The beginning of a Summer Quilt

I just love this fabric.  It is so perfect for a summer, red,white and blue quilt.  I found this in the Christmas fabric close outs in my LQS and thought it had been miss filed. So much more 4th of July than Christmas to me.

This will be the third red, white and blue quilt I have made for me. The first I ended up donating to be raffled for the Bulldog rescue where we got Tink. The second was still only a top and has been picked by a friend for her new summer home on the lake.  It's on it's way to the quilter as we speak. Maybe this one will actually be a keeper.

This quilt will be based on the 12 Blocks of Christmas from http://temeculaquiltco.blogspot.com/.  They had  a great sew along the end of Dec beginning of Jan.where each day you made a 3 1/2 inch block.  Each day the new block contained one more piece. My version is here  http://selinaquilts.blogspot.com/2012/01/12-days-of-christmas-blocks.html.

The difference this time around will be that the blocks are 9 1/2 inches not 3 1/2 before the sashing strips.

See Block 3 - 3 pieces

Block 4 -

The first 4 blocks with sashing strips.   Opps, the bottom sashing strip on the 4 patch needs to bbe flipped around.  Tomorrow is another day.  Looking at it like this I am very pleased so far.

I also managed to get one more Swoon block done this week.  That's 12 of 16 done. I have even picked out the fabrics for the remaining blocks just need to cut it up.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by.

New Batch of Rice Bags

 My dear MIL is back in NJ from Florida for the summer. I got an email this afternoon letting me know that she left her rice bag in Florida and she really would like it if I could make one for her and bring it to the family picnic on Sunday.


http://www.sewwequilt.com/2011/12/comfort-and-joy-with-selinaand-her-rice.html

My thinking is that there will be at least 5 families at the picnic. It would be tacky for me to just bring one for her and have her tell everyone how wonderful it is.  It was just easier to make them before she shamed me into making them for everyone else.  The link above is for the tutorial to make the rice bags that I worked up last December for Sew We Quilt.

The tutorial was made using larger pieces of fabric to start which made the project fly.  I used left overs for this project. I swapped a tiny bit of speed for cleaning out some flannel stash.

The best part of the tutorial is that for the first time I made these bags without the guessing of the size fabric to cut and all my tips were there from the get go.

I made 7 and I'm pretty sure there won't be any left to bring home.   They are such a fun quick gift.  Between 7 and 9:30 this evening  I whipped up 7 rice bags and walked the dog.

8-9-10

Still plowing away at the king size Swoon  quilt.  Got blocks 8 -9 and 10 completed this week with e#11 laid out on the table and #12 half cut out.  I only need 16 blocks in total so I’m better than half way there.

Not a bad weeks work.  I even figured out how best to store them so that I could see what fabrics I had already used, pretty much at a glance.  The only problem with this storage system is that everything is held together with straight pins.  At the rate I’m going the unifying element of this top will be the trail of blood ; } .   These are shots of blocks 1 thru 8.

I have 2 backs to put together for quilts that have been commissioned.  Once the backs are done I can get them in the mail to the quilter. After that, I think I will get at least number 11 and 12 Swoon done before I go on to my other projects.  I have some Charity blocks I’ve committed to do and my Red, White and Blue blocks for the blog hop to do .  I have ideas down on paper for the RW&B.  It’s just a matter of starting them.  They are only 12 ½ inch square.  They will be done in plenty of time, I'm not scheduled until 7/10.

Mail

This week I need to mail off several charm packs.  I started to put them in puffy envelopes and they looked lost.  I so needed to remedy that so I whipped up some cozy envelopes for them.

Don't they look better? More secure? Happy?

I made several of these last fall using this tutorial. http://originateandrenovate.blogspot.com/2011/09/traveling-art-kit.html

They take 2 pieces of 10x20 fabric and some interfacing. They don't take much time to sew up either. The ones I made in September had velcro closings.  The tutorial calls for buttonholes.  I haven't done one of those in several years so I opted to do nothing on this group.

This is the size in the tutorial.  I made several on a smaller scale. They held greeting cards that I made as gifts and gift cards.  A wonderful stash buster.

Refering back to my posting regarding what I did in the month of May I noticed that I completely skipped over the Swoon blocks that I am making for the quilt for ME for the new house.  How I forgot about 7 of those huge blocks I have no idea. They are covering half the free surfaces in the room.  Hopefully by late tomorrow I will have the first one for June done.

Small Project Sew Along Finale

This is a  photo of an item not on my list of things to do in the Small Project Sew Along that was hosted by Amanda Jean http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/.

The original list looks something like this:

1 - Green and Yellow quilt for H2H                                            Completed and mailed

2 - 1600 Jelly Roll quilt for H2H                                                 Completed and mailed

3A - Small zip purse                                                                    Completed and delivered

3B - Another small purse                                                             Completed and delivered

3C - A third zip purse                                                                   Completed and delivered    

4 Tailor a pair of pants for a friend                                              Completed

5 - Bind the Swoon Quilt                                                             Completed and delivered 

6 - Bind the Granny Square quilt for my Sister                           Not even touched

7 - Finish Log Cabin Blocks                                                        Not even touched

8 - At least 1 Harrison and Hannah block                                    Not even touched

Additions to the list

9 - Large Carry All for a friend                                                   Completed and delivered

10 -  Red, White & Blue blocks for Beth at                                Completed and mailed
        http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/  for a quilt for her local VA Hospital

11 - My traveling socks                                                               Did a couple of inches


This was a great idea and mostly kept me on target so a Big Thanks to Amanda Jean.

I did have a couple of issues that got in my way.  First and foremost is that the last 3 items on the original list had no deadlines other than this Sew Along.  Not enough of a pull when these other things presented themselves.
 
Beth put out a request for 12 inch Red,White and Blue blocks that she would put together for her local VA Hospital. Got 3 of them whipped up and in the mail and forgot all about taking photos of them.

A friend asked if I could whip up a Carry All like the one I made for my sister last summer only larger.  The picture above is of my sister's bag.  I used the same prequilted fabric and made the new bag about 3 inches wider and 4 inches taller and with lots of interior pockets. Gave it to her and yet again forgot to take a picture.

Then  last but not least we went away for the last few days of the month and out came the traveling socks.     I generally keep a small bag in my tote that contains yarn, my circular needle and pattern for a pair of socks.  Over the course of the year I generally get a pair done while on the road.  I did a couple of inches of the top of the second sock this trip.  I'm ready to turn the heal.  I will probably finish the heal before I toss them back into the suitcase. The heal takes a bit of concentration that I don't generally have when I travel.

So that's my month in review. I'm rather proud of my accomplishments.

If you are new to my blog you can see most of the completions fo the month by scrolling through my postings for the month.

Thanks for stopping by.