Thursday, March 8, 2012

A Few Finishes, A Few Starts

I've been plugging away at some older projects, starting a few new ones. This one is a bee block quilt from my pals at Bee Vintage. I asked the gals to make a 15" block, using 100 2" squares, using this tutorial. I think I've had the bulk of these blocks since May. I even had them laid out and ready to go. Then the flood happened. So that was the end of that. A few weeks ago, I decided to give them another try. Happy to report, no disasters, and this is the result:






Love how it turned out. Because of the quilter's grid, it's really sturdy, so it's become a picnic quilt. And I do believe it's going up to 70 today! Pass the potato chips!

This next guy I'm calling the Andrea's Basement Quilt. My SIL has been doing some serious house purging lately, in anticipation of the arrival of a little one. A furry little one. She's getting a puppy! On a recent de-stashing, she gifted me with a bag of fabric. This little dino panel was in the stash. So I whipped it up into a small quilt. This will go to Early Head Start.


Do you have plans for the next few quilts you want to make? I do. But every so often, one will jump the line. It seems like the Granny Square quilt is the latest darling of the flickr quilting community. I like the look, but wasn't planning to make it. But then, I saw that someone was making it in fruit an vegetable fabric. I've had some small cuts, like 6 " x 7" cuts, of produce fabric in my stash forever! Granny, here I come!


If you're interested, there's a QAL going on over on flickr. I deviated slightly, and made my blocks 3" instead of 2.5, so I could eat up every bit of my fruits and veggies. I had to supplement a bit. Up close, the green/stripey fabric kind of looks like watermelon rind. I also used the hst/qst method for the setting triangles instead of the original tutorial that has you use all squares and then lop them off. Didn't want all that exposed biased on the edges. (you can read more about this here.)I think this will finish around 40", so it will probably end up as a table topper in the kitchen.

Let's see. I finished about 10 squares in my String a Day quilt. I'm really liking it! I tend to make my block first thing in the morning (right after coffee and journaling.) It's a nice warm up if I'm going to do more sewing and gets my day off to a good creative start.



In knitting news, I've finished three  preemie hats (we call the Tiny Toppers!) I got all fancy with this one and made a pom pom. Still trying to resist the knitting bug. Katie wants a hat, so I'll make that, but then no more. I meet with my knitting group (what, I'm in a knitting group? didn't I just say I was resisting?) once a week at Wegmans (yup, the grocery store, with a lovely cafe upstairs. Do you have Wegmans near you? We'll talk about that one day!) and find I can knit and watch tv, but that's all the time I'm allotting to it!

That's about it for now. Check back tomorrow for a tutorial, guest blogging and a giveaway!!

5 comments:

Needled Mom said...

The finishes are fabulous. I love the picnic quilt.

The fruit and veggie fabric works so well in the Granny Squares. What a wonderful tablecloth that would make.

The hat is darling too and the colors are great. You have been busy!

Steph Jacobson said...

I love the picnic quilt--so many beautiful fabrics! You have inspired me to use my scraps to make string quilt blocks, too. I made 4 of them this week--they are so much fun. I'm only making a baby quilt so I just have 26 to go!

Linda said...

You've been really busy! I love them all! (The fruit and vegetable blocks are really fun!)

Michele said...

I like the granny squares. I joined that one too but I have yet to find the time to actually get started. I so hate being late to anything but I have no choice at the moment. The tiny hats are really adorable.

Unknown said...

Looks great. I am thinking of doing something similar for myself. :)