Indoor Snowball Fight In August

August is a nice hot time of year (in Maryland) to make snowballs and be thinking cool thoughts. So another Indoor Snowball Fight is born.

This bag is red, white and blue because it was made for my neighbor and her marine husband. They now live in San Diego, CA so they will be seeing VERY little snow!!

Snowballs are made out of 2 layers of white flannel.

I sewed around the outside edge but left a small hole to turn right side out and stuff them.

The bag was very quick to piece and quilt and the snowballs were equally quick to make.

Once the balls were stuffed I added eyes, mouth and noses with permanent marker.

Snowballs wait happily inside the bag.

A simple label...and...

Finished. A happy snowball fight just waiting to happen! Enjoy!!

"Among Friends @ Spool Girls" Finished

 "Among Friends" was started back in June of 2016 with my quilt bee Spool Girls.  Post about it is here. The pattern is simple friendship stars but in my opinion way too many triangles!! I really don't know how I got talked into doing this quilt. I ended up making 300 star blocks that are 3" finished. 

 (I could have sworn that I had made more stars than that!)

The quilt measured 46" x 60" before washing.  (43.5 x 58 after washing.)

I HATED all these seams! Pressing them open to reduce the bulk was a PAIN.

I machine quilted it through the light background areas.

The center of this star has 2 dogs. (They look like Loralai and Sasha!)

Here is a girl with a cup of coffee.

And my favorite gecko!

Another gecko!

My lovely label was inked by Sandra Chin, one of the Spool Girls.

The backing is a Judy Rothermel print from the "Macie's Journal" line that I found at Zooks in Intercourse, PA. I liked it because it looks more like a 30's print than Civil War but technically it was released with the Civil War line so this is my one and only quilt made nearly exclusively with Civil War fabrics.

I finished assembling the stars into blocks while on vacation in NC. And then I came home and was cleaning up my sewing room and.....

GASP look what I found TODAY!!! Star blocks that were hidden in this basket!!

Now I have 93 loose star blocks and my quilt is already FINISHED. Boo.

 Oh well, these will be used in something fun for sure!

Finish it Friday link up.

"Tessie" Flower Pattern by Amy McClellan

A long time ago I purchased the pattern "Tessie" designed by Amy McClellan/Under The Garden Moon. These flowers are super easy to do. There are 2 sizes of flowers and I chose the small version.

This quilt pattern is perfect for small scraps.

I had so much fun finding bits of fabric that looked nice together.

All the background pieces are different and no 2 flowers are the same.

Ridiculously fun to make!!

I love the kittens in the background of this one.

I think this one is my favorite.

I couldn't resist just a touch of fussy cutting.....

.....because fussy cutting is fun too.

I love this digitally printed border fabric, "Joy of Life" by Sylvie Demers, and to preserve the selvage info I used it as part of the hanging sleeve. I dare the quilt police to come after me for it!

I sewed a line of machine quilting from the front to hold the lower edge of the sleeve to the quilt (because I really didn't want to do it by HAND). The loose white part hanging down below the stitching won't unravel because...tada...it's the selvage. Yay.

For the quilt label, I made one of the large size flowers and sewed it onto the backing fabric before quilting.

There are so many of my favorite fabrics in this quilt!!!

(Yes, gecko fans, there IS a gecko in this quilt too!)

Linking to Finish it Friday at CrazyMomQuilts.

June QAL With Crazy Mom Quilts

Crazy Mom Quilts is one of my very favorite blogs. Amanda Jean Nyberg (the crazy mom herself) is hosting a June Quilt Along and the quilt she  is doing is one from her book No Scrap Left Behind. Since I had already purchased the book I could look ahead to see how to make it.

These are the 100 string sashing units finished for the bed size quilt. I added some selvages to my strip sets for fun.

I ordered a white small polkadot print (lower one) for the setting but it reads as GRAY for me and I didn't like it. So I looked through my stash and found a white with black spots (upper one) that was more to my liking and ended up using it. (I should have shopped in my stash first!!)

Can you see my hidden gecko???

The quilt top is 85" x 85". 

Next step will be the quilting. This quilt was so fun, fast and easy I might have to make another and another to try to use up more of my scraps. The June quilt along will have baby quilt and lap size quilt info so maybe I'll try some other sizes as well.

Finish it Friday link up at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Hurricane Matthew 4 Patch Quilt--Finished!

This quilt started with a pile of plaid or striped strips of fabric paired with a light neutral. The strips  were sewn together, cut then sewn into 4 patch units.

This was my Facebook post of my front row seat to watch Hurricane Matthew rage over North Carolina October 8, 2016. I was sewing the strips together before the electricity went out.

These 3 setting fabrics were bought in Intercourse, PA during the Lancaster Quilt Show week.

The backing fabric was one large piece, also found at The Old Country Store that day.

Everyday at 4:20 I send my daughter a screenshot of my phone. 

(Her birthday is 4/20.)

This documents WHEN I did certain things and it lets her know I'm thinking of her always.

Simple quilting on this quilt, just vertical serpentine lines.

This quilt is very soft since it isn't heavily quilted.

Nice splashes of color!

Before quilting: 80" x 93".

After quilting: 78.5" x 91.5".

After washing: 74" x 87".

Garden Party Quilt

I have lots of fabric. Scrap quilts appeal to me, the more fabrics in a quilt the better. Bonnie Hunter's book Addicted To Scraps has directions for several colorful scrap quilts. I chose the Garden Party quilt to make because it has no triangles! The pattern says the quilt is 82" x 82".

I love the red and white blocks.

I elected to use one constant red.

To find a large enough space to lay all the blocks out I had to move the bed in Lynn's old bedroom.

I tweaked the pattern by adding an extra row of white squares so that the last row of red squares remain squares and weren't turned into triangles.

This is how the bed was flipped up against the wall to make room to lay out the quilt. This was where I basted the quilt too.

I did fussy cut these I LOVE YOU! bits for this flower.

The back of the quilt is a fun floral plus a yellow center.

Adding the black and white binding by machine was cumbersome on this large quilt.

All the flowers have 2 different fabrics plus a yellow center. I tried to use 100 different yellows for the flowers but when I was putting safety pins in the centers to baste the quilt I found that there was one duplicate! So 99 yellows. But all 100 flowers are different.

The back has a large yellow square with the floral surrounding it.

Finished and labeled too!

Since we aren't currently using a frame for this bed it sits lower and is easier to move. For now this quilt is living in this bedroom because it matches the walls! Before washing my quilt was 84" x 84". After machine washing and drying it was 79" x 79". This was SO MUCH FUN to make!! Happiness!

Finish it Friday link up at Crazy Mom Quilts.