What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

This week, we received the remaining supplies from Island Batik and I am happy to share them with you.

Solids - Four yards each of White, Dark Gray, and Black 

Summer Precut - 2.5" Strips of Vintage Charm. This is a Signature Collection designed by Kathy Engle for  Terri Vanden Bosch of Lizard Creek Quilting. It comes with matching yardage, two yards each of Valentino (dark pink) and Dandelion Crumbs (beige).

Stash Builders - 5" strips, 20 per pack.

Angela has announced the color for August. It is Yellow :-)

I love Yellow. It is the color of warm sunshine and flavorful curries ...

It was a heavy lift. The net was bursting with a huge catch. 

It took a lot of effort to haul it out of the river.

Ooh it is heavy...

The fish wriggled and pulled against the net and Paul struggled. 

Paul struggled

And finally managed!

Such a proud angler Paul is!!! Now, you may think that catching all these fish on the banks of Potomac is a load of bull. But honestly, it is a fishy story :-D

The one that got away...

Well, here is the true back ...

Even the Monster is cute :-D

Gorgeous Colors!

Beauty and the Baste!

Quilted, Not Bound

It is a finish!!!

Here are a few close-ups.

Hummingbirds

Blue Vines

Labelled

Crushing on You!

I love this collection and it was a joy to design and make ...

I got my Orange Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks done early this month.  Good for me, because we're headed to Seattle in a few days, and I won't be taking my sewing machine with me this time.  

Once again, I had a limited stash to work with .....

Would you look at that beautiful ironing board?  Re-covering it has been on my to-do list for too long.  The last time I did it I used a double thickness of muslin ...

I have completed my Positivity 2.0 Quilt. I have named him Naman. It is a Sanskrit word meaning salutations.

On the banks of Potomac

Walking Foot Quilting

Labelled

Good use of the Picnic Table :-)

I was so busy sewing in July that I forgot to blog!  I set my goals for the month and posted them on the 5th, forgot all about blogging, and got to work.  I managed to dig up a few more purples for RSC2022 by looking through my Asian prints.  There weren't many there either, but my Sawtooth Star and Windmill blocks are done as are the 60 brick blocks.

My One Monthly Goal for July was to finish the One Block Wonder that has been on my UFO list for a while.  And I did it!  I had ...

It has been a very busy year for me. According to Paul, all the busy-ness is self-created and self-inflicted. He is mostly correct and even if he was not, I am not going to argue with him. He is the only quilt model I have in these pandemic times.  Cannot afford to irritate him. 

Since I accomplished my June goals, after failing to do much at all in April and May, I think I might have enough mojo now to set my goals for July.   

I started on a One Block Wonder in September of 2019.  Yikes!  That's embarrassing.   Okay, it needs to come off the UFO list soon for sure!   I started quilting it around then, but got discouraged shortly after that (with Covid and life, not just with quilting) and set it aside.  I had quilted all the blocks in the center of the quilt but not the borders.

It is ...

What a month!  You would think I was trying to make up for the last two months, or something.  

I got all my blue Pinwheel, Sawtooth Star, and "brick" blocks made for the RSC-2022 scrap challenge. 

Then, I focused on the quilts I had started for my daughter-in-law's friend's twin grand babies.  I wanted them to be similar but not identical, so I made Pinwheel blocks for one and Broken Dishes blocks for the other.  

Huh.  The Broken Dishes blocks made a secondary pattern that looks like - guess what?  Pinwheels!  

May's car is parked in June's driveway.

It is May's mess that has led to June's stress. I am not thrilled about it but the sad truth is this - unless we move May's car out of June's driveway, June cannot go anywhere or do anything. 

Angela said that May RSC colors were Sage and Forest Green. With all that was happening in May (international travel, recovering from international travel, catching up with work due to travel, Covid, recovering from Covid, nursing Paul as he recovered from Covid, the Positivity QAL set up and launch ...

This has been an interesting month.  Partly because I finally overcame all the obstacles and finished Natalie's quilt (Hooray!), but mostly because I couldn't keep track of what day it was, and the month was almost over before I got around to making my green Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  Green, any shade, is my favorite color.  (I'm especially partial to chartreuse!).  So I had lots of greens in my stash to work with and got all my windmills, stars .....

..... and bricks made in one afternoon.  Whew!

