Friendship Orphan Blocks

Finished two Friendship quilt orphan blocks.  They have been quilted for a long time.  Just needed to add binding.

2017 Heart - F1

These 2017 Hearts were started, even quilted by February 14, 2017, in 2017 but the binding did not get finished until 2018.

Finished the binding on this feller on February 1st - just in time for the 2018 Valentine's Day!

Harvest - F2

I started this Harvest table topper as a sample for the strip club classes I was teaching at Trackside Quilting in Laurel in 2016.

Pattern by Cozy Quilt Designs.

2018 Orange Heart - F3

Because I challenged myself to finish one item per day for a month, I did get the 2018 Valentine's Day Hearts completed close to their due date of the 14th.  I did finish this orange one on February 3rd.

Dillon's Heart:

When I presented the Hearts to the boys on February 14th and this one was the only one that was done, Keegan was sad because his didn't have the binding on.

Yuletide Trees - F4

I started Yuletide Trees as part of Table Topper Tuesday at Trackside Quilting in Laurel, Montana.

I finished Yuletide Trees February 4.

McCall's Quilting magazine
November/December 2017
Quilt designed by Wendy Sheppard

Hanger - J5

When I was adding hangers to quilts in preparation for the 2017 Big Sky Quilt Retreat, Dale said he wanted a hanger on his beach row by row quilt.  I prepped the hanger but didn't get it hand sewn down in a timely manner.  I just left it on the couch waiting.  I think the quilt was even used while it was waiting.
I finally finished hand sewing the hanger on 20 minutes after midnight on January 6.  So . . . I didn't get a project finished on January 5 so my little game of completing one item per day for a month is over for January.  Now, it would be wise of me to prepare for success for February.

Heart - J4

Another heart intended for 2017 that was finished in 2018.  I don't know if this one will be Dillon's or mine for the 2017 holiday.

Again, all that needed to be done to complete this item was binding.  It is only about 14 inches square.

Tulle over raw edge crumbs.  Then, raw edge applique of the orange strips over the tulle.  Quilted densely on the orange strips and white background.  The white background is also appliqued over the tulle and crumbs.

Heart - J3

The heart intended for the 2017 Valentine's Day for Dale was finally finished on January 3 of 2018.  All I had to do to finish this was binding.

Heart - J2

The second binding I completed in 2018 was on a Valentine's Day Heart that was intended from 2017.  I do think I had everything but the binding finished in February 2017, but I didn't give the hearts to the fellers without the binding on them so the boys didn't even know they received a gift last year.

The heart is very small - approximately 14" x 14".  It did not take me long to hand sew the binding down last night.  But all of 2017, I had prioritized other items before the hearts.

Melissa's 2017 Friendship Quilt - J1

It seems like I abandoned the game of finishing at least one quilted item per month when summer came around.  So . . . .  I have dreamed up a new game for myself.  I thought that I would try to finish one item, to the binding (excludes hanger because I do not know which items will need a hanger), per day for a whole month.  Initially I was going to use January as a prep month and then try this game in February (since it is the shortest month of the year).  But, I finished a binding on January 1 so I thought I could see how far I get into January with my little game before I miss a day and my energy will be to focus on prepping for better success in February.

In the middle of December, I decided that I would finish Melissa's 2017 Friendship Quilt for her as her Christmas gift.  With my late start, the quilt was not finished in time for Christmas.  In fact, I just dropped the gift off at Melissa's place of employment January 2.

My first finish of 2018 was Melissa's 2017 Friendship Quilt.

 I did just a simple setting because I was trying to get the quilt done before Christmas.  When Melissa visited our house earlier in December, she commented that she liked the orange fabric that was out.  Hopefully she likes this much orange.

Snowflake Ornament

We were to create a hand made Christmas ornament for exchange for the Girls Gone Wild Quilt Retreat in November 2017.

I created the snowflake from the Blueberry Backroads 001 Happy Holidays pattern designed by Sara Hardwig.

When Dillon saw the ornament finished, he wanted a whole set for himself.

Mary J. won this ornament.  I won the silver spoon painted by Tami from Great Falls.

Hot Flashes - #51 March

I needed some quilts with completely white backings to use to pin smaller items on during the Big Sky Quilt Retreat.  Hot Flashes, a Strip Club quilt, was finished in time to serve this purpose.

I started Hot Flashes as a class sample for the September 2016 Strip Club I was teaching at Trackside Quilting.  I think I finished hand sewing the hanging sleeve on it Monday, March 6, 2017 right before I needed to use this quilt at the Big Sky Quilt Retreat.

Hot Flashes is a Strip Club pattern by Cozy Quilt Designs in El Cajon, California.  The pattern was designed by Daniela Stout.

