Design Wall Monday - November 29, 2021

Good Morning Quilters! 

While at the quilt retreat in Shipshewana, I completed making my Cynthia England pattern (picture piecing method) sewing machine project into a sewing machine cover for my sewing room.  

The original blog post about this project is here (Post from a year ago)

It went together easily.  I used one long rectangle piece of fabric, and two narrower rectangle end pieces that were curved at the top.  I mainly thought of a "mailbox shape" when I cut the pieces.  I drew a grid with a pencil of 45 degree angled lines, 2.5 inches apart on the muslin lining.  I put batting between the outside and inside layers of muslin and quilted it on the machine, all except behind the picture, using a quilting foot.  With the Cynthia England sewing machine picture to the front side, and all other sides quilted, I assembled it with the seams to the outside.  Then I cut a piece of plaid fabric on the bias and made binding and sewed it by machine (and again by hand) just like the edge of a quilt - to cover all the raw edges of the seams.  Binding around each end curved piece, and binding around the complete project on the bottom edge.  The binding was full with the batting layer included in it, and it looks just like piping on the finished project.  It went together easy-peasy.  Below are more pictures of the finished sewing machine cover:

Picture of it on my cutting mat, so you can see the inside:

On the machine, but I took this picture Sunday night, and in evening light:

And one last picture of the back side of it, on the machine:

This week we have been eating turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and enjoying all leftovers from our family's Thanksgiving Day celebration.  The feast is good for the whole weekend.

I made three pies, as I usually do, because my DH's favorite is apple, and I want to make an apple pie for him, and two pumpkin pies because it is an easy tradition to make two, since my crust recipe makes two crusts, and the recipe on the large can of pumpkin makes two pies.  Some of the pie went home with guests, and I think there are only two pieces of pumpkin pie left for our dinner tonight.   The apple pie was gone by Saturday.  

What have you been sewing this week?  What is on your design wall?  Please join in with our Design Wall Linky Party below and tell us all about it.  Thanks to all of you who mention Design Wall Mondays on your blog post, and also provide a link back to this post.  I am thankful for you.

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Design Wall Monday - November 22, 2021

 Good Morning Quilters! 

While away at a retreat, I worked on several UFOs and put them on a design board there, so I could take  pictures  for you.  

(1)  Using up old, old scraps (some from my Mom's stash) to make some baby quilts.  I used most of the old scraps, the ugly scraps, and inserted some children's prints and polka dots to make it cheery.  I think I will choose a solid background, add these strips, and make two baby quilts from this.

Close up of one strip:  (I will trim the sides to make them even before using them)

(2) A UFO of fall leaf prints and fall colors in 16 patches of half-square triangles:

This looks so "blah" on the design wall, that I decided to add a dark (maybe forest green) sashing and borders to it.  Also, with 32 blocks, I eliminated the two right side ones as "too light" and won't use them.  Leaving it 5 blocks by 6 blocks size.  So it is still a UFO, but further along, with all the blocks assembled.

(3) Another fall quilt - a Maple Leaf block project:

Everything except the far left column was my UFO.  I am now making 50 more blocks to make it much larger.  The column at the left are seven blocks made this week, plus there are 43 more leaf blocks now prepped to put together into nine patches.  Notice the leaf next to the bottom one in the left column?  I didn't discover until I took a picture that I have assembled the middle row of the nine patches backward.  My last unsewing and sewing at the retreat was to fix that block.  A picture sure points out the mistakes quickly, doesn't it?

Thanks for joining the Design Wall Monday Linky Party.  Please post your picture and link to your blog below, and show us what you were busy with this last week.  I appreciate all of you who mention Design Wall Monday within your blog post, and also provide a link back to this post from within yours.  You are my kind of people!  Happy Thanksgiving week to the American bloggers who are celebrating this week.  I am very thankful for all of you.  

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Design Wall Monday - November 15, 2021

Good Morning Quilters!  This week I am going to a quilt retreat and yesterday I made a long list of things to take with me……..everything but the kitchen sink apparently.   My car will hold it all, so it’s all good.

