December Monthly Mini

 

Twas the 30^th of December, and while feeling quite wilted,

She suddenly realized there was no “mini” quilted!

 She ran to her sewing room and picked up the cutter,

And threw down some scraps and started to mutter.

 How could she possibly make it in time?

She’d but a few hours to make this sublime.

 She’d never before stitched so wonderfully snappy.

Sublime it is not but it’s done and she’s happy.

 And, I heard her exclaim as she turned out the light,

“Happy New Year to all, and to all a Good Night!” 

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 I know this is a pretty pathetic end to a wonderful year of monthly minis, but as I said, "it's done"! I found two tiny blocks leftover from our c1880 sew-a-long with Pam Buda (here) and with the leftover strips I made seven more. I pieced them all together, added a border and, voila! Since this micro mini shares its birthday today with our son, Nick, (and for the other obvious reason) I am calling it “Nick of Time”.

 Thanks for another great year of mini merriment! I’ve been asked about continuing for another year. Since it seems that some months, the mini is all I can muster, I would hate to give it up just yet. And, we did pick up a few new followers this year so I would hate to leave you stranded (wink). So, on to 2022. I hope you all have had much fun as I have looking at all these little gems.

 For those already on board and for any newcomers; as always, there are NO RULES and NO pressure. I post on the last day of the month and you can jump in anytime. If you don’t have a blog, but enjoy following along, simply e-mail me a photo and description of your mini and I will post it. 

I do wish you all a very Happy New Year. I thought this vintage postcard was just weird enough to fit the bill for 2021.

We all felt a bit batty in 2021. Let's ring out the old loud enough to say "bring on a better 2022 for all"! 

 Let’s see what our fellow elves have accomplished in this busy holiday month.

 Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

One Bird Too Many

 

Yup, I did it again! This time, I waited until it was completely stitched together before I realized my mistake. I wanted all of the birds in the center of the blocks to be different. Some are the same, just a different colorway. But this one was exactly the same and it was the very last block I made! (Insert very frustrated face here). 

Bye bye birdie! 

All I could think of after my discovery was the song from the animated Rudolph from the ‘60’s. “Why am I such a misfit, I am not just a nitwit, you can’t fire me, I quit…”

 Since it was completely finished, I couldn’t just applique a new bird on as it wouldn’t fit the quilting pattern. So, this poor partridge/pheasant will go into my next pot luck quilt and will be replaced by another as soon as a new one flies into my sewing room. 

 Which reminds me of another song from “Rudolph”, “There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true!”

 Enjoy your day!

Bird's Nest Soup

 I laid all of the blocks on the floor over the weekend. Some are still not finished, but you get the idea. 

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Now on to the borders and corner blocks. Still in the design stage, but should get a start on them before Christmas. Nothing else to do right?

 After looking at them all, this little guy really stuck out as being kind of creepy.

Not sure if it was his eye or just the blah color of his head, but I couldn’t live with him amongst all those other pretty birds. So… off with his head and on with a more colorful and cheerful noggin.

I won’t be afraid to sleep under it now!

November Monthly Mini

 

This month’s mini reminds me of how lucky I am to have such wonderful quilting friends. Whenever I get frustrated with what is happening in this crazy world, I try to remember how fortunate I am to have not only my “in person” friends, but those who live in faraway places who I am in touch with through the wonders of modern technology. For this reason, I have decided to call it "Grateful". 

 When Janet O. (Rogue Quilts) announced her “baggie of scraps” challenge (here) I knew I wanted to do it right away! I pawed through my “many” boxes of leftovers from other quilt projects and tried to decide which to choose. I ended up with this container (an empty Betsy Chutchian “Frivol” box) full of half square triangles from a one of my past community quilts. 

 I played with the layout for a while, but decided on this simple square in a square look in the end. I love the Betsy Chutchian purple stripe on the right, but I have wanted to use the serpentine stripe ever since I bought it and just haven’t found the right project for it until now. I thought about mitering the corners, but I had the extra pink blocks, so it was a good excuse to go with my standard corner blocks! 

