Old Italians

Old Italian Quilt Blocks

3 inch finished

I've had these in a little basket at the end of my ironing board for about six months. They needed to be ironed and trimmed and finally that has happened.  I just have never been in the mood for trimming little blocks. This morning I told myself I needed to empty out that basket and get rid of somethings at the end of my ironing board. 

These are made from 5 inch squares following the tutorial at My Soulful Journey. She calls the blocks "X Marks The Spot".   It is a stack and whack method.   Months ago when I made these blocks I was almost out of 5 inch squares but since then I have accumulated more.  I've been making them off and on for over a year as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) project  and have never figured out what size quilt I'm making nor have I counted my blocks until today. 

I have 309 blocks. If I make a 60 x 81 quilt (layout 20 x 27) I need 540 blocks. So I guess I will be making 231 more blocks. That also means I need to find 231 more 5 inch squares. So maybe I will be making blocks for this quilt for another year. 

And sew on...

CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

Sep 28 - Finished a really good book! - The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. It is a fictional story that takes place in 1947 but woven with true characters and events that occurred during WWI that have had an effect on the 1947 fictional characters.  The novel is inspired by the true story of the Alice Network, a group of women spies who worked for the British during World War I in the area of Lille, France, gathering information about German troop movements and battle plans.The real life characters and events are documented in the addendum. Louise de Bettignies/Alice Dubois , a very brave and courageous woman, was one of those real life characters and the head of the WWI spy ring The Alice Network. 

What Are Little Boys Made Of?

Snakes, Snails, Puppy Dog Tails !

36x48

I gathered together a bunch of 6.5 inch squares of bugs, frogs, snakes, dogs, spiders, bees, cats, crabs, etc. from scraps or that I have acquired from various swaps over the years.    It has been a flimsy (UFO) since last July.  I followed a video  for a 10 minute quilt block  

I finally dug it out of the UFO pile to quilt because I wanted to practice some spider web quilting. I'm working on a bigger project I want to quilt with spider webs so why not practice on a baby quilt. 

I don't have a longarm....just a plain Jane Janome DSM and my fingers sometimes don't work right and my eyes don't see right but I usually end up with an acceptable end result.  I tried to interconnect all spider webs and when washed it gave the little quilt just the right amount of soft puffiness that I love in a quilt.

Sometimes I didn't back track along all lines well enough.  (Poor kitties stuck in those spiderwebs.)

And sometimes the web went a little past where it should have connected. But what little boy is going to notice or care?   And, I got in some spider web free motion quilting practice and a finished quilt.

I used this wild fabric from my stash.  I probably found it on sale somewhere since that's how most of my stash gets here. 

I was going to give it to my 4 year old grandson but instead I think I will put it in the baby-to-be box for the next boy baby to join the extended family.  I'll be ready for a change!!!!

(Actually, one of my 8 year old tomboy granddaughters fell in love with this quilt. I gave her some scraps and crumbs to work with to incorporate into something of her own. )

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict?  And why not give a few others a Whoop Whoop while you are there.  (Oh, and what a surprise to see my last week's finish as Sarah's fav of the week!!! I'm blushing.)

And, since I've got another UFO finish I'm going to link up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts. 

ABC...Will I Finish the Alphabet?

I almost forgot to post my April goal for a Lovely Year of Finishes. 

I want to finish up at least one ABC quilt for my grandnieces and grandnephews and grandson Jacob. I've got 3 in the works and about 3-5 more to go.  They will be reversible -some with match games on the back- others with school themed happy blocks. All are UFOs - I've been in ABC charm swaps for several years.  

 

Check back at the end of the month to see how well I do on my goal.

Three Christmas Gifts

I took advantage of some time off work to finish up a few lap quilts I'm giving for Christmas.  

Wednesday I did some hand embroidery between some Thursday dinner prep - pumpkin pies with crust from scratch. The pumpkin was from the garden.  Thursday morning I got the  broccoli au gratin (a tradition with broccoli from the garden), deviled eggs, candied sweet potatoes (kids don't like them but grandkids love them), sage dressing (sage from the garden and bread homemade) and mashed potatoes (potatoes from the garden) as well as the turkey ready for dinner with kids and their spouses and grandkids.  I always like Thanksgiving because we use cloth napkins and grandma's china and everyone goes around the table to say what they are thankful for. Even the little ones look forward to telling what they are thankful for which is usually family. And, of course I wish I would have remembered to take a family photo for the scrapbook...but I didn't. 

And, without further ado...here are the quilts I've finished hanging out on the clothesline soaking up that good outdoor smell. 

 "Attic Windows" is for my daughter and son-in-law who love the great outdoors. I used some real looking animal 6.5 inch charms I swapped with the I Spy Yahoo Group last year.  And one square is mushrooms since they are avid mushroom hunters also.

 I wasn't sure how to quilt it so it wouldn't take away from the 3-D window effect. I finally decided on invisible thread for the front and tan for the back and quilted in what I hope are straight lines. I don't see well enough to stitch entirely in the ditch and that measuring bar that comes with the walking foot doesn't work anymore with my walking foot because the plastic that holds it in broke off.  This was also my first time stitching with invisible thread even though I have a couple of spools in my thread drawer that I tried to use for some hand sewing that didn't work out. I also figured out what those little mesh things that come with the sewing machine are for - to put over the unruly invisible thread that kept getting caught on the spool spindle until I used the mesh thingy.

 The back of attic windows - a collage pattern of outdoorsy things.

 "Autumn with a Twist" is a lap quilt for one of my sisters and her husband.  She and her entire family of kids and grandkids come out every Christmas for dinner and we all play games like we did at Christmas when we were growing up.

 These blocks were from a swap on the Mailblocks Yahoo Group. For all participants you had to make one 12 inch block, two 6 inch blocks and six 3 inch blocks in fall colors with cream colored background.

I quilted it with freemotion pumpkins and leaves. I used cream colored thread for the front and variegated purple on the back. 

 "How Sweet You Are" is for one of my sons and his girlfriend. It is a bunch of Happy Blocks with sweet treat centers - candy, cupcakes, suckers, etc.

I quilted freemotion swirls. 

 And I used a soft flannel sheet on the back that I found at the thrift store for $2.50 to make it extra warm and cuddly for my sweeties and granddaughter when they watch TV or cuddle up with a good book.

You will find me at the Sew Darn Crafty linky party. Party on! 
I'm also linking up at Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times (even tho' I don't have a design wall - just a design floor for now). And, finally, I'm linking up at Freemotion by the River. 

Jacob's Halloween Quilt

I used charms from a Fall/Halloween swap on Quilt-N-Friends Yahoo Group and bordered them with fabric from my stash. This is for Jacob, my 3 year old grandson. The granddaughters already have a Halloween quilt.

 I also used some monster fabric I've had in my stash for several years. I think I may have enough left for the back of another small quilt.

I quilted pumpkins on my plain old sewing machine. I was looking for a pumpkin idea for quilting it and found one at Free Motion Quilting Project.  that I tried to imitate.

And I'm getting better at remembering to label the quilts before I give them away!

I just found a new blog with a Sunday linky party. - Sew Many Ways, Sew Darn Crafty and am linking up for the first time this week. It's fun to see what other people are doing and get ideas for what I want to do!

A Christmas Tree Skirt?

I participated in a 6.5 Christmas charm swap and received about 120 charms. I had decided I wanted to make a Christmas tree skirt for my daughter with some of them. So far I put two charms right sides together, sewed around all four sides and then cut on the diagonal corner to corner and ended up with 4 perfect HSTs. (I guess I probably should have taken a photo of that whole process because I fear I have not explained it well, but...)  I sewed the HSTs together in rows 12x12 and this is where I am. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but it will be a Christmas tree skirt next time I take a picture of it.

I'm linking up to Connie's Freemotion Quilting by the River Tuesday linky party.