Lemon Tree Tales

French Braid Progress

My quilting bee is making a French Braid table runner/wall-hanging for the Spring auction. I volunteered to sew the actual braids before passing it along to the next person for borders. It was all sewn and then I just wasn't too pleased with the innermost braid fabric. It popped way too much.

No matter what it just wasn't the right value. This is turning out to be mostly darks and mediums and that fabric was too light. Of course it's still a gorgeous fairy frost by itself. So off to the local quilt shop to find an alternative.

Ah-ha! This is more like it.

Out came the seam ripper and then I replaced those pesky light strips with the new fabric. Much, much better. Of course now it's time to determine the ending triangles before we can get to the borders. The final border will be this lovely hand-dyed batik that inspired all the colors we chose.

Hopefully I can get this out in the sunshine to take a better picture. The fabrics are really quite yummy together. Not the colors of my house but it just needs to speak to that one special person who will bid on it at the auction.

Scrappy string blocks

I have a container for all my scraps that is about to bust. It will only remain closed if I lay it on its side and don't have pressure on it's lid. It's nice to have a lot of little pieces to choose from, but this is getting ridiculous. So when Stephanie of Loft Creations mentioned something about a No Strings Attached Challenge I thought it was a perfect excuse to use up some of these scraps. So I'm going to work on a few projects and see how much of a dent I'll have made on the scrap box.

Scraps overflowing:

White muslin foundation squares and center strips cut from my stash fabric:
  

Two little 6 1/2" string blocks done (I'll square them up to a slightly smaller size once I've completed all 8 blocks necessary for this first project):

The idea is to use only what you already have in your scrap box or stash. Obviously if you're low on batting, muslin foundation fabric, or backing/binding you can purchase those. But the whole challenge is to really try to use what you have in your studio. So whenever I get bored of one of my other projects I can sew a string block or two.

Neighborhood Quilt from Jacquie

A few months ago Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio held a 'Joy in the New Year' challenge to complete as many UFOs by midnight New Year's Eve. I was very ambitious and said that I had ten to complete. Alas only two were done by the deadline. Of course the third (Miss Molly) was completed just a few days after the deadline so I felt pretty good about that. For some reason the roll of the dice chose me as the winner of one of Jacquie's Neighborhood Quilts - winner's choice. Yippee! This lovely red/aqua combo was calling my name and our friendly neighborhood mailman delivered it yesterday in the midst of a crazy storm that's been raining down on all of California.

When I opened the box, this is what greeted me:

It's still raining so no outdoor photos, but still you can see the wonderful houses:

My two favorite houses, the little mushroom one:

and the cherry house:

Thank you so much Jacquie! And what did she do with the other three quilts? Why, she's auctioning them off on her blog to raise money for the Red Cross to assist with the disaster in Haiti - A Neighborhood to Help a Neighborhood. She's donating double what the quilts raise. Hurry, the auction ends this Friday.

Colorblock quilt top

Last summer I participated in Margaret's 4SQS Block swap. I made 40 blocks and they were sent all across the world. In return I received 40 blocks from other quilters. They've been sitting on my desk waiting for something to be done with them. They were so colorful that I knew that they would be perfect as a cheering up quilt so they were donated to the Shir Hadash Quilters - my quilting bee. We make quilts for Shir Hadash's rabbi to give out to congregants who are sick and/or in need. So far our little group has met every month or so to cut/sew/quilt lap-sized quilts.

Our next project is to make a runner/wall banner to donate to the spring auction. Two ladies have some lovely hand-dyed batiks that they purchased at the Pacific International Quilt Festival last October. We've decided on making a French Braid quilt. I can't wait to show you the fabrics that Amy & I bought at the LQS to coordinate with one of the batiks - gorgeous purples/reds/gray-blue-lavender all accented by a subdued gold. Some of the fabrics are sparkly Fairy Frost (love that fabric!) and other tonal batiks. I'll remember to bring my camera to the cutting meeting.

Nephew's Baby Quilt is done!

Yay! I just put the finishing stitches on the binding thirty minutes ago. Now it's in the washer. This is the biggest quilt that I've ever made. (I'll have to measure it when it's dried.) Whew! And it's in time since the baby hasn't made an unannounced arrival.

I thought that the front yard with all the leaves was a suitable backdrop ...

(As you can see, I didn't quilt too much on the minkee border, just a squiggle/wavy line down the middle.)

(Detail of the quilting from the top. I need to practice some more with the FMQ ... not sure exactly what pattern to do. But I do have to say that the BSR on my Bernina Aurora makes it a little easier to do. Ah, but the weight of the quilt kept dragging it down, complicating matters.)

I do like the pieced back and am really glad that I didn't have enough of the animal print for the entire backing. It worked out well.

I didn't make a label but went with a quick, simple message in the quilting. A closeup of the striped bias binding which made a nice finish to it.

Okay, I'm glad that that's now crossed off the to-do list. I just have to wrap it and then ship it out before attacking the next project on the list. It is a great start to the week!

Continuous Striped Bias Binding

In all my years of making quilts, I can't remember if I've ever tried a bias binding before. Perhaps I did one time, if so, then it was by tediously cutting bias strips and sewing them together. A few weeks ago I came across Pat Bravo's Continuous Bias Binding 101 Tutorial and thought that I'd give it a go. The results were pretty good. I took a little over half a yard of 45" wide fabric and ended up with 9 ½ yards of 2 ¼" wide bias binding (pressed on the double). The only drawback to this technique are the little bumps that you get. I'll try the traditional way next time and see if I like it better. But I doubt that it could beat the speed of this method.

Baby girl quilt - done!

It only took until 2:15 am, but the baby girl quilt is done! Yay! So yes, it is indeed possible to make a baby quilt in one day. Of course I already had the fabrics pre-washed and a notion of the design weeks ago, so that helped. I chose that backing fabric because it was cheerful, and feminine without being sugary sweet. Plus it's a nice pop from all the purples on the front. The quilting was just simple straight rows of horizontal to accent the vertical color bars.

Gotta love spray baste, walking foot, and those quilt binding "hair clips". I couldn't have done it without those three quilting tools. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I did get up at 6:30 am so that I could pop the quilt into the wash. I know that new moms usually pre-wash all their receiving blankets, etc, but it just didn't feel right to send a quilt that was stiff with the spray baste. All done in time for Steve to take it to work for his assistant's last day before maternity leave. Whew!

Baby girl quilt late night progress

Backing taped to floor and spray basted:

Another break for dinner and to watch Flash Forward, then I quilted it with some simple lines (no time for anything fancy):

Now I've sewn on the binding and just need to hand sew the binding to the backing. I'm pretty exhausted so I'll probably take this to bed and work on it so that I'm comfy. Did I mention that this needs to be done by the morning?

Baby girl quilt center

Okay, a few hours later (minus a couple phone calls and other things) I've pieced the center for the baby girl quilt. The original layout was too small so I had to quickly piece the remaining strips and add on to the length. Although this is supposed to be a smaller quilt, it needs to be bigger than a doll quilt. So on to the next step.

Pieces for a baby girl quilt

I'm not officially finished with the first baby quilt. I did complete the FMQ for the center piece but I'm not sure if I want to do any quilting on the minkee borders. So while I'm thinking on that I thought that I'd attack the baby girl quilt project. It will be smaller than the boy quilt. No, not anything against girls, it's just because it was so difficult to FMQ such a large area. I thought that this one would be more of a snuggle quilt as opposed to picnic sized. I've cut the pieces and arranged them. How fast can one make a quilt? Let's see.