Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[beautress]

Skinny notepads (they're really pretty) from ONE dollar tree notebook:

Other paper craft note pads can be made to look like this:

 

[beautress]

At last! I found a brick quilt with blue mortar! Unfortunately, not all its squares are red on white prints. *sigh* You can't have everything. Most mortar is the color white, grey, beige, or a light color:

​

 

[beautress]

Finished the postage stamp with borders quilt this morning, I'll try and find a close one to what I did. Mine are just everything thrown into the center square/rectangle, then a fire border, then bricks all around the fire, and a water border on the outside, well, it wa supposed to be water, but all I found was a paintbrush cleaner print--really, it was. <giggle>

Bing postage stamp finds:]

(Oh, if I'd only done this it would have been done yesterday!)

(Oh, if I'd only done that, I'd have something to do for a couple of months, maybe three...)

Oh, my the artists have taken over the postage stamp quilt fad!!!

And those gals...giving away my construction secrets. lol

 

[beautress]

Well, finally! I found a baby quilt kind of like the one I completed today, except...

My postage stamps are smaller, and I have more squares in my quilt than that one, because instead of 1 row of squares in the second row, I have 4 rows on top and 4 rows on bottom, so as the child grows, it's toes will still be warm for several years. But this orange one is so compelling, I'm tempted to rummage through stuff and find all my orange scraps. that should take about a year of Sundays. I gotta reorganize my several rooms of stashes. Most of my postage stamps are whatever, whenever, are different colors, values, tones, hues, shades, neutrals, brights, and lights.​

 

[beautress]

This one is more representative of the kind of stash I have: lots of darks as well as lights, though:

And I love this quilt, which I just found:

I posted it while ago, but lost it in the shuffle. Sorry.​

 

[beautress]

More postage stamp quilts...

 

[beautress]

Some orange quilts...

 

[beautress]

I found some zig-zag placemats at Youtube today:
(notes)
2 3/4 yards of backing is needed.
You need 48 five-inch squares for tops of 4 mats.
(Or a 42-square 5" charm packs plus 6 more 5-inch squares from back)

Cut 18" squares for napkins. hem with 1/4"+1/4" folds
Quilter's pins, rotary cutter, 24 x 30" mat
matching or a neutral thread color, 40 or 50 weight
four 16"x 20" backs and batts (thin-nish, 80x20" or white flannel)
and thread to match, 1/4" sewing foot on machine helps.
​

 

[beautress]

Other zig-zag works (table runners, etc.) for color ideas for placemats:

 

[beautress]

I was still under the weather a little today, which is Sunday Feb. 16, so I just thought putting a couple of those adult bibs together would be a good thing to do, and one has cars on it and the other is a geological rock pattern that was in turquoise and lime colors. Also found the above zig-zag bordered placemats and napkin set, and I may make some with using all kinds of fabrics. I have enough 2.5" strips cut to make 12 scrap quilts and 50 placemats. lol But so does everyone else, I bet, soit would be a challenge to do all that. At one point after lunch, I got to thinking it was Monday because with running a slight fever, I don't dare go to church where most of the people are older, and could catch something, which I would hate if it was caught by shaking my hand. I counted 8 quilts to give to charity, and now I have to make two baby girl tops and one baby boy top for people in my family's kids' kids.

