Finishing Up UFO's

I finished three quilts that have been on the back burners for a long time. I showed them at my last guild meeting.

Kimono's

To be gifted to my neighbor who recently lost her husband.

The label reads:
 "To my friend Eileen, May this quilt warm your body and comfort your soul.
"Pieced and Quilted by Julie McCxxxxx
2018

Fiesta de Flores

With the look of Catalina Tiles

Fiesta de Flores

 Cutting Corners

 It looks like an optical illusion

For our November Challenge

Skeleton Cat was gifted to

Orangewood Childern's home.

A total of 28 quilts were gifted that night... Good Job OCMQG!

Another Guild Challege

Skeleton Cat Quilt

Each year the Orange County Modern Quilt Guild has a philanthropy Challenge:
Choose a children's book and make a quilt inspired by it.
We then donate the quilt with the book to Orangewood Children's Home which is Orange County's group home for foster kids. This is one of our favorite challenges, you should see the quilts that come from it. I consider myself more of a traditional quilter, trying to turn modern but still I see myself following traditional styles especially in my free motion quilting.... I can not stand straight line quilting most of the time.

Skeleton Cat Quilt
39" x 63"

Here you can see the quilt is pieced and now I am quilting it. So far I chosen a bone motif  and a little ghost man inspired by the book.

I will be writing on the top and bottom of the quilt words like Clickety-clack, Rattle, rattle , clink. Tip tap .... and so on to imbed the book into the quilt. I am alleging going to make a pouch on the back so the book can be incerted and stay with the quilt.

Skeleton Cat by Kristyn Crow    
I love "Story Patches" - I have included one on the label of the quilt. When giving a Philanthropy Quilt I have been told you do not include personal information so this label mentions only the Orange County Modern Quilt Guild and I linked the Story Patch barcode to a YouTube of someone reading the book and showing the pages, this way the book can be read to the child without a reader actually being there. 

The main quilt blocks are from a pattern called: Buster Cat Does Halloween by Judi Maxwell (1999), that I found at a garage sale several years ago. It was partially fused and I am on a mission to clear my quilting room of unfinished projects and this just started to come all together. 

36 Little Kimonos

I am making this for my neighbor who is Japanese - she is the sweetest lady dealing with her husband who is on hospice now. She always admires my quilts and I want her to have this one. I absolutely love all the fabrics. They are joyful, colorful and appropriate for this quilt. I hope to get it done asap do to the situation. 

Blocks on the design wall....

I will be adding sashing of a black and gold oriental flower print I ordered on line. There will be three borders with mitered corners. The black and gold, an inch of red and then two inches of black to frame the quilt. The quilting will probably just be stitch in the ditch u unless I come up with a huge amount of mojo. :)

 Here are a couple of the individual blocks...

Koi

Koi

A little fussy cutting around the mountains.

Sumo Wrestlers

Dragons

I hope your Labor Day is a grand one. It is always nice if you get to spend some time with your family.

Spooky Cat Blocks Finished

These spookie little cats were fun to put together. The are all finished and cut to 10 1/2" ready for sashing. I ordered the sashing fabric online this morning so it will have to wait a few days. Don't you just love the 3 legged pirate cat with wooden leg and patched eye?

From the Garden

The concord grapes in the garden were ready so now we have 17 jars of jam. Unlike jelly you have to skin the grapes first, sieve off the seeds and then you can combine them. You get the texture for jam which I love. 

Skins off.

Progress of the cat quilt.

Linking up with a few of my favorite blogs.

Check it out here.

FreeMotion by the River, 

Sew Fresh Quilts

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

Love Laugh Quilts

Off the Wall Friday

Guild Challenge - Inspiration American Gothic

I love guild challenges, they make you move out of the box. This one was: 

"Artful August" 

Art or Architecture 

Inspired by:
American Gothic
Grant Wood 1930
32" x 30"

 This is what I came up with. I wasn't going to do the challenge as I have so many unfinished projects ... but the guild but off the competition until September as we have a speaker this month and time didn't permit it. So I decided to go ahead.
I love the way it turned out but it did not turn out as a quilt. I stretched it on bars. Couldn't figure out how to incorporate the pitchfork so I used a Holy Bible as an American iconic symbol, it was heavy and hard to keep in place on a soft sculpture, thus the stretcher bars. I also added a broach on the Mrs.

