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March 15, 2024
Worldwide Quilting Day from From My Carolina Home

Tomorrow is Worldwide Quilting Day, and our local guild is having an exhibit for the day. If you are local, please stop by the Blue Ridge Mall in Hendersonville, NC on Saturday, March 16, 10 am to 3 pm to see the 34 challenge quilts and cast a vote for your top three favorites. The challenge was to take page 42 from a non-quilting magazine as the inspiration for a wall hanging size quilt. Page 42 is for our 42nd year as a guild. Viewer’s choice winners get some great prizes, and our local quilt shop, Beginnings, will be ...

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March 10, 2024
Finished times 2.................. from Exuberant Color


It's time for the official portraits and stats on 2 finishes.

Autumn Coneflower 2, made of batiks, finished at 62.5" x 78".  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it.  The binding is hand finished.






The backing is a burgandy with beige leaf outlines, a batik I bought many years ago, knowing I would make a quilt some day that would need it.  







The bright flannel quilt was made with many small yardage pieces and some large scraps.  The cats, splotchy multicolor, and monkeys are Laurel Burch designs.  This quilt finished at 53" x 71".  It has Hobbs ...

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March 8, 2024
More of the same............... from Exuberant Color


With two sessions of hand stitching I rounded the 4th corner and now just have most of one short side left to stitch on Autumn Coneflower 2.





Seven more strip sets for 9 patches were completed and now I have 12 sets ready to be pressed.  Then I can crosscut them and sew the 9 patch blocks.

I sewed the long seam in another flannel backing but didn't turn on the iron yesterday.  Now I have plenty of pressing to do.

 

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March 7, 2024
Finally some quilting........ from Exuberant Color


I loaded my bright flannel quilt on the longarm after lunch yesterday and got it quilted.





I did freehand organic straight lines in both directions.  That means I quilted it one direction, unpinned it from the frame, turned it 45 degrees and re-pinned it on and did the lines for the other direction.  I got it trimmed last night so I'll look for a binding today.


I paired some batik strips and sewed the strip sets for a few more 9 patch blocks.  They need to be pressed before I cut them the other direction and make the blocks.


 

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March 2, 2024
February 2024 monthly recap................... from Exuberant Color


There were 5 finishes in the shortest month of the year, all because there was one extra day this year.  The 2 baby quilts are 37" square and 33.5" x 40".  The quilt tops were made last month in an attempt to build up my baby quilt stash.  Next is the Australian 16 patch which is 60" x 77" and the top was made in March 2023.  Interweave, a pattern by SpringLeaf Studios, is 57" x 81".  The top was made in March 2018.  The last one is Scrappy Batik Bear Paw 2 which is 70" x 85".  The ...

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March 1, 2024
Three end of the month finishes (February).................... from Exuberant Color


First up is the Australian fabric 16 patch which I finished on Wednesday.  This is my all time favorite of all of the Australian fabric quilts I have made.  I love the wide border on it.  It ended up at 60" x 77".







The backing is also an Australian fabric which I was lucky to find on sale last year.

The batting is Hobbs 80/20.











Here is a closeup of the backing fabric.








I got a late start last night doing the binding on the two baby quilts.  This one is Donuts and 9 Patches and is 37" square ...

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February 24, 2024
Working on 3................ from Exuberant Color

All of the X and O blocks are sewn now but not pressed yet.  I need 17 O blocks and 18 X blocks so I just realized I'm short one O block.  I can just sew a seam on the other side of an X block and rip out the original seam and I will have an O block.

I took those stacks of 4 blocks off the design wall and started a layout of 6" finished squares with a few 4 patches thrown in.  I need 12 rows for the length and I'm short 14 squares for ...

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February 21, 2024
Flannel progress............. from Exuberant Color


 Last night I started sewing sets of 4 blocks that are identical.  I have chosen the last 8 fabrics for more blocks but haven't cut them yet.  I will want to mix those colors into the layout before I sew any more sets of 4.


I had strip sets prepared for 24 sixteen patch blocks so I sewed them too.  I may combine my rectangle blocks with the 16 patches in one quilt.  The rectangles are 4" x 8" finished size and I have a good size stack of them already cut.  I just need to do some figuring ...

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February 19, 2024
Flannel again............ from Exuberant Color


Yesterday morning was cutting time.  I also cut for two more quilts than the two I'm already sewing.






I paired triangles with elongated hexagons.  I have enough triangles cut now for the rest of the blocks I need to cut.





Last night was sewing time.  The blocks on the left are piles of 4 alike.







I took one block of each sewn combination and started a layout on the design wall.  After I make the remaining blocks I will sew duplicates of the X and O blocks because I have 4 alike of most of the blocks.  I need ...

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December 6, 2023
Between projects........... from Exuberant Color


 I looked for binding for the batik star quilt without any success yesterday.  I was looking for something similar in color to the border but one shade darker and so far nothing has jumped out and said "use me".  I might have to just choose a color since the quilt is totally multicolor scrappy. 

