Border Quilting on Baby Elephant

 Hi all -

Fall is definitely here. We had our first snow Sunday morning. It rained all night then turned to snow in the morning. It stuck on the roof, but melted on the grass. And then it was all gone by noon. Now we're back to some pretty beautiful warm weather for the next week. What a wonderful time of year!  Here are some pictures of the aspen trees turning in my yard:

Aspen Turning in My Yard

More Aspen in My Yard

Isn't it beautiful??? I wish I could get the glow in my pictures! It's so much more beautiful in person!!

I've been spending time quilting the border of my "Baby Elephant" quilt from Lickety-Split Quilts for Little Ones by Laura Bevan. I'd already done the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting so now everything is stabilized and I can quilt wherever I want. I started with the big blue border blocks. I decided to quilt a chevron in those areas:

Chevron Border Quilting

The chevron is nice because it brings the eye into the center of the quilt. It''s nice to quilt because I can use my walking foot, but it's tedious because I had to bury the thread at the end of each line. I could have secured the stitches by stitching backwards at the end of each line. That would have been quicker, but I don't like the look of the heavy double thread at the end of each line. Another option would have been to stitch in from the outside edge, then stitch along the edge of the narrow purple border and then stitch the next line out to the edge of the quilt. This is what I would have done if the quilting along the sides of the narrow inner border was done in the blue thread used for the chevron. But I quilted the sides of the narrow purple border using purple thread so those extra little segments would have shown up on the back of the quilt. I'm weird, but I really want the quilting on the back of the quilt to look cool. Here's what the chevrons look like on the back:

Chevron Border Quilting on Back

I just find that so cool looking! For the orange corner stones, I found a rose quilting stencil in my stash that fit in the corners perfectly. I was looking for a rose to quilt in the cornerstones because I just found out that the baby's name is Adeline Rose. Isn't that beautiful? I quilted the roses in purple thread to make them stand out in the corners:

Rose Quilting in Cornerstones

I flipped and rotated the rose stencil so that in each corner the rose has the same two leaves pointing toward the borders and the third leave pointing towards the corner so the rose motifs kind of make a rectangle around the quilt. I hope that makes sense! Here are pictures of the entire quilt so far:

Baby Elephant With Borders Quilted

Baby Elephant Back

Now I need to pick a background filler for the cornerstones. I need something that will flatten the puffy areas around the roses, but isn't too heavy so it doesn't make a stiff place in the quilt. I want something curvy to contrast with the chevron quilting. Pebbles are one of my go-to curvy background fillers, but I tend to do a lot of backtracking when I do pebbling which can make it heavy. Another thought is to do a meandering feather filler. That has less backtracking and looks beautiful so it's a possibility. Another possibility would be to do some Nemeshing, which is a combination of feathers and pebbles. I did this on a wallhanging a long time ago and it looks wonderful, but I'm not sure if there's enough space around the roses to do it justice. I plan to use whatever filler I use around the roses also in the cream background area around the elephant to add cohesiveness to the quilting. The Nemeshing could really shine in that area, if I can pull it off with my current rusty quilting muscles. I'll ponder this some more and come to a final decision soon. Once I get the background quilting finished around the roses, I'll be able to put the binding on the quilt. I like to get the binding on as early as possible so I don't have to deal with the fluff that comes off of the batting while I quilt.

In the time when I'm not quilting, I've continued to work on my English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexagon charm quilt. I'm plugging away at adding hexagons to my hexagon-shaped units, making them rectangular. I've completed another three rectangles:

EPP Hexagon Charm Quilt Units

I'm having fun making progress on this quilt! But I'm also finding myself wanting to start a "La Passacaglia" quilt from Willyne Hammerstein's first Millefiori Quilts book. I've wanted to make one of these quilts since there was an exhibit of these quilts in Houston several years ago. I've been collecting Tula Pink fabrics for this quilt and I'm feeling the pull to start working on this one! So don't be surprised if you see me switch EPP gears soon....

Last week I took Grace to doggy daycare and they were having a ball pit day. This daycare offers "enhancements" where you can pay an extra $15 for some special personal time with your dog sometime in the day and they send you pictures of the activity. Every day the offer personal time where they will do puzzles with your dog or play ball with them, but every once in a while they will have a special enhancement. That's what ball pit day was. Since Grace LOVES balls, I couldn't pass this up! Here's Grace in the ball pit:

Grace in the Ball Pit

They filled the pool with balls and also treats for her to find. Grace loves to catch treats and they got this great picture of her just about the catch the treat:

Grace Catching a Treat

She really loved this activity!!

Well, that's about it for me. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the change of seasons!!

Nancy

A Little Bit of Love Finished and Posted

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Fall is definitely in the air around here. I noticed this morning that the aspen lining the road into our neighborhood are starting to turn. The aspen on my property are still green, but they should follow suit soon! I've noticed that the trees along the road always turn first. A neighbor told me that this is because of the chemicals they put on the road. I'm not sure if that's true, especially since our neighborhood roads are dirt, but it's possible. I wonder if it might not be from the car exhaust. But, either way, they are starting to turn and they're beautiful! I'll try to remember to get pictures of my tress when they start turning.

This week turned out much differently than I had planned. I was supposed to go to a guild sew day for making charity quilts on Thursday, then there was a retreat on Friday and Saturday. But, unfortunately, my dog ended up breaking her toenail on Tuesday so she was on restricted activity all week and couldn't go to daycare. A broken toenail sounds minor to us, but when. it happens to a dog it's a problem because their quick is exposed and it's very painful. So I spent the week in the house with a 1.5 year old dog who was a bundle of energy. I ended up letting her go outside on her own a day early! But she's completely fine now and is very happy to have her freedom again! But I was still able to get a lot done this week....

