Stay at Home Round Robin

 Today is the day when those of us who participated in the Stay at Home Round Robin post our finished quilt tops. I had hoped to have the quilting finished as well, but that didn’t happen. Too many other projects got in the way, along with weather preventing getting to the church and a bout of illness too. There are a bunch of quilts that are going to need layering soon, so we will probably do a marathon layering day. But in the meantime, the top is done. I am so happy with it. What a great way to spend the long winter weeks, planning and executing and then looking forward to the next prompt. I hope to be able to participate in this yearly, God willing. The centre block was an old orphan project. All of the fabrics came from my stash or the stash from our Prayers and Squares group. This will end up as a donated quilt to that group. 

I’m linking up to the finished SAHRR parade. There are so many unique quilts there, all based on the same prompts, each one so very different. I have a strong affinity to symmetry, as my quilt very definitely shows. But I am very drawn to the ones in the parade that are asymmetrical. Somehow, I don’t seem to be able to do it, but I do like looking at them. Maybe that will be next year’s challenge to myself, go way outside my comfort zone and do asymmetrical. 

Stay at Home Round Robin prompt 6

 I’ve been slow this week working on my SAHRR. Unfortunately a virus of some sort got me at the end of last week and I’ve been feeling punk and unwell. No energy for even any hand stitching, let alone sitting at the sewing machine or doing any cutting. It seems to be easing off now, so I was able to get some work done on this project today. The prompt this week was “kites” or something beginning with the initial “K”. Well that was easy. I’d already done some Kites Tails, a pattern found in the Quilter’s Cache site,  in my quilt in a previous round. So I thought do the same, but in a bigger size. And because I wanted this quilt to end up rectangular, I’m just adding them to the top and bottom. I have one row of them almost done. But I’ve hit a bit of an energy wall, so will have to call it quits for today. I’m hoping to have it all put together in time for the reveal link party. In the meantime, I’ll link up to The Darling Dogwood who is hosting the link party this week.

Stay at Home Round Robin, prompt 5

 This week’s prompt for the round robin was “Quarter Log Cabins”. A block I love to sew and which works really well with what I have so far. I need 20 of them for the idea I have. The finial decision though, will depend on next week’s prompt. I’ve only managed to get 10 of the quarter log cabin blocks made. I ran out of the dark blue fabric, which was cut offs from some backings. But I know there is more of it on a bolt at the church, so I’ll pick it up tomorrow at our Prayers and Squares sewing day. In the meantime, here’s how it looks so far. Final decisions and add ons will happen next week which will be the last prompt. As it is now, it measures 54x54 inches. I would like it to end up longer than it is wide, but that too will need to wait until next week. I’ll link up to Brenda at Songbird Designs who is hosting this week’s SAHRR link up.

Stay at Home Round Robin Prompt 4

 This week’s prompt was a sliced square. When I first read it and saw it I wasn’t sure what to do. It didn’t match up with what I had in mind to go with the stars from the previous prompt. But once I got thinking about it I decided it could work. I took the fabrics that I used in the stars, there was barely enough of the yellow, and cut them into 1 1/2 inch widths and sewed them together and then decided on a 5 1/2 inch square to slice. I trimmed one end of the strip set to a 45 degree angle just to give a consistent starting place for sewing it together. And in no time at all I had 12 sliced squares. With just a sliver of trimming they came to the 6 1/2 inch size I was going for. I am actually happier with the final result than I was with my original idea. The quilt now measures 42 inches square. That was fun and did indeed force me to think outside the box, which is the whole idea behind these SAHRR challenges. I’ll link up to Pieceful Thoughts who is the host for this week’s prompt.

 

Stay at Home Round Robin

 The new prompt to the stay at home round robin was announced on Monday. We are to do stars. It took me a while to come up with an idea and then even longer to decide on colours, based on what I had here at home. I finally decided to do 6 inch Variable Stars, 3 per side of the quilt. I have plans/hopes for what will be on the corners, based on further possible prompts. This quilt will eventually go into the Prayers and Squares mission pile so I don’t want it to end up really big. So the hopes are to combine the prompts into a border. I’ll Link up to Quilting Gail for this rounds link party.

