Not My UFO

Earlier this year I had no personal UFO's.  That did not mean that I didn't have any UFO's in my closet.  I did have a box of my sister-in-law JoAnn's unfinished projects.  After finishing my great grandmother's quilt, I decided to tackle some of the projects in the box.  

The first one I finished was this small Sunshine and Shadow quilt.  It is about 30 inches square.  All it needed was binding.  Why did it take me so long?  

Then I took four six inch scalloped heart blocks.  

I made a mini quilt with them which now hangs in my studio.  It is about 16 inches square.  

Then I pulled out her Americana quilt.  I added a two inch border, basted it, and quilted it on my domestic sewing machine.  

It is amazing to me how much quilting brings a quilt to life. What was once just a wonky quilt top is now pretty cute.  

JoAnn designed this Americana quilt herself and taught others how to make it when she worked at a quilt shop.  With the border it is about 34 by 38 inches.  

Then I quilted her pineapple quilt on my domestic sewing machine.  She had already marked some feathers on the blocks.  

I added some straight lines and ribbon candy to finish it up.  

The last quilt top in the box was her bargello.  I quilted it on the long arm. 

I tried to free hand the quilting and it got too wobbly. So I quilted most of it with a ruler.  

It looks so pretty all finished.  

There is a queen size quilt which only has a couple blocks sewn still in the box.  It will have to wait until I have more time.  But I'd love to finish it sometime because it is going to be beautiful.  

XX,

Jasmine

GG's Quilt

 

When I was at my mom's picking out backing fabric for JoAnn's Garden quilt, I saw an old quilt top which was made by my Great Grandmother Dora.  She kindly gave it to me along with some fabric for the backing.  

When I laid it on the floor at home, I thought the top and bottom rows didn't add to the overall quilt.  My mom said it would be okay to unpick the top and bottom rows.  

I liked it better that way.  It made it easier to see the pattern created by the solid fabrics.  It also made the size more proportionate.  It was 60 x 96 before.  Now it is 60 x 84 inches.  

My mom probably had the quilt top for about fifty years.  She thinks the fabrics were from the 1950's and it was made in the 1960's.  It was in really good condition.  I only had to repair a couple seams which were splitting along the edge.  

I quilted it on the longarm.  I quilted it a simple stipple because the prints were so busy.  

It only took me one hour to quilt it once everything was set up.  

The backing is a cute pansy print which matches the bright yellow solid on the top.

I was able to match the print at the seam pretty closely.  

I was able to find a yellow dot print at my local quilt shop which blended so well with the top and back.  

I love seeing the finished quilt and thinking of my quilty great grandmother.  

My Great Grandma Dora died almost 40 years ago this December when I was just a baby.  What a great time to finish her quilt!  This is actually the second quilt of hers which I have finished.  The first one was just blocks.  You can see it here.  

XX,

Jasmine

JoAnn's Garden

A couple years ago my mother gave me a bag of fabrics that had been my sister-in-law JoAnn's.  She died about 15 years ago.  I put it aside and didn't think much about it until recently.  I decided that it would be good to pull it out and make a quilt using my mom's AccuQuilt while it was still at my house.  

I ironed and sorted the fabrics and started cutting 3.5 inch squares.  

I put the squares in stacks of 16 so I would know how many twelve inch blocks I could make.  

There was enough for thirty blocks with a few left over.  I put them up on my design wall in a darkish and lightish checkerboard pattern.  

It didn't seem quite right, so I tried a different layout with the lights in the middle.  

Cheetah liked both the black and white pictures, but not the actual fabrics. (He was home for the weekend for Panda's birthday.) The second layout just didn't seem to work with the colors I had to use.  My sister said to go with the checkerboard layout.  So I pieced thirty sixteen patch blocks.  

By then my boys had started calling this the ugly quilt.  I sent the latest picture to my mom, and she suggested adding sashing and cornerstones.  Cheetah helped me try it out.  

It started looking much better.  My sister suggested using all the same fabric for the cornerstones and matching it to the binding.  I had the perfect fabric which was left over from my wedding quilt from my mom.  

I added some Kona Snow and pieced together what had become a large twin quilt instead of a lap quilt.  

All Bunny was interested in was when could she walk on it.  She loves walking up and down each column, stepping on each block.  

I went shopping through my mom's stash for a backing.  Then was able to load it on the frames.  

I quilted it with a simple stipple because the blocks themselves were so busy.  

The binding looked great with each side.  

There is some fun I Spy which can be played on this quilt.  I used almost every fabric which was in the bag regardless of what was on it.  There was only a few exceptions of fabric which Cheetah absolutely did not like.  They all contained a golden brown color or extra bright colors which didn't go with the rest of the quilt.  Did you notice the whale in the picture above?  How about the ship sailing next to Kitty in the picture below?  

There is also gardening gloves, sewing supplies, birds, vegetables, fruits, and my husband's first name.  

It was so much fun to make because the fabrics brought back so many memories.  There is the same fabric used in my very first quilt block in it from nearly 30 years ago.  One of the fabrics was used in my very first quilt.  

It may not be my style, and my boys may think it is ugly, but I love this quilt!  

At least my girls like it, my husband never criticized it, and it looks pretty on the guest bed.  

It's a keeper.    

XX,

Jasmine

Pinwheel Quilt Top

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was testing out my Mom's Accuquilt.  

I wanted to turn this fabric into pinwheels.  

I cut it into strips parallel to the selvage.  

Then I paired it with Kona White and ran it through the AccuQuilt with the 4.5 inch HST die.  

I was able to cut out enough HST for forty pinwheels with very little waste out of the yard and a half of fabric.  

But I really wanted 42 pinwheels.  I just needed four more squares.  So I sewed the scraps together.  

I ran those through the AccuQuilt with white and got enough HST to complete two more blocks.  

After finishing the four wedding quilts I was in the mood to piece all the pinwheels.  I loved how easy it was to piece them accurately without squaring them up afterwards.  I put all the HST up on the design wall from the darkest blue down to the darkest green.  (The scrappy HST were all mixed in.)

I moved things around for a couple days.  The changes were pretty subtle.  

The HST with yellow made some things a bit difficult.  I changed them around even more when I sewed the HST into pinwheels.  

Then I added white sashing.  I cut 8.5 inch wide WOF strips.  Then I used the 2.5 inch strip die to cross cut the sashing.  I figured if I had it, I might as well try it.  I thought it worked great!  

The pinwheels look different with the sashing.  But I'm so pleased with how it looks with just two fabrics.  

Then all I had to do was add the border, which I cut out a little wider than the sashing.  

I will definitely be making more HST quilts cut out with the AccuQuilt!  

I'm excited to quilt it up, but have had to wait for white batting.  COVID has slowed down many things.  

XX,

Jasmine