Spools 2 Underway

Greetings Quilty friends! I made it a personal goal to get my Spools 2 top together by the end of this month. I have been working all day today on getting the blocks together. I used a bunch of my Bonnie and Camille scraps for all the spools.

 All I have left is to add the outer 2.5 inch borders in the background fabric. I already have a backing and an extra spool block to turn into my label. It will be good to have this one in the waiting to be quilted pile.

I finished binding this batik beauty for my friend Rachel--I bound two this week for her and dropped off my Good Fortune Quilt for her to work her longarm magic on. I have a few more quilts all prepped to bind for Slow Sunday Stitching this evening:

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/01/slow-sunday-stitching-achieving-your.html

Yesterday, I made my Harry Potter blocks. My door under the stairs will get a button for a handle.

This is my Hermione Selfie Block for that Harry Potter quilt. You can find links to the sew alongs on my right hand sidebar.

I also made the two blocks for the Vintage Block Along by Lori Holt that she posted this week. This is the Vintage Lily Block.

This is the Star Shine Block that finishes 20 inches. Here is the link to her blog for these blocks:

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com

Lori's Farm Sweet Farm Sew Along starts tomorrow and I already have my templates, but I will be making mine out of scraps with Heat & Bond. The appliqué blocks look adorable and I love farmed themed quilts! 

I have a special delivery coming this week that I am really excited about and I am taking Tuesday off to get my teeth cleaned, my oil changed, some shopping, and hopefully some quilting. Have a great week!

Staying Motivated!

For Xmas from my hubby, I preordered a Bonnie & Camille Little Snippets FQ bundle and it arrived this week. I now have NINE untouched Bonnie & Camille FQ bundles! I need to start using them, but I can't bring myself to bust them all open. Does anyone have any ideas to push me to finally start using all of these beautiful fabrics? I do prefer scrappy quilts, so I envision using all of these fat quarters for my scrappy quilts--likely all B&C scrap quilts.

Most evenings this week, I stitched my Spools 2 blocks together. If I had my act together, I would have made this my January OMG--to finish this top this month, but I was too late to participate this month! I am still going to try to get the top done and in the "To Be Quilted Pile." I already have a backing for it!

Speaking of the abyss of my "To Be Quilted Pile," I picked up this gorgeous green for the backing of my Good Fortune. It was 55% off and I think it will add a calm to busy top. I will piece it today and get it ready for quilting. 

My friend, who got a longarm in August, will quilt it for me. She has reached the point where she is having "fun" with her longarm and is ready to quilt for me! I just picked up four quilts to bind for her on Thursday, so I am all set for Slow Sunday Stitching and the AFC and NFC Championship Games.

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/01/hand-quilting.html

Yesterday the directions for the first blocks for the two Harry Potter Quilt Alongs posted. I started with the pixelated block. It is 18 x 18 inches and so adorable! I made Harry's eyes green because that's how they are according to the books. This is Kelli's design and you can find the links on my righthand side bar. I am using purple Kona for my background which is darker than she is using.

 This is Lorna's Harry Potter Selfie block. She is offering two sizes 10 inch or 20 inch blocks. I am making the 10 inch versions. I like Harry's scar in this one!

Lori Holt posted her Rhinestone blocks for her Vintage Block Along on Thursday, so I also made them yesterday. I am just digging into my overflowing scrap bins to make them.

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/2019/01/vintage-block-along-rhinestone-block.html

My daughter made it back from Africa on Thursday night. She flew back into Syracuse and stayed with her friend. School is supposed to start tomorrow for them, but they have tons of snow and went back to Colgate yesterday with between 2-3 inches of snow predicted to fall each hour. She is getting all settled into her sorority house for the semester.

I do not have tomorrow off from school either--I am very unhappy about this on many levels! This is the first year our district has taken away MLK Day...

2019 Is Off to a Good Start!

 The winner of Strip Quilt Secrets from Diane at http://www.butterflythreadsquilting.com and her blog hop was Julie in WA and she is partial to blue. Congratulations Julie, I know you will love the book!

 I won this gorgeous pile of goodies from Sherri over at http://www.aquiltinglife.com

I was only expecting some strips and strings, but she also included a couple of mini charm packs from her fabric line Walkabout. Thank you, Sherri! I think I will whip up some string blocks.

