Remembering All The Little Things

I have let my blog side away in lieu of posting photos and updates over on Instagram. For me, it takes less time, and is a faster way to document my quilting journey.

Do you follow over there? If not, head over to @mountainquiltworks. I'd love to have you join the party!

But for a little eye candy today, this is what I have been up to most recently: 

I finished this up in November! But it's very appropriate for Valentines Day, which is just around the corner. It was a fun QAL hosted by Anne Marie Chany. Fun, fun!

And then I finished my First Snow quilt, another QAL. Hmmm....I'm seeing a pattern here. In my retirement, I'm not getting anything done unless I have a deadline!  Guess there are worse problems to have, lol.

We are spending some time in Arizona for the winter, mainly to avoid the cold weather that doesn't play any favors with my arthritis. We've been having a great time, and getting more exercise, and being more active overall.  But the downside is - and you quilters will understand - I am not getting my DMRQ (daily minimum requirement of quilting).  Vitamin D, yes. Quilting, no.

I am working on some projects, so I will try to be a little more prolific and post about those when I can. For now, I will have to be content to read blogs, look at IG goodies, and surf Pinterest for my Quilting Fix.

Thanks for stopping by! Until next time,

Barb

Catching Up and Expanding My Horizons

While I have been busy over on Instagram, I'm afraid I haven't paid much attention to my blog. My bad.  But I wanted to share with you a little quilt I have donated to Jack's Baskets, a charity associated with Hands2Help spearheaded by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Thank you, Sarah!

Baby quilts that are donated to Jack's Basket go to parents of newborns with Down's Syndrome. I really liked the idea of spreading a little love and caring during a time of surprise and uncertainty. Hopefully this little quilt will accomplish that for a family!

It was a long winter in our mountains, but thankfully we were able to spend some time in sunny Arizona. SO MUCH FUN! It snowed only twice in Tucson, and melted by the end of the day. What's not to like about that! My husband and I golfed, hiked, explored, walked and swam to our hearts' content.

Bobcat cruising through our backyard!

With all that, I even had time to complete a few sewing projects. I just couldn't leave my sewing machine at home, lol!

In fact, I made one large quilt, a lap quilt, two baby quilts and four pin cushions. And, I must admit I frequented the local quilt shops and came home with a couple of new patterns and some new fabric. My souvenirs!

I started a quilt with this 22" block of a feathered star. However, I didn't like the way it was coming together, so it is taking a Time Out until I decide to tackle it again.

 

I still haven't got a good photo of the large quilt I finished piecing, but I shall try to do that soon and let you see. It was a fun one to make!

This is what our home looked like when we came back four weeks ago. Made us want to head right back to Arizona!

Thankfully, all that snow has melted and the daffodils have decided to brighten the gardens. We had a terrific thunder/lightning/hail/rain storm last night. So it's official - spring has sprung!

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

A Star is Born. Sorta.

As I finished this little quilt, I just kept thinking "A star is born!" As I added the star as the crowning piece to this fun little tree, I just couldn't get that out of my head. Must have been that the third remake of the movie was in theaters this month, lol.

 

I had great fun making this wall hanging with this Yuletide Fir pattern by Susan of QuiltFabrication. I must admit there was some unstitching to be done, to get all the points as close as possible. But in the end, it was worth it.

Once the flimsy was together, I stood back and didn't like the gold fabric that I had used for the star. It was too light colored, and actually looked very similar to the tree trunk.  I didn't take a photo of it, but suffice it to say, I ripped out the star piece and restitched it with something that would stand out - a sparkly red!

I am happy to share that I bought this pattern this summer, and I actually made it up before it started gathering dust in my sewing studio. Go, me!  It even works nicely for our living room coffee table! It measures about 17 x 21.

I've listed it for sale in my Etsy shop, Mountain Quiltworks, but I'm hoping it doesn't sell. I'd like it for myself! Maybe I'll just have to make another one.....

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

Linking up with:
Oh, Scrap!

