is it ok if i come out and play along today?

 officially speaking, I didn't do any RSC sewing this week, but I was busy with other stuff. (Tuesday we butchered all 25 of our turkeys- they weighed from 17lb. all the way up to 30lb. +. our bird for Thanksgiving dinner was 27lb.- plenty for 6 people!)

 

my friend asked me to make her a baby quilt for her newest great-granddaughter. I've had this jelly roll for a while- and it's sort of rainbow-y, too! (pattern here)

my DWR quilt is done! I'm happy with how it turned out, and it was definitely not as hard (or twiddly!) as I thought it would be. ( I will iron it soon, I promise!)

it's about a double size, and I plan to bind it in the gold solid. for now the plan for this quilt is to go to one of the MCC auctions, unless one of my children falls in love and claims it...

more gorgeous quilts here!

in which the quilter acutally finishes a quilt or two...

I would not be surprised if any of you were beginning to wonder if I ever actually finished a quilt, but were just too polite to mention it... well: this is the week!

I gathered all my crumb blocks together, and was surprised at how many I had! ( I think there were 121 total, in all the colors of the rainbow!) i had a rough idea where i was planning on going with this quilt, and after some final inspiration and direction from Julie's quilt, i was ready to go.

 

with the sashing, this flimsy turned out a bit bigger than i had thought it would, but I'm very happy with how it turned out. (it's about 66X88, if i remember correctly) it's already at the home of my quilter friend, Karen, and i expect it back sometime after Christmas.

 

this Christmas quilt is all done- quilted, bound and fresh and crinkly out of the dryer! it's about 60" square, and used tons and tons of my 3" squares. (but not enough to actually put a dent in that suitcase of squares!) I love how this quilt is just so hodge-podge- fabrics from 5, probably 6 decades, and all sorts of fabrics: vintage, Christmas, not Christmas, stripes, polka dots, text, geometric, metallic, solids, novelty, civil war, florals... so many fabrics to look at!

I've promised A that we'll put this quilt out next Thursday- after our Thanksgiving dinner!

 

click over to angela's to see what everyone else is working on!

Putting all those blocks to good use. Finally.

just like last week when I showed you all my completed 16 patches it's quite surprising how many 9 patches I have, too! enough to do 2 (TWO!) quilts, with more than a dozen blocks left over!

here's my first quilt from my 9 patch blocks. this one I plan to keep. what will I do with it, and where will I put it? I've no idea! (and don't worry: I took off all the row label stickers, AND fixed the green block)

now I'm auditioning borders. tell me what you think.

without borders, this quilt is about 75". in the picture above, I pinned up the Kona white to the design board, and *sort of* laid out a border. I was planning on doing a 2½" (finished) border, with scrappy squares all around, and then another 2½" (finished) border.

 

although, now that I look at it, I'm wondering if I should not just continue the colors out into the border, completing the patterns, so to speak.

 

tell me what you think...

here's the second quilt from my 9 patches. I'm absurdly thrilled and pleased with this one. not sure why, but I think it's really cool! the idea for the layout came from Cyndy, and is loosely (?) based on her offset log cabin layout. I figured if you could do it with log cabins, why not 9 patches? this will be a charity quilt, and the backing is red fabric with knots.

 

and just in case you're not firmly convinced that I'm truly the Captain of the Crazy Train, here's another Christmas quilt that's almost done. all scrappy 4 patches- a huge conglomeration of reds, greens, yellows and white. (and honest- this isn't a new project- I sketched it out in my journal way back in January! honest...)

 

also: in the spirit of full disclosure, I would like to point out that it was not on purpose that I forgot to tell you that this week we *might have* bought a spinning wheel, and are earnestly beginning the project of carding and spinning Helga's wool. (our Icelandic sheep) ahem.

 

 

I still (and always will) consider myself a quilter first, and farmer second, but both my little girls A and B have been wanting to learn how to spin. so: here we go! I've learned the rudimentary basics right along with them, and this will be a long term, on going project. in the meantime they, and our mouser cat Millie, are thrilled with our new "knitting nook"

11 months, 189 16 patches and 3024 3" blocks later...

they say slow and steady wins the race, and if my stack of completed 16 patches is anything to go by, they're sure right!

 

I don't have anymore greens to piece into the 16s; I used all my greens already... (forget what month that was, it seems ages ago!) the background fabrics are all creams/tans/beige- no whites. each of the background fabrics repeat several (many?) times, but the colored blocks are all different.

 

so: out of the 189 blocks, there are 189 different fabrics. and each of those fabrics I chose because they were my favorite.

 

how is this possible? what's the matter with me?! can I really have 189 favorite and/or meaningful unique scraps of fabric?

the answer is yes, it seems. there are dresses, many other quilts, shirts, purses, aprons, bonnets, fabrics from friends, on and on it goes ~ it's all in here, and represented in this one conglomeration of a quilt. for me, even though it may seem just a tad ridiculous, it adds another depth of meaning and sentimentality to my quilt.

 

I plan to piece this pile of 16 patches into 2 quilts- I'm debating what the ultimate use of them will be. it's a toss up between a quilt for my table at farmer's market (using all the animal/veggie/country fabrics) and a table cloth to be used on our table at special family meals and holidays. or, I might do matching quilts for the (twin) guest room beds.

 

click over to angela's to see all the other RSC15 projects as we finish up another great  year.