Penguin Party

 My idea was to keep machine quilting the quilt tops I have hanging in my closet.  My goal is one per month.  As I looked at those forlorn tops waiting for some attention, I realized that I only have one quilt appropriate for a boy.  I love Elizabeth Hartman's cute animal patterns, so I decided to make Penguin party!  My oldest grandson is almost 16, and he will be the first one to choose a quilt.  The other boys are 8 and 4 and all the rest are girls.  I looked at all the Penguin Party quilts that people have made and liked the penguins with plaid the best.  I had to buy some nice Riley Blake woven flannel fabric on Etsy for the penguin bodies, along with the background fabric.  I wanted to backing color to be the color of ice.  I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Cutting the fabric was pretty fast. 

There were three sizes of penguin bodies.

The face was the most tedious to make, there were so many pieces!

It's also the face that gives them their personalities :)

Assembling the penguins in their neat, tiny rows, made me feel like I was at their party, lol!  I machine quilted the quilt with a staple or jigsaw design.  I used a grey dove color of Aurifil thread #2600.

I used a light blue minky fabric for the back of the quilt.  Penguins make me think of freezing arctic temperatures, so I had to use a cozy fabric :). The binding is scrappy, I used all the flannel penguin body fabric.  I added a Sweetwater label to the bottom of the back of the quilt and framed it in the black and white check.  I just added the name of the quilt and the year.  I literally made this quilt in about 3 weeks, and loved every moment of it!

It's March 1 and I didn't get a quilt top machine quilted in February.  Technically, I quilted 2 quilts in January (Spell it with Moda and Penguin Party), so one of them can count for February 😊

Spell it with Moda!

 Hi everyone!  I'm so excited to have finished this quilt! If you can believe it, I've been working on this quilt since 2014.  I made some letters and then stopped for a while as I had other things that had to be done.  Like blessing gowns, birthday and Christmas gifts, life, etc.  There are so many different variations of this quilt and I really wanted to get it done.  Years passed by and I still hadn't picked up this quilt pattern.  I belonged to a virtual quilting bee called "Bees Knees a quilting Bee".  It was my month of the year and I thought, I could get the ladies to help me finish my blocks!

Here's my post in 2019.

The blocks came back and it's February 2021 and my quilt is finally finished!!!

Here's my quilt in the beautiful afternoon Arizona sun.

I correlated some of my blocks with the alphabet.

Q is for Queen, and the fabric has crowns.

M is for movie tickets.

S is for strawberries.

C is for cherries.

The backing fabric is alphabet letters by American Jane.

Interesting story.....I went on a two day quilt shop hop when I lived in Northern California. I visited all the local (within an hour and a half) the first day and went to the far away (up to 3 hours) the second day.    I won a $100 dollars worth of product at a quilt shop in Paradise.  I chose yardage of this alphabet fabric, knowing that I would finish my Spell it with Moda quilt someday and some slate gray yardage.  The sad thing is that is where they had the terrible wildfire in 2018. 

 That sweet little quilt shop burned to the ground. 😔

My quilt label, 2014-2021.

Repurposed Doll Clothes

 See this cute little girl?  She's one of my precious grand daughters, her name is Isabel Louise.  We call her Izzy.  She loves dresses and skirts.  She chooses her clothes every morning and does a great job at coordinating her outfits.  The dress she is wearing in this photo was one of her absolute favorites.  This photo was taken 2 years ago when Izzy was 4 years old.  She just had a birthday and now she's 6 and in Kindergarten!  The time sure does fly by fast.

It was a shame to get rid of this dress, but it is pretty worn...

I had an idea to repurpose it and make a dress for Izzy's 18" doll for her birthday.  

This is my 18" doll, her name is Red Rose.  I bought her for my grandchildren to play with when they come to visit.  Her beautiful ringlets have become fuzzy, but she's loved.  She has the outfit that she came with and I made her an extra dress.  I keep meaning to make her some more clothes for the grandchildren to have even more fun with!

Red Rose is my model, she fashions the clothing I make for my grand daughters.  Here she is wearing Izzy's repurposed dress.  It's a long dress (ankle length) and I was able to keep the original hem.  There wasn't quite enough fabric for the entire dress so I found some in my quilt stash for her bodice.  I even put the original tulle lining under the skirt, keeping the original hem and gathering.