I finished binding my Turquoise Twist quilt on Thursday night. The design is featured in Strip Quilt Secrets. Aren't all those strips together spectacular? It really is that bright!

The gray minky backing calms it down a little and my wavy stitch quilting on the two inch diagonals gives some curves in all those strips.

I dove into Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, Good Fortune, on Black Friday. Although I have made several of Bonnie's quilt patterns, I have never participated in one of her annual mystery quilt sew alongs. I decided to join in this year because it was going to be a relatively small quilt 72 x 72 inches (small by Bonnie standards) and I knew I had plenty of fabrics in my stash to make it with. I am so glad I made this! I learned some new tricks too--I had never spun seams before or sewed strip sets on telephone book pages. I was terribly worried about the pieced borders fitting correctly, but they actually fit! Now, I need to get a backing for this beauty and figure out how to have it quilted...

Does anyone have ideas for how to have this one quilted? I think I want to have the quilting dense because I am a little worried about the smaller seam allowances on the green chevrons and green border triangles...Here is a link to Bonnie's website where this pattern is available:
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2019/01/mystery-monday-link-up-reveal-2.html

 Since my Turquoise Twist Quilt was done and my Good Fortune top was all done, I started working on the Vintage Block Along Lori Holt has been featuring on her blog:

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com 

This is Grandma's Star. I am making the 12 inch versions instead of the six inch versions.

Next up was Pattern Basket and it finishes at 15 inches. I made the first two blocks yesterday.

This one also finishes 15 inches and I made it this morning. It is called Around the Corner.

This block finishes 12 inches and is called Little Farmhouse. I am using scraps and I seem to be making most of my blocks from aqua and red. Did you know a front door on a house that is painted red is supposed to signify that the house has been paid off? I just think it looks cheerful!

There are two Harry Potter Quilt Alongs starting this week. I was having a hard time deciding which one to make, but I have just decided to make them both. After all I have three classrooms, so why not have two HP quilts? I bought all the Kona purple they had at my Joann's and it is not enough for both, but I will just get some more. You can find the schedule and information for them here:

https://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com/p/harry-potter-quilt-along.html

I have this little beauty to bind for Ludene and another huge quilt in the queue to bind for her too! I will work on this for Slow Sunday Stitching:

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/01/slow-sunday-stitching.html

I think I am off to a good start for 2019 with one quilt that I started on December 26th already done and another top together too. With the exception of the accent turquoise and the backings, both quilts were totally made from my stash!!!

PS My daughter is on safari with my mother in law in Botswana and she just sent me this picture of them with this elephant!

Strip Quilt Secrets Blog Hop & Contest

Diane over at http://www.butterflythreadsquilting.com and I have been blogger/quilty friends for years. We really bonded when our daughters left for college in the fall of 2016--it has been encouraging to share our empty nest experiences. She also makes the most amazing scrappy quilts and has just had her second book published. When she was seeking help from bloggers for a blog hop for her book, I jumped at the chance. I received her book the day after Christmas and then had the challenge of figuring out which of the 15 amazing quilts to make. I decided on Lime Twist--I wanted to make something bright and happy because this will likely be a chemo quilt for another coworker.

I dug into my strips and realized that I had mostly 2.5 inch wide strips. For Lime Twist, a variety of widths is ideal! Diane recommends cutting fat quarters and half yards on the 18 inch side, so I tried that and liked it. I also created a bin for strings smaller than 2.5 inches to increase my stash of those at the ready.

Diane's clever use of strip sets makes two blocks and a hunk for the scrappy border. I also had a few border strips left over that I will use in something else. Instead of lime, I used Kona Pool as my highlight color because aquas are my favorite.

I finished quilting it last night and used a gray minky for the backing. I will attach the binding, also the Kona Pool, today and spend some quality time watching the NFL Playoffs and sewing it down. This is going to be my first finish of 2019!

Here are links to all the blogs that are part of the blog hop:

Friday January 4 - C&T 

Saturday January 5 - Tanya

Sunday January 6 - Val

Monday January 7 - Lori

Tuesday January 8 - Heather

Wednesday January 9 - Audrey

Thursday January 10 - Susan

To win a copy of Scrap Quilt Secrets by Diane D. Knott, comment on this blog with your favorite color. I will draw a winner on Friday, 1/11/19, If you are a no-reply, please leave your email, so I can contact you for your mailing address. Due to shipping costs, this contest is only available to US residents. Good luck!