March Quilty 365

My 31 days of circles for March!  The last two on the bottom row are for St. Patrick's day.  Above them, two days of monkeys.  I think they came from a bundle I bought on eBay several years ago.  I have mushrooms, flowers, bees and people walking in the rain for spring....it's coming slowly to my corner of the world.  You can see some color variations in the backgrounds.  I'm doing all my backgrounds in pale yellow...some paler than others.  At the end, I hope to have a nice scrappy look to it.

The 31st day is represented by my mini quilt for Jen & Jan's Laundry Day Mini Quilt Blog Hop.  My reveal day was March 11 and this is my quilt.

I'm currently planning on using this as a center for my completed circle quilt.  I quilted through the batting and then added the backing, which is held on by the binding. I just need to unpick the back if the binding, iron and it turns into sashing.  You can read more about this mini quilt  here.  There are still nine months to go so I may change my mind!
Linking with Daisy and Jack Handmade April link  and

Back to PLAY

I've been neglecting my PLAY, the improve QAL lately in favor of regular, straight edged projects.   It's getting closer to the finish so I took a look at what I had and still wasn't terribly happy with my initial log cabins blocks.  They can be seen in  these posts.  I gathered up a selection of solids that have been sitting in my stash and got to work.

I haven't trimmed anything yet...I'm waiting until I finish as I always seem to cut off something I later need.  I like the way my stack and cut blocks came out.  The whirligig thing is the result of  using rectangles for my wonky triangle sets.  I still need to do the stars and the crumb blocks.   I've saved all my trimmings so I should have plenty to work with for those!  Tomorrow, a new project will be released. Looking forward to it!

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts link up. Lovelaughquilt Monday Making,and Em's Scrapbag

Finished Top!

Here it is ...in my living room, complete with cat!  So  far, it's way too windy to photo outside.  I'll try later in the day to get a better one.  As you can see, it's in three parts for ease of quilting on my home machine.

This was made using Melissa Corry's tutorial.  The instructions were clear and where I had a question, the photos answered it.  The initial cutting and piecing went fairly fast.  I spent way too much time on the layout and moving strips around.  My cat loved that part...nothing like a long strip of fabric to chase!The final assembly was like a jellyroll race...just sewing all the strips together.

I might do this one again using a more neutral background.  This is a great pattern for a charity quilt or if you need a fast gift.

Linking with Em's Scrapbag Moving Forward Monday and LoveLaughQuilt MondayMaking andBusy Hands Quilts Finished or Not Friday

A New Start

Several years ago, I saw a quilt pattern that I loved.  It was a pillow but looked like something that would make a great full sized quilt.  Over the years, I've seen other examples but the only instructions I could find involved just cutting off the excess fabric.  I quilt on a budget and I really disliked the fabric waste for that method.   It's really difficult to find instruction for a pattern when everyone calls their quilt by a different name!

Last week, I was blog browsing and I found it... complete with excellent instructions!  Click here  for the tutorial  It's dated 2013 so I somehow missed it in my periodic efforts to find it.  Melissa used 10 light and 10 dark fat quarters but I really hate cutting so I decided to go with a jelly roll.  I needed a little over one jelly roll . I found a pattern at Connecting Threads that looked as if it had enough low volume and high volume and their strip sets have 22 strips per pack.  I got three and have enough left over for binding if I choose to do so.  The fabrics are a little darker than my screen showed but I was able to use the backside of some for the lights. The solids are a suede which will add a great texture to the finished top.

The instruction start with cutting 124 and 105 pieces....did I mention that I hate cutting??  At least I started with 2.5 strips.

77 sets out of 93!!  Almost there...........I cut a batch then chained them together........

Finally all the strips are cut and joined....now for the final pressing and layout.

The really hard part...deciding where they all should go...this isn't all of them, but this step will be done soon as I have NO walking room left on my floor!

Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts

Progress!

February circles are finally completed!  And I'm caught up with March also.  If you are not familiar with the circle project, it's called Quilty 365 and started November 2015.  Leanne from Daisy and Jack Handmade  is continuing on this year.  The idea is to choose a piece of fabric every day of the year and make a 4.5" block.  At the end of your year, the assembled blocks will provide a fabric diary.

I'm finding that my scraps, which I thought I had so much of, aren't suitable in many ways...too small, too ugly, just don't fit my mood or whatever.  I really hate to cut into fat quarters so I'm breaking into charm packs.  I'm also finding leftover blocks and pieces from quilts I've made.  In the top row, #3 and the last one in the third row down are from the quilt I did for the Iron Quilter at Missouri Star Quilt Company.  That was 2013.  The first one in the second row from the bottom is from my heart quilt designed by Kathy Doughty. Right under it is a failed paper piecing for the Splendid Sampler. So this has really turned into a diary.
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Linking with Oh Scrap! and Em's scrapbag

Jen & Jan's Quilter's Laundry Day Blog Hop

The sun is shining.  A breeze blows the clouds and drys the day's 365 circle quilt.  The front lawn is nicely mowed while the field in the back is growing wildflowers and the cats are inside looking out.

