Quick update

 I finished this quilt yesterday. That makes three quilts for the month of May. May!

I have a new backing loaded onto Mo'e but that's as far as I've gotten with it.  I need to get back to working on another UFO quilt top (Twitter) that I started back to working on last week. Lots of piecing along with a row of applique - it's going to be a little while.

OK, off to clean the inside of my fridge...Happy Quilting!

What to work on next

 I finished the two gift quilts - and both have been delivered to a parent of the little girl recipient. I have the requested photo from one but not from the other. Oops! It looks like the photo didn't get transferred from my phone to my tablet - I'll have to go look for it. Found it but it won't show here for some reason. ..and neither will the photo of the placemats and bowl cozies.

It's done!

I finished the quilt that I plan on delivering on Friday night.

 Every fabric is pink - even the background that looks white and every fabric was from my stash. 

The backing is something I've never tried but I wanted to do something simple that would use up more of the pink and it worked - I used up several pieces. 

I also attached the label before quilting by stitching it down on one of the middle blocks. My thinking was that I wanted to break up the two identical blocks that ended up one over the other. If you zoom in on the second photo you should be able to see it.

  It's a little more wrinkled than I like but I didn't want to over-quilt it and it needed to be washed and dried before I presented it. If it bothers me too much on Friday, I'll give it a quick press before I package it up.

That's it for right now...Two quilts finished in the last week...something I haven't been able to say in awhile.

Next up is making four placemats and possibly mug rugs to match for a wedding at the end of the month.

Update coming

 I'll  leave you with this little teaser

Hip hip hooray

The ballerina quilt top is done along with the label and the binding..all I have left to do on the backing is stich 90 some 5 1 /2" blocks into rows, load it all onto Moe and quilt it...I have until the 14 th to finish it do that I can present it to the little girl's dad.

This block was my 'test' block to see how it would look if I added chenille. On my first attempt, I only used one layer of the bias tape - nope, needed another layer. The tape has been sewn to the other 11 blocks but I wont brush them until after I'm done with the quilting.

 Here's the completed top. 

I'm using any pink fabric I can get 5 1/2" squares out of. I had to be a little careful because I'm pretty sure there are a couple of pieces that aren't 100% cotton and some are all cotton but thin enough to make it scarey to try especially on a quilt for a three year old little girl. As per usual, as much fabric as I used, you can't tell it by the bin -it still looks extremely full.

And....before I can quilt this one, I still need to finish the baby quilt with the ducks along the bottom....almost done but I've been putting it off because of a stiff neck and lower back pain. I just have to bite the bullet and get it done.

 I'm going to do something much simpler when I get the ballerina quilt on the frame.

That's all my news for now...I'll have to come back later and tell you about the bags I made ...and a third one that I have the fabrics for but haven't started yet. I have placemats to make before bag #3. I was hoping to make a quilt for a charity auction but I'll have to see how I feel after I make the placemats (wedding gift for a cousin).

OK, bedtime for the B's.

TTFN

Yes and No

 Yes, I did some quilting. No, I didn't finish it.

But I did make a second beautician's tote bag 

Back

Front

and I did do some stitching on Moe ( my mid arm for those who haven't heard him called by name before). I'm adding chenille stripes to the borders of the duck baby quilt. The chenille stripes  will only go on three borders and I'm thinking of using it to stitch around the ducks bodies. I don't want to deal with stops and starts around the ducks.

I also recently found some blocks that I bought the first year I went on quilt retreat up to Roscommon. There are twelve blocks with teddy bears printed on them. I embroidered on them and for some reason, put them away. 

Now that they've resurfaced, I'm determined to put them into a quilt top. Each teddy bear has some sort of accessory with it - a bow around its neck or a horn it's blowing, etc and I've decided to use my intense pencils to color in the bears and their accessories. I have the bow around the neck, the bears nose and the little butterfly who sits on bears nose colored in...I like it so far...think it's going to turn out cute. 

I'm thinking that I should put something between each block...but not dark brown which I was going to use for sashing...and I still might use it between the rows, I haven't decided yet. I just know that I'm going to audition some bright colored fabrics to see how they would work as alternate blocks.

Anyway, that's it for this week..... 

oh wait! I forgot to tell you my great granddaughter who's 19 said that she'd love for me to make her a cosmetology bag, too...and is willing to wait a couple of months while I get the baby quilt and a couple of other things done.

OK, that's it for sure this time...although I got a message from granddaughter in Georgia saying that her soon to be 7 yr old son told her that he misses his Grandma Carol and that he loves her/ me. It's been about a year and a half since we've seen each other...such a sweet boy. 

Ok... ENOUGH

goodbye for this week 

Goodnight Irene!

 

Its complete! Well, the top is anyway. Since it's a scrappy quilt, I'm going to grab some of my odds and ends of fabrics that are less than half a yard but more than a fat quarter and piece them together for the backing before I take it all down to my neighbor quilter. I want a Baptist Fan quilting design on it but I don't want to do it myself. But before I do that, I want to get the tote bag finished...

This is the front side. I'm working on the side pieces and bottom next before moving on to the back and then the lining and handles.

  I also want to work more on the baby quilt in the hopes that I can get it quilted this week. I was so busy this week that I wasn't able to work on it at all and now, I'm going to have to mark it again.

My dear friend, Barb's, funeral was yesterday. I'm doing better mentally than I thought I would, but it's still hard. I keep wanting to call her and say " let's do lunch". I did leave a message on her fb messenger...just to say that I miss her. I'm really hoping that Katie is right and Barb has found her quilting friends in Heaven and they're having a good time catching up.

And on that note I'm going to call it a night. I have a couple things to do real quick before I forget - again. 

Take care and stay warm.