Cool Strings Quilt - a finish

 I finished my Cool Strings Quilt this week. Measures 42” square, machine quilted either side of the rows and columns seams.

A close up of some of the string blocks:

And the backing, using one of the new backing fabrics I recently bought online, increasingly the width with a band of fabric which came from  quilting friend Helen after she downsized her stash.

This has gone into my cupboard until the right recipient comes along.

I added to my Ticky Tacky houses for the RSC 2021 Blue month :

17 blocks, all have some blue fabric,  some blocks more blue pieces than others.

Then a 49 patch block and 5 x 4.5” Crumb blocks, made from mostly blue fabric scraps.

Then I made a start on the Bonnie Hunter Easy Breezy blocks I had chosen as one of my blocks for this year’s RSC project. Quite a few pieces in these blocks but they went together extremely quickly. They take longer to cut than piece - for me anyway. 12 blocks in total.

But of course for my country this week has been all about HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh who sadly died  on 9th April, just a few weeks short of his 100th birthday. What an amazing man he was, a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather but most of all a great husband for our Queen. A love match which lasted 73 years. He was a very clever and talented man, having expertise in so many different fields which have formed the basis for many, many ideas that will outlive him.

One of his creations was the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, for young people of any class, creed or colour. Both of our children took part and learned so many new things. Our son, Christopher was a Scout, attending the Jamboree in Seoul, South Korea when he was 16 years old. Christopher completed his Gold Award not long before he tragically died in a car accident at the age of 21, in February 1996. The local 

D of E organiser asked if we would like the Award to be made posthumously and we agreed. We were invited to St. James’s Palace in London a little while later and we had the honour of being presented with Christopher’s Gold Award by Prince Philip. We were taken to an anti room, away from all the other recipients and their families and had a private time with the Duke. He was so kind and thoughtful and made a point of speaking especially to our daughter who was just 19 at the time. We will never forget his kindness and hope he is now at peace and at rest after all his labours. God bless you, Prince Philip.

Adding to Angela’s Soscrappy RSC 2021 project.

Blue Patches

My lovely granddaughter took delivery of a rescue cat today. He’s called Timmy and is one year old. Mostly black with white paws and looks a long cat in the photo I’ve seen. Annalise has wanted a cat for years and now she has one to love.

A couple of days ago I decided to make him a quilt. I hope Timmy likes it and Annalise approves!

I decided to use 3.5” squares from my collection and a lot of them are blue so I’m linking with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC blog.

The backing was part of a curtain from a child’s bedroom. No idea how I acquired it! I’ve had it in my stash for many years and have never used it because it’s such bright colours. But I think it’s perfect for this little quilt.

The binding was made from three leftover bits of blue binding.

The quilt measures  24” square and was machine quilted.

Bringing on the Blues

 Blue is my favourite colour so I always enjoy Blue Month on RSC. This year April is for making Blue blocks.

I love these little Wonky stars. I had fun pairing stars to blue backgrounds and I managed to make 15.

This week l also put together the “Cool” String Blocks and created this flimsy.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and we were blessed with sunny weather which had not been forecast. At present we are still under lots of Covid restrictions and two households are now allowed to meet outdoors. Our daughter, SIL and granddaughter only live around the corner and they came round for an Easter Egg hunt. I had hidden the chocolate eggs and the four of them hunted round the garden looking for the little eggs I had hidden. The adults enjoyed it just as much as Annalise. Then we had sandwiches and a chocolate cake I had made. 

Considering how cold it had been for the previous few days it was wonderful to be able to sit outside. I had a Plan B in case it was freezing. The family would come round, we would exchange Easter eggs on the doorstep and I would send them home with a parcel of sandwiches and slices of cake. So much nicer to be able to have a proper picnic!

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy RSC 2021.

RSC Flimsy

 I love making String blocks and a few years ago ( I think 2017 as I found a blogpost about some I’d made for RSC that month) I started making some in the RSC colours. Last week I made 4 green String blocks to use up a few strips. As I added them to the bag of blocks I realised I had rather a lot. A couple of years ago I saw a quilt that Cathy of Crazy by Design had made just using three colours of RSC String blocks - red, yellow and pink - which looked really eye catching. Then a few days ago another Cathy of Sane, Crazy, Crumb quilting showed 2 quilts she  had made from large blocks which she had divided into Cool and Hot colours. They looked so effective.

So I got out my Hot colours: red,  orange, pink and yellow.  I had very few red blocks and not enough of those 4 colours to make a quilt so I added the neutral ones too. However, I was still a few blocks short so made a few more orange and yellow ones. Then I set out the 5” blocks in an 8 x 8 lay out. A couple of afternoons later I had this flimsy:

It looks very pretty and I’m pleased with it. However, as I finished pressing it I found a problem with one of the neutral blocks. Two strings had been sewn too closely together and had pulled apart to make an open slit in the block! So this afternoon I had the fiddly job of unpicking the seams around it and inserting a new block. I fortunately had a couple of neutrals left over. But it was a good lesson for me to learn : to check all seams on string blocks before I sew them together into a quilt! 

