Fourth of July finish

 It feels good to be sewing again.  I have been working on several projects trying to get things in gear. 

So first I am so happy to have finished the quilting on my Go Sparkly Fourth.  I finished the binding in front of television over a couple nights. And although it was not done for this year, it will be ready for next year. This was an old free pattern from a Fort Worth shop. More pictures in previous posts.  

I kept whittling away at all the 9 patches required for my BEAUTY.  I have my center completed! Way too many 9 patches to count.  It did make a dent in my background stash, but there are still many, many scraps leftover.  Anyone for a small bag of 1 1/2 inch squares?  Free to a good home.

Next step 28 paper pieced flying geese units. Oh, and the square in a square corners.  Need to find a good red border fabric. 

Fall is looking to be beautiful. Although I do agree with another blogger that the dry summer has initiated some brown early leaves. And we are now getting much needed rain. Good sewing weather!

Travelings

 I have been here and gone again and again over the past 2 months. 

First I went on a quilt shop hop to Hamilton, MO, for the Missouri Star Quilt Company visiting, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and back home to Wisconsin.  Lots of fun.

Then my spouse and I went up north on two different trips for seeing Lake Michigan in Door County and then Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands. Nature fills my cup with delights while hiking and sharing time with my loved one.

Back home and then an early morning  phone call to see Mom in the Kawartha Lakes in Canada. Fortunately, she turned around and is doing much better; she is 91 and a respiratory virus is going around. And we came back home again.

On to quilting news. 

For my Crabapple Hill quilt, I realized my backing fabric was not sufficient in size. So I enjoyed playing around with my leftover half square triangles and fabric to extend  it to the right size. And I then sent it off to my long arm quilter. So glad to get it off my plate. 

I am still slowly making progress on my 9 patch scrap quilt. I am in the process of assembling the 6th row.  Woot woot!

I had a baby quilt that was due in May for my niece in Virginia. And due to all the confusion of the summer, I finally started and completed it. A woodland animal quilt was requested with a slate blue focus for the room. Back in April I found a panel with many animals and used that in between an Irish chain blocks.  It turned out very nice.  I will say, I was not very successful with Dream Cotton batting.  I am not used to such a thin one. But the design process was fun.  It looks like flannel fabric, but is a printed series of tweed looking fabrics. 

The red seems to be ok, but the greens are more a light one and a forest green. 

Below is the front and back of the finished quilt. 

Looking for some quick projects, I am also trying to complete some projects on my pile. I had started to quilt my Fourth of July wall hanging last summer. So I finished the quilting using a walking foot around the star blocks and the flying geese. And then the binding.  Hooray for another quilt off the pile. 

To add to my creativity and enjoy a new colorway, I started the new Blockheads 5. Again on the use what you have, I pulled some blues and teal batiks and added a few to the mix. I intend to complete the 9 blocks for the short group which is due to finish my Christmas. So using up some fabric while starting a block of the week. I little old and something new. 

This is the first version:

Then I switched the arrangement for this version.