Coral and Aqua...with some gray

In the spirit of February is Orange....I dug out this UFO. We'll pretend the coral is close enough to orange to work.

Several rows were already finished....and the gray patches were sewn on....and the rest of the HST blocks were put together, so I just needed to sew the rest of the rows together.

This is what I got...

Plan A was to have the gray patches over the whole thing.....but, since it has been marinating for a while.....and I really wanted it finished....we went with plan B....and ditched the rest of the gray and just put the rows together. Works for me. haha

I'll use the rest of the gray patches in something else.

I bought the coral and aqua fabrics together in a bundle, so it works well together. The blocks are 6" and it is set 10x12, so is about 60 x 72.

This was the inspiration photo....copied from Mary Johnson's blog. 

And now I am on to another Orange for February....it is also part of another UFO.  Should be finished before the end of the month.

Orange Selvages

In Judy's Color Challenge for the year, February is Orange. I'm using up my selvages for this challenge. Although it didn't look like there was a huge amount of orange selvages, I made 119 eight inch blocks.

And they look like this. It is 76x90

Each quarter goes in an opposite direction.  This is the middle. If you look closely, you can see that some strips are pieces sewn together. I used up the shorter pieces as I went along.

Half are vertical...

And half are horizontal...

I used the bits and pieces of leftovers to make the last block.

More orange to come.....because February is Orange....and February is not over yet.

Snowy Village

Today was a day of finishing up a few things. These Snowy Village blocks...and the train blocks....have been hanging on the design wall for quite some time. So, today I decided to piece them together.

The blocks are done on the embroidery machine. I used old feed sacks for the fabric. The middle blocks needs just a bit of border to fit the train blocks. I had some thin red and white stripe that worked well. And then had some larger stripe for the border.

Some of the train blocks...
The engine and coal car ...

Some passenger cars...

Some cargo cars.... 

There is a train station and a barn ...

A school ....

A cafe ...

Several other houses and establishments... and a bench to rest on ....

At least now I can say it is pieced. Hopefully will be quilted before I die. hahahaha

Vicki's Squares

I seem to steal borrow a lot of quilt pics from Vicki Welsh's blog. she has some cool stuff. This is something I saw a week or two ago.

I cut my squares at 5". I had some floral I wanted to use up, so that was the border.

I chose the colors from the flowers in the border.

I had enough, so i added another couple of rows at the top and bottom to use up all the floral fabric. Actually, I was short 2 floral blocks, so i substituted another floral....you can tell if you really look for it.

A great stash buster. Thanks, Vicki. 

I'm finished with January

I am playing along with Judy Laquidara's color challenge this year. January was Red. My mission is to use my selvages....the drawers are stuffed.

So, in January I made:

41 - 6.5" strip blocks....

111 - 6.5" I Spy blocks...

118 - 6.5" hexie blocks...

And, then used the small pieces left over to make 37 - 6.5" crumb blocks...

And now the red selvage bin is empty. YES!!

But, since there were still lots of days left in January once I finished these, I found a pattern called Lacquer Luster in a book called Great American Quilts of 2002, designed by Billie Tolmach from Mount Airy, Maryland....and made this....

I used strips...but not selvages....and it all went together pretty quickly. But, who knows when it will be quilted. haha

So, now that is it for January for me. I'll play with other things until February starts....it is an orange month. Don't have as many orange selvages.

Empty spool report for 2019

It was a slow year....haha  From July to December I emptied 41 spools

The first half of the year I emptied 51

For a grand total of 92 spools emptied in 2019.

Not my best work, but in my defense, the last 2 months of the year was spent clearing out my son's crap after he died suddenly. I hope to make better progress in 2020.

I've already emptied one spool for this year .... it's a start.

Penguins for Viv

My cousin has a 2 year old granddaughter that sleeps with a crib full of penguins....her favorite animal. So, I just HAD to make her a penguin quilt. I don't usually fold the back to the front for a binding, but I did this time. It makes the edges a bit wobbly so I sewed it twice..on both sides of the binding.

The blocks are machine embroidery

The panto was a swirly, that looks kind of like water.

I found this flannel blanket at the thrift store and knew i had to use it for Viv.

I also made a little toy for her...with a squeaker inside. haha

I used Glide Hawaiian Blue for top and bobbin thread.  It's about 40x50. I'll bet she will like it.