Monday Making
Let's Bee Social
Can I Get A Whoop Whoop
Finished or Not Friday
Midweek Makers
Needle and Thread Thursday

Finish Along Quarter Three Results

This is going to be a short post (hopefully) because I have limited time. But I have been working hard this summer to get these quilts finished and out of my To Do Pile.  I feel pretty good that I completed 7 of my 8 goals. Go, me!

Here is the list of my Q3 FAL goals and the results:

1. Scott and Lauren's Quilt - need to be completed by Sept. 28 Wedding.  COMPLETED!

2. Christmas Bed Runner 1 - Binding  COMPLETED!

3. Christmas Bed Runner 2 - Binding  COMPLETED!

4. Christmas Table Runner - finish quilting and binding  COMPLETED!

5. Quilt Blue Quilt - Quilting  COMPLETED!

6. Quilt Yellow/Blue/Red Quilt - Quilting  COMPLETED!

7. Finish Manger Quilt - piece, quilt, bind  NOPE

8. Quilt Animal Christmas Wall Hanging  COMPLETED!

What on deck for the coming quarter? I have no idea. I'll have to put my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with. 

Quilting with a smile,

Barb

Linking up with:

FAL
Let's Bee Social 
Linky Tuesday 

The Wedding Is Here and The Quilt Is Ready!

It is with great honor that I present to you the wedding quilt for my son and our soon-to-be daughter-in-law! If you've followed me here or on Instagram, you are no doubt familiar with this quilt. It was my personal challenge quilt, and one that I am pleased to have made!

The wedding is Saturday, but the quilt is not really a surprise. They personally picked out the pattern, and have seen my progress photos online. This was truly a labor of love!

A monster king-sized quilt

It's a king-sized quilt, which will fit upon their queen-sized bed until they make the change to a larger bed. So at least for now, there will be plenty of drape for cozy comfort!

The quilt measures 108 x 108 inches. The pattern was for only a throw quilt, so I doubled the blocks, and then added even more. Then added 11 inches of borders all around. It just kept seeming to grow and grow and grow, lol! The pattern is Cacophony by Tina Lewis from the Winter 2016 edition of Modern Patchwork.

After stitching up 81 curves for these blocks, I now feel confident handling curves. I found I just needed to take my time, and the fabric fit together quite nicely. I don't know what I was afraid of! I actually learned a good lesson with this: "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." by Joseph C. Pearce. True, that!

Quilting for this became an ongoing debate for me. I truly wanted to do the entire quilt with custom quilting. But time was not on my side. So I made a compromise with myself. I custom quilted the outside and inner borders, and did a pantograph within the interior of the quilt.

The pantograph I used is Gatsby by Sarah Ann Myers and sold by Urban Elements. It's a very modern panto for a modern quilt - perfect. It's definitely my new favorite!

Since the top is all solids, I wanted to add a little pizzazz for the backing. But what? I had some of this great fabric in my stash, the woodland motif was perfect for this couple, and the colors blended well. I did have to order more fabric because I didn't have that much in my stash, lol! But who can complain about 'having to order more fabric', eh?

I used Hobbs 80/20 batting with So Fine 50 thread, and it quilted up nicely and has a nice drape. It will wash up well over time, but how you wash a king-sized quilt is beyond me. Even my enormous size washing machine tub may not even be big enough for this one!  It was interesting in the photo above to see how the light from the bedside lamp made that triangular block look purple. No purple is involved in this quilt! It's actually a dark blue.

There's a down comforter beneath this quilt, so that's why it look 'lumpy'!

The only thing that can make this better is to know that Scott and Lauren will love it! It will definitely evoke a smile when they enter their bedroom, it's so bright and cheery!  Best wishes go to the two of them as they embark on this life-long journey. I'm so happy to be a small part of their celebration! 

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

P.S. This was also part of my September One Monthly Goal, and for my quarterly Finish-A-Long!