The last block for the May Day Basket Quilt is finished.  I am so happy!

While on retreat, I hope to buy fabric for the alternating blocks for this project.  I have decided on a solid green, and am taking two of my 30s era quilts with me to try to find a similar green to that used in those quilts.  

Here is the final (#30) quilt block of the May Day Flower Basket quilt. 

The two 30s quilts that I own are shown below:

What are you working on/playing with this week?  Please join the linky party below and show us.  Design Wall Mondays is open for you this morning, and will remain open all week.  Those of you who link back to this blog post and also mention Design Wall Mondays in your post are my favorite people.  

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Design Wall Monday - November 8, 2021

Good Morning Quilters!

Lately the Maple leaves and Oak leaves in Michigan have been so pretty that I felt like working on a leaf quilt.  I looked at one of my UFOs that is made with Maple leaf blocks.  Why was it a UFO?  I was trying to decide how big I wanted to make it, and couldn't decide. 

So this week, I decided on the size, calculated how many more blocks I would need to finish it....and cut some fabric.  Here is a Maple leaf block, ready to sew the nine pieces together.  But first I will trim up the hsts and applique the stem to the bottom right corner piece.  I think it finishes at 6 inches square. 

The amount of new blocks I want to finish this UFO is 50.   Since I have 49 blocks made in the UFO now, I am half way.  This week I  made all the hsts and stem pieces to make the remaining 50 blocks.  I am going to a retreat soon, and I thought this would be a good project to take with me.  It would be basically sewing together nine patches, and when I'm at a retreat, I like to take the whole room in, and work on something that I won't have to concentrate on too much.  Nothing too deep thinking for me, as I have the attention span of a gnat, and a room full of ladies quilting is so special to me - I don't want to miss any of it.

The May Day Basket block (the LAST one) is going slowly.  I looked at it yesterday and counted 13 more French knot groups that have to be embroidered on it yet.  I think it must have more French knots than most of the other blocks.  Either that, or I'm getting slower in making French knots.  I wish I knew how many French knots will be in this quilt top!  Trillions?

Here is the current status of block #30.  These flowers are of unknown origin - especially the red ones.  On most of the blocks, I can imagine what flower the maker was thinking about - on this block I can't.  So I am making them very colorful and thinking they are imaginary flowers.

What is on your design wall?  Thank you all for being so faithful in posting your pictures.  I love to look at them, and go to your blogs and read about your beautiful work.  You encourage me so much!

Please include a link back to this post within your blog post, and mention Design Wall Mondays to your readers.  I appreciate the linky party people who do that, you are my kind of people.

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Design Wall Monday - November 1, 2021

 Good Morning Quilters!

This past week I decided to work on something small and simple, and an Instagram friend, Taryn Faulkner, had pictures up of a #Halloweekendsewalong.

Her name on Instagram is Reproquiltlover and she inspires me because she loves to make copies of vintage quilts, just as I do.  Anyway, she made a cheddar and white pinwheel doll quilt that made me want to make one too.  I looked in my stash of hst pieces, and found some red and white ones.  Here is what I made:

It is 12” by 15” and the pinwheels are 3” square.  While looking for two color hsts to play with, I also found these, and I could make another version in tan and white:

Taryn said she pressed all the seams open on her small quilt, so I did too.  The hsts were already made and the seams pressed to the red side, but each seam after that was pressed open.  I thought you’d like to see what the back side looks like:  

I will be adding a border to it.   I also got out a fall quilt UFO to see what was to be added to it to finish the top.  I chose some fat quarters from my stash to make more blocks to get it finished.  I hope to have some progress on it to show you next Monday.

This is the view each morning, from my bedroom windows:

Soon the trees will be bare branches, and the grass underneath will be a colorful thick carpet of fallen leaves.

What are you working on?  Please join the linky party below and show us what you are doing.  Thanks to all of you who talk about Design Wall Mondays in your blog post, and also provide a link back to this post.  You are my kind of people.

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