Linking up with Angela’s RSC 2021 on her So Scrappy blog.

Happy Mothering Sunday

 Here in the UK today is Mothering Sunday, traditionally the Sunday when girls who were “in service”, that is girls who were maids, scullery hands, in general service, ladies’ maids etc were allowed to go home to visit their mothers. Today we remember our mothers: gifting cards, flowers and chocolates and so on.

Normally for Mothering Sunday we would meet up with our family and either eat out or go to their house for a meal. We are of course still in Lockdown so such visits are not possible. Instead our family arrived on our doorstep ( fortunately they live nearby otherwise that wouldn’t have been possible either, only journeys for emergencies are allowed) and I was given a beautiful bouquet of flowers, wine, chocolates, a fragrant room spray, cards from DD and DGD and a lovely framed photo of DGD last Halloween when she came to our house and we made Spider Puddings! Mothering Sunday is the traditional name which I prefer and Caroline  always does her best to find cards that don’t say Mother’s Day. This gets more and more problematical  every year that passes but she found two- one from her and our son in law and another from Annalise.  So, I was thoroughly spoiled! It is very cold today so my husband made cups of tea to warm us up as we stood chatting on the doorstep!

So to mothers (grannies, sisters, aunties, godmothers) everywhere, Happy Mothering Sunday!

Then I spent a happy afternoon sewing with green fabrics for March’s RSC. I was able to use up lots of odds and ends too. The points for the Wonky Stars were waste triangles from my Sawtooth Baby Quilt, the strips for the Strippy blocks  were leftovers from the Spring Tulip QAL which Ann is running on her Fret not yourself blog. And I finished the ends of 4 reels of thread.

So, what did I make? 12 Wonky Stars

4 String blocks, a Ticky Tacky House and another Wonky Star I hadn’t seen when I sewed up the other ones!

The colours are poor in the  last photo because it was then dusk and I photographed it in artificial light. The blocks look more interesting than shown.

So,  a good day for me. I hope everyone enjoyed their day too.

Linking with Angela’s Soscrappy blog.

Sawtooth Stars baby quilt

 As there is a lot of yellow in the Sawtooth Stars quilt I finished this week I am adding to my yellow RSC 2021 total for February. And the other RSC connection is that the inspiration for the sawtooth blocks came from Cathy’s Sawtooth Stars quilt in 2019 ( Sane, Crazy Crumby Quilter).

I made 5 of them in April 2019 to see if I liked them, using a novelty fabric for the centre square and star points with a strong contrasting background. And later I made some using Crumb centres like Cathy had done. Then they got put away! And forgotten.

Last month I discovered my cousin’s son and wife were expecting a second baby in February . As I had given a quilt to their first child Margot I obviously needed to make one for Baby2. They weren’t finding our whether they were expecting a girl or boy so I decided to go with strong colours- reds, greens, oranges, yellows - and then remembered my Sawtooth Stars. I think I had about 10 but chose the novelty fabric ones, leaving the crumb centred ones for another quilt. I then set about making extra stars. Interestingly I had packed away some of the original novelty fabrics with the Sawtooth Stars so that gave me a good start. I finished the quilt just in time as Polly Maeve was born on 17th February.

As you can see there is a lot of yellow in the quilt, including the 2 borders. It measures 46” square. I machined down the columns and along the rows in the ditch and then hand stitched around the squares with a variety of Perle threads which match the star fabric.

Close ups of some of the stars:

Coincidentally shamrocks feature in some blocks. My cousin and I had a Irish grandmother and Polly’s middle name is Irish ( just because her parents liked the name I think) so I thought those stars had been included “for a reason”.

The backing  was pieced from two pieces of fabric leftover from a baby quilt I made last October. The paler green fabric is paw prints. Again very suitable because Mummy is a vet.

For the last few years when I’m making a baby quilt for a family with an older sister I make a Doll Quilt for her. This is the one I made for Big Sister Margot.

It measures 18” x 21” and was quickly made from 3.5” squares from my stash.

The backing was from a piece a quilting friend gifted me several years ago.

My cousin Jayne phoned yesterday to thank me for the quilts. I had posted them to her and she had just handed them over. Mummy and Daddy were thrilled and Margot loved opening her parcel and immediately  wrapped her toy monkey in it! That made my day.

Joining up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog.

 

Yellow blocks for February RSC

 I normally don’t have many yellow scraps ( I probably write the same comment every year!) because when I buy yellow fabrics for a project  I’m never left with many leftovers. However I stocked up on yellow a while ago and have been using them in projects and also for my February blocks which I’ve been making all month, dovetailing them with quilt making.

So my total for February:

 13 Ticky Tacky houses

11 Wonky Stars

5 Twinkler Blocks and 2 Roman Stripes 

Love all these blocks and all, except the Wonky Stars, are ongoing RSC 21 blocks, carried on from previous years. And all were ideas I gleaned from Cathy’s blog, Sane, Crazy Crumby Quilting. I wonder what colour will be chosen for March - Green?

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog