Hi, Thank you for stopping by my blog. I hope your 2019 New Year is off to a good start. I am catching up on some blogging of quilts finished in 2018.
First up, I am happy to share the finish of my patriotic version of the Midnight Mystery quilt that was a quilt along using the pattern by Meadow Mist Designs. I finished the top in January of 2016 and quilted and bound the quilt in July 2018. It was a gift for our Aunt and Uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary. Since they were married on July 7th and he is also a Viet Nam Veteran, I thought it would be fitting for them to receive this quilt.
Here are a few more photos:
I really enjoyed participating in the Midnight Mystery quiltalong. This quilt has been one of my favorites for a long while and it is well loved by the recipients. You should still be able to find the instructions for this quilt on the Meadow Mist Designs website. It is a beautiful quilt made in about any combination of fabrics.
WordPress has changed how I am used to writing and formatting my blog posts. I will most likely come back to this post and edit it for more content.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am having another pattern giveaway for my blog readers and followers.
It is half way through the year until Christmas or 182 days til Christmas. To enter the pattern giveaway, tell me if you have any plans to sew/quilt or craft gifts for Christmas this year? I never start early enough it seems.
If you are a follower of my blog in some fashion, you can state the manner for another entry.
I will hold the drawing for the Sea Stars pattern on July 2nd.
Be sure to head back over to Meadow Mist Designs to see all the lovely versions of Sea Stars. It’s amazing what you can do with the pattern with different fabric choices. There will be other chances to win a copy of the pattern from the other pattern testers listed there.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I appreciate all comments and am doing my best to reply to them all. The increase in numbers during contest times can sometimes make that difficult.
Hi, I am happy to announce today’s winner of the Grande Scrappy Tiles pattern giveaway.
For an entry into the contest, I asked what was your favorite pet? Dog, Cat or something other? I would say it was 50/50 dogs and cats. So many nice stories about your favorite pets. Thanks for sharing.
We had 50 entries and Random Number Generator picked entry number 44.
Hi, Today is the day! Sea Stars by Meadow Mist Designs is being released to the public today. I pattern tested the lap sized quilt and I am calling my version Positively Puppy Stars.
Positively Puppy Stars (Sea Stars pattern test)
I love, love all plus and cross quilt block patterns and to add a star into the mix will make an interesting quilt design. Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs always has wonderful instructions and charts/diagrams to show how to assemble the quilt blocks. Sea Stars uses alot of half square triangles to make up the star components of the design. I had a couple unfortunate issues with what ruler I used to trim up my half square triangles and whether you should press before or after you trim up. I ended up losing a 1/4 inch on all my blocks and ended up with a 56 inch versus 60 inch top. Quilting is always a learning experience no matter how long you have been doing it. I still ended up with a lovely quilt.
Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch
I decided to use up all the scraps for the backing of the quilt and pieced together a small version of Kristy Daum’s tutorial blocks Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch. I added white to the sides and a large band of gray solid to the top and bottom.
You can read about the making of my quilt top 1, 2, 3 and 4.
I am still in the process of quilting my top. I hope to have it completed yet today and will be updating this post with completed photos. It’s been a rough week in our neck of the woods, with bad storms on Monday that resulted with trees and power lines snapped and our family experiencing a very long 10 hour power outage. It is pouring rain again today but so far no thunderstorms.
Sea Stars is being released for sale today and is being offered at a sale price til July 11th at $6.00.
I am having another pattern giveaway for my blog readers and followers.
Yesterday was June 25th and it is supposedly called Leon Day (Noel spelled backwards). It is half way through the year until Christmas or 182 days til Christmas. To enter the pattern giveaway, tell me if you have any plans to sew/quilt or craft gifts for Christmas this year? I never start early enough it seems.
If you are a follower of my blog in some fashion, you can state the manner for another entry.
I will hold the drawing for the Sea Stars pattern on July 2nd.
Be sure to head back over to Meadow Mist Designs to see all the lovely versions of Sea Stars. It’s amazing what you can do with the pattern with different fabric choices. There will be other chances to win a copy of the pattern from the other pattern testers listed there.
There is still a chance to enter last week’s contest for the Grande Scrappy Tiles pattern as I will be drawing the winner on Saturday morning.
I am using the leftover scraps of the puppy print fabrics and solids from the front of the quilt. I am playing with the Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch quilt tutorial by Kristy Daum at St. Louis Folk Victorian. I sized mine down from 5 inch squares to 3.5 inches to use up what I had available. I have been wanting to try out this design for quite a while. I think I have multiple pins for this quilt pattern on my Quilting Inspiration Pinterest Board.
I have made a disappearing 9 patch before but this version totally changes how you make your 9 patches. It seemed weird at first sewing some of them together. It was easier to visualize once the 9 patches were cut into fourths.
