able to look out back and see the back barn. You never could see it with the view of obstructed by the larger old barn.
My daughter and I did lots of painting inside. We did our kitchen and bathroom. We got a new shower set up and tub/shower surround. We got vinyl flooring installed in the kitchen which I love for the ease of cleaning.
Love My New Shower: Get My Best Ideas there
Love My New Floor
We have spent many days and numerous hours working on the house. To get the kitchen flooring installed, this meant my entire kitchen spilled over in to the living room and sewing room/office for most of a week as we decided to paint while everything was out of there.
It has certainly been interesting and challenging to work on the house with a young puppy under foot. We had to tie Katie outside while we painted in kitchen and she decided to show her displeasure when we were outside with our backs turned to her so we could wash out painting brushes and rollers with the hose out in the driveway. This is what we found when we were finished.
Dirty Katie
Hey Mom! I am helping landscape the yard.
Apparently it is not as fun to get sprayed with the hose to get washed down as it is to dig in the mud created by a leaky hose connection.
If Katie was not making a mess than she was destroying one of her toys or actually our 10 year Black Lab’s prized toys.
Sock Monkey Destroyed
Katie gave Mr. Sock Monkey a Squeakerectomy while my husband was in the shower getting ready for work. He opened the door to see cotton fluff allover the floor and her standing there with fluff hanging from her mouth. Busted!!
I am slowly getting back to doing some sewing this week. I am participating in the Midnight Mystery Quilt Along and our August instructions was to create Flying Geese blocks.
My 36 Flying Geese for Midnight Mystery Quiltalong
My geese are made from silver gray and Catsup red solids. I have picked a Patriotic theme for my quilt.
My Midnight Mystery Quiltalong Fabrics
I have finished cutting squares from my black and white print fabrics to use in the Plus quilt tutorial over at The Colorful Fabriholic. I am going to use the red squares I miscut from the Midnight Mystery Quiltalong and the other prints come from my Charming and Broken Frames quilts. I need to get a design wall up this week as I just can not really layout the squares for this quilt top on my cutting table desk and get a good look at how it should be.
Black,White, Red and Gray prints for Plus quilt
Playing with Squares, Need to Decide how many red pluses to make
I have dug down into my stash of fabric and pulled out some prints that are from the late 90’s or early 2000. They may not really be in style anymore but I thought they just might work to try out the tutorial for Single Wedding Ring over at the Fat Quarter Shop. It is part of their classic and vintage series of patterns.
Somewhat Vintage Fabrics for a Vintage Quilt Pattern with a Modern Take
I hope to get sewing on the Single Wedding Ring blocks this week. My first priority is to design a block for the Fabri-Quilt New Block Quilt Hop. We were given a set of solid fat eighths and we are to design a 12.5 inch quilt block with them without adding any additional fabrics. This is something new for me and at this moment I do not have any ideas on what to create. Mine has to be done and uploaded on September 1st so I better get cracking. I will be digging out my colored pencils and graph paper. Going old school since I do not own EQ7 quilt design software like many of my fellow New Bloggers group that are participating in this challenge with me.
Also for new future sewing, I am signed up to sew in the Dog Gone Cute Quilt Along over at Sew Fresh Quilts. I have my pattern purchased and hope to pull some fabrics this week. This quilt along starts up on September 1st as well.
Hope everyone has a great weekend. Our kids are coming home for the weekend and it is family reunion weekend as well. This is always a good time with lots of good food to eat.
Thanks for stopping by.
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
New Bloggers Blog Hop 2015
Hi, Welcome to my stop on the 2015 New Blogger’s Blog Hop . We are a group of 70 quilt bloggers who have been blogging for less than 2 years and are being mentored by 4 quilt bloggers,Terri Ann of Childlike Fascination, Stephanie at Late Night Quilter , Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs and Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl. who graduated from last years’s group. We have spent the last month getting to know each other building friendships and working to improve our blogs to build a hopefully larger following in the future.
My name is Shelley and I have been quilting for over 20 years. I will have been blogging for a year at the end of July and will possibly written my 100th blog post by then as well. My Dad is a Carpenter, so thus the name The Carpenter’s Daughter.
(It is the middle of July and the most recent photo of me is from December. I do not need the scarf today with a heat index over 100.)
I started making baby quilts for my nieces and nephews and through the twenty some odd years of quilting, those same kids have received graduation quilts and now are starting to receive baby quilts for the next generation. Many of my quilts that I have blogged about were made in the last three years. Quilting provided me a release while I worked on some family issues. I guess I must not have slept much as I ended up with quite the stack of quilts. Quite a few were never photographed.
I would like to share a couple of my favorites.
