I think I should name the current quilt I'm working on, "The Decade Quilt" because I started it so very long ago. It is supposed to be for my bed so it was easy to put aside (and forget about) for years at a time! I cannot begin to count the number of baby quilts and gift quilts that I have made since I started the Decade Quilt. It started out by adapting a designer's collection of 2.5" pre-cut strips and finding complementary fabrics to go with it. The center piece was a pattern I found in a quilting magazine about 7 or 8 years ago called, "Wiggle Worms". As it suggests, it was a pattern for a child's size quilt. I enlarged it until I couldn't go any further and had to design around it with complementary fabrics so I could make it fit a queen size bed.
I decided 2018 was the year to get this bad boy finished so I've been pushing myself and finally reached the stage that I could make the 'quilt sandwich':
When there is not a table large enough and only one person to do the job, I find clearing a space on the floor is the easiest way to make the sandwich. Painter's tape really helps to pull the quilt backer fabric taut and keep it from sliding around while I smooth out the next two layers and use a couple hundred safety pins to keep everything pulled tight.
Now comes the part that may just take another decade ... this queen size quilt is too large to machine quilt so I'm going to have to hand quilt this puppy. Sigh. Wish me luck.
My latest quilt project is my first attempt at a crazy quilt; i.e. using up smaller pieces of fabric from previous projects that I just can't justify tossing. Turned out, it was a lot of fun paper piecing the various shapes and sizes of fabrics to make the 8.5' x 8.5" squares. I cut full-scap into 8.5 x 8.5" squares and sewed 16 squares before I started to run out of large enough pieces of fabric; so I decided this would be a "couch blanket" or "throw". I purposely chose bright, cheerful, fun fabrics as this is to be a "get well" gift.
As I'm giving this quilt away, I decided to take pictures before I joined the quilt front to the quilt back. This is the backer for the quilt. I absolutely loved the popsicle fabric and the beverage glasses cloth [I have since substituted much better photographs of Laura holding her quilt]:
The front of the quilt:
and some close ups:
The farm related fabrics were left over from a quilt I made a friend after he had heart surgery and was waiting for him at his ranch when they came back from the hospital.
Although winter doesn't officially start until December 21st, we had one of the hottest, driest summers we've had in years. Not to be outdone, winter decided to arrive when we'd barely had one month of Autumn.
When its colder than -15 I make soups, chili, bake bread or I scrapbook. And sometimes I just curl up with a blanket and good book! We've had three deaths in my husband's family between August 20th and November 3rd. The funerals/memorials were Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. When we got home yesterday I de-stressed by scrapbooking. Finally, did the pages that I have been wanting to do of my great nephew, Dallas. He will be two in four months and I haven't even met him. I missed my opportunity this summer due to conflicting travel.