A finish....

According to this blog, I started the Stay at Home Round Robin at the end of March when I first saw the posting about it. I put the final border onto it on Tuesday. I think this is probably the fastest that I have ever made a bed sized quilt. It measures 75 x 75 inches.



All fabric used in it came from my stash. Some of it has been residing there for many many years. After finishing the last border I went looking for backing fabrics that fit the mood of the top. I found these two fabrics. I had enough of them to make the backing. The floral fabric has a copyright date of 2005 on the selvage. I suspect the one with the butterflies is even older than that. I’m so glad that fabric doesn’t have an expiration date. The long arm machine is currently without a quilt on it, so I’ll load this one today and get a start on it.
I’m linking up with Mid Week Makers and the Canadian Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday. I just discovered that the link to  the blog actually hosting the Round Robin is still live so I’ll link there too. Quilting Gail.

What I’m working on

I’ve got a couple of things going at the same time..... don’t we all? I’ve finished the “squares” round of the Stay at Home Round Robin.



 It now measures 60x60 inches. The next round assigned is stars. I know what I want to do so I’m hoping to get it started this afternoon.

I’m also working on getting all my old UFO quilt tops onto the long arm and quilted up. This one is a 36 patch quilt.



According to my history here on the blog it has been a finished top since July 2013. I’m doing a greek key type thing in each of the squares, so it is fairly dense quilting but it really doesn’t take all that long to go across the quilt.



It should be done by this time next week. By that time I’m hoping to have this Round Robin done and it can go on next for quilting.

I’m linking up to Mid Week Makers and to the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday.

What I’m working on

I’ve added the first of the next round to my Stay at Home Round Robin. The prompt for this round was “squares”. After searching around in Electric Quilt 8 I found this block which will end up forming a diagonal design of triangles and squares around the quilt.
 

It’s not the greatest picture, but it is getting too big for the available floor or wall space here. Often when my quilts get this size, I’ll do pictures outside, but the wind is really bad. The other choice is to go upstairs and use their front hall. But due to everybody being home, I didn’t want to go up and disrupt them.
I’m also slowly adding to the large scale floral squares. I now have 11.



This picture was taken before the 11th was finished. I am aiming for 25 squares. I have yet to come up with a name for this quilt.
I also loaded another of my really old tops onto the long arm with the goal of getting the quilting finished on all of my tops. This one was a free pattern called Avignon Picnic from the Moda Bake

Shop. 

It is going to get very simple straight line quilting following the lines of the while background.

I’m going to link up to the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday and to Mid Week Makers

Round Robin

I’ve been working on my Stay at Home Round Robin off and on for the past week. I’m managing to keep up. The first round was piano keys, which I put on sideways. The second round was pinwheels. The third round was arrows. I used flying geese to form the long arrows.



 The next round was assigned today. It’s squares. I already have an idea for what I plan to do. Right now this piece is measuring 48 x 48 inches square. If I go with the plan I have for the squares round that will take it to 60 x 60 inches. I have no idea at this point how big it will end up. I will likely keep going with adding rounds until it ends up somewhere around 84 inches square. Any bigger than that and it’s too big for the bed. I’m linking up to Quilting Gail who is hosting this round robin and also to Wendy’s Quilts Wendy lives way way far away all the way down in New Zealand.

Stay at Home Round Robin

A little over a week ago I came across a blog that was hosting a Stay at Home Round Robin. It sounded like a fun idea. I knew I had all kinds of leftover blocks still remaining in my abandoned projects bin. I thought this would be a good way to use one of them. So I went digging and found this lovely appliqué block that I’d completely forgotten about.



The first round assigned was piano keys.
I put mine on sideways because I didn’t want to overwhelm the centre appliqué.



The second round is pinwheels. I finished them this evening.



The third round is to be arrows. I already know what I’m going to do for those. Stay tuned......
I’m linking up to Quilting Gail who is hosting this fun project.