🌟 My Favorite Quilt Block 🌟 Blog Hop

Hello everyone!  Welcome to my stop on the My Favorite Quilt Block Blog Hop hosted by Carla at Creatin' In the Sticks.  Thank you so much Carla for letting me participate in this hop!  I hope you all will be sure to visit Carla's blog to enter the drawing she has going after you have visited and commented on the blogs today!

I have had a lot of fun checking out everyone's favorite blocks the past couple days, and no surprise, there have been a lot of star blocks.  I am here to share even more with you!

I am highly attracted to all the star blocks, but really love Lonestar quilts.  I looked the block up in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns (1993) and it says the name Lone Star first appeared in the Ladies Art Company catalog sometime between 1028 and 1934, as well as in patterns from Ruby McKim and Carlie Sexton in that same time period.  It's quite fun to look through this book and see that the Lone Star name was used for 8 blocks that all look very different from what I associate lonestar with!

It is no joke when I say I am very attracted to this block.  I even use it as part of my business logo!  (For those of you who are new to me, I am a longarm quilter in Walla Walla, WA.)

The logo was inspired by the first lonestar I made, which was for the Picnic Blog Hop a number of years ago.  John (my husband) said he felt I had truely become a quilter after I finished that quilt, and thus felt it is a good representation of me and my business.  Isn't that sweet?  Here is my patriotic lonestar with a denim star backing:

I made a flannel baby quilt for a family friend a few years ago:

This is closer to a Lemoyne Star but it's so similar that I am including it; a tree skirt that I made for my Aunt Carolyn:

Just last year I made this beach quilt:

I recently finished this denim backing for my sister's quilt, only to realize I made the top entirely too small!  So, borders will be happening soon... lol!

The Christmas runner is one I began last year, it's a work in progress.  The tiny blue and white star will become the centernof a spool block for a spool quilt that I have in progress, it's so cute!  The diamonds are about 1/2" big.  And the pretty block behind them all is the barn quilt I painted this summer!  I hosted a class for my guild and we had a lot of fun painting our favorite blocks to hang on our houses.  I believe one even was hung on a barn!

In case anyone is wondering, yes, I y-seam all those corners.  It was one of the first techniques I mastered when I started quilting about 7 years ago, and I have since realized I prefer less seams if at all possible.  We will see how long that lasts!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you will visit my fellow bloggers today and please be sure to leave some comment love!  I would like to know, have you made a lonestar quilt?  If so, what colors?  I am always on the lookout for more star goodness in my life!

Thursday, September 12th

Websterquilt
Cynthia's Creating Ark
Nutz 4 Redwork
Quiltsbyjoanne
Ms P Designs USA
Pampered Pettit
Hill Valley Quilter

Have a wonderful day!
~Brandy

Thomas helped me get our newest addition to the sewing machine family in place this last weekend.  This is my great-great-grandmother's machine, a White treadle that I was told was used to make my great-grandma's diapers.  Seems likely, as the patents listed on the machine range from 1877-1890 and Great-Grandma turned 95 this year... I feel quite fortunate that Grandma said I was welcome to have it as I was the only one to recognize what it was!

Two UFOs down!

Woo!  Let me tell you, it's not easy for me to not start new projects.  But I've been trying really hard to focus on these UFOs, and so far I'm doing pretty good!  I got the Attack Cat and the bright star baby blanket finished, and will be passing it on this evening to Cathy.

 

I made the above nice and big so you can see how my quilting made some great snuggly crinkles :)  I am so please with how comfortable this quilt turned out after I washed it.  I will definitely use more flannel in the future!

Neat label I made, it's a hexagon while the quilt is an octagon, let's see how long it takes baby's family to realize it!

 

Finished at 36"x40" with the 2" green border added to it.

This is pretty much the first time I've worked with a panel, as far as I know, and I decided to do basic outlining.  Not as easy or quick as one might think!

 So, I get the Attack Cat finished in ~5 hours right, and take it to guild Tuesday night to turn in.  Remember, it was a challenge put out to the members to take the panel and practice our quilting/piecing for borders/whatever then bring it back this month and we'd vote on who's was best liked.  Well, I was the only one who grabbed one, and since I actually finished it they gave me all the rest as well as the original prize of the 3 fat quarters!  I'm excited because they said I can keep one of the panels for myself, which I plan to do and create a larger lap quilt with it.  And my favorite color is blue, so it was a perfect prize for me, plus now I get to create 3 more donation quilts to practice FMQ on again.

 

I did deviate a little in starting a new project, HOWEVER, it was because John and I travelled a total of 16 hours this last weekend for a vendor event for his job, and then we were sitting at said event for 12 hours.  So I made a soccer ball:

 

And here is an idea of the Diesel Dyno Days at Adrenaline Performance this last weekend:

Our booth, my husband designs diesel exhaust systems for Diamond Eye Performance and they allow him out for a couple shows a year, our other show was at BD Diesel in Abbotsford, BC (Canada) about 3 weeks ago.

 

Cam and Terra are the owners of Adrenaline, and they are the most wonderful people.  This was our third year of attending, and I have decided they deserve a quilt.  Turns out their colors are red, black, and grey, how awesome is that!  I've seen some amazing quilts with that color scheme.  Pretty excited.

 

We stopped ~20 minutes outside of Baker City, OR at this abandoned factory to take photos of the show truck, just for the heck of it.  It was amazing, but also 95 degrees so we look forward to returning at a later date for more exploration.

 

 

UFO Challenge List:

1. Bright start baby quilt FINISHED 6-5-15

2. Ashley's quilt

3. Attack Cat FINISHED 6-9-15

4. Football Pillow

5. Fabric Basket

6. Big Fish Little Fish

 

Loving the progress, yay me!  I hope some of you are also encouraging yourselves to have that sense of completion.  I am definitely struggling with not starting something new, but find if I jump a little from one UFO to another (as long as it's on my list) I get enough variation in routine to satisfy most of the cravings.  Now if I could just stay away from cookie dough I'd be great!

 

Oh!  And I completed my Snapshots apron quilt block two days after they released the pattern, I just spaced putting it up a couple posts ago:

I have more to say on the theme of aprons, but really need to get to eating some lunch now, so I'll tell you about it later.  I'll tease you with a number though: 8. 

 

Have a wonderful day!

~Brandy

Belle says it's too hot, I'm going to take your sewing chair, hope you don't mind...



A quick share

Phew!  Christmas is upon our family, busy busy busy we are.  My mom owns a packing and shipping store, and I have been helping out.  Yesterday I made yarn pompoms (while I was at the store) and finished my Christmas apron. :)  Of course I don't have photos of those... but I have others to share!

 

I completed the tree skirt for my aunt:

 

 You may recognize this pattern, it was inspired by Deonn Stott's pattern which can be found here.  The difference is that instead of doing half square triangles I made full diamonds and squares and used y-seams.  Just my personal preference, Deonn's way is much easier I'm sure!  Plus, with my directional fabric I didn't want to think about how to piece the cuts together.  Anyhow, it turned out beautiful, and was a great learning experience.

 



 

I used a special stitch!  Looks snowflake-like to me.

 

Here you can see the quilting better, my sister says it reminds her of a poinsettia.

 

I came across Lori Holt's sew-a-long she hosted on her Instagram page and she had a free block I couldn't resist (and looking just now there are instructions for a snowman!!):

 

Isn't this amazing?  I'm making up quite a few, will be adding borders and using them for hotpads.  I'm fairly sure the buttons will be ok, they're pretty small.  I may actually set this block on point, then when you hang it you're seeing the block normally.  Hmmm...

 

Then I received wonderful news that I won a drawing from the Kona Cotton 30 Year Anniversary Blog Tour!  Valorie contacted me just this last Saturday, and yesterday I received a package from Robert Kaufman, eee!  Here's the link to the post about Valorie's quilt, I love how she came up with her pattern.  And here's pictures of the charm pack and tote I received:

 

I've already carried this all over the place today.

 

Charm pack and thank you card which states to be sure to #OMG303 and #KONACOTTON

as well as their hopes that I enjoy my prize.  I do, most definitely!

 

Look at these colors!!  I'm sew happy :)

 

And to top it off, John bought me flowers the other day, what a great guy.

 

Just beautiful.

 

I hope you are all in good cheer and enjoy the rest of December, I am unsure if I'll have another chance to post as the next two weeks will be the busiest of the year for my mom's store and then it's Christmas, but I'll try to get some more done and shared.  I do have some things to work on for John and my sister, now I just need to work on my organization skills to make those things happen.  Preferably not the night before Christmas!!

 

Happy sewing to you all, and to all a pleasant night!

 

~Brandy

Progress report

I was so productive last weekend, I could hardly believe what I accomplished!

First of all, here's photographic evidence that I do work on the quilt my grandma asked me to do!

 

Never mind the fact that I have to eat cookie dough while I'm working on it... hee hee!

 

Thank you Jen (my sister) for getting such an intense focus-face picture :P

 

Progress piles

 

These have been pressed and await assembly.

 

This is actually a block that was already pieced.  When my grandma and her sister were working on it they would piece an entire block, then enough to make a row, then piece the rows.  There are 3 rows worth done I believe, which was nice to realize when I went through and counted the number of blocks I still need to assemble.

 

Then I started on a tree skirt for my aunt from Montana.

 

Oooo, aaaahhh

 

But wait, there's more!  My goodness, a sunny Saturday morning!

 


And top complete!  This is inspired by Deonn Stott's pattern, but she used half-square triangles in hers and that would not have worked with this horse fabric, so I went with full pieces and Y-seams.  Y-seams don't bother me, and it only took ~2 hours to get this together!  I am going to find some gold thread and quilt feathers in the star and use black thread for some poinsettia-style pattern in the horse fabric.  As soon as I locate some black batting.  Hopefully in the next couple weeks or so.

 

Block of the month for guild, John really liked this one.  He said it works nicely with this particular fabric.

 

Our guild meeting was this last Tuesday, and we're voting in our new board members next meeting, so they are making the President a thank you quilt and these are the blocks they wanted us to make.  Not so much my style, but hey, it's not my quilt!  And doing these blocks just drove home that I don't like seams that don't line up!


And then I practiced my free-motion quilting on my Bernina the last couple days:



 

 

I'm really liking how this looks on the back side, which I'll get a picture of when it's done.  This particular pattern (they call it Paisley) is very time consuming for me, and difficult as I am not following a set pattern which my brain rebels against.  So I'm taking my time and telling myself it's ok to not be EXACTLY perfect in everything I make.  :D  I am definitely getting better at controlling my stitch length I noticed, which is great.  Practice practice practice!  Then eat more cookie dough.

 

So I also worked on my two upcoming Blog Hop projects, one for the Wicked Hop (see button at the top of the column on the right) and a couple things for the Twas the Night hop.  Wicked starts on Monday (!!!) and my day is Thursday the 23rd, so stop on by to see what I came up with!  Both hops are through www.sewwequilt.com, swing by Mdm Samm's site to see what they are all about.

 

Thank you for stopping by, see you again soon!

 

~Brandy