This is my Batik Shadowbox quilt. I used over 20 different batiks. I had seen a photo of a similar quilt in a magazine but could not locate the pattern name at time, so I drew up my own version on graph paper. I discovered the name later and found out that I was pretty close to original. Mine is made with 6 inch blocks and one pattern used charm squares. I wish I had better photos of it. This is of course taken after one of those all nighter quilt finishes. Too tired to smile at 3 AM. Someday I hope to make another one for myself.
This is my Broken Frames quilt made from a Meadow Mist Designs quilt pattern. I made it from 39 different black and white prints. This was made for a favorite Aunt. I have a coordinating king size quilt top made from these same prints and turquoise solid that is made from the Charming quilt pattern which also was a Meadow Mist Designs pattern. I made that top over a year ago and it still needs to be quilted.
This is my Batik High Tea quilt which I pattern tested for a New Zealander quilt blogger, On the Windy Side. Pieces of the Shadowbox quilt fabrics show up in this same quilt. This quilt was gifted to our daughter inlaw’s grandmother. She always liked the Shadowbox quilt so was happy to receive this one.
Random Trivia about Me:
My name is Michelle. In my baby book, was the lyrics to the Beatles song Michelle which was published the month and year I was born. I have had numerous guys over the years sing me the song, even a French professor. My husband never sang this to me. There was also a photo of the lady who played Uhara on the original Star Trek as her first and last name was listed same as mine. It was years later that we actually found out her name was really Nichelle.
I like to read to unwind. I do not get the time to do it much lately. My husband has kidnapped my Kindle. He swore he would not like to use the thing. I have read all of the Stephanie Plum series of books. I like Patricia Cornwell. I did read all three Shades of Grey books and that is a week I will never get back. I do not think I will be bothering to see the movies.
I enjoy cooking and baking. I just hate having to do all the dishes afterwards. I love to make bread from scratch and can make a mean bagel. My latest favorite is pretzel pizza dough. I make my own pasta dough and own two different pasta rolling machines. My other specialities are my Hot German Potato Salad and my baked cheese cake.
( Link to the Pretzel Crust Recipe I use that is successful as followed. Link to Homemade Pasta Dough recipe. Most times I am using 5 Tablespoons of water depends on your climate and your flour.)
My favorite color is blue. My daughter gives me alot of grief on all my blue shirts.
To start some fun conversation, What quilt pattern or other craft projects are on your bucket list?? I still love the Swoon quilts and want to make one someday. I would like to learn how to manage curve piecing and Y seams. A wedding ring quilt would be an awesome project.
I hope that you all learned a little something new about me. I am learning alot spending time with this group of bloggers. They all have some wonderful quilts to share. I hope that you will take the time to check out my fellow group members who are introducing themselves this week on the New Blogger’s Blog Hop.
Our hoppers this week: Week 3 – Monday July 13th
Abby @ https://hashtagquilt.wordpress.com/
Shelley @ https://thecarpentersdaughterwhoquilts.com/
Mary @ http://quiltingisinmyblood.com
Megan @ www.sewstitchingcutequilts.com
You can also catch up on the past two weeks of blog hoppers here:
Week 1 – Monday June 15th
Ashley @ www.craftyashleyb.com
Gayle @ pedalsewlightly.blogspot.com
Sarah @ http://123quilt.blogspot.com/
Hayley @ Www.moobird.blogspot.com.au
Week 2 – Monday June 22nd
Cristy @ www.iloveyousew.com
Patty @ www.walnutstreetquilts.com
Sarah @ www.goer.org/sarah
Eileen @ eileeninstitches.blogspot.com/
Many thanks to our group’s mentor Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs.
Thank you for stopping by. Hope you all have a wonderful week!
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
Saturday Sewing Projects
Hi, I thought I would share what I have on my cutting board today. I am participating in the Midnight Mystery Quilt along by Meadow Mist Designs. It started in June with our pulling of our fabric choices. I pulled fabrics with a patriotic feel to them. This week we received our fabric cutting instructions for the July installment to the quilt along.
Midnight Mystery Quilt Along Fabric Pull
I have had the midnight blue star print in my stash for years and the white is a white on white print that I used in my Eagle’s Crossing quilt and Old School Team Jersey Plus quilt. Even after cutting the fabric for this quilt, I still have about 2 yards left. I must have purchased 6-7 yards originally over 10 years ago. The red was a mini bolt from JoAnn’s online which consisted of 3 yards.
