almost Christmas

As soon as I'd finished piecing the Razorback quilt in July,

I texted my sister,

"When is Lindsey getting married?"

and was a little surprised by the
"October 20th"

reply.

I had to get moving - fast!!

I knew my niece liked red

(though her favorite color is blue)

but the thing I wasn't positive about was 

would she and her new hubby like a quilt??

My sister thought so,

but she couldn't be positive either

without asking,

but I wanted it to be a surprise,

so told her not to ask ~ I'd just take my chances.

California Dreamin' fabric- how I love you!

I decided that their quilt should be Christmasy enough

that if they didn't love it,

they could pack it up,

and only pull it out at Christmas time,

guilt free.

But if they did love it

and would want to use it year round,

it wouldn't be too Christmasy for that option either.

Almost Christmas.

I used 125 fabrics all together

and pieced it over the course of 2+ months.

Quilting went surprisingly quickly,

 and - except for sewing through my finger -

quite uneventfully,

and only took about 2 weeks.

I bound it by machine,

and labeled it.

After a quick run through the wash

(gentle cycle, warm water)

I pulled it out of the dryer

(the texture is so delicious)

with 4 days to spare.

It turns out

that they do like quilts,

and Lindsey has been secretly hoping for one 

for a few years :-)

Lindsey ~ I love you, sweet girl!

Big congratulations.

Tyler ~ welcome to the (crazy) family.

We wish you a long and happy marriage.

I hope most of your days together 

feel

almost like Christmas.

💗

big thanks to my silly quilt holders!!

BOD, Inside Out

I'm not sure if that's a thing or not.

I may have made it up....

But,

In the quilting world

BOM

stands for block of the month,

so I figure BOD

should be block of the day.

Yesterday morning,

worn out from a very long week of going 

and doing

and being around loads of people,

I gave myself permission to chill.

I was just about finished with my coffee

when I read Amanda Jean's Friday post.

I told myself I could click on one link, 

and then I needed to get moving.

(A day off for a momma isn't really a day OFF,

so much as a day of less...)

Well.

That one link I clicked on 

was "Carla @ Creatin' in the Sticks 30 blocks"

Turns out,

the '30 blocks'

was a quilt a long!

30 (super easy) blocks 

in 30 days.

I thought,

I can set up a sewing space!

I can do this!

I'm going to do this!!

I dug around in my tub of vintage sheets

and found one to use for a backing

and then I went to the old house

and pulled 30 fabrics to go with it.

I found a piece of another vintage sheet

to use as my background

(sorta - more on that in a minute)

And the perfect fabric for binding

(California Dreamin' ~squeal~)

I have never been so giddy with a fabric pull before!

Okay;

maybe I have.

But I was pretty happy!

I laid it on the floor to take a picture

then set it on the tv cabinet thing

and every time I passed it,

I smiled.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

I was a little worried about how much background fabric 

I had

(or rather, didn't have)

so I did some basic math,

calculating how many square inches I had

and how many were listed in the fabric requirements.

Turns out I was right.

I didn't have enough.

But I did have enough square inches 

of the background polka dots

to use as the main fabric

if I were doing a 2 fabric quilt,

so I decided I'd make my blocks

inside out.

I cleared a path

and a 3x5 ft space in the library,

and swept the floor.

I brought in our folding camp table

and wiped if off.

I found a chicken work light in the attic

and hung it 

from the hinge of an uninstalled door.

Josiah helped me bring over my machine

and cutting tools,

the daylight lamp,

the little TV tray pressing board,

and my tiny iron.

I excitedly set my fabric stack

next to the newly assigned 'ruler bin'.

I thought about 

how I had planned to sew with leaders and enders

this year

and ran back over to the house to get the box of fabric

I'd set aside for my first L&E project

and set it on the table next the the lamp.

I grabbed a piece of leftover carpet pad

just the right size for standing on while I press and cut

and dropped it on the (sub)floor.

And then 

I cooked dinner.

Real life, People.

After everyone went to bed,

I cut fabric.

And when I got up this morning,

I sewed!

For the first time in over 9 weeks.

😊😊😊

It's not going to be a masterpiece,

but it'll sure be fun!

(I got a little carried away

sewing my leaders/enders

and sewed up all that I'd cut.

So I cut 5 more blocks worth.

And then I sewed those up too)

pattern testing for a rock star

Okay.

So,

maybe Judi Madsen isn't a rock star,

but she is a rockstar in the quilting world!!

She's best known for her quilting

(which is a-MAZing)

but she's also a pattern writer.

And I got to pattern test for her this week!!

It's not like she hunted me down 

because she's heard I was a great pattern tester

or anything;

she needed a few people who could make a test block super quickly

and I was available.

(the fact that I even responded is kinda funny,

considering my IG post from earlier that day)

But still I was tickled to get to do it.

(and maybe even a little bit braggy - 

I told Tyler I couldn't do anything else yesterday,

because I had a gig with a really famous quilter! :-)

I'll share my thoughts on the pattern soon.

California Dreamin' - how I love you. I thought I had used up all but a tiny tiny scrap of this pink on Jordan's quilt
and then I found 2 yards in my cabinet. I'd totally forgotten I'd found it on ebay and snatched it up. Happy day!

Now..... how to quilt it.... hmmmm

stars, sawtooth stars...

