Sew Sunshine

This was a fun quilt to make. It is a free pattern on the Tilda website. I wanted to do an applique quilt for a long time and I do love a dresden.  I did a simple diamond quilting over the top of applique. I was not sure how hard it would be to quilt myself. It wasn't! I love everything about this one. The pattern the colors how the blocks came together. So scrappy and fun. Perfect to finish for the county fair. So glad I did. I received Judges choice and a blue! I made this quilt bigger but was not sure how much bigger so I had some extra blocks I put on the back.  66"x 76" approx. My other 2 entries I have posted about before. More about this trip around the world   HERE got a Blue ribbon and  My Bee mate quilt Notan got a blue too! Read about it  HERE

When I was Queen of the Bee I chose a theme based on notan. I was not sure how the group would interpret the idea but I also had a piece of fabric called "opposite" by Marsha Derse that I thought might help.  The fabrics I gave was various blacks and kona snow. There is a tiny bit of purple and some of the opposite fabric line. Each block was so different. I finally pieced them together with the background that I wanted to be opposite too. not working..... much better I think clear thread, straight line quilting

Our local guild had a maximalism challenge.  I wanted to play with one shape in multiple ways with bold contrast color with neutrals and bold prints. I wasn't sure one shape like the cross or plus made in a more ordered fashion could be maximalism or not but this is what I came up with. Whether it is or isn't it will be in a local art museum with other guild members entries starting next week. I love this pink color and am super happy with how it turned out. This part of that center fabric I saved just for this label and contributed to the name. 

This day was sort of a birthday wish I had that my sisters would help me sew some of my fabric up for outreach quilts. One sister thought it would be fun to give out scratch off tickets but she guessed they were duds...I won $25!! We finished 5 quilt tops that day and I went home and quilted them. One of my sisters took some blocks home too and has another top done for me. I still need to get that done but I have been dealing with a broken bone in my foot and now some realignment therapy for some toes. It sort of makes it hard to get a lot done as my sewing area is both upstairs and down.   A little bit every day.....

Catching up on some quilting posts today. I am thinking now that I am looking back at some photos that this may be a bit daunting. I have not kept up this year hardly at all.  I started making up all the panels I had in my stash for a local quilt for kids group. I have 100 labels and hope to fulfill that goal one day. I am going to just post a bunch of the quilts I have been making this summer for that group and my local church outreach. This photo is some of the U.G.L.Y (unconditionally God loves you) bed rolls our church group makes from donated textiles.  Lots of donations of denim jeans and bits of canvas makes for colorful sleeping bags. We make pillows if we don't have donated ones and we also put a bag of hygiene products wrapped up inside.  Our group has finished over 87 bed rolls so far this year. Our goal is 100. We just rescued several rolls of mattress padding from a warehouse that was getting rid of old product. The rolls are 90" wide and rolls of about 50 ya...

For some reason I found a few pics of this hand dyed quilt I made last year and realized I never posted about it.  I had a stack of hand dyed fabrics from various dye classes and decided to match them up with some lighter turmeric dyed fabric I made. All HST's made in groups of 4. This was super fun and fast to make.  Lots of trimming! I was inspired by this little arty thing I drew. The mix of colors worked pretty well. In person some of the dyes looked more muddy and I was glad this shows the contrast and how they did all work together. Leftover square sets went on the back. I decided hand quilting was best. It is big stitch. When I entered this in the county fair last year I heard the judge called it a toenail catcher. I don't get that....? I'm going to have to dig it out of storage to get the size but it was big enough to have to use my quilt hanger.  Well I know I still have some hand dyes to work with so maybe another scrappy type quilt this year.  I have to go...