I didn't have any knit fabric or any fabric besides quilting cotton.

Red Rose's top is from a pajama top I had.  The pants were Izzy's and I kept the ruffled hem and reattached the bow at the waist.

These cute Santa pj's were Izzy's too.

This monkey robe used to be Izzy's and she laughed and laughed when she saw it.  I used the original hems again and used the robe sash, it was the perfect length!

All of these doll clothes were our birthday gift for Izzy.

I made this dress from fabric in my stash and the rick rack trim is vintage.

I thought this was such a cute and easy idea and wanted to share it with you.  The dresses and the top were painstakingly time consuming.  I had to take a break for a few days and then I was fresh and able to finish them.  It was all worth it when I saw the joy in Isabel's face when she opened her gift :)

Best Friends Quilt Along

The Best Friends Quilt Along has been so much fun!  With both Lori Holt and Kimberly Jolly designing and sewing the quilt, no wonder!  I really enjoy foundation paper piecing, but not so crazy about tearing off all the paper. Here are my Courthouse Steps blocks which would make a beautiful quilt by themselves.  I chose scrappy fabrics from my l l/2" stash, which is running pretty low now.  It's funny though, but when you use scraps from your stash, it's barely noticeable that you used any at all!

Here is my finished quilt top!  I love the colors, with a lot of red showing through.  The quilt measures 48" square and I'm wondering if I should add a border to make it a little bigger.  I am leaning towards yes, what do you think?

I haven't made a design wall yet, so here are all my blocks on the floor.  I took a photo, and then made it black and white to see the values of the different colors.  It worked, so this is the order that the blocks will be in.

I added Lori Holt's wideback fabric from her Granny Chic line, for the background.  I love all the embroidery images.

This is one of my favorite parts of making my quilt tops, sewing the rows together.

Here's my finished quilt top, blowing in the soft breeze of a warm Arizona afternoon.  Thanks go to my husband for holding up the quilt.

A week ago, I went to my friend Nedra's house to sew our Best Friends quilt together.  Around 10:30 am, the doorbell rang.  Nedra called me to the door and I beheld the most beautiful sight!  My friends from the quilt group, Farm Girl Chicks!  I was so touched that they took the time to come over and make such beautiful posters and give me gorgeous flowers!  They were even social distancing!!!  I felt a little foolish just standing there and not running up to each one and hugging them....but I guess we're in a pandemic.  Nedra and I, and other ladies haven't been to Farm Girl Chicks for a whole year!!!  That was the highlight of my week even before the pandemic began!  The thoughtfulness of these dear sweet friends meant so much to me.  Here's a photo, in case the video doesn't play.

They even brought their quilts for a trunk show to share with me!

Shauna and Cindy made cute Valentine tablerunners. ❤️

Bnae, who is the youngest in the group, showed off her work of art.  Bnae is extremely talented at quilt making and machine quilting.  Her quilting is a form of art and her quilts should hang in a museum!

Her quilt looks like a giant lace doily on a sunshiny background, so beautiful!

This photo captures most of the quilts.

Do you recognize all the Lori Holt patterns?  I didn't realize the Santa hats were so big, and it's incredible seeing all these quilts in person.

Nancy on the left, said she only intended on making about 5 blocks!  That's what I love about quilters, their passion, generosity and thoughtfulness.

I loved all the posters, but this one by Brenda looks like it should be framed!  I have it in my backyard so I can see it out the sliding glass doors everyday.

Here's Brenda with a cute Valentine quilt.  Brenda is also very talented at machine quilting.

I'm pretty sure that Bnae used Hilda fabrics for her Lori Holt quilt.

They even "heart attacked" my car, lol!  I drove home with the hearts, but they didn't last on the highway....