When I'm between projects I will usually sew strips into strata.  I have a box of 2.5" Kaffe collective strips and I'm down to the leftovers, ones that didn't fall into a color group for a previous quilt.  I haven't decided ...

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November 13, 2023
STICKS AND STONES from Q-BITS

 

Time for some string piecing to use up the many brown and beige strips in my scrap bins.  The blue accents are to keep the project from getting boring!

I have a love/hate relationship with string piecing.  I love choosing the fabrics, colors, and embellishments; but hate the mess as I can't seem to stay organized when dealing with strips!


THE STATS:  "Sticks and Stones", 2023, 33"x33", Paper Pieced, Machine Pieced, Machine Embroidered, Machine Quilted



I have had this quilt percolating in my brain for some time; it finally became reality and is finished, and has become ...

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October 30, 2023
Third quilt top for October............. from Exuberant Color


I got the piano key border sewn onto the African fabric quilt top, cutting off the excess of each strip as I got to the end.  I don't think it shows much that some strips are narrower than others.  The side borders are 1/2 inch narrower than the top and bottom borders.  It ended up at 52" x 69".  I will use a dark binding on it, maybe the same fabric as the next to last border.

Before lunch yesterday I cut all of the green tomatoes off the last 2 plants and put them in a box ...

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October 6, 2023
Moving on to the next project................. from Exuberant Color


There were several pieces of strip piecing left from a previous African fabric quilt and one new dark pink set.  There are 6 different sets here, green, blue, pink, purple, rust and gold.  I need to remove the short strip from the rust set and then they will all be about 17" on their shortest strip.



As a reminder this is the quilt on which they will be used as borders.  First I need to cut a border of the fabric in the photo below to go all the way around and then I will figure out what widths I ...

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October 5, 2023
First quilt top for October................. from Exuberant Color


I was hoping to have this top done in September but after I squeezed in the 65th high school class reunion I could see it wasn't going to happen.  Now I have a great start for October.

This is made of African fabrics and mottled batik (almost solid) fabrics.


I intended to find an African fabric for some alternate plain blocks but instead looked on my 2 shelves of multicolor batiks.  I know I got this batik on sale, deep discount, because it wasn't selling well.  I only had a yard so I got twenty 8.5" squares ...

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October 4, 2023
Final layout............... from Exuberant Color


It took 3 tries to get to this final layout of the African/batik quilt top.  I stacked the rows and took the pieces up to my main floor studio for sewing.

Then I spent time outside pulling weeds in the front garden.  It isn't done, I just did the amount of bending that I can do in one day.  Then I mowed the other half of the front yard and the side and backyard.  I wonder how many more times it will need mowing before we are done for the season.  It all depends on how much rain ...

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October 3, 2023
Starting final layout............. from Exuberant Color


The final layout has started with the African and batik blocks.  I have to build it sideways on the design wall because it won't fit the other way. This is one each of the 16 patch blocks; a duplicate of all but 2 are in the next group to put up on the design wall.  I have 88 blocks total to work with and will only need 80 so I can eliminate anything I really don't like.  I'm putting 2 of the alternate large print batik squares in each column (which will be cross rows when sewn ...

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September 27, 2023
3 binding options............... from Exuberant Color

The search was on.  I knew there some fairly solid looking dotty fabrics from the very early designs by Kaffe, you know, the ones selling for $60 or more a yard to people who didn't know who Kaffe was until a few years ago and are beefing up their collection.  

This purple background dotty has colors that are in the stripes and shot cottons.


This blue one is even more solid looking with dots that don't have a high contrast.  It is called Freckles.





This red one is also called Freckles and I have the least amount of ...

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September 25, 2023
15 more blocks............... from Exuberant Color


There is nothing too exciting to look at from yesterday.  I sewed 15 more of the duplicate blocks for the African and mottled batik 16 patch quilt.

Outside: I mowed the grass.  We had rain on 4 different days last week so the grass was wet most of the week and the grass was getting tall.  It took 58 minutes total, in 2 sessions so I didn't overheat.  The neighbor north mowed too and also the lady across the street.  Now the south neighbor better catch up with all of us.

Today I hope I can quilt the top ...

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September 21, 2023
More blocks............. from Exuberant Color


More blocks, and even more blocks, for the African 16 patch quilt.  I had several other things to take care of yesterday so this is the only action that happened in the studio.

We had sunshine part of the day yesterday, more light rain for today.  I'm not complaining about the rain though, we still need more.  Maybe I can get some vacuuming done in the basement while it rains.

 

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September 20, 2023
Auditioning the lime batik............. from Exuberant Color


I decided to cut one strip of the lime batik into squares to see if I was going to like it.  This is the first 34 of the 16 patch blocks.  The quilt will have 8 across and 10 down so this is just a sampling.  I like it so I will be cutting more of the squares and sewing the 34 duplicate 16 patch blocks.  Then I'll decide how many more blocks I need to piece.

We had several hours of light rain yesterday and got .35".  We're still at a deficit but I was happy we ...

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