Frolic leftovers

Back in 2020, after I finished Bonnie Hunter's Frolic mystery, and her Unity quilt along, I had a lot of bits and pieces left over. I'd used the same fabrics in both those quilts, so I took all the odds and ends, and made several new blocks - most a variation on Frolic's blocks, and then some random playing with Unity leftovers.  I played around with the bits, added in some additional fabric, and came up with this quilt.

I quilted it some time ago, but was avoiding binding it, because I went with a flange binding - it was the only way to stretch the fabric to finish it.  But that's such a job, to sew 280" of 2 binding strips side-by-side to make the binding. But I finally did it, got it bound, and it's off to Victoria's Quilts next month (as soon as I make a bag and get it into the wash).
 

Block of the Week

My poor little block of the week is DONE!  This started way back in 2014, as a weekly block from a local quilt shop. If you finished your block and took it in, the next week was free. If not, it was $5.  It was a lot of fun, and the shop did a TON of work - they actually let everyone pick their own border fabric, and worked out the colours for the blocks from that - so almost every one was different. Like I said, a ton of work.

I managed to keep up and get all the blocks done, then the alternate blocks were finished fairly quickly, and that's where the wheels came off. I had let the owner talk me out of buying enough of my border print to use the edge pattern for the border - it was one-sided, so would have needed over 8 meters of fabric for borders.

I searched 5 times over the next 5 years, looking for more of that print - Robert Kaufmann Effervescence. I found every colourway except mine (and no, I don't want to know that you have 4 yards sitting around your sewing room, thank you very much).  I could not let it go, and changing the border fabric never crossed my mind. Eventually, I gave up my search, made a 2-part border for the other 2 sides, and called it "good enough".

And then I thought I'd custom quit this baby. Lots of opportunity in those little blocks to do some nice work - so it sat. And stared at me every time I went into my closet. And sat some more.

This year, I joined a 100 day UFO challenge, and when asked about our oldest UFO, this baby came out, with her story.  What I didn't mention above is the falling out with the quilt shop that happened about a year later, and when I wrote the story of this quilt for that UFO group, my resentment was clear, apparently.  Everyone said, just let it go.  Release the quilt, and release the old feelings with it.

So I decided to do just that. No more custom quilting plan. Out it came from the closet, I found a nice design that fit the blocks and played about with my automation software to make it look like each block was quilted with this design individually, when in fact it was a pantograph.

Not perfect, and if you look closely you can tell, but I love the overall look, and most importantly, IT IS DONE!

 

Paris One Block Wonder

 This poor little quilt has been finished for years, but apparently I never took an actual photo of it. It is one of my favourite one-block wonder quilts.  I bought the panel during my OBW buying phase back in 2017 or so. It took a long time to sort out the arrangement - all those straight lines from the tower were hard to deal with, but I love the way it ended up.

Singing in the Rain

 Back in the Summer of 2015, I went on a trip to Michigan during the Row by Row which happened every summer.  I stopped at every quilt shop I could find - and even took a different route home so I could hit more shops.  I picked up a lot of the row patterns from the various shops, and had a lovely stack when I got back. And then they sat there :)

Eventually I realized that I would never make all of them, so I picked my favourite 8, and put the rest of the kits into my stash.  I made the 8 rows and created this quilt sometime around 2019.  And it sat again :)  The size was wrong for a donation quilt, and I couldn't see a use for this one.

But I finally pulled it out and quilted it in 2023 during my UFO blitz that year.  And now, I found the binding fabric and the poor little project is officially complete (albeit without a label).

Another January finish

 I have an itty bitty finish to close off this month.  This little bear first started as a guild challenge. I missed the hand-in date for that one, so into the orphan bit it went.  Then, it revived as the center for a "Roosting Round Robin" with one of my guilds.  I loved the idea - for those who don't know, a round robin is a  quilt that gets passed among a group of friends, each adding a part to it of their own design.  Because it was during covid, this was a roosting round robin - it roosted at home and we made our own quilt, using prompts provided each month by the guild.

I thought I'd love it, because one of my favourite projects was a block of the month from a local shop, where they just told us what to make, but not how many or the sizes.  So, for example, "make flying geese this month". Then at the end, we put our bits together into a quilt.  But unfortunately I lost interest in this one pretty quickly, because the prompts didn't really speak to me.  So, it sat.

Sometime last year, I added a couple of asymmetrical borders to make it into a quiltie, and now it is (finally) done and ready to donate.  The eyes and nose are fabric, not buttons, so it will be safe for a little one.