My big finish was the tiny quilt that I was making for my great-niece who is due in November. It's from the "Baby's Love Blanket" pattern in the Quick Quilts for Kids book by Elizabeth Keevill. I was able to sandwich it, quilt it and add the binding this week. Here is the finished quilt:

A Little Bit of Love front

A Little Bit of Love back

I did minimal quilting on this quilt because I want it to remain soft and comfy. I did stitch-in-the-ditch (SID) on all of the seams in invisible thread. Then I quilted around the applique hearts and added "ghost" hearts in the empty green squares using fuchsia thread. That should be enough to hold everything together and still be cute. I wanted to share a close-up of the pink and white fabric that looks a little out of place in the quilt, at least to my eye:

A Little Bit of Love close-up

Can you see what it is??? Candy necklaces! Don't you love it?? I just had to include it!! I decided not to put a label on this quilt because it's so small and hopefully will get so much use that it gets worn out. I was able to get to the store this morning to get a card and got the quilt packaged up and mailed to my sister. It should arrive before the shower, which is on Saturday 9/14.

I also made progress on the bigger baby quilt. This one is the "Little Elephant" pattern from Lickety-Split Quilts for Little Ones by Laura Bevan. I was able to piece together the backing:

Little Elephant backing

I just randomly sewed together a bunch of the scraps to use some of them up. I think it will look cute once the quilt is quilted and the back is trimmed so that there isn't so much empty space around the edges. And this morning I was able to get it sandwiched and pin basted. I decided to do the pinning out on the deck on a couple of little folding tables I have. They were almost big enough when I pushed the two tables together:

Little Elephant pin basted

Of course it started sprinkling while I was pinning the first section so I quickly finished that section and took my stuff inside. That caused the rain to stop, so I waited a little while and was then able to finish the pinning. I hope to start the quilting tomorrow. I plan to do SID around the parts of the elephant using matching thread so that I get a ghosted elephant image on the back. I'm not sure what I'll do for the rest of the quilting yet. I usually figure out the quilting as I go along.

I was also able to spend some time knitting my Festival of Stitches shawl designed by Lisa Hannes. I was able to finish the last section on each side and bind everything off:

Festival of Stitches

Festival of Stitches final sections

I still need to bury the ends, block the shawl and make a tassel. I'm not sure how I feel about this last section of the shawl. The previous section is lace, which is designed to be stretched during blocking to show the detail, but the final section is ribbing that is designed to shrink up. But no matter how it turns out, it will still keep me wam in the winter!

Finally, I made more progress on my English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexagon charm quilt. When I started this quilt years ago, I was piecing the hexagons together into larger hexagon-shaped units. The hexagon-shaped units do all fit together, but I realized that it's confusing to put them together and my final qiult will be rectangular so my units should probably be rectangular, too, to make things easier down the line. So, I've started adding hexagons to my hexagon-shaped units to make the new rectangular units. Here are the two units side-by-side:

EPP Hexagon Charm Quilt unit transition

This change almost doubles the size of the units. I finished the first two units:

EPP Hexagon Charm Quilt rectangular units

You can see how much easier it is to fit these units together into a rectangle! I had 26 of the hexagon-shaped units finished, so I "just" have 24 units to go..... This is going to take a lot of hexagons, so I basted a bunch more to draw from:

EPP Hexagon Charm Quilt - new basted hexagons

I'll just keep plugging away at this long-term project....

That's it for this week. It feels good to be making progress on some of these projects!

Nancy

Happy Labor Day!

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is having a great Labor Day! I can't believe how quickly time keeps flying by! We ate starting to feel fall in the air. It's so pleasant!

I've continued to work on quilts for my great niece who is due in November. I pieced the backing for the tiny quilt that's designed for using in the car seat and carrier:

Baby's Love Blanket backing

I think this is so cute with the front that I shared last time. This could be a two-sided quilt except that the quilting that I'm planning for the front will not match up with the back. But thatt's okay, it's still fun! I got the quilt all sandwiched and ready for quilting. I did my best to center the front on the back and keep all of the lines parallel. We'll see how I did when the quilting's done!

I also finished piecing a bigger quilt for the baby. This one is Baby Elephant from the book "Lickety-Split Quilts for Little Ones" by Laurie Bevan:

Baby Elephant

This quilt ended up 44" by 52". I chose the motif and the colors because my sister (the soon-to-be grandmother) made a stuffed elephant for the baby in turquoise and orange. My colors aren't a perfect match since I was pulling from stash, but I think it turned out pretty nice! I still need to piece a backing for this quilt.

On the side, I continue to work on my hexagon charm quilt. I like to watch TV so my handwork projects get a lot of attention! I added a bunch of new hexagons to my pile:

Hexagon Pieces

I'm trying to only add new fabrics to the mix, but there's a good possibility that I'll miss one or two doubles with this many hexagons! And I still have a lot of untapped stash.... I also started adding hexagons to my existing units to make them squares instead of rectangles. I have a lot of hexagons to add to each unit so I've only gotten started on the first one:

Units Changing Shape

The new units will be 6x6 so that they can all be the same shape and fit easily together. It's slow work, but they sure do look cool!

Finally, I've continued to work on my Festival of Stitches shawl designed by Lisa Hannes. I added the "raindrops" section to one side:

Festival of Stitches - white raindrops section

And I added the raindrops section and started the border on the other side:

Festival of Stitches - black raindrops section and border

It feels so good to be getting so close to the end! Unfortunately the border is twisted rib which takes a long time to knit. Luckily it's a really pretty stitch!

That's it for now. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying a relaxing day off!

Nancy