Rail Fence

This is another of the quilts I made from the big bin of cowboy fabrics. I had a lot of yardage left of these three fabrics so I put together a simple rail-fence baby-sized quilt. That seemed appropriate for cowboy fabrics. 

Friday Finish - Baby Quilt

A.J.'s Baby Quilt Ready for Binding

I finished quilting the baby quilt that my friend Amanda made. She started from a panel and added some flying geese blocks and border strips to complete her design. It turned out really cute! For the quilting I used a variegated yellow/orange thread and did a medium-sized stipple over the whole center of the quilt. The borders got a pair of wavy lines to frame the quilt. I returned the quilted top to Amanda to add binding. 

One Monthly Goal: February 2024

Baby Quilt by A.J.

 January's goal was to finish the leaf appliques on my tropical quilt. That didn't get done, but I made significant progress: out of 38 I finished 8 leaves, traced, fused, and cut out another 16 and got more fusible so I can do the rest. 

My goal for February is to machine quilt the baby quilt my friend made. It is basted and ready to go and I have selected threads for the top and the back. I want to have it quilted, pressed, and trimmed by the end of the month at the latest. 

WIP - 1/24/2024

In progress this past week:

• I prepped the pieces for hand applique on the 3rd block of my Jacobean quilt.
  
  
• While I was set up with the light-box I also traced a small stained-glass fish pattern for an applique  technique I want to try. 
  
  
• I traced just over half of the leaf applique shapes for my tropical quilt, and realized I need to get more fusible to finish that up. I ordered it so it should arrive soon.
• I got started on the green scrap quilt for RSC24-January. 
• While I was looking for lining for a dog coat I found a pile of cute flannel scraps which I think will be enough for a baby quilt for my Guild's charity quilt project. I started working on that this past weekend. 

Finished quilts

 I dropped off several finished quilts for my Guild's charity quilt projects this morning. All were made from my stash. Two were scrap quilts and one used a charm pack I won as a door prize at a guild event. Picked up two quilt tops pieced by other guild members which I will be quilting in the coming months. Linking up with Oh Scrap!

Charm pack baby quilt

Totally from the scrap basket

OMG November Finish

Pinwheel Quilt - Done!

My #onemonthlygoal for November was to finish this pinwheel quilt my sister is gifting to a friend. It is quilted and bound and went in the mail yesterday.

The basic pattern came from a recent issue of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine. I didn't like the border on the quilt in the magazine though so I used squares of some of the same scraps I made the pinwheels from and the white background fabric and created a sort of woven ribbon border. I like how it turned out. 

OMG November

My #onemonthlygoal for November is to finish piecing the top of the pinwheel baby quilt I am making for a friend of my sister's. All 61 pinwheels are pieced and the rows are assembled so I need to put the rows together and figure out a border. I also need to find backing. All the pinwheels are from my scrap baskets and there are only a handful of duplicates. Linking up with Oh Scrap! as well as OMG.

OMG October Finish

 My #onemonthlygoal this month was to finish one of the scrappy baby quilts I had in progress. Mission accomplished! I used one of the machine quilting designs that I tried out earlier in the fall and was happy with how it came out. I should have made my lines farther apart though because this took way longer than it should have and didn't really need quite so much quilting. I will know better next time. This quilt was made totally from my stash, mostly scraps, so I am linking it up with Oh Scrap!

Baby quilt finished and ready to donate

OMG October

Quilting was begun

My #onemonthlygoal for October is to finish one of my scrappy baby quilts. I began quilting this one (full picture is here) last weekend but have a ways to go yet. I want to finish quilting it and get it bound. I have a cute green binding all made and ready to go.

The UFO challenge for last month (a red knit cardigan/jacket) is exactly where it was at the start of the month. This month's project is #6 which is my Light/Bright Stars Quilt. When I made my UFO list it was ready to pin baste. That has been done and now it is ready to quilt. I hope to get the quilting on that at least started this month. Any progress will be better than I did last month!

I am linking this post in Oh Scrap!

Sunday Stitching Post #16

Since my last update I have done quite a bit of sewing. I finished my August OMG and have been working on baby quilts from my scrap bins. I'm going to try to complete a top for a baby or lap-size scrap quilt each month and ideally quilt one as well. All the finished scrap quilts will go to my Guild's charity quilt project. I have made 2 tops since the beginning of August so am on track so far. I have been collecting ideas from instagram (the hashtag #scrapquilt is great for this) and various blogs in an effort to try some new patterns and to use up fabric. 

My very next project is to try out some new machine quilting patterns. I borrowed some quilting books from the library, picked out new-to-me designs to try, and have a pile of squares layered and basted. This week I hope to get the machine set up for quilting and dive in. I also have quilting to do for this month's OMG. 

My most recent scrappy top

I have also been considering starting an applique project so I have some handwork to do. Quilting at the Cro's Nest posted a super cute quilt called Farm Girl Vintage which led me to Lori Holt's website Bee in My Bonnet where I found Let's Bake. Both are adorable and might be good projects for me. (probably smaller versions using some of the blocks). I was also considering a Baltimore Album project but after reading some books I borrowed from a friend I think that is more ambitious than I am ready for at the moment.

I am linking this post in Oh Scrap!

