Straight Furrows Doll Quilt

Lori of Humblequilts.blogspot.com is having a doll quilt quiltalong, and gave instructions for "Mountain Trail". Here is my finished quilt, called Straight Furrows. It finished at  17.5 inches by 21.5 inches.  I made the blocks one round smaller than Lori's instructions.

I thought I'd take a picture of it with one of my fall pillows, since this felt cat pillow is very similar to the door hanger that Lori featured on her blog the day she gave instructions for the little quilt.  














I quilted it with "steps" up the mountain, and took a picture of the back to show you the machine quilting.  

I used bias cut binding, and used single fold, as it handles so well when it's used on a doll quilt. I also pressed most of the block seams open, but forgot to take a picture of that part.

I am looking forward to seeing the little quilts of everyone else who participated.  Thank you Lori for initiating this quiltalong.











When I bought the felt cat pillow years ago, I made a pumpkin pillow to go with it.  This one is not felt - just made from cotton scraps I had at the time. I didn't have a pattern, - just winged it.  These two pillows sure have toothy grins, don't they? 

Here is a final picture of the Straight Furrows Doll Quilt, and the happy doll who is going to enjoy sleeping under it.  Sweet dreams little one!    

To see the rest of the Mountain Trail doll quilts, go to Lori's blog.  
http://humblequilts.blogspot.com

Turning an Ooops into a Pillowcase

Has this ever happened to you?

While making the Mountain Trails quiltalong from Lori's blog (http://humblequilts.blogspot.com), I had the blocks on my design wall behind my sewing machine.  After transporting them from the design wall to the machine to sew them together, I found I was two blocks short, and thinking I'd not made enough blocks, I made two more.  This was while working on two other quilts that day.  I'm the kind of quilter that likes to have several projects going at once.

Much later, I found two blocks that had fallen from the design wall to the floor.  Ahah!  I had made enough blocks in the first place.  Of course this was after the quilt was all quilted and bound.  Oh well, what to do with two little blocks....throw them away, I guess.   But they are so cute!  What could I make out of two blocks?  What about a pillowcase?

Here's the results:

And here's the happy little doll, in bed with her new pillowcase and doll quilt:

I'll show my Mountain Trails quilt, which I've named Straight Furrows, when Lori does her big reveal of all the little quilts.  Hope you are having a great day in your quilt room.

Large, Medium, Small, I Love Them All

Several quilty projects going on this week:

Large quilt is taped to the floor, and I'm fastening safety pins all over it this morning, in preparation for machine quilting "Third Weekend in October".  It's a colorful fall quilt, and I want it finished before fall is over.

Medium quilt, or that is, medium stage right now, is the Barbara Brackman block of the week project, which is on my design wall:

This week's block is Alice's Flag, the block in the upper right corner.  My mother's name is Alice, and I miss her a lot.  I have a small pearl leaf pin that was hers.  After making the square, I thought of it, and pinned it in the middle of the star.  She was a strong woman, just like the many women Barbara Brackman writes about in her blog about the suffragette movement. 

To read more: http://grandmotherschoice.blogspot.com

Here's a closeup of the beautiful pin that Mom wore often.  I think Dad brought it to her from France or Italy when he was in WWII.

Small is a little doll quilt with a log cabin pattern, Straight Furrows.  It's a quiltalong from http://humblequilts.blogspot.com  Yesterday I decided to make the blocks a little smaller than Lori's version, and my squares have five red pieces marching up the middle.  

The top, unfinished, measures 15.5 by 19.5, and I don't want to make it much bigger. I have a piece of red plaid that I'd like to use as the backing, and may or may not add a little as a border on the front.  What do you think?

Happy Monday to you!

Oy Vey Orca Bay

Well, it's been a week about learning to look closely at red colors.  Let me explain.

I made a quilt last year, following Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay pattern.  When it came back from the quilter, with beautiful feathered stitches, I was going to use black, or maybe white binding.  Friends visiting me this summer in Michigan advised - "Oh, use red!  That would really look good."  Well, the red fabric matching the other pieces in the quilt was back here in Virginia, so now the quilt is back home with me in Virginia, and I made the binding this week.

I like to cut bias binding - a lot of it, because I don't like to run out - and when I was almost ready to sew it on.......I noticed that the red was not the same color red fabric that I'd used in the Orca Bay quilt!  

I dug through my red stash, and found another red, and made more sashing - a lot of it, because (see above) - and checked it to be sure before I sewed it onto the quilt.  It is the right red, and looks great!  My friends were right, red was the right choice.

Here's a picture of my finished Orca Bay quilt, with the lovely red binding!



I decided to name this quilt "Oy Vey Orca Bay".  I don't know much Yiddish, but I like the rhyming sound of it.  And Oy Vey, next time I'll look a little closer at the color of the red fabric I'm using before I cut long pieces of bias binding.  

I'm working on Lori's little quilt-a-long, and will post a picture of it when I have it finished.  If you want to join in with with her, the website is:
http://Humblequilts.blogspot.com  Here are the four blocks I have so far:

These blocks measure 5 inches unfinished, 4.5 finished.  Four blocks made, sixteen to go.  Tomorrow should be a good day to work on this little gem.

This and That - Several Projects This Week

Since I returned home, I've worked on several projects, and have had some trouble with one of them.  Block #4, from the Barbara Brackman (BB) block of the week, was a puzzling one, but I finished it.  Here's how:

I looked at all the other people's solutions to piecing it, and looked at my own skills, and decided to do a combination of machine piecing, and hand applique.

Here are most of the pieces (cut out last week) ready to assemble:

If I machine pieced it, I knew I would be using the seam ripper a lot.....that didn't appeal to me.  If I hand pieced it, it would take me forever...not appealing either.  So I decided to first machine piece segments.

Here are the back side of a couple of the three piece segments, with the edge turned under, ready for the next step:

Then I arranged them on the ironing board, and fanned them out to overlap

each other:

Hmmmm, I need to close the gap!  This is how it would have probably turned out if I'd machine pieced the whole thing.  After adjusting the pieces, I have it how I want it:

I pinned everything and appliqued the seams to get the "sunflower" petals.  Then I appliqued a black circle over the center hole, and to finish it, I cut an 8.5 inch black fabric piece, and cut a hole in the middle of it and appliqued it over the above piece.  Voila!

Here are the blocks for BB's Suffragette quilt so far:

I'm also working on Lori's (http://humblequilts.blogspot.com) little quilt, and have made little four patches that are made from pieces that finish at 3/4 inch wide.  That is, each square shown below is 2x2 inches unfinished.

Aren't they cute little guys?