Linking up with:
OMG
Needle & Thread Thursday 
Linky Tuesday 
Oh, Scrap! 
Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Midweek Makers

Outside Quilting

Fall is in the air! Here at our mountain cabin it's getting down to 32 or lower each night. And September is rapidly churning toward October! The hummingbirds have gone south already - smart birds. And the squirrels are busy as can be gathering pine nuts for the long, cold days ahead.

A hike to Fishhook Creek - a few snow fields remain on north side of the Sawtooths!

But the gift that follows those intense nights is the heat of the day. 75 degrees with cloudless, smokeless blue skies. It's the perfect recipe for a hike to a mountain lake, or to relax on the deck, visit with good friends, and hand stitch a binding to a favorite quilt. Heavenly!

A butterfly takes advantage of the Rabbit Brush in bloom.

The Bible Back Fire behind our cabin early September. It's slowing down now, thank goodness!

Sloe Gin Fizzes in memory of my mom's birthday

The Sawtooths easing into winter (photo courtesy of Sawtooth Association)

Home again, home again.

Slow stitching in a serene setting. With friends and family. Just doesn't get much better!

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

Wedding Quilt Becomes a Reality!

I am thrilled to say that I have completed the quilt top for my son and his soon-to-be bride! And just in time to meet my August goal for One Monthly Goal.

What is it about making a king sized quilt that makes it seem like it just drags on and on forever? Oh, yeah. They are HUGE! And every step just takes that much longer.

But the result will be well worth it. The newlyweds chose this pattern almost two years ago. And instead of making it up right away, I stuffed it away in a plastic bin because I had a fear of curved piecing. How ridiculous! I had purchased the fabric, but just kept it in hiding.

However, once I overcame my fears, by taking a Craftsy class on curved piecing, I was good to proceed.

And if you read my last post, I miscalculated on the number of blocks as I increased the pattern from a throw quilt to a king quilt. Doh! Fortunately I had purchased extra fabric of all colors, and I simply made 10 more blocks. And then ordered additional fabric for the borders. I actually added 11" on each side to make the quilt come to 108 x 108 inches square. Whew!

The fun part was laying out the blocks. They were designed to go together in random fashion, so that is exactly what I did.  After I laid them out the first time, I snapped a photo and turned it into grayscale so I could 'see' better where any visual imbalances might reside.

Here's my first grayscale.  I ended switching some blocks around and came up with this second grayscale photo.

I actually played around with moving several more blocks here and there. But once I started to do that, then another area would become unbalanced. Finally, I decided it looked just fine and gathered them up to sew together for the final quilt top.

For those of you who whose brains are strongly geared toward symmetry, pattern and reason, this quilt is not for you! My husband, who is an engineer, goes crazy when he looks at it. He can see no pattern in it. Nothing matches up. It makes no sense to him. I think that is exactly why I like it so much - it's a jumble of color and movement, and your eye travels around to see what comes next!

This is a quilt which challenged me to go outside of my comfort zone of color. First of all, I have never made a quilt entirely out of solids before. But playing with nine different colors proved to be fun! That chartreuse green shocked my senses each time I cut one out and then again every time I sewed it into a block. And the yellow was so bold! But when it all came together, and once I added a 4-inch inner border and a 7-inch outer border in complimentary colors, I really liked it! In fact, I love it!

The pattern I used is called Cacophony by Tina Lewis from the Winter 2016 edition of Modern Patchwork.  I have three weeks to get this quilted and bound before we head to Portland for the wedding. I need to decide if I should custom quilt it with a lot of straight lines and a few curves, or just doe and edge-to-edge on it?  September 22 is my target date, so I wouldn't have to mail this monster. We can present it to them ourselves!

I certainly hope they like the finished product.  I'll post more shots after I get it quilted and bound. Which, by the way, will be my September OMG Goal!

And one more thing:  I must say that making a quilt for such a special occasion has been a very heartwarming, personal adventure. Next I want to make one for my daughter and son-in-law!

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

Linking up with:
August OMG
Linky Tuesday
Midweek Makers 
WOW