Scrappy Baby Quilt

A Finished Top

I have been trying to work through my stash and have been playing around with scrap fabrics. This project is a baby quilt that began with a balloon print that I got in a kit from my Guild's donation quilts committee. It had a red print with it. I added orange, blue, and green scraps and ended up with a fun, bright quilt top. I pieced a backing from larger pieces of an orange, blue, and green that I used in the blocks and will use the original red fabric from the kit as the binding. When it is quilted it will go to the Guild committee to be donated.

Linking up with Oh Scrap!

Getting Ready for Retreat

Baby Quilt finished and ready to deliver
to the Guild's Charity Quilt Project coordinator

This weekend is quilt retreat and I have gathered my projects and am packing my supplies. My goals for retreat are:

• hang out with my friends
• finish all the units for my Streak of Lightning Quilt 
• quilt my log cabin lap quilt which is basted and ready to machine quilt
• make progress on piecing the green and pink bargello I started at retreat last Fall
• maybe work on my AQG Mystery quilt



Finished Ballerina Bears Quilt

• turn in the baby quilts I quilted for the A Quilted Gift project

I have work to do on the Madness T-Shirt Quilt, but I am not taking that with me as retreat involves communal irons and that quilt has a lot of potential to gunk up an iron. It will probably be the focus of my 15-minutes of daily stitching for the rest of the month. 

Saturday Snapshot

Amanda's zebra border baby quilt

My friend Amanda made this excellent baby quilt using a variation of a pattern I came up with years ago for baby quilts. It is a simple nine-patch alternating with squares of a theme print (hers is bright jungle animals) set so the nine-patches make diagonal stripes across the quilt. My zoo baby quilt is an example of my normal version of this pattern. Amanda's blocks are smaller than I usually use and there are more of them. I love how the diagonal is even more prominent in this smaller scale. Linking up with Saturday Snapshot at West Metro Mommy.

Saturday Snapshot

I posted a photo of this quilt in progress back in January. Here is the finished quilt. It has been sent off to a beautiful baby girl in North Carolina. Linking up with Saturday Snapshot at West Metro Mommy.

Pastel baby quilt, Urban Quilter, 2016

Back of quilt with humbug bag to match

Saturday Snapshot

Since Thanksgiving, when I heard she had a baby girl,  I have been working on a quilt for a family friend. It is almost done--this is the binding going on. I liked the way the light falls in this photo.Linking up with Saturday Snapshot

Done: Zoo Baby Quilt

This quilt is a baby quilt made from a pattern I came up with years ago. It is my go-to baby quilt and is also good for lap quilts for any occasion. It uses a theme fabric and then draws colors from that for 3 color variations of 9-patches to give a diagonal design.

Zoo Baby Quilt - designed and made by M. Russell

This one is quilted with a stipple pattern across the body of the quilt (in blue variegated thread) and then a wavy line pattern (in blue and yellow variegated thread) in the yellow border. The back is mostly the red zoo print fabric with a brown border.

Zoo Baby Quilt -- Corner detail of the back

This is one of the projects on my Q3 list for the Finish Along at The Littlest Thistle.

WIP Wednesday

After my super productive February and March I have been slacking off a bit. Despite the call of yard work this time of year I am trying to keep some momentum going with quilt projects. I am in the middle of quilting a baby quilt at the moment.. It is a much more muted palette than I usually choose, but I like the animal print in it and I think it is turning out cute even if though it is not especially "me." 

Zoo Baby Quilt - Designed and made by M. Russell 2014

The quilt is a baby quilt design I came up with and have been using for years. It is a theme fabric mixed with nine-patches. The nine-patches are made in 3 different combos so there is a diagonal stripe effect across the quilt. I am using a stipple pattern with variegated blue thread for the quilting. I think I am going to change both patterns and thread for the border which is a yellow stripe.  

I'm linking this up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

DAGMT 2014 - Week 2

The Plan: Sew for at least 20 minutes each day in February.

Feb. 8 - I sewed for 30 minutes today. I was getting tired of cutting for my paper piecing project so I pulled out a totebag project that has been in my project pile for years and got the pieces sorted out and the pockets made. A trip to the fabric store earlier in the day (to get fabric for a baby quilt) included buying the fusible fleece I will need to finish this totebag, so I hope to do that this week.

Feb. 9 and 10 - Spent 20 minutes each day working on the tote bag.
Feb. 10 - Did not get any sewing time in at all.
Feb. 11 - Feb. 14 - Spent 20 minutes each day working on the tote bag which is now finished and ready to give to the person I made it for.

Ladybug Reversible Tote Bag

Goals: Next week I want to work on getting through the overflowing basket of mending projects during my daily 20 minutes. This won't be much fun to work on, but will be awesome to be done with. I also want to go through the mountain of projects/fabric/not-sure-what that is under my drafting table and see what can be done about it all. That won't be part of my 20 minutes a day as it will take a chunk of dedicated time and attention to get through it.

Adam's Quilt

I made this quilt for the son of a close friend. The pattern is from More Quilts for Baby: Easy as ABC by Ursula Reikes and was one of the best patterns I have made. I loved the dinosaur fabric! The blocks are cut from strip sets so at no point do you ever sew any weird shaped pieces together, it is all strips and squares.