Karrin's Crazy World: March 2019

Sunday, March 31, 2019

Hands2Help Finish, 2019 Finish-A-Long

This week I finished the first quilt in the Hands2Help Challenge. It was a pretty simple finish. Years ago, I picked up some blocks at an estate sale or something. They had what looked like redwork blocks with cherries in the center, actually it was fabric. This week I put those blocks together, pieced a piano keys border out of 30's fabric, and quilted it.

This finishes at 48x48 and I will be donating it to Quilty Hugs. This also happened to be #8 on my 2019 Finish-A-Long list for the first quarter, which was to get this to a flimsy. I went past that original goal.

In going through my 30s reproductions, I came across this, so will expand it for another small quilt.

I found this pile of scraps in with my 30's fabrics I need to get cut up to use. I couldn't believe the pile I had in there.

I also pulled out a container with this line of fabric in it. I knew I had some swap blocks. These are all different sizes. They were all done on a line of fabric that was called Bonnie Stratton Quilt for a Cure, all in blues whites and yellows. I bought A LOT of it at the time. I would like to use most of it up.

I had components to make some more baskets

But apparently these components I cut on the selvage, the white part. I guess that is why I didn't put them together

I'm thinking about having long strips of this fabric as borders/sashing. I have a lot of this too, yards and yards. I don't know what I was thinking. I did make my daughter a quilt with this fabric when she got married 19 years ago. I think I intended to make myself one too, but nevergot around to it.

I have a bunch more of these scraps to cut up too.

I think all this will keep me busy and out of trouble a few days!

Thanks for stopping by!

Slow Sunday Stitching Hand Pieced QAL, Hands2Help Finish

I have done a lot of slow stitching this week. I continue thank Kathy of Kathy's Quilts for the weekly motivation!

First off I put together the top for the Hand-Pieced Quilt-Along hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts and Kristin of Simple, Handmade, Everyday. I always planned to set it with something other than the background fabric, as I only had small scraps of the background fabric left after making my blocks.

I started the third in the Hospital Sketches BOM by Barbara Brackman. I'm using my Civil War Reproduction fabrics for this. This block is called Love Apple.

I'll put my other activities this week in another post. Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. Thanks again Kathy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Sew Lets QAL, Hands2Help

Two weeks ago, Partner's in Design started a new Quilt A-Long, a sewing themed one. I can't see that I blogged about it before. The blocks come out every two weeks. Thanks so much to the Partners in Design for this Quilt A-Long.

The first block was a sewing machine, which I really loved. This was designed by Sandra Healy of Sandra Healy Designs. You can click that link and get the pattern there.

This week's block was designed by April Adams of Janda Bend Quilts. You can go to her site and download the pattern. She had embroidered "Quilt Along With Me, the Best is Yet to be" on the mug, but I chose to use this quilt block named fabric instead.

My other finish so far this week is this flimsy for the Hands2Help Project. It's not too late to sign up for this project at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I plan to donate this to the charity Quilty Hugs. Just need to get some batting and backing together and I can start quilting it. It measures 48x48. The star blocks are something I have had for years, I picked up at an estate sale or something. I decided to make a stringy border. I ran outside today to get a pic before it started raining again.

Thanks for stopping by! Karrin

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

One Monthly Goal, 2019 Finish Along, More organizing

I continue to appreciate the motivation I get from the One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty at Elm Street Quilts! If it gets toward the end of the month, I start getting nervous if I am not almost done! Many thanks to Patty for all she does!

I stated my One Monthly Goal for March here. It was to finish Flourishes BOM #11. I'm happy to say it is done.

I'll be linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts. This is a great motivation to get projects finished, and April's goal-setting will be coming up shortly.

I also finished another item on my first quarter Finish-A-Long list. I enrolled in Shabby Fabrics BOM called Nutcracker Suite. For one of my goals, I wanted to get the first two months of this BOM done, which I also completed this week. The first two months involved piecing blocks.

I now have 2 nutcrackers to do, and a third one is on the way. Me ordering this nutcracker BOM doesn't make much sense considering I have 29 BOM's I haven't started yet, collected over a number of years. But I love nutcrackers, have an extensive collection, and I had to have it. I even talked DH into paying for half of it for my anniversary last November.

The one thing I got done yesterday besides the Flourishes block was a tiny bit of organization. I've been working on my Hands2Help project. I went looking through my 2 large bins of 30's fabric for some solid red. I have very few solids, but I though there was some in one of those bins. Those 2 bins were a mess and I had to organize everything but I found the red.

I didn't think to take a before picture. The bin on the right with the exception of the red pile is all backing fabrics. I didn't realize I had so much. These are mostly the size for children's quilts, not larger. At least I can find stuff now.

That was all I was able to do, I had such a migraine, and had trouble getting rid of it, and once I took my migraine medication, I didn't feel like doing much at all.

Thanks for stopping by! Karrin

Monday, March 25, 2019

All About Strings Blog Hop

Welcome to the All About Strings Blog Hop! This is the first day, and also happens to be my day! Many thanks to Carla of Creatin In the Sticks for organizing this hop, and it also happened to get me to finish an old, old UFO! I really have had fun with my strings and using up leftovers.

When I first signed up for this blog hop, I was thinking I would make baskets out of my strings.

Image result for free squirrel image

Then I got side-tracked by this squirrel. I have shelves up along the ceiling in my sewing room, and there are containers up there I was not sure what they contained. I found one container and it had this primitive project in it. Really primitive stitching on this, though not finished.

