Sweet Surprise

Two quilting buddies from Seattle, Ann and Jennifer, drove up to visit yesterday. They had a tour of the house, patiently smiled at my scraggly garden, and put up with a very barky puppy. Just before they left, Ann mysteriously went to the car and came back with this wonderful surprise - a friendship quilt from the group that I belonged to for about 18 years:

It has a hanging sleeve with a slat included for hanging in my new (under construction) studio. The theme was "garden", and I absolutely love it! The block at top center is my old house in Seattle, which was also the logo for my quilting business. I tried to brush Jennifer off as she filmed me looking at it as I was making an ugly cry face. I was blown away by the sweetness of the group to make this for me. Thank you so much ladies!

A Finish and a Start

Quarter Logs, 57” x 45”

Quarter Logs is quilted, with a diagonal line going in one direction. I eye-balled all the lines, some are a bit wonky, and they match the piecing.  I tried out my new laser light, since there is no quilting guide on my old Juki, but found it wouldn’t stay in position. Next time I’ll try painter’s tape to attach the flexible tube to the underside of the machine so it doesn’t move around so much. I was suspicious that the price on it kept going down, but should be able to get some use out of it. Binding is a royal blue solid.

Components for Rose's Quilt, focus fabric in front

New project in progress is Rose’s quilt, seen on her blog https://somethingrosemade14.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-dreami-specks-strips-and.html


Thinking there were a lot of rescued jelly roll strips that all went together, I tracked down the box but many were peach, and the focus fabric did not have any peach, so instead pulled yellow/blues/greens/whites and they should be an interesting mix. A lot of quilts start with one idea and go somewhere else! The blocks come out 20” x 4” finished. 


I’ve started hand piecing hexagons into flowers for applique. Haven’t decided if I’ll use diamonds as the base block (as on https://www.stitchedincolor.com The Kingfisher 
stitch-along) or squares, as in APNQ magazine. The glue technique is not a winner, even with the special glue sticks. I’ll next try the basting technique that stays on the back side and doesn’t go through the papers (first big EPP project I did was queen-sized, all templates cut from magazine inserts, all basted through the paper…never again!)


Knitting is back on track, have had a sweater in progress for many months. It’s the Lightweight Raglan Pullover  by Purl Soho. Between an interesting pleated hem technique that didn’t work with the texture of the yarn, short-rows on the curved hems, and then short-rows on the back, it kept getting put aside. Oh and then there was the move in the middle. Have bookmarked a video on Kitchener stitch for the underarms, then just some ends to weave in and give it a quick blocking. The yarn is a Valley Yarns 8/2 mercerized cotton – there’s a strand of something other than cotton that gives it a nice tweedy look but was a bugger to un-knit in places. After this is finished I hope to knock out a few charity hats and scarves.


I stitched up three cowls using the black & white knit fabric from the shirt finished in January, all to be donated. One is long to double-wrap, the others single. It was nice to use up almost all the remaining fabric. They’re sewn in a tube, with just a small bit of hand sewing to close.