Old Town Mystery Quilt ~ Part 5 Finished

 Hey Quilty Friends!  Old Town Part 5 was a breeze compared to some of the previous clues. I finished these much faster than I thought.  But in my excitement, I forgot one of Bonnies rules, no pictures on our cutting mats.  So, once again I blurred out the cutting mat lines in some of the pictures.

Bonnie's patterns almost always give the maker several options for making the different units.  My plan for this quilt was to use the Bonnie Hunter Essential Triangle ruler if it was a suggested option.  As you can see, I changed my mind.  The flippy corners method was easier.  I don't need more cutoff triangles for making half square triangle blocks, but I figure, why not?  You have over 4,000 half square triangles, what's a few more?

The instructions suggested drawing a line from corner to corner, then stitching to the right side of the line, basically it's a scant quarter inch.  I chose not to draw a line but to use the seam guide tape.  Just put the point of the square at the needle and stitch, making sure the opposite point stays on the red line.

In no time at all I had all the square in a square units completed.

I also had a huge pile of cut off corners.  Instead of sewing the green and blue triangles together, I will be adding a white triangle to each one of these.

The last part of this week clue was easy.  A bunch of blue and white squares.  I forgot to take a picture of the blue squares.  They were in the first picture at the beginning of this post.

While cutting the white squares I came across a few triangles hiding in the scrap bins.  They were set aside to be used with the flippy corners cut offs to make half square triangles.   To make even more white triangles, the end was cut off all the pieces from previous clues when I cut triangles from strips of fabric.

I haven't counted all the white triangles, but I think there should be more than enough to go with the green and blue cutoffs. 

I thought about stitching all these together today, but it occurred to me, there's still more clues to this mystery quilt.  There may be more triangles in the last few clues.  Maybe I should hold off on making bonus half square triangles until I'm sure these can't be used in another clue. So, to be on the safe side, I gave them their own special little box and will wait until the final quilt reveal before making them into half square triangles.

By sundown last night all the mystery quilt mess was cleaned up and the project was stored away on the top of works in progress cart.  

Sunday is sewing in my jammies day.  I'll be working from the bottom shelf of this cart.  The Bumpkin Baskets quilt has a lot of border applique to be stitched into place.  That should keep me busy all day. 

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Back Door Quilts ~ Fabric Haul ~ 2 Bucks A Block Quilt

Hi Quilty Friends!  Earlier in the week me and my friend Judy went on a little shopping trip to our local quilt shop, Back Door Quilts.  I had a list of needed items...Thimblepads, iron cleaner and Superior Threads Mono-poly thread.  The rest was impulse purchases that we will call Merry Christmas to me!

When I saw the new Cory Yoder line called Cali & Co I couldn't resist the 3 low volume prints.

I grabbed a few more low volume fat quarters because you can never have too many.  The top two prints are Lori Holt prints.  The third print is by Christopher Thompson, and the last print in the stack is by J. Wecker Frisch.

A couple more low volume prints with no information on the selvage.  And a half yard of a beautiful real red print from the Smitten line of fabric by Bonnie and Camille.  A good red print is hard to find these days, so I snatch this one up with no hesitation.  Most so called reds are not red.  They are tomato soup, cranberry or raspberry.  The blue print is by Edyta Sitar and was just too pretty to leave behind.

The shop was having a sale on Christmas and Halloween fabrics, I had no plan on buying either.  As you all know I'm not a big fan of novelty prints.  Sometimes I need to break my own rules.  This Sugar Coated Northcott print was just too darn cute.  It would make an adorable accent on tea towel or maybe a set of potholders for next Christmas.

The last impulse buy was this Scalloped Metal quilt stand.  I've had my eye on it for a year or two.  It's the same shape as my blog logo and it was also my business logo.

The small quilts are held onto the metal stand with magnets.  The quilt designs are cute and made with wool.  I'm allergic to wool clothing so I don't plan on taking the chance of using quilting wool.  I might eventually make the two below with raw edge applique and quilting cotton but for now I'm excited to try my hand at designing at least one of my own.

Now for the other reason we went to the quilt shop.  We wanted to see the new 2 bucks a block quilt for 2025.  It's made with Lori Holt prints.  Judy and I both loved the quilt and decided to sign up for a year's worth of quilty fun. We will pick up our first blocks sometime next month.  

  You can find all the details for this 2 bucks a block quilt program on the Back Door Quilts website by clicking here.

 

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What's In The Box ~ Part 2 ~ Grandmothers Flower Garden

Hi Friends!  Do you ever have a day when you just don't feel like sewing?  It's rare for me, but it does happen, and it happened yesterday.  I didn't feel like doing much of anything but watch TV and go down many quilty rabbit holes.  Late in the afternoon, I decided I should at least take a look in the UFO box for a Part 2 of "What's In The Box" blog post.