After two and a half weeks of no sewing,

I finally got to play with fabric this week,

and managed to make the rest of the 8 inch sawtooth stars 

for Jordan's quilt.

Jordan prefers the light and deep version of color,

but isn't as big of a fan 

of the brights.

Which, of course,

is what my stash is primarily stocked with.

I only have a tiny bit of this California Dreamin' fabric left. But I had to include some Jenean Morrison 💗

So I had to do a good bit of shopping for this project.

Poor me.

 😉

I have mostly chosen fabrics based on their color,

(and the further I've gotten on this project,

the more I've looked for fabrics without a linear design,

because - goodness - those add to the challenge)

meaning, they must go with

(not to be confused with match)

my 'pull it together' fabric

but some have been chosen 

(and down-right hunted for)

with Jordan in mind.

Kitties!! Because Jordan loves animals, especially dogs and cats. Plus - they are so cute!

I think most quilts look best when there is a good mix of

light, dark, and medium,

so it was necessary to include lots medium fabrics
but I've been careful to have most of my 'mediums'

not be brights

(although a few brights have found their way in there, too)

tall buildings and crammed together houses, because Jordan likes 'cities', and her fiancee lives in Chicago
(where, incidentally, I am from. Well. Chicago Heights, that is)
(neither of these were my first choice to represent Chicago; that was one of my online fabric shopping fails...)

I've worked to keep a good balance,

while trying to be a bit heavy with light pinks

as that is Jordan's favorite color.
(although this particular group of blocks
is not at all heavy with pinks,
the quilt will be over all)

I've already used over 80 fabrics,

and have 14 more on the cutting mat

waiting to be turned into 2 more firework blocks,

and the 2 remaining swoon blocks.

Josh & Jordan, in the moonlight. Or - bunnies!

Who knows how many more will be added

for the other sections of the blocks....

Go team Use All the Fabrics 😁

Linking up with AmandaJean

out of the blue

Jodi was my very first friend

as an 'adult'.

We were both young moms

with soldier husbands

and we lived just a few miles apart,

on the other side of the world.

It wasn't uncommon for one of us to call the other 

to see what we each had on hand

that we could contribute towards dinner.

Then when our husbands got home from work,

we'd hodge podge it together,

and follow up our shared meal

with a few hands of spades.

We helped each other
celebrate birthdays and holidays,

and our families even went on a few trips together.

We haven't done a great job at keeping in touch over the years.

Neither of us are very good at that,

and there's over a dozen kids between us,

so we've kept pretty well occupied,

but thanks to Facebook,

we've been in contact more lately.

Just before Independence Day,

I was up to my eyeballs

working on a pretty major (for me) commission quilt

(whose deadline was rapidly approaching)

and of course,

we're smack in the middle of building a house

and I got this wild hair 

to make Jodi a quilt.

Now,

I can come up with some crazy ideas,

but when I have a thought that ludicrous,

I generally assume it's not my own,

and I best run with it.

So I sent a quick FB message to one of her daughters

asking what her mom's favorite color was,

and the very next day

I started cutting fabric.

I just *love* a quilt in the sunshine!

We ended up with sick kids on the Fourth of July,
and had to miss out on going to my brother's house,
which was a real bummer,
because it would have been the first time in years
that we've celebrated the holiday with my family,
 - but -
it became 'found time',
and found time is for playing
so I got a free pass to sew with no regrets
and made excellent progress :-)

Except for that one time when I made a couple of mini mini quilts,

I totally miss out on the bandwagons,

and the scrappy trip-around-the-world

was no exception.

I figured that'd be a fun and easy quilt to make,

and it was!

Plus

- hello -

trip around the world??

Totally appropriate.

Since they were all still out, 

I used a lot of the same fabrics

that are in Faith and Freedom,

and then added a bunch more favorite blues from my stash,

including, of course,

some Jenean Morrisons.

only a snippet of that California Dreamin fabric remains. sniff...

I also pulled one special cream fabric from the shelf

-glasses-

as a nod to the fact that

darn it all,

we are both getting old!

I followed the directions

except I cut my strips 3 x 19 instead of 2 1/2 x 15

(although, 18 inches long worked if I was super careful)
and ended up with a 60x75 inch quilt
(before quilting, and a gentle tumble in the washer and dryer)

I used 80 different fabrics,

but instead of being totally scrappy,

I sewed one blue strip on top of two creams,

so that they would create diamonds.

(guess I didn't have diamonds out of my system yet ;-)

It's a fun pattern,

and relatively quick,

and I wouldn't mind revisiting it again in the future.

I wanted to free motion quilt (the same design),

but my machine was being contrary,

so I used my walking foot

which took twice as long
and required a fair amount of wrestling.

I thought briefly about adding some hand quilting,

but everything I came up with would have taken

several hours,

and it is simply too hot

in Arkansas

in July

to hand quilt.

So,

I had to be content with just adding a few stitches to the label.

Because I expect this quilt
to see a ton of use,
I sewed the binding down by machine.
Still not my preference,
but I'm improving with practice.

Jodi once surprised me with a visit,

and now

24 years later,

I am so tickled to surprise her

out of the blue,

with a quilty hug.

Jodi. I love ya!

XO

linking up with MCM at Cooking up Quilts
and Free Motion by the River
and AmandaJean :-)