Summer Begins

 My summer vacation began on Thursday, but my daughter is already on hers in Italy. She sent me these pictures this morning of her inside the Colosseum

 and this one outside. She still has another week in Italy. I am so happy that she was able to participate in this extended study course.

 Meanwhile, I made luggage tags to hold gift cards as grad presents. 

 They are nice little novelties with a nod to the colleges everyone will be heading off to in the fall.

 I had a squirrel moment--I am easily distracted with quilt projects. I was organizing my sewing room and making a mental list of what UFOs I needed to work on. I looked in my random blocks bin and saw several blocks I had made for my Quilty Fun class last year. I also noticed I needed another smaller Lori Holt quilt to hang with my Sunflower Pigs. I decided to take the demo blocks and make some more to make the small sampler from the Quilty Fun Sew Along in 2013-14. I managed to complete 9 of the 20 steps yesterday. Check out other squirrel projects here:

http://www.mmmquilts.com/2017/05/dreami-linky-5.html

 The flying geese are each 1.5 x 2.5 inches.

 A small row of Twinkly Winter Stars.

The Chubby Chevrons--some set as X blocks and the rest as a row.

 There are three tree blocks.

 I plan on leaving the mittens off and putting more Cocoa Cups on instead.

The two Courthouse Steps blocks were a breeze using my scrap bins.

The Vintage Baskets are a nod to all the baskets I have. You can find information about the Quilty Fun Sew Along Sampler here:

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/2013/11/announcing-quilty-fun-sew-along-and.html

This is one version I found online--mine is going to be more primary colors and less pastels. I hope to sew the bee block and complete the embroidering on it today for Slow Sunday Stitching:

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2017/05/slow-sunday-stitching_28.html

Quick Week

Greetings! We presented this retirement quilt to Mr. King this week. He was quite pleased with it and loved the Amy Butler backing.

 The Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt drive is ending. I dug out this Medallion Log Cabin top and backed it with minky and quilted it up. I am donating it to Happy Chemo in honor of a third grader that lost her short battle with brain cancer this school year. It is 56 inches square. You can check out all the other charity quilts here:

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2017/05/hands2help-time-to-show-off-your-quilts.html

The minky is very soft and should be cuddly during chemotherapy treatments. I will get this mailed off this week!

I took some time to get caught up on Carole's Scrap Dance Mystery Two Step. I got my dozen blocks together today.

I need gifts for several graduates this year. I picked up gift cards, but they are not very personal. I thought of making luggage tags. I started with this prototype this afternoon, but I am already planning on some changes.

This is a little bigger and bulkier than I want. So stay tuned for my modifications!

One year ago today, my daughter graduated from high school. Now, she is off in Italy on an extended study where they are studying Galileo. She will return to her university for a paid internship in the admissions office all summer. Sounds like a perfect ending to her freshman year of college!

I delivered the four quilts I bound for my local fabric store on Friday and picked up another. I will spend my evening binding for Slow Sunday Stitching. 

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2017/05/slow-sunday-stitching_21.html

Only 2.5 more days until my summer begins! 

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Mother's Day 2017

 Happy Mother's Day 2017! My sweet daughter sent me my favorite sunflowers on Thursday. She is flying to Italy today for a 3 week extended study. They are studying Galileo and will visit Florence, Rome, and Venice for a week each. Not a bad way to end her freshman year, I think! 

 My mom and I celebrated by getting together yesterday to make pineapple quilts. We are using this free pattern:

http://patsloan.typepad.com/files/jackie-padesky-pineapple-quilt.pdf

We did decide to make our pineapple crowns a little taller than shown in the pattern.

 We got everything cut out and I managed to make 2 blocks. We also celebrated with our favorite Thai food from our local food truck. It was a lovely day!

I spent this morning binding the retirement quilt for my friend John, but I am not posting any pictures until he receives it on Wednesday. I have this quilt all ready for binding this evening as part of my Slow Sunday Stitching:

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2017/05/slow-sunday-stitching_14.html

My countdown for summer is continuing with 8 days of school left. I will be gifting my personalized pencil pouches this week and packing up one of my three classrooms to move--not fun! Have a great week!

2 & a Half Weeks to Go!

 The end of the school year is a very hectic and stressful time for teachers. We are counting down to summer more than the kids! There are gobs of field trips, end of the year parties, and retirements. One of my schools has four people retiring and they traditionally make quilts for all retirees. I offered to make one of them. There are the two blocks I embroidered for it.