Welcome to my stop on Jen and Jan's Mini quilt blog hop.  I've always wanted to do a house quilt so when I saw this pattern I couldn't resist. The free pattern for Quilter:s Laundry Day can be found here .  I'm also participating in the Quilty 365 so my mini mini quilt is the circle for today.  The clouds and the tree are made the same way I do my circles...shape sewn to light interfacing and then turned.  I put a hedge in the front of my house and a bright brass doorknob.


This was a lot of fun to do, but harder than expected....right now, my  floor and cutting table is covered with rejected fabric choices and second guessing my final choices was constant.  I may have to do another one!

Right now, I'm planning on using this as a center for my finished circles at the end of the year.

There were some great quilts shown yesterday and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of todays!  If you leave and comment on Jen's or Jan's blogs, you will be entered into a drawing.  You can see all of the quilts on these blogs.

March 10 Reveal Day

Jen Rosin  A Dream and a Stitch
Kate Heads at Smiles From Kate
Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter
Karen Thurn at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats
Melva Nolan at Melva Loves Scraps
Vicki at Vicki's Crafts & Quilting
Julie Stocker at Pink Doxies
Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts
Diann at Little Penguin Quilts

Jayne at Twiggy & Opal

Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication

March 11 Reveal Day
Janice Holton at Color Creating & Quilting

Sola at Alice Samuels Quilt Co

Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

Amy Gerlich at Amy Scrap Spot

Sharon Denney Parcel at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs

Tami at Sew Much for Free Time

Suzy Webster at Adventurous Applique & Quilting

Tish Stemple at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Susan Gordon at Sevenoaks Street Quilts

Anne Boundy at Said With Love

Barbara Wootie at The Flashing Scissors
Jan Welander at Making Scraps

Linking with Crazy Mom Quilts   and  Busy Hands Quilts

Jen and Jan's Mini Quilt Blog Hop

A fun blog hop today, Friday March 10 and Saturday March 11.  The quilt we are all doing is Jen's Laundry Day, which offers lots of space for embellishments and design choices beyond the fabrics.  

March 10 Reveal Day

Jen Rosin  A Dream and a Stitch
Kate Heads at Smiles From Kate
Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter
Karen Thurn at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels and Eats
Melva Nolan at Melva Loves Scraps
Vicki at Vicki's Crafts & Quilting
Julie Stocker at Pink Doxies
Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts
Diann at Little Penguin Quilts
Jayne at Twiggy & Opal
Susan Arnold at Quilt Fabrication
Leanne Milsom at Lizzie the Quilter
Sandra Walker at Mmm! Quilts!

March 11 Reveal Day 

Janice Holton at Color Creating & Quilting

Sola at Alice Samuels Quilt Co

Jennifer Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

Kathy Bruckman at Kathys Kwilts and More

Amy Gerlich at Amy Scrap Spot

Sharon Denney Parcel at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs

Steffi at Steffi's Hobbys

Tami at Sew Much for Free Time

Suzy Webster at Adventurous Applique & Quilting

Tish Stemple at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Mary Marcotte at Fleur de Lis Quilts & Accessories

Susan Gordon at Sevenoaks Street Quilts

Anne Boundy at Said With Love

Barbara Wootie at The Flashing Scissors
Jan Welander at Making Scraps

I'm Saturday so you'll see mine then.  I;m looking forward to seeing everyones.  Be sure and leave a comment at Jen and Jan's blogs to be eligible for a drawing.

So Behind!

These are my February circles from the Quilty 365-2017 project.  As you can see, I've gotten behind on sewing them up.  They are all there, even if halfway sewed and I am choosing March's every day.  I am running out of scraps...never thought that I'd say that!  Most of my scraps seem to be too small, the wrong color or just not speaking to me.  Looking at other;s blogs, I have a severe case of fabric and scrap envy!

I'm still working on the Bear Claw quilt and always seem to be ripping out a section as I've sewn the hst's on backwards.  My backing fabric for the diamond quilt hasn't shown up yet...big mixup at the vendor resulting in lots of emails, phone calls etc.  My camera program seems to have stopped working and informs me that it can't create the files??????? It's also dating every picture as 2009! I think it's trying to tell it's time for a new camera.  The pictures seem to be going somewhere although I had a hard time finding them.. After on year, I still don't like windows 10!

On the brighter side, I'll be taking part in a mini quilt blog hop on Friday March 10 and have been working on that quilt.  I like to work on different projects at the same time so I've started another quilt.  Hopefully some pix will be coming soon.  And the new monthly mini quilt was released this morning!