Hot Flashes started visiting Trackside Quilting in hopes of selling patterns beginning 3/13/17.

The Crumbs That Started It All - #50 February

I started crumb quilting a long time ago in an effort to conserve the fabric from deboned shirts of Grandpa Ben and my brother, Dustin.  At some point, I decided I needed to just be done with this project.
The Crumbs That Started It All visited the Big Sky Quilt Retreat March 8-11, 2017.

Glory - #48 December 2016

I need some quilts with completely white backings to use to pin smaller items upon during the Big Sky Quilt Retreat.  I thought Glory would be a good size in which to achieve this task.

Glory was started in May 2016 as the store sample for the Strip Club class I was teaching at Trackside Quilting.

Glory is a strip pattern from Cozy Quilt Designs in El Cajon, California.

I forgot to get a picture of Glory before I took it back to Trackside Quilting as a store sample for a while.  I suspect there will be plenty of time to get a picture later.

In My Garden - #47 November

I have not been completing a quilt a month in 2016.  Maybe I will get to do better in 2017 :-)

I did finish a quilt in November though.  Victory!

I finished In My Garden.  The pattern is by Laura Heine of Fiberworks in Billings.

In May of 2015, Margaret H. in the night guild asked me if I would do a couple of quilts for her daughter's friend that started a business and no longer had time to quilt.  Unwisely, I said sure.  I should have know that if Margaret was unwilling to do the quilt, it wasn't something I would really want to dig into.  But I said yes.  Then I saw that the patterns/kits were trapunto.  All I have to say is that I got to learn a lot with these projects.

I did four rounds of quilting on In My Garden.
Round 1 - Regular thread to get the shading on all of the flowers.
Round 2 - Sew Sassy 12 weight thread to add thicker accents and spirals on flowers and leaves.
Then, I cut out the first layer of batting from around the flowers for the trapunto part.
Round 3 - 40 weight thread for background quilting.
Round 4 - Sew Sassy 12 weight thread for the overquilting.
Then, I was crazy and added yo-yos in the flower centers.  That covered up some of the shading quilting I had done in Round 1 of quilting.  I guess it was ok because it added texture and a 3 D effect to the quilt.

I really like the look of the Sew Sassy 12 weight thread.  I don't have a lot of cause to use it but when I do, I am happy with the results.

Blue Crumbs - #46 July

The Town & Country Quilt Guild July Challenge was a crumb challenge.  I created Blue Crumbs.

We exchanged crumbs at the January meeting of the Town & Country Quilt Guild.  We had months to finish our challenge quilt in time for the July picnic.  I do believe I put my crumb quilt off until the last minute.  Hate to change my wicked ways now :-)

The centers of each of the blocks is a polar fleece piece.  They were cut in ovals or rough circles.  I had been thinking of making an island and boats but by the last minute when I started working on this project, everything just ended up in a traditional square.

Spiral - #45 April

The WAV challenge for March was Contrast.  I created Spiral.

Of course, Spiral was not completely finished for the March WAV meeting.  Therefore it gets to be my April finish.

Leaves - #44 March

I finished Turning Over a New Leaf by Laura Heine for Regina R. in March.  I had received the fabric and pattern in May 2015.  I had been putting it off for a long time because I had never done trapunto before.  It did take a long time to do and it was terrifying to have scissors around the quilt top.  But, it is finally done.

I had to go into Fiberworks a number of times to look at the original quilt by Laura Heine.  I wanted to get it right.  One of the ladies at Fiberworks told me that it was ok to put some of my own personality into the quilt.  I didn't know if that was ok since it is for someone else.  After giving the quilt to the actual owner, she made me feel better.

Now I have to work on In My Garden by Laura Heine for Regina R.  It has a lot of small pieces.  It is going to be even more stressful to do the trapunto.  I need to get it done.

Dream Weaver - #43 February

I started teaching a Strip Club class at Trackside Quilting the second Saturday of each month.  We are using the patterns from Cozy Quilt Designs in California.
We selected Dream Weaver for the February Strip Club.  I finished it all the way to the binding.

This is only a throw size quilt.  But, smaller size quilts do take less time to complete than larger sizes.  I accidentally did LeMoyne Magic in January as a king size quilt.  For March, I am doing Hanging Baskets as a queen size quilt and it is taking some time.

Circles - #42 January

I was asked to do a crumb demo at the Quilt By Association guild.  Then I was asked to do a similar presentation at the Town & Country guild in Joliet in October.  I made super big crumb coasters for the QBA demo and then just used them at Town & Country too.  When I did the QBA demo, I also talked about bias binding.  Since I had talked about that, I didn't have the huge coaster finished.  I finally finished the binding on two crumb circles in January.