I had 28 blocks, so I just spent the day sewing them together. Right now, it measures 31.5 x 53.5 inches. John loves green, so I am going to pick up a darker green for an outer border.

I have this amazing Amy Butler fabric that I want to use for the backing. I plan on just quilting around the blocks as this will just be a memory/display quilt.  John's fiancee, Patrick, is a quilter, so I know they appreciate designer fabrics. It is my May OMG Goal to have this quilt done for the retirement celebration on 5/17. Here are everyone's goals:

http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2017/05/one-monthly-goal-may-link-up.html

I am helping out my friend and fabric store owner with some binding becauseI love o bind while watching TV. She had another customer quilt several quilts with her new longarm and needed some help with binding. I did this one for her.

Here is its back--the quilting is very nice. I think the longarm is all computerized. 

 Here is the other quilt I finished the binding on.

This one was quilted with different sized swirls. It is gorgeous! I may need to get her to quilt one of my UFOs for me soon. I have two more quilts to bind, so that will be my Slow Sunday Stitching this evening. Check out everyone else's stitching here:

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2017/05/slow-sunday-stitching.html

Have a great week!

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Sunflower Pig Quilt Finish & April OMG

 My piggies are done! This is a Lori Holt design that uses her pig block available on Fat Quarter Shop and several blocks from her Farm Girl Vintage book. I am so grateful to my sister for gifting me the gorgeous kit and to my mom for helping me with the longarm quilting. It is a super bright and sunny day here--almost too bright for pictures, but I could not resist getting this posted because a lot of you have commented that you were in love with it too. It is hard to believe we woke up to two inches of snow yesterday, but it is sunny and brisk today.

This is an up close of the center pig and sunflowers. I used my mom's Handiquilter 16 longarm and her scallop groovy boards. I wanted an allover design because the focus really is the cute piggies and happy sunflowers. Sunflowers happen to be my favorite by the way.

 After washing, it measures 50 x 53 inches. I plan to hang this quilt in my house along with some other bright and cheery quilts for the rest of this spring and into the summer.

Here is my label--an extra piggy that I embroidered the info onto.

 These are my pencil pouches that were part of my April OMG goal. I have all of them done and just need to put some goodies inside them.

I also finished my 8 tea towels for Administrative Assistant's Day. Check out everyone else's April OMG goals here:

http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2017/04/one-monthly-goal-april-finish.html

I am working on a retirement quilt for an amazing teacher that is finally retiring and I am binding some quilts for my favorite local quilt shop, so my hand work for Slow Sunday Stitching will continue this evening:

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2017/04/slow-sunday-stitching_30.html

We have tomorrow off, so it is a short work week--maybe I will get some more done!

Pyramid Baby Quilt Finish

 Look at this finish! I got my invite to the baby shower on Friday, April 14th and it is tomorrow, April 27--so I had less than two weeks to start and finish a baby quilt. I talked to the mama to be and found out she is decorating the nursery with black and white with Kelly green as an accent and using geometric shapes. I thought a pyramid design would be perfect. I have not made a triangle quilt in 20+ years, but I thought this would be doable. I spent the entire evening of the 14th cutting and then the rest of that weekend sewing rows together.

 I spent the whole second weekend machine quilting. I just followed the seams and used my presser foot as a guide.  I started the hand binding on Sunday night and finished it up Monday night. 

I washed it up last night and wrapped it up tonight.

Just in the nick of time! After washing it measures 48.5 x 52 inches. I hope the mama to be loves it!

Triangles & Tea Towels

Look what is almost done! I finished piecing my Equilateral Triangle Quilt this week and spent yesterday pinning and quilting it.

 I quilted it along the seams just using my foot as my guide. I have not washed it yet because I need to sew the binding down, but I this it will shrink up nicely. I am using one of the Kelly greens for the binding--it should tie it all together nicely. For Slow Sunday Stitching, I plan on spending my evening sewing the binding on this one. Check out what everyone else is up to here:

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2017/04/slow-sunday-stitching_23.html

I bought a black minky for the backing. The baby shower is Thursday, so I will get pictures and measurements when it is all complete and washed.

Administrative Assistant's Day is Wednesday, so I spent today machine appliquéing some tea towels for all of the secretaries at my three schools. I bought hand soap at Bath & Body Works during Spring Break, so I am ready with time to spare.

 Eight tea towels and coordinating hand soaps all done.

I should make a few for myself soon.

I had lots of sweet comments about my Sunflowers & Pigs top this last week. I bought a lovely green for a border and a pink for the binding. I hope to get the borders on it this week--so stay tuned!