It’s been a great summer but the past couple of weeks have been on-the-run and sometimes crazy! As you can see by my design wall, though, I’ve been able to find a moment here and there to put together few quilt blocks. Those treasured little bits of time are sure good for the soul.
I didn’t have much opportunity at the sewing machine this past week but I did manage to squeeze in a little play time with these blocks. I’m using the same fabrics and same block pattern (by Lori Smith) but rearranging the colors so each block is original.
So far I like how it looks.
I cut into those precious dishtowels and now have them pieced into a quilt. I used 30’s repro fabrics plus a few others that go well with the whole theme. I love these colors together with the dishtowels and I’ve had lots of fun playing with them.
The pinwheels are the colors of our wedding, blue and yellow (although ours were much softer). We chose those because Mr. Sunshine’s favorite color is blue and mine is yellow. A good match (in more ways than one).☺
Now for borders. I have a few ideas…
These awesome dishtowels were given to me 32 years ago at my wedding shower. They were made especially for me by my friend Karen, who I haven’t seen for many years. I adored these when I first saw them. I still do. They have sat in the linen closet all this time because I don’t want to dry dishes with them. So I just pull them out once in a while to look at and then back they go.
For some reason, they popped into my head first thing out of bed this morning and I wondered if they could be made into a quilt! A light bulb moment! The towels aren’t quilt material, but for me it would be just a special quilt, maybe one that could lay at the foot of our bed.
Do you think this is a wise idea?
Any advice?
Mr. Sunshine and I also planned to get some outdoor projects done but the weather wouldn’t cooperate. This past week we’ve had lots of rain, wind and chilly cold. So weird for June. Instead, we spent the time playing indoors with our granddaughters. Which is way more fun than yard work.
On page 30 of the latest AP&Q magazine is an awesome quilt called “Summer Salsa” designed by Kathie Holland. It just jumped right out and begged me to make it! (Maybe it’s all that sunshine yellow). But I already have a few too many unfinished quilts going at the moment and I don’t dare start another one. So, instead, I decided to shrink it down into a small project.
The original quilt is 77” x 85” with 6” blocks. My little quilt has 1 1/2” blocks and finished at 17” x 19.”
It was a fun thing to try!
(By the way, I’ve decided the skitty-wampus blocks together with the wavy lines could possibly make one a bit seasick, so I will be more careful with that from now on).
My latest stitching project… 2 little dresses for my 2 little nieces.
White dresses with pretty pink pinafores.
So sweet!
Today I finished another Jo’s Little Women Club quilt called “Sisters”.
It’s 12 inches square. The women in the center were a challenge as each sister is about an inch in size and very detailed. I just about went blind trying to stitch that tiny!
This quilt has extra special meaning for me because I grew up as one of four sisters.
This is me (far left) and my younger sisters 35 or so years ago. I hope my sisters are okay with me posting this. We don’t get pictures together anymore as we live so far away from each other and especially since my youngest sister has passed away (far right). So pictures like this with us together mean a lot to me. But my two sisters and I do keep in close touch with each other through email.
I love my sisters!
Yeah! We’re finally having beautiful Spring weather here, even though yesterday I finished a quilt called Autumn Crossing. Perhaps a little untimely, but oh well. It measures about 18 x 22 inches and is hand quilted. The smallest squares are three quarters of an inch. For now, I’m going to use it as a topper for a cabinet where it fits perfectly. I have been participating in a local Jo’s Little Women’s Club making small quilts like this. The patterns are so sweet!
My very thoughtful Mr. Sunshine recently took me shopping and let me pick out some beautiful fabrics and patterns. Later, when my son-in-law saw it, he joked, “Here’s your gift, go put it together.” But Mr. Sunshine knows that he was giving me the gift of doing one of my favorite things. And I had such a super time “assembling” this little 13 x 17 inch quilt.
My mother understands that too. One day, many years ago, when I was first married and living far away from family, there came a big box in the mail. Inside I found fabric, yarn, needles, crochet hooks, hoops, a conglomeration of all sorts of stuff like that. Wonderful stuff. I was intrigued and went right to work with it. I grew up sewing, mostly clothes, but this started my passion for sewing to be creative. That gift made a big difference to my life and is treasured to this very day.
The pattern is by Jo Morton and the blocks are just 3 inches square.
It looks just great on my little quilt wall.
Thank you Mr. Sunshine!
Stuffed in a drawer, I found a small plastic bag of leftover scraps from a quilt I had made. The pieces of fabric were all very tiny, the biggest ones just 5” by 1 1/4”. At that size, they are usually discarded as useless. I thought, “What was I thinking?” It was time to toss them…or…hmmm… could I really use them? The wheels in my head started rolling so I challenged myself and this is what I came up with.
Now, just as soon as I bind it, we have a new topper for the coffee table made entirely from those teeny tiny bits of fabric plus some muslin. And they aren’t junk anymore.
Do you see the candy dish full of old Scrabble tiles sitting there on the coffee table? Our family has so much fun with those. I’m always finding messages of some sort from the kids after they’ve been here. They get very creative and make me laugh.
It’s been fun watching our children settle down to family life in their own houses….which happen to be lots bigger than our house. Of course we are quite comfy in our home of 25 years and hope to live out our days here.
I saw this quote the other day and it got me to thinking. So I found a pattern for a tiny 3 1/2 inch house in the book, Little Bits of Whimsy, by Kathleen Brooks. I stitched everything together and now have this hanging on a wall in our humble little house.
.png)
.JPG)