It's almost the end of another month and time to report on April's RSC2022 progress.  The color for April is pink, and even though pink is not very high on my favorite colors list, I've managed to find enough pink scraps to get my blocks made.  Here are my Windmill and Sawtooth Star blocks.  

I added a third monthly RSC project which I haven't mentioned before now.  I want to use up as many scraps as I can in this challenge, so in January I found a stack of sixty red 2.5" by 4.5 ...

Angela announced that April is Pink.  And nature got the memo :-)

Delicate Pink

Hot Pink

Reddish Pink

Pretty Blooms

It is like the sun and breeze shared a naughty joke and all flora blushed. 

Looks like my fabrics are blushing too. I will be sharing with Angela's linky party.

Starting Point

Plus Background Strips

Cut and Sew

Easter Bunny?

When a pink Easter bunny hopped on to my work, I ate him up :-D 

Voila!!!

With a lot of mixing and matching, cutting ...

The Island Batik April Challenge is to make a Soft Toy.  

This challenge is generously sponsored by Pauline McArthur of Funky Friends Factory.

Since I had Island Batik (gecko is their logo) on my mind, I chose to make Gertie, the Gecko.  

The instructions are well-written. Video guidance for newbie toy makers is available at the Funky Friends Factory blog.

The pattern

The Body

The hind legs

The Flat Gecko - Ready to Fill

One Paw at a time

Is she moulting?

Can I say that March has been a complete bust if there are still a few days left in the month?  Considering what I have left to do it's pretty clear I'm not going to meet my OMG (One Monthly Goal).  Sigh......

The quilt I cut out for Natalie, then put in time out, then decided to make for my March OMG is, umm, not working out so far.  I made 436 of these .....

..... so I could come up with a balanced design.

I tried multiple layouts.  I hated them ...

I have been superbusy working on projects that I cannot share at this time.  

To be revealed later

But when Angela announced the RSC color for March, I had to take a break. I rummaged through my box of yellows. 

Yellows for March

And found these two fabrics. Sharing with Angela's Linky party.

Sunflower - Bright

Sunflowers - Subdued

As I incorporate them in to my March RSC blocks, I will be thinking of Ukraine, its brave people and their remarkable President, who finds himself in an unimaginably difficult situation. 

Must start somewhere

Work in Progress

Last week, scared and horrified ...

Was February even shorter than usual this year?  I think it was.  It went by really fast!  Even so it was a good month, quilting-wise.  

First of all, I accomplished my OMG (One Monthly Goal) hosted by Elm Street Quilts.  And then some!  My goal was to finish piecing the "Lazy Eyes" quilt top.  It was a LOT of boring piecing .....

..... sewing the same seams over and over (and over) again.

I wasn't sure I was in love with it once the blocks were up on the design wall.  Is it me, or does it look like it ...

I don't have a finish, but should that stop me for sharing?

According to Angela, February shall be devoted to teal, aqua and turquoise scraps. Here is what I did.

Teal/Aqua Scraps

Fish :-)

Scrappy Improv

Block in the works

15 blocks in two days!!!

My Island Batik Row by Row quilt (for the February Challenge and BlogHop) is complete.  I received the collection Lace and Grace, designed by Kathy Engle for Chris Hoover of Whirligig Designs. This signature collection should be in stores now. 

Lace and Grace :-)

 Although I will share on February 16, here is a sneak ...

I'm pretty excited that I've met my January goals.  A little motivation goes a long way it seems. 

My goal for OMG (One Monthly Goal) at Elm Street Quilts was to finish putting my Long Time Gone top together.  It was in five sections in December, and now it's a top.  I thought it was finished after I put the sections together, but then I looked at the instructions.  (Funny how important that is.) It seems it still needed borders.  Twelve.  Three on each side.  And pieced.  Aarrgghh!   At least I had plenty of strips in my ...

I am thrilled that Island Batik selected me as one of their 25 ambassadors in 2022.  This is my second year and I knew what to expect (sort of) when the first shipment of fabric and supplies arrived at my doorstep.  And yet when I opened the two boxes, I was giddy with delight. 

Setup for the Unboxing Video

Here is the Unboxing Video

Clearly, I am showing the gorgeous fabrics while failing to contain my delight.  Here are the supplies.

A generous box of batting from Hobbs.

Fusible Batting Strips for Totes/Baskets etc.

Queen Sized Batting - Polyester and ...