COLLAB QUILT TOP TOGETHER

 I put the last seam in on the BP-Monday Sewcial Collab quilt top.  It went together very easily.  I had checked each block for size when they arrived and almost all were right on.  I did make some minor adjustments to a few, which made the final sewing together a breeze.  

CLOUDS ON THE LONGARM

 I loaded the small quilt top, Clouds, onto the longarm today.

This top was made from six wide selvedge to selvedge strips with the same print of clouds but in different colorways sewn together side by side and bordered with some black fabric.  I believe I picked up this collection from a fabric distributor back in the day.  I never knew what to do with them.  The top has been languishing around for a long while now.

It is on my list of UFOs to finish this year.

SMALL QUILT TOP MADE

 I randomly sewed the 4" squares together made from the One Room Schoolhouse charm pack.  These fabrics were designed by Brenda Ratcliff with RJR Fabrics.

Here's the finished top, 32" by 40".

LOADED BIG QUILT

 I loaded the big quilt I'm calling Garden Club onto the longarm today.  This is one of the quilts my friend, Mary sent for me to quilt and finish.  This quilt top was donated to her small quilt group to help raise funds for their group.  I volunteered to help by quilting some.

This quilt top is about 88" by 88".  It's not square.  I noticed when finding the middle of each side that one of the sides is 4" longer than it's opposite.  And it has other problems.  I think someone may have washed the top, which isn't a good idea with an unfinished quilt top.

Here's some photos of some of the things going on on the back of this quilt top:

HOURGLASS TOP FINISHED

It's done.  I finally finished the Improv Hourglass top.  

It's about 51" by 72".

There's lots of scraps, I think I'll sew them together and incorporate them into the backing.

CHURN DASH IS A TOP

 I finally got the Churn Dash quilt top sewn together.

Afterwards, I cleaned up, put all the unused scraps back into their proper buckets and moved onto the next project.

PLAYCATION 2024 QUILT TOP

 Over the last few day I've been sewing together the improv blocks from Cheryl Arkison's Quilters Playcation 2024 - all 49 of them.  I finished the top today.

Since I shy away from making square quilts, I made my blocks 10" by 12" because there would be 49 of them.  Which would make a great 7 by 7 blocks quilt.

SEAMQGBOM2024 IS A TOP

 I sewed together all of the blocks and extra blocks made for the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild's Block of the Month for 2024.  It is now a quilt top.  It took me most of today.

It is 64" by 80".  I made extra blocks to make it rectangular and bigger.

BLUE SLABS TOP

 I decided I had to push forward and finish the top of the Blue Slabs.  I've been spending the last few days working on them.  Today I got the last of it done.

It's a top!  And, it needs a name.  And a backing.  And a label.

Tomorrow...

4-PATCHES ARE NOW A TOP

 I pushed through and finally got all of the 4-patches into rows and the rows sewn together.  They now are a quilt top.  And I don't have to worry about them falling off the wall and getting mixed up!

I need a name for it though.

SNAKE BLOCKS ARE A TOP

 I got all of the Snake blocks sewn together.  It's now a quilt top.

It is 70" by 84".

CHECKERBOARDS TOP

 After lots of missteps, backups and restarts, I finally got the Checkerboards 15-17 top done!

Yea!  It's about 70" by 87".

END OF FIRST QUARTER

 I've been making a Sunrise block, pretty much every day since January 1st.  If I missed a day, I caught up the next time I was in the studio.  Today was the last block needed for this quilt top.  The Seattle Sunrise Q1 quilt is a top!  It's 70" by 84.5" and needs a good pressing.

I was also sewing the cutoffs, from trimming the blocks to size, together and it formed a really long piece, probably over 100".  And I also started just randomly sewing some of the other cutoff parts together because there were so many.  I think these pieces deserve to be a quilt of their own.  There's still a lot of scraps and I'll keep working on those.

Here's what the daily block would look like before I trimmed it to size.  I made them oversized because as I added the curves the blocks would become weird shaped.  

I kept really good records of the time of the sunrise each day, the colors I saw and the conditions.  I made some forms in excel.

I have three more sheets for the rest of the year.  I've been saying that when I finished this first quarter I was done.  But, I thought of an idea that I'd like to try.  So, I'm going to keep records about the next quarter and make blocks for it.... I think.  I just don't want to be tied to making a block every day.  And, I don't want to get way behind either.  So, we'll see how it goes.

QUILT TOP DONE

 I got the last two rows of the Playcation 2022 quilt top done.

It's a quilt top, 91" x 91".  

I like it.  I really like the Standing Tall Woman in the middle.  I was thinking I should call it "The Inside of My Head".

But, I have a bunch more scraps!

COORDINATES IS A TOP

 I finally sewed those last few seams to get the last of the Coordinates blocks made into a quilt top.

Pretty much every join was a partial seam.

It's done.

I'm still thinking about how to quilt it and whether the backing should be all black and whites, or greys.  Or whether it should be wild and multi-colored.

#SEAMQGBOM2023

 I finished my version of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild's mystery Block of the Month for 2023 called Diamond Flare by Taylor Krz of ToadandSew.com.  

The pattern as presented was to finish at 70" by 70".  I prefer rectangular quilts.  So, I added another border on the top and bottom to make it 70" by 90".

Here is the finished top:

I used mostly scraps and old stash.

HUGS AND KISSES TOP

 I got the last two borders sewed onto Hugs and Kisses while visiting with the BP-Monday Sewcialites.

Its a top!

THIS MONTH'S UFO

 This month's UFO Challenge project is another old one, called Hugs and Kisses.  It was probably made in the late 90's.  I hand-appliqued these Xs and Os onto the squares.  The fabrics are a heavy flannel and woven plaids, all of them from Clothworks.  I usually really dislike flannel, but these are pretty nice.  Found along with the top was a pile of the fabrics I had  used.  There were big pieces, maybe one third yard cuts.

The top was 44" by 56" as found.  I want it to be bigger.  So, the easiest way was to add another border.  I decided to cut all of the extra fabrics into 4-1/2" squares and add them around the outside.

I was only able to sew the top and bottom rows on before the dogs insisted on leaving.

FINISH IT FRIDAY

 Before our Brave Patch Finish it Friday get-together, I worked on making another improv block.

Here's one that was inspired by an event in my life.

Then I managed to get this NYC project finished.  It's a quilt top!

VOLTRON! IS A TOP

 I completed the last big triangles in the bottom corners.  And had everything sewn into big chunks that were ready to sew all together.

It is now a top.  Once I got it done, I felt the top was the darkest part, the heaviest part, making the composition seem top-heavy.  So, I flipped it upside down.  It looks better.  But, I may change something, like taking the dark top off and sewing it onto the part that used to be the bottom.

Well, I'm all done and here is the pile of scraps and leftovers.  omg, it never ends.