To top off the visit, my Farm Girl Chick friends sang a quilty song to the tune of Koombaya.  I sure do love each and every one of them and they sure did brighten up my month!!!  I will always smile when I think of this day.  I wanted to share it with you so you could see what wonderful ladies they are. ❤️💕

Best Friends Quilt Along

The Best Friends quilt along is sponsored by Fat Quarter Shop and it's totally free!  I just dig into my 1 1/2" strips every week and sew the blocks.  Last week, we sewed the Economy blocks, there were only four of them.  I love choosing cute centers for my blocks, and colorful fabric to match.  I'm actually sewing these blocks with my best friend Nedra, lucky me!  We have been taking turns going to each other's homes.  We live 45 minutes away from each other.  Just think about all the sewing we would do together if we lived closer!  Nedra always makes a beautiful lunch when I'm at her house, I'm excited to see what she's serving tomorrow! Then there are all the quilty best friends I have online, one of which always leaves a comment on my blog :). No pressure, lol!  I have a quilty best friend in California where I used to live, and lots in Utah.  These days we are all virtual anyway.  That's actually how I met Nedra!  We each had a quilt blog (I still do) and would leave comments and realized how much we had in common.  Then we were friends on Instagram.  When I moved to Arizona, I contacted her and we met for lunch.  We've been best friends in person ever since!  

Next week I'll show you my Courthouse Steps block, we need to make 16 of them!  Have a great week, hope you get lots done. 

Best Friends Quilt Along

An update on my Best Friends quilt along!

I made my Economy blocks with little "peek a boo" squares in the center.  This quilt is really fun, I hope some of you are making it.  I'm currently working on my pineapple blocks, and I love foundation paper piecing!

I found all my fabric from my stash of 3 l/2" squares and 5" charm squares.  Easy peasy! I also love quilting with a child's theme :)

Grassy Creek Mystery quilt

My friend asked me if I would like to make a Bonnie Hunter "Mystery quilt" with her. I've never followed Bonnie, but I'm aware that she's a very famous quilter.  Her mystery quilt was called Grassy Creek and had reds, oranges, greens, yellows and grays.  I had a fun, interesting, frustrating and learning curve experience!

When you post about Bonnie's clues on social media,  you cannot state the dimensions of your block, it's against the rules and people (Bonnie's followers) will call you out for it.  I'm talking about innocently taking a photo of your blocks on your cutting board.  The reason for this is that once  she reveals the finished quilt, the instructions only stay on her blog for a few weeks. After that, the pattern is published.

This is Clue #1, half square triangles.  I forgot to mention that my friend Nedra and I were making a half size of Bonnie's quilt which is totally acceptable.  A throw size is what I prefer anyway.  

The clues came out every Friday morning and it began in December, so I was worried about the time commitment.  I was able to keep up with Bonnie AND Nedra, because I work really well when I have a deadline.

Cue #2 was a stack ( I can't say how many) of quarter square triangles.

I love seeing the little pile of trimmings, it shows how hard i worked!

Here's my creative photo :)

Clue #3 is tricky triangles or quarter square triangles. I loved making these ones.

Clue #4 is tricky triangles added upon.

There's quite a stack, and I'm only making half of the quilt!

Bonnie said that Clue #5 was more simple because it was right before Christmas.  9 patches, some flying geese, squares and rectangles.

It still took quite a while to do all this!

Clue #6 is foundation paper piecing with half square triangles at each end.  These took a lot of time, but I was really in the swing of keeping up with the clues and excited to see what they were each week!

There was no clue #7, just the big reveal!  I felt like I was driving in a car and someone slammed on the brakes.  What?  I'm not ready for the reveal yet, I'm still enjoying the journey.  Well, the big reveal had tons more for us to do.  I thought the quilt would be constructed by blocks, but it was put together in rows.

Here's another block, putting various clues together.

Long story short, I'm not really crazy about the quilt.  I think the gray is too strong and those gray shapes look like footballs.  I like the green and yellow medallions with the red centers.  I made so many mistakes, I used my trust little seam ripper a lot.  It was taking way too long to put the rows together, especially since I wasn't enjoying the outcome anymore.  I even "added" an Amish mistake! I decided to put a pieced border at the top and a mirror one on the bottom.  In the end, both borders don't even match!  I also decided that I would use this quilt as a tablecloth when I need one at church to display things.  This quilt won't go in the grandchildren pile as I doubt any of the kiddies will be interested in it.

Upon further examination, I think my quilt looks like a kaleidoscope and I'm happy with that ❤️

In my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt experience, I learned that I love to look at "scrappy" quilts with little pieces but I don't really like making them too much!