Cut Fabrics for Midnight Mystery Quilt Along
Here is all my cut pieces for the quilt along project. The red is actually different from the original fabric pull as I did something pretty stupid and cut my fabric wrong. My mini bolt was more than enough fabric for what was required. I unfortunately cut all my 3.5 inch strips into 3.5 inch squares instead of the long rectangles that were needed. I had read over the instructions a couple times and even had my morning coffee. Ugh. There was not enough in the same color to recut the rectangles so I went back to my stash and found a new shade of red and recut all the needed pieces. So I now have 150 – 3.5 inch red squares precut to add to my stash.
I am now working on designing a new quilt this weekend. A good friend Deb will be moving out of state next month and moving all the way across the US. She asked once what a person had to do to receive one of my quilts. I guess it’s time to get her a quilt made. Her birthday is the 7th and she is supposed to be visiting us on the 12th. I would prefer to hand off the quilt to her instead of mailing it across the US next month.
I won a set of black, white and red jellyroll strips back in December. I was at one time looking at making Strip Ribbons by GE Designs with these fabrics. For some reason, I am just not feeling it with that pattern at this time. I have been scouring Pinterest boards and am looking at either a Bento Box quilt or a Granny Square quilt. I have white solid and a medium gray solid that I can add to the mix. I do not have major yardage of the gray or white left so I am looking to add some of both to the design.
Black Jellyroll prints
I really like the tone on tone black prints. Deb wears alot of black and has a beautiful Koi fish tattoo. So it is neat to find that print in this collection. The white gingko leaves is quite pretty as well.
Black and White Jellyroll prints
I really like the white on white mosaic tile print. It has an iridescent shine to it.
Red and Black Jellyroll Prints
All of the red prints are pretty. I am just not sure about the bright colored fan print. It would be the 19th print in the collection. There is also a black and red solids, but I plan on leaving them out. I had purchased a 4 different black,red and white print fat quarters to add to the mix when I thought I was going to make the Strip Ribbons. I will not be adding them to this mix for the top. I can either add them to the back or save for a different project.
I now need to decide how to add white and gray to these prints to make the Bento Box design. I need to recheck how much a jelly roll strip is used in making one block. Hopefully I can make one of each print with the white and gray to add interest.
I hope that all my US readers have a fun and safe Independence Day. Happy Saturday to everyone else.
Thanks for reading my blog.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Sea Stars Pattern Giveaway Winner
Hi, I am announcing the winner from the Sea Stars Pattern Giveaway. Due to some unexpected computer problems, I will be actually picking two winners. Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs and I decided it was the most fair thing to do.
Positively Puppy Stars
I have been learning how to upload larger sized photos this week and am revamping most of my old blog posts with resized photos.
Back of Positively Puppy Stars made with Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch pattern
I had a random drawing from my two blog posts and the following two people are winners of a pdf pattern of Sea Stars by Meadow Mist Designs.
Anja @ Anja Quilts
I do have plans for Christmas sewing…but first need to make a list of recipients and what to make. LOL This is a great pattern, and your quilt is awesome. Love the pieced back.
and
Sarah @ 123Quilt
I love the solids you used in your version of this quilt! I haven’t even begun to think about Christmas this year. It was a bit of a shock when I read what you wrote about passing the half-year mark. Now I have to actually start planning stuff. I think I’d like to make a quilt for my sister. Thanks for the chance to win this pattern!
Congratulations to Anja and Sarah! I will be emailing you both this morning and sending your patterns.
Thank you again to everyone that commented and entered. It is always interesting to know what other quilters have for plans for Christmas projects. I am sorry if anyone had trouble commenting due to a pop up. I did not know that was there and causing a problem. It has since been fixed and everything should be in working order.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Positively Puppy Stars Finish & Pattern Giveaway
Hi, I am sharing the quilted finish of my Positively Puppy Stars quilt which is a pattern test for Sea Stars by Meadow Mist Designs.
Positively Puppy Stars
I really like how it turned out. I had originally wanted to quilt it with a serpentine stitch, but my walking foot did not care for all the seam intersections while attempting to sew that stitch. It wanted to make a huge knot. I ended up quilting 1/4 inch from all the seams on the pluses and stars. I finished off the quilt with a yellow and white striped binding.
Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch center square
I love how the Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch tutorial ( by Kristy Daum) turned out. It adds a really fun element to the back of the quilt. I definitely will be using the tutorial again to make a full quilt.
Positively Puppy Stars
We have had very unstable weather this week. We started Monday out with a 10 hour power outage due to wind and rain. It was just minutes after finishing taking these photos that we got a major down pour yet again.
Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch
I love this quilt even after all the fits that the 192 Half Square Triangles gave me. It will be hard to give it up to our little cousin. I hope that she comes to love it.
Sea Stars was released for sale on June 25th and is being offered at a sale price til July 11th at $6.00.
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