{Post 1,157} Wild Geese and Snowballs

I bound, washed, and dried the gift snowball quilt tonight.  Hope to get it in the mail tomorrow.  It's hanging over my quilt frame here.  Moral of the story:  adopt one of my kids and do many, many things for them, and YOU might get a quilt next!

The Quiltmaker magazine has a new scrap pattern by my friend, Bonnie Hunter.  When she started paper piecing these little blocks, there was no pattern, so I drew my own.  I have 100 of the little buggers finished (which will make 25 blocks), so I started laying out a design for them.  Ironically, the magazine came out a few days ago.  I was going to set them w/o sashing strips and put an alternate block made of 4 squares (essentially a 4-patch).  It was too difficult to make them match perfectly with all the thickness of the many seams.  I ripped out the couple I had sewn and added the sashings.  These are 8-1/2" square as they are.

Now I am thinking about putting a wider dark scrappy (or not) sashing between these 4-patch wild geese blocks with a gold cornerstone.  Just an idea I'm throwing around.  I'm about to figure out how large the quilt would be if I do that.

{Post 1,153} Snowball Quilt Machine Quilted

This is heavy on pictures and short on words.  I did the first loops in navy, second in dark red.  The quilting pattern is called Double Bubble.  

All Thimbleberries fabrics.  Finishes at 68" x 80".

{Post 1,152} Double Teaming

This is me double teaming the binding and the math.  I was doing two math lessons with my son.  Figured I might as well start on the third side of my spools quilt binding while I was "just" sitting there waiting for him to do the 25 problems for each lesson.  

From left to right above the quilt is my sewing projects bag, the math key with my Gingher embroidery scissors on them, a math paper, the math text book, and just off to the right, my brilliant son!

After I finish this post, it's off to work on machine quilting my snowball gift quilt.  Neat new pattern.  Hope it comes out like I imagined.  It's a very large loop meander (think tennis-ball sized) that is being stitched first in navy and then in dark red, the second shadowing the first.  At least that's the plan!

{Post 1,148} TOL Center Finished and Gift Quilt Idea

Here is my Tree of Life quilt center.  It measures 54" square.

Here is what I have left over from a small piece of what I think will be the perfect inner border fabric.  I have the pieced borders which come after this inner border nearly finished.  

Here is a quilt top that I pieced some time ago.  I am going to finish it as a surprise/thank you for a family that has been a huge help to my daughter living way up in northern Wisconsin.  It's a snowball quilt, so that's appropriate, don't you think?  The fabrics to the side are the inner (blue) and outer (gold) fabrics.  I should be able to finish that quickly since it's all pieced.  Each snowball is 4" square finished size.

Edge of Snowball Quilt

I have done precious little sewing recently, but having a sinus infection allowed me to stay home from church this AM and PM.  That being the case, I spent about 45 minutes tonight adding my outer pieced border on my snowball quilt.  I might trim the size of the squares in half then add my other borders. 

~Joan, the stuffy one

Focus is Everything!

My husband and I went on an overnight couple's getaway Friday night.  Just as Susie was taking the pic, the ribbon on my camera case flew in front of the lens.  This was a reminder to me of how life is...it all depends on what you're focusing on.  On the way to the retreat and back, I finished hand-sewing down the binding on one of my secret projects.  Pics posted to my secret blog soon.

Recently I've become aware of several heart-breaking situations in families that we are acquainted with...such sadness.  But our focus should be on how rich our lives are in God's love.  We are always "better than we deserve".

Here is the finished center of my snowball quilt.  I think I'd like to do some kind of scrappy outer border.  This is 52-1/2" x 64-1/2".  I think an inner border of gold (maybe just an inch wide finished) and then a pieced border, than another gold border.  The purpose of this snowball quilt was to use up part of my gold scraps as well as get rid of some gold yardage...I have so much gold fabric!!  Must pare it down.

~Joan

Snowball Quilt Progress

I connected half of the blocks for the snowball quilt earlier this evening.  Then I laid out the other half and webbed them.  If you don't do this (web the blocks), check it out on quiltville.com.  It saves time and aggravation.  In the above picture, I have webbed the left half and then sewn the top six rows together.  I hope to finish the center tomorrow.

Snowball Quilt Center Half Finished

Here is my snowball quilt half finished (just like it says in the title of this post).  I am laying out the other half, but I'm not sure I'll get to sewing it together tonight.  This measures 28-1/2" x 64-1/2".  I plan on putting a few borders on.  This was an attempt to use up my gold scraps.  Mission accomplished!

It's been a strange week.  Tuesday night, we were playing wallyball, and I bounced off the corner of the court, hitting the left side of my head, my elbow, and landing on my bottom, then hitting my head again on the floor.  Not a pretty sight.  I have been recovering ever since.  Very sore...very sleepy...very big headache!

~Joan

700th Post and 36 Snowballs

Creative title, huh?  24-1/2" square.

24 Snowballs

Sew far, so good!!  Have I mentioned that I could SEW ALL DAY?  Unfortunately, daily life is there, and it's just so daily some days.

I have been working feverishly on some projects for Emily and her husband-to-be.  But these little snowballs are my leader/enders for other sewing, so they are sure to crop up in my blogging now and then.  This little piece is 16-1/2" x 24-1/2".

Random thoughts for today:  it is not courteous to "honk" goodbye when leaving someone's house at 5 AM...I love my bread machine...knowing there is another policeman living in our neighborhood makes me feel safe.  These are unrelated, by the way.

~Joan

Spring and Snowballs

Here are some beautiful hyacinth bulbs I bought last week.  It was amazing to see them bloom before our very eyes.  Their scent brings to mind a next-door-neightbor I had growing up.  She had hyacinths planted in her yard.  So I called to see how she was doing.  She is old, but fine!

 

Here are some snowballs.  They finish at 4" square.  I finished the runner below a while ago.  These are ever-so-slightly larger.  I sewed these three rows together to see if the size was what I wanted.  It was! 

Another difference in this one is that I'm alternating a light gold snowball with a dark fabric one.

On the runner (pictured below), I hand quilted two diagonal rows 1/4" apart through the center of each block.  Also, all 4 corners on each block matched.  The matched corners were too stressful and time-consuming.  On my new quilt top (which I foresee taking years of scraps to piece to get up to size), I am not matching corners.  The quilting remains to be seen.

I finished another big top except for the outermost border today.  See it on my secret blog because it's, well, a SECRET!!  Email me if you want the URL.

~Joan