 My eye is always drawn to dark fabrics and colors, so it is unusual for me to have such a light quilt. I machine quilted straight lines in the body and simply followed the serpentine (yes – with my “machine”) in the border. 

I want to thank you Janet, for the opportunity to try something new! I know quite a few of you have taken Janet’s challenge as well, so click away and see what our fellow mini makers have discovered this month!

Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

Happy Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving Day is one of the few days of the year that I do not get to stitch. I usually stay at my sister’s the night before and start cooking before dawn. We have fun catching up as we peel and stuff!

 I have neglected my “Bird’s Nest Soup” and all other creative projects to try and finish the repair on this treasure. It belongs to a friend of a friend who called me while visiting Maine last summer. It was made by his aunt 5 generations back. 

 An old family label was attached that stated it was thought to be made c1812. It is always so touchy when you know something about the history of quilts, and you have to gently tell the owner that you are quite sure it was made much later than that. He was very gracious and had done fabulous family research which helped us to determine that the date was closer to 1850. It is beautifully appliqued and quilted.

My job was to replace the fabric that had deteriorated. It was clearly a different fabric than the rest of the green that remained unharmed.

This happens quite often in 19^th century quilts. You can still see some of the green under the seam allowance. 

I had to remove all the old in order for the new green to lie flat. It didn't take much effort as the fabric was really rotted.

He shipped the quilt to me in early September and it took nearly 2 months to find the right green. After searching for and dying and overdying many different greens, I finally found the right one in the first place I should have looked! I just never thought to look for a solid fabric at Cyndi’s (Busy Thimble), but there it was – the (almost) perfect solution. A Bella 100% cotton solid. You can see how the color matches pretty well. The leaf is my new applique onto the original stem. 

My goal is to finish the repair by the end of the month. I hope you all get some stitching time while resting after the holiday.

 Wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Two and Four Quilt-a-long - a finish!

 

Toward the end of the summer, Katy (KatyQuilts) announced a sew-a-long called “Two and Four”. It looked like a great way to dwindle down the scrap pile and have some fun in the process so I jumped in.

 I finished the top on time (read about the finale – here) and then handed it off to my quilting angel, Sharon Patterson to quilt. I had intended to pick it up weeks ago, but things got crazy and … So, Sharon not only quilted it, but bound it and brought it to our local meeting to show before taking it to the local infusion center to wrap around some deserving soul. She truly is an angel! 

 Her quilting makes the quilt!

Thanks Sharon! And thanks Katy for hosting this fun sew-a-long! 

October Monthly Mini

 

This month’s mini was a real change for me. I challenged myself to make something “modern”. I decided to make it strictly by machine and to utilize only solid fabrics (a real rarity for me).

 My friend Barb Vedder (Fun with Barb) is a whiz at whipping up fabulous quilts with solid fabrics. I participated in her Zoom lecture at our state show in July on “Sensational Solids”.  It was fabulous! If your group is looking for a great speaker, I highly recommend her. (I’ll take my payment in fabric Barb!)

 So… I used that inspiration to create my October mini. It is a fabric interpretation of a Wassily Kandinsky study in color. I love his circle paintings! 

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 When using the potholdermethod, I usually hand stitch my blocks together. I was determined to make this little guy completely by machine. I pillow cased the blocks,

then appliquilted (I couldn’t think of what else to call it) the circles on each block and zig-zagged them together. For some reason I had a spool of variegated thread on the shelf, and I love the way it brought everything together. It won’t win any machine work awards, but it was a lot of fun!

 I’m calling it “Candynsky”. The name has a 3-way meaning this time. I try to give my potholder quilts utilizing some sort of cooking or food reference, and, since this is the “candy” month, and… well you get the last one!

 Let’s see what the rest of you have in your candy bag this month. Let me know if I have missed anyone or if you are joining for the first time. And, don't forget Janet's (Rogue Quilts) baggie challenge. I'm having a ball working on mine. Hope to reveal it as my November mini.

Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

Happy Halloween!