I went through this box and organized it on Wednesday evening.  Organizing was nothing more than making sure every project was in a bag.  I didn't open projects already in a bag.  So, as I go through these bags over the next few days, I might find a few surprises hiding inside.  They were put back in the box in no particular order and shared in no particular order.

Today's UFO is three different bags of Grandmothers Flower Garden Blocks and one Sunflower block.

Let's start off with the hand pieced Sunflower. How it got here is a mystery but it sure is cute. The first thought that came to mind for using it was a simple pillow.

The same story for the next two bags of blocks.  I don't remember anything about them.  All are hand pieced and older fabrics.

These are in bag two.  

Bag three. I made these blocks many years ago but when?  After searching my blog for any talk of Grandmothers Flower Garden blocks, I found ZERO posts.  A good guess would be 12 to 16 yrs ago.  I remember working on these while on camping trips and long road trips.  Oh well, they are old and that's good enough.

In the bag is more fabric and cardboard templates for making more blocks. To be on the safe side I'll leave the these stored with the blocks.  Being fickle is something I do really well, so it's a good idea to keep them out of my stash and ready to be used for more blocks.

If all of the blocks from the 3 bags were the same size, they could easily be put into one quilt.  But life likes to throw challenges my way.  Each set is a different size. Oh, I'm certain there's a way to put them all in one quilt but do I want the hassle?  Again, only time will tell.  I love them all and plan to use them, I just don't have a plan.

Over the years I've pulled out my bag of blocks and played with ideas for setting them as applique on a large piece of background fabric.  

A Medallion style quilt, then add some applique around the outside in the blank areas to make it more interesting.

After taking the pictures above, editing and writing this blog post for today it was time to get back to being lazy.  I started looking for ideas online. After about an HOUR, I stumble across a quilt made by Lori Holt.  It was late and I needed to get to bed. So, I opted to cancel the 4 am scheduled post so I could add the following. 

In this quilt Lori's flowers are appliqued to a background fabric then snowballed and set with colorful sashing.  I like it!  Maybe this is an option but on a much larger scale.  Her style of applique would be the quickest way to finish my project.  I don't really like her style other than it's fast.  Since I borrowed her quilt image, I'm not going to tell you or show you her applique technique.  You can find the tutorial by clicking here.

If I choose to go this route, all the blocks from the three bags could be used in one quilt.  It wouldn't be the prettiest quilt, but it would be finished and have a story to tell.  What do you think? 

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What's In The Box ~ Part 1 ~ Mariners Compass

 Hi Friends!  Please tell me I'm not the only one with a huge box of forgotten unfinished projects.  It's so easy to forget them when you can't see them.  Should we take them out of hiding?  Come on in and join me with the first of many of posts about "What's In The Box".

 The sewing room plan for yesterday was to tidy things up a bit before starting to sew. That's what I was doing, sweeping under the quilt frame. While moving things out from under the quilt frame I became distracted by the containers of UFO's.  The two marked with stars are partially quilted quilts. I didn't like the custom quilting on them, so they have been stored away until I feel like taking out the stitches. Those can be dealt with at another time.  Honestly who likes ripping out quilting, not me.   The tote marked with an arrow is full of UFO's.  It's time to sort through them and make a few decisions.

The first thing to do is sort them and find a better storage solution.  Ideally, each project should have its own storage bin.  Preferably a clear container, labeled with the project name.  My plan is to slowly sort through them over the last few days of this year.  Hopefully by the start of the new year I can have them organized and stored for easy access.  Maybe if they are staring me in the face, I'll be more inclined to finish them.

Let's take a peek at the first one out of the box.  It was folded and laying right on top.  A Mariner's Compass.

This was started way back in 2012.  The foundation paper is parchment paper.  This was drafted by me with a pencil and a ruler.  Wow, I don't think I would have the patience for such a project these days.  You can see the original blog posts here.  You'll also get to see the canoe he made from 1/4" wide strips of wood, it took 3 yrs to make.

The Compass turned out beautifully, but it became a UFO because I couldn't decide on the method for adding a background fabric in order to make it square.

The plan was to add these blocks around the squared Compass.  The blocks are from a block of the month program by our local quilt guild. 12 blocks total. 

Because I still dread trying to square up the compass block, I think the quickest way to finish this project would be to quilt the Mariners Compass as is and call it a table topper.  Then the 12 blocks would be made into a quilt. What do you think?  I'm open to ideas!

See you soon with "What's In The Box ~ Part 2"

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