I apparently had thought of doing 2 of these for some reason, and had pieced 2 crazy backgrounds.

This was what it was supposed to be. It is called Sweet Annie from this book.

I kept thinking about this, and thinking about it. After about the third time of pulling this down from the container near the ceiling, I realized there was another baggie in the container, containing blocks from a swap from 1997. I know, because some of them are signed and dated on the front. It was a swap with brown and pink Civil War reproduction fabrics. I didn't get side-tracked yet by Sweet Annie project, but the basket blocks.

These were the blocks in the baggie I found.

I had these other blocks too which was how I was going to originally set them.

I wanted the baskets set on point, so I looked up how to calculate my setting triangles, and I found it here on All People Quilt which has a PDF. My blocks were 8 inches so I needed to have 6-5/8 inch squares to cut in half.

I started sewing my strings together with a foundation. I had a lot leftover, but I planned it that way.

My trimmed up block.

Cut in half.

This was the top finished. These blocks were from 1997. I started quilting around 1994. I discovered the blocks I made are awful, though I went ahead and put it together anyway. My points didn't meet. I sure hope these were the rejects and I sent better ones to the other participants!

In looking for other pink and brown fabric in my Civil War reproduction drawers, I got side-tracked again and ended up reorganizing them, and found these reject Dear Jane triangles. I decided to incorporate them, along with all my leftover string pieces into the backing, plus the leftover baskets, and the other blocks I had originally intended to set the baskets on point with.

Finished front flimsy

Finished back flimsy

Front after it has been quilted

Back after quilting.

Label

Thanks again to Carla @ Creatin in the Sticks

This makes the second UFO I have gotten finished this month.

Stringing Up Baskets:

Put together with swap basket blocks and set on point with string triangles.

Civil War Reproduction fabrics

Batting was Hobbs Heirloom 80/20

Thread was Aurifil 50 wt.

Be sure and visit the other participants in The All About Strings Blog Hop. The schedule is below, and thanks so much for stopping by!

Monday, March 25th

Just Let Me Quilt

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Bumbleberry Stitches

QuiltFabrication

Seams to be Sew

DesertSky Quilting

Happy Cottage Quilter

quiltsbyjoanne

selina quilts

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Karrin's Crazy World

Tuesday, March 26th

Patchouli Moon Studio

ShirleyC

Wednesday, March 27th

Stitchin at Home

Alycia Quilts

Websterquilt

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Melva Loves Scraps

Words & Stitches

Den syende himmel

Patchwork Breeze

Domestic Felicity

The Quilted Snail

Thursday, March 28th

Cynthia's Creating Ark

The Joyful Quilter

Color Creating and Quilting

PamelaQuilts

Beaquilter

Two Maker Chicks

Days Filled With Joy

Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!

Creatin' in the Sticks

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Hand Quilt Along, Slow Sunday Stitching

Another 3 weeks has flown by since I last reported for the Hand Quilt Along. I appreciate this motivation hosted by Kathy I have worked on the last two blocks of the Hand-Pieced
QAL hosted by Patty at Elm Street Quilts, and Kristin at Simple, Handmade, Everyday. I've had a good time hand-piecing, and it has been a great experience, with fond memories of my dear MIL and her hand-piecing and quilting.

I've also gotten quite a bit done on the Flourishes Block, which is my One Monthly Goal, also hosted by Patty at Elm Street Quilts. I just need to get the last yellow petals on and I can finish this up.

Also on the Facebook group, Quilts by Cheri-Friendship Group, we were working on a project in tribute to Cheri Payne, who died last year. I decided to make mine into a pillow. I'm running out of wall space!

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Lori, Margaret, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Susan, Nanette, Edith, Sharon, Karrin, and Gretchen

I will also be linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. Many thanks to Kathy too for her weekly motivation!

Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, March 23, 2019

All About Strings Blog Hop Coming Soon, Days with Klara.

I have been busily working on my project for the All About Strings Blog Hop starting on Monday, hosted by Carla at Creatin in the Sticks. I've got the whole schedule listed below at the end of the post.

I got to spend a two days with Klara, my youngest granddaughter this week. She is 5 and her daycare provider had other plans. She let me work on quilting for a couple of hours in the mornings and then we had the rest of the day to do some activities. She helped me straighten out my applique threads, we sorted out the toy cupboard, and weeded out some baby games and toys, which I sent along to the daycare provider to use. Also, on one day when it was sunny we enjoyed the park across the street for a couple of hours. We also had a good time coloring some mermaids to send to her cousin Kyleigh who is at college near Boston.

Then I got out my bag of leggings Klara has outgrown and made a couple of outfits for her babies. This is Dot, a dog she apparently made at one of those Build-A-Bear parties she went to. I made Dot a pair of leggings.

Front of Leggings

Back with a hole for her tail. Bad lighting this day, it was a rainy day.

I cut out a sleeveless t-shirt.

This was all of Klara's leggings I had left.

Klara and her babies.

I also made some leggings and shirt for this baby. Can't really see it, but there are unicorns on these leggings. I also used one of Klara's tops that had a ruffle on the sleeve, and put it at the bottom of this shirt. Her mother suggested I make some clothes and put them in her Easter basket.

In our neighborhood, we are across the street from the 5 acre neighborhood park. We have about 30 turkeys in one group that wander around everyday. They start at the house across the street from me. I'm standing in my driveway looking over.