Original layout on cutting table - only sewing here was the making of the apron and dress.

Four Years Later...back at the farm...

Twister Mini

Finished my Twister mini and got it mounted on this cute little hen hanger 

found for a dollar at the Goodwill Store. 

 King Tutankhamun

Steve got his book signed by Dr. Zahi Hawass

Last night DH and I went to a special event at the California Science Center downtown LA: 

Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh

dinner and lecture with Dr. Zahi Hawass

and the IMAX movie Mysteries of  Egypt.

AMAZING  TO SAY THE LEAST!

I am hooking up with Freemotion by the River - see what others are doing by clicking here.

Finished Baby Memory Quilt - OC Fair Winner!

Lots of great stuff...
1st of all a finish!

This quilt was unusual, Mia, my daughters friend gave me theses baby clothe over 4 years ago. 

It was having a real design wall that inspired me to get a start on it.

It turned out damn cute, even if I have to say it myself.

Love the stuffed feet, the real clothe line with appliquéd birds on one, the upside down nighty, the cute sayings like..." My Uncle Is Single", "Captain Adorable" and "I Can't Be Calm, I'm A Toddler"

I am sew happy with it.

AND... 

I won 2 ribbons at the County Fair!

My "In The Garden" quilt entered under my husbands name won a 2nd Place.

The "9 Degree Evolution of a Quilters Mind" quilt wasn't displayed very well but it won a 1st Place in the Original Design category.

My friend Jamie won for her Buggy Barn "If Pigs Could Fly" quilt

And my friend Ann won 2nd Place for the blue, green and purple batik star quilt.

Hea you two.

QuiltCon Charity Quilt

I volunteered to purchase the fabric for next years quilt because I was going to the M&L sale. And then I put together the kits for the guild and then I put together the tutorial. I think I am the assumed "chairperson". So much for volunteering.... ugh.

Here is our inspiration:

The theme this year is "Small Piecing" You can see the color palette on the board (from the OCMQG meeting below. Then on the right below a pieced block of the quilt which will be cut up to make  either a tree trunk or branchs. The participating members will all contribute sections like this. There is no right or wrong way to piece this and all in all I think it is going to be a really cool modern quilt....we'll see. I'll keep you up to date on its' progress.

Kits ready to go.

And what am I working on today....

In cleaning  and moving my sewing room, yesterday I found a little twister ruler I lost years ago. I have pulled out the unfinished project I was working on when I lost the ruler and I am going to finish it now. 

Here it is:

1.5" Little Twister Ruler

On the top is the first piecing, then you cut it up with the little  ruler,
and sew it back again. The project reduces form 22 1/2 " to 11".

Baby Clothe Memory Quilt

A few years ago one of my daughers' good friend, Mia, asked me to make a quilt for her from her first child's baby clothe. She handed over a large tote with just the cutest ever little boy clothe. It has been sitting in my closet since I finally got the inspiration and started on the journey.

Beginning the project I hung the baby items on my design wall as if they were on a clothe line.

I thought a clothe line with all the little guys hanging down would look good.

I used three fabrics as the background. Blue for the sky, a flowery print for the middle and a green "grass" print for the bottom.

Also see the design wall? Yes a real design wall finally. Maybe that is why this quilt is finally in the making. I put together 2 4'x8' insulation board - covered in a beautiful tie dye blue flannel.

I went through and removed many of the snaps that way while sewing I had less chance running into one of those little land mines and save a few needles from breaking. Easier said than done. Those little snaps are hard to remove without damaging the fabric.

The first little shirt I cut apart and fused didn't hold its shape as I wanted it to, so on the second one I machine based the top and top arms and both sides - THEN I cut off the back and fused it. This worked well. 

All fused down and ready to applique

On another note, I got two quilts entered into the Orange County Fair.

Top completed and ready to quilt.

Charity project ready to quilt.

Modern Quilt Guild Block Lotto ready for Thursday meeting.

Linking Up to Free Motion On The River

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