These were some of the blocks I started out with.
Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch
This is all the blocks sewn together. It ended up being 26 inches square and I need approximately 66 inches square for my backing so I am looking at to fill in the back with bands of white and gray solid.
KATIE
Here is a quick pic of our new Australian Shepherd puppy, Katie. She is keeping me quite busy.
FYI: There is still time to enter for a chance to win a copy of Grande Scrappy Tiles, the newest pattern by Meadow Mist Designs. I will be drawing for the winner Saturday June 27th morning.
I will be a stop on the pattern launch blog hop for Sea Stars on Friday.
Hi, I am sharing today my version of the Grande Scrappy Tiles pattern that I tested for Meadow Mist Designs. I am calling my version, The Cowboy Way. I made the twin size version. It is made in a cowboy south western theme for my daughter. Grande Scrappy Tiles is being released for sale today.
I had a lot of fun putting this quilt pattern together. It goes together so smoothly. No major seams to match up. A single block is 24 inches so you can have a large quilt in no time at all.
There is so much potential in one pattern. It allows you to showcase some of your larger favorite prints. I am thinking of making another version of this quilt in all different plaids from my stash (from when I made/sold primitive cloth dolls).
You can read more about my quilt The Cowboy Way here, here and here.
Grande Scrappy Tiles will be on sale for 2 weeks at $6 (until July 4th) and is available on etsy, craftsy, and payhip.
Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs has graciously allowed me to have a giveway of one pdf pattern of Grande Scrappy Tiles to one of my followers.
To enter the pattern giveaway, tell me what is your favorite pet? Cat, Dog or another? Our family just got a new Australian Shepherd puppy this past weekend.
If you are a follower of my blog in some fashion, you can have an additional entry.
If you think you maybe a No-Reply Blogger, please leave an email where you can be reached.
This contest will be open for a week and the pattern winner will be drawn on June 27th.
Be sure to check out Cheryl’s blog for all the other lovely versions of Grande Scrappy Tiles.
Hi Everyone, I hope you are having a Happy Friday! I am finally finished with the quilt top I am calling Positively Puppy Stars, which is a pattern testing for Sea Stars by Meadow Mist Designs. Sea Star’s pattern is set to be released for purchase on June 19th and there will be a parade of the all the quilt testers’ versions of the quilt on the Meadow Mist Designs website. So be sure to check out my quilt and all the other lovelies on Cheryl’s web page on June 26th.
Positively Puppy Stars Quilt Flimsy
I have blogged over the past few weeks on the troubles that I had with my Half Square Triangle making process. I tried the technique where you trimmed them to final size while still folded in half and then pressed open. I thought I was cutting the proper size with the ruler I was using. It ended up not the case and I had to trim all my pieces down a 1/4 of an inch or completely remake another set of 192 HSTs. I ended up with a quilt top that is 56 inches square versus the planned 60 inches square. It is quite painful to lose all that work, but in the end I still have what I think is a beautiful quilt top. The recipient is going to be 3 years old so she will not care one way or another.
Positively Puppy Stars
This is a closer photo. I still have to learn some things on the new camera (Samsung WB380F). Hopefully when I am finished, we will have a sunny day to take photos. I am fairly happy with how my points matched up. It was harder than I thought it was going to be to spread out 8 different colors in combinations of 3 around the quilt in a random fashion.
For Pieced Backing of Puppy Stars
This is what I have for scraps from cutting the top out. The orange print fat quarter at bottom of photo was the one print of the fat quarter set I chose to not put in quilt top design. The puppy prints are 3.5 inches by 7 inches and 3.5 in. by 21 inches. The solids are 4 inches by 13.5 inches. I am thinking of cutting all down to the 3.5 inches and make up some floating plus blocks set in a white background and finish off the back of quilt with a gray solid. Maybe set the pieced plus block section off center in the back for more interest.
I have pattern tested 3 designs for Meadow Mist Designs in the last couple months. I working on getting my Cowboy Way quilt top which is a pattern test of Grande Scrappy Tiles done in time for the pattern release of June 19th. Since Sea Stars pattern is not releasing til June 26th, I should be able to be finished with this mine in time for that date. Plus Plus has all ready been released and I am still deciding how I want to quilt my version. I am really pushing to get more of my tops quilted and bound before starting another big project.
I will be linking up this flimsy finish with Crazy Mom Quilts, Richard and Tanya, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, TGIFF and Crafting Comment Karma over at Prairie Sewn Studios.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. We are having a family gathering to honor a foreign exchange student friend of my husband’s family who stayed here for school around 30 years ago. She and her family have been here numerous times over the years. My family is hoping that we will be adding a new member to our family this week, an Australian Shepherd puppy. Fingers crossed that all works out.