And living alone, I'm hungry, so I'm going to make the steak I bought at the grocer's or else it's going to go bad. I also bought a few potatoes that I could make into potato salad, and some green veggies in the freezer to balance out the meat and potatoes. I'm a little worried about stuff, because once again, my lawyer dropped the ball of getting names changed on important papers and stock accounts. I am out of water at the house because I don't have funds to pay for a new pump, which takes workers all day to pull up the pipes and check out what's wrong. It was supposed to have been fixed 18 months ago when they replaced the pump, but this one went out. It feels like a horror show, because the money is there, but it's not accessable until the attorney gets things transfered from my husband's name to mine. He died almost four years ago, and I've been waiting a year for the lawyer's action. I just don't know what to do, because if a large bill is drafted against my account, it will bounce like a rubber ball. Social security isn't certain here, and during the Obama administration, twice they withheld our checks, but it wasn't too bad then because there was still money left in our account from when my husband socked it away while he was living. Apparently I have more bills than the social security pays for. And the powers that be raised school taxes from $2,000 to $4,000 in less than 5 years when illegals started crossing the borders and schools in border states had to come up with money from somewhere. So county taxes all toll are up 40% from when we purchased our American dream place 10 years ago. I swore off living in a neighborhood when our bird feeder started attracting pigeons and the neighbors were all up in arms about it because someone delivered a lecture to the rotary club on pigeon diseases, and you know, there hadn't been an outbreak of pigeon fever for over 50 years there, when records started being kept. Even so, they were certain those pigeons would bring disease to our remote location in Wyoming, so 2 of them landed on my husband like ugly on an ape, and I couldn't even look across the street at the mean neighbors after that, so I took down all the bird feeders and said farewell to the hobby that brought the joy of birdsong to my yard. And in spite of themselves, I loved the pigeons, too. They have such loving eyes, and they're not ever afraid of people and go about their business while being adored and admired by people like me. On 14 acres, nobody is even close enough to see you have bird feeders, and besides, they're too busy with thier own live stock to be outraged that the neighbor loves to watch colorful songbirds of the wild, because they do, too. Pigeons don't collect in the country, it seems, but cardinals and jays certainly do if you feed regularly the stuff they like.

This takes 48 minutes +
​

 

[beautress]

Bird happy quilts... This one has a cardinal similar to the one in the video above.

 

[beautress]

 

[beautress]

This one's kinda nice...

 

[beautress]

This one is like the one above, I think.

 

[beautress]

I just love the little birdies...

 

[beautress]

Free paper pieced birds, online:

Other free piecing patterns, online: Free Paper Piecing Patterns Library

 

[beautress]

I gotta get back to that sewing room! Sew many quilts to make, so little time... *sigh*

Ok, I found a page with embroidered birds... I heart them. \

It has a printable pattern, too. "PDF"
Well it went from being "free" to being "pay." lol sorry. I found some printables, though.

 

[beautress]

 

[beautress]

Good busy morning, all. Today is the day before our charity quilters meet. I'm going to deliver the 8 quilts and 2 senior bibs I finished this past month. I have some senior issues, so please pray for me so I will still be able to deliver quilt tops to my guild sisters in a timely way, because I have a house full of fabrics and a couple of good sewing machines and thread coming out of the wazoo. I love to piece the little tops and pray for the poor over them.I guess I definitely need prayer support to continue of those who believe in overcoming adversity.

There are 8 small quilt tops in the pile and 2 senior bibs in my pile, I'm shooting for 10 tops and 4 bibs by the end of the day. This afternoon, with a little bit of luck, I can finish 2 more I have started but haven't put the borders on yet. I also have 2 cheater quilts that I could ready for the taking to start off the March pile. If you're a praying person, please say a little prayer that things get squared away soon to prevent worries about my little senior shortcomings. Well, Gotta get to the quilting room and leave a poem or two at Haiku. I pray for the nation today and hope you will too.

"Cheater quilts" are quilts that are printed, but you have to add a border and/or sashing depending on the cheater print you bought. One of them has silly cats on it and the other has pretty butterflies. I have yards and yards of bird print squares that could be worked, but they so don't look like something a little child would love.to have unless I beefed up the sashing with some hot little colors. Still, the somber nature tones might not ring anyone's bells.

/solilquy finished

Patriotic bricks and mortar quilts:

Some have no mortar:

​

 

[beautress]

And nobody's patriotic brick quilt looks like the red and white brick with royal blue mortar that is hanging unfinished on my design wall... *sigh* I have a hundred red on white background quilt scraps/stash, and some solid royal blue for sashing. The bricks are mostly sewn on, but it's not tall enough to be a crib-sized quilt yet (A crib quilt is 60x40, give or take a few inches either way.) Oh, I love the quilt so far, but finishing it will not be quick enough to do what I have to do to get these quilts to the charity bee closet this afternoon.