Car Quilts

Every car needs a quilt.  For a spur of the moment picnic.  To cushion that garage sale treasure you're bringing home.  To hide your quilt shop purchases from .... umm .... from someone.   Comforters are perfect for the job.  They're fun to make, too.  I made this comforter in 1985, and I can still identify a lot of the fabrics - maternity clothes I'd made, some of Hubby's shirts, PJs I'd made for our little ones, jeans, even fabric from my bridesmaids dresses.  Ahem .... that's some really old fabric!

Before our sons took their comforters, I snapped a few pics of what they look like now.  It's interesting that most of the fabrics are in shreds while the double knits still look like new.  That is crazy!  

Obviously our own cars are now in need of comforters.  I'm on the job, though.  I have one finished. It was a real stash buster .....

..... it even looks pretty on an Airbnb sofa.

So, one done and one to go.  I think I can say, with absolute certainty, that I have enough scraps to make another.

Linking up with Oh Scrap!

January OMG and RSC-Red Goals Met!

I'm pretty excited that I've met my January goals.  A little motivation goes a long way it seems. 

My goal for OMG (One Monthly Goal) at Elm Street Quilts was to finish putting my Long Time Gone top together.  It was in five sections in December, and now it's a top.  I thought it was finished after I put the sections together, but then I looked at the instructions.  (Funny how important that is.) It seems it still needed borders.  Twelve.  Three on each side.  And pieced.  Aarrgghh!   At least I had plenty of strips in my strings basket.  As usual.

Now it's a top!  My design wall was really crowded, and my design floor was a total mess and needed to be swept, so I had to resort to the design patio. 

 

I had fun playing with reds for the RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) at So Scrappy ending up with two each of the Windmill and Sawtooth Star blocks.  I also pulled a bunch of reds out of my novelty/children's/brights stash and cut them into useable sized squares and strips.  

A good month.  I wonder if I need to set more challenging goals for February.  We'll see.

Linking up with "One Monthly Goal" and "RSC2022".

Improv Quilts for Steve and Ginger

I've been blogging recently about the quilts I managed to finish during the last nearly two years while isolating because of the Covid pandemic.  I was in a funk for about the first six months of isolation and not sewing at all, but then I started making up for lost time.  Now I'm playing catch-up on my blog.  

After I made the quilt for Shirley A using orphan blocks (read about that here) I had a few teal crumb blocks left and set them aside to do something else with. 

I shopped my stash and found these 2.5" strips left from Kacie's quilt (read about that here).

Then I raided my stash again and dug through my scraps and pulled more teals.

Then - you guessed it - play time!  Scrappy quilts need scrappy borders .....

..... and scrappy cornerstones .....

..... and a happy finish.

  

Once I decided that this would be the perfect quilt for my sister-in-law, Ginger, I wanted to make a similar quilt for my brother-in-law, Steve.  Oh, boy!  More play time!  I'm starting to like this whole improv thing!  

Steve's quilt started out with orphan blocks, too.  I used mostly batiks to make more crumb blocks .....

..... added bits and pieces of a fun shade of yellow .....

..... started playing .....

..... and, you guessed it!  Another happy finish!  

My favorite part of making these quilts was gifting them to two very special people.  I wish I could have done that in person, but the photo they sent me is the next best thing.

Love those smiles!

Linking up with "Oh Scrap!"

A Little Housekeeping - Part 3

A freshly covered ironing board, a newly covered design wall, and now it's time to sort and organize scraps!  My scraps have been stored willy-nilly for a very long time.  Well, forever, actually.    

Some in stacking drawers .....

..... some in plastic bins .....

..... more in plastic shoeboxes .....

..... and even more in plastic, bulk sized Biscotti containers.  (I know!)

When I pulled all this together into one place I wondered if I really knew what I might be getting into.  What I was getting into was a tangled mess!

I pulled out all the reds and began pressing .....

















..... stacking .....




















..... and cutting into useable sized pieces.  

Piles of odds and ends .....


























..... soon became strips .....


























..... and more strips .....

..... and a lot of squares to make much better use of those storage drawers and bins!  Well, at least they look better.

Small, neatly cut and pressed pieces went into ziploc bags to either use or share.  (Ummmm, want some?)




















The local thrift store soon became the happy recipient of storage containers for some other quilty scrapaholic!

I'm seeing progress, aren't you?  What do they say about how you can eat an elephant?  Oh, yeah - One bite at a time.  lol

Hmmmm, what to bite off next?

A Quilt for Joan

I met Joan when I joined my first guild, The Flower Valley Quilting Guild, about twenty years ago.  More than fifteen years ago we both joined a small daytime group started by a mutual friend we fondly dubbed "Day-Quilters".  So I've been to many meetings, lunches, field trips, and retreats with her, and she is a dear friend.  Here she is with a paper doll of herself; we were each asked to make one for a 50th Birthday Party/Quilt retreat we were graciously invited to a while back.

Sadly, Joan is losing her vision which means she has to give up quilting.  When I saw her a few months ago at Day Quilters she asked each of us to take what we wanted of her fabrics and UFOs.   I came home with this scrappy little 35" top.  

She thought I could make it into a doll quilt, but I decided to turn it into a "Joan Quilt".  Scrappy it began so scrappier it would become.  I just grabbed some scraps .....

..... and black & white prints, then kept making borders until I thought it was done.

Of course, it definitely needed Scottie dog fabric on the back because Joan really, really loves Scottie dogs.

It finished up about 53" square and pretty cute, I think.

Now it's washed and dried and has that comfy, crinkly look every quilt looks better with .....

..... which means it's ready to mail.  I hope it brings up a lot of sweet memories for Joan when she uses it.  I know it did that for me while I worked on it.

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict,

and Quilting is More Fun than Housework, 

and Tish's Adventures in Wonderland.