Sew Sunshine

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 yards.

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 see wh

I did a simple Irish chain for this weeks challenge theme for Project Quilting. I made this free pattern before and you can read all about that  HERE . I made this in a kid size mainly because I had limited neon fabrics. I have enough strips cut to make bigger but my goal was to make quilts for kids that I could donate to organizations. So in the end getting this one made this week (also I have had some kind of flu for 2 weeks) is a win! Some of these mostly black prints have been in my stash for a long time so really want to keep working on my stash.  Simple criss-cross quilting. 39"x 49" approx. Linking up with Persimon Dreams  HERE

This week the theme was Wearables. oooooo I had plans to remake a jacket. I liked the style of an old coat and when the outside was worn out I took the quilted lining out of it ..a few months ago. Sigh since that project was already started I could not do it for this weeks theme.  Instead I remembered that I had a Noodlehead bag pattern and I NEEDED a new bag!  This pattern is the Redwood tote, crossbody bag by Noodlehead.  I had some clearance HobbyLobby fabrics that all coordinated and zippers on had so went for it.  This bag has a zip and regular pocket outside and I made 3 drop in pockets inside with a big spacious inside and it has a zip top to close all.  Also adjustable strap for crossbody. It is snowing here today so didn't get great pictures but made as bright as I could.  At the last minute.... I decided to add the handle straps that the pattern calls for. I made them but didn't think I would like them. When I realized the bag is fairly deep I figured when I use the c

Project Quilting challenge this week 15.4 Hourglass I recently finished an improv quilt and really liked the feel of sewing free form so when the Hourglass theme came up I figured I could do a simple half snow ball block with improv scrap corners. They look like tiny hourglass to me! Nice and bright and this one will go to local kids comfort quilt group.  I looked in my stash to see what I had. I found a baggie with a whole bunch of leftover FQ's from a group of fabric by Amanda Jean that used to blog as Crazy mom quilts. Her fabric line was made for Connecting threads I believe. It was time to pull out those cut up FQ's and get to work.  The fabric line is called " Good Neighbors"  I found a multi print and used up as many of the fall out scraps as I could to piece into the back.  44" x 50"  ziggy zag quilting made this a quick sew Linking up with Project Quilting over at  Persimon Dreams click on over and see all the entries for this week      

About 2 years ago I took a Sherry Lynn Wood class with my local modern quilt guild. It was a kind of create as you go starting block and see where it takes you. No plans. I took to class several old shirts, some kind of white tablecloth with birds on it and some interesting red sort of Asian inspired fabric with gold highlights. I started with the curved pieces in the near center making quarter curves.  The striped fabric evolved and many of the shapes that worked their way around this piece that sort of looks like my back window.  I let these shapes dictate the outer edge which ended up kind of wavy.  The gray fabric is some kind of light weight pant fabric. I ended up making a 2" bias out of a pant leg and was so surprised how well it went on. Even in the corners which are not square at all. It lays really smooth all around. I think I need to block it yet because the quilting makes it more puckered than I like.  I call it back yard musings because I often watch out the back wind

This weeks challenge for Persimon Dreams Project Quilting theme is Inside out. Oh boy this was a bit of a question mark.  I had something in mind but was not sure if I could make it work and in a week. This is a horrible picture but it has the spot to the right mid area that I bled on  so thought I would share!! ha I decided on a modern tshirt wholecloth quilt with reverse applique raw edge cutouts.   I layered fleece for the backing, then a slick lycra type jersey crazy print fabric and then a cotton/poly/lycra t-shirt fabric over the top. Drew my design, pinned and cut out the shapes. Once cut I stitched around loosely leaving all the knots on the outside back.  Why (k)not?  I am just going to say this was a bit tough to stitch through and I punched at least 9 holes into myself doing it even with thimbles and guards. The lycra made the weave/knit tight and sometimes my needle went through and sometimes I had to force it thus getting punched in various places.  Before I got it all qui

This week Project Quilting theme was Sky Color. Well I immediately thought of using scraps as I have little piles of partially used FQ's and such on every available surface and in baggies in drawers. (doesn't everyone?) I am calling this one "All Glory" it measures approx. 56" x 70"ish I tried to be organized and use up whatever of the scraps I had. Bigger pieces went into 6", 5", 3.5" 2.5" and finally these rectangles. The pattern I used is a free tutorial from  Kitchen table quilting called "Valued scrap quilt" I felt this lent itself perfectly to making sky color happen!   One of my husbands snaps of pasture gave me the idea to mix a variety of scraps. After cutting a variety it was a matter of using them all up. What was once going to be a crib quilt turned into something bigger. I made the colored scraps I had cut fit.  Went to my usual spot for a quick pic. The snow was not so bad here.  I was hoping for an early morning s