Quilty Bucket List: Needle Turn Applique--Rin

Last spring and summer, I participated in the Rin Along hosted by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs and Cindy of Hyacinth Quilt Designs.  They were doing the pattern Rin by Carolyn Friedlander.  Rin is a needle-turn applique pattern, and needle turn applique has been on my quilty bucket list for a while.  I decided to sew along and make one block.  I finished my block in time to be part of the parade last July. Then the block sat unfinished.

I'm pleased to say it is unfinished no more!

I used a beautiful rainbow batik fat quarter for the rings.  The light blue background is the only fabric I bought for this project.  Once the block was done, I used batik scraps to make it bigger.  The first border and binding are left from a yard I bought at QuiltCon last year to use as binding for my Meadow Mystery quilt. 

The teal and pink 2nd border is an Island Batik print that I won from Laura of Slice of Pi quilts.  She had a giveaway for scraps from her beautiful scrappy lone star and I was the lucky winner! The colors of this fabric go so well with my ring fabric, you'd think I bought them together! 

The last two borders are leftovers from a quilt I made my college friend Jen years ago.  I remember buying the outer fabric (it has such awesome colors!) at a shop when I was living in Michigan for graduate school.  Scraps live forever!

I used crosshatch quilting.  I'm super pleased with how it turned out, and bonus for crossing an item off my quilting bucket list!  This will be donated to the Charlotte chapter of Project Linus.

helping Mom take photos

Rin was #1 on my list of Q4 goals for the globally-hosted Finish Along.  It was also on my list of UFOs to finish to earn my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail.

Wall of Mini Quilts

I have a large blank wall in my office at work.  I've slowly been adding mini quilts to it, and my goal has always been to fill up the entire wall.  Well, we're moving to a new building as soon as the semester ends so I will never get to fill up this particular wall.  I've already taken them down, but I did take a picture so I can remember them all together.  Don't they just look so great all together?? There is something magical about a wall of mini quilts.

Projects pictured here and their original posts (left to right, and top to bottom when applicable)

Sarah 


Dogwood




Batik Hexies
 

Singing and Dancing in the Rain



Purple Elephant


Home Sweet Home


Trees


 Darth Vader Butterfly
 

Hazel and the Hedgehogs


I'm not sure that I'll have such a great blank wall in my new location, so what happens to this collection remains to be seen at the moment.  And I have a few almost finishes to add to this group, once they have a new wall to call home.

Fireburst

I first met Tish of Tish's Adventures in Wonderland during the 2016 New Bloggers Hop. I immediately knew from her writing that she was my kind of quilter.  I've been following her blog and her quilting adventures ever since.She's hilarious, generous, and thoughtful.  When she started her first mystery quilt, I knew I had to participate.

I love how it turned out!  The fabrics are all from my stash.  Tish offered color advice via email.  Here you can see my first picture to her, asking about which fabric to use where.  I didn't want to have to say "the dark purple one" and "the pink one" so I gave each fabric a name.  Can you tell the theme I used??

Tish's mystery was wonderfully paced.  A small clue each month with plenty of time to start late or get caught up.  Mine is the smaller of the two sizes and will be donated to my local chapter of Project Linus.  I quilted it in a large spiral, one of my favorite quilting designs for a quick finish.

Tish will be hosting a parade on January 1st for completed Fireburst quilts.  It's a quick enough pattern that you can even start now and have a top for the parade!  Here is her QAL page.

This is #16 on my list of Q4 goals for the globally-hosted Finish Along. 

Car blocks - November OMG

My project for the 2018 Rainbow Scrap Challenge has been Bumper2Bumper by Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts.  So far, I've made blue, green, purple, and yellow cars, but I'm behind.  I need to make eight more cars.

Completing all the blocks for the top is my One Monthly Goal (OMG) for November in the linky party hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.

October Bee Blocks

Another month, more fun blocks from my online quilting bees!  First, Martha in Stash Bee asked for pineapple blocks.  Not pineapples the traditional quilt block, actual pineapples!  Aren't they super cute?

Think you might enjoy an online bee?  Stash Bee will start accepting sign-ups for 2019 on November 1st. is now accepting sign-ups for 2019!  This is my third year in Stash Bee and I love it!  I will be back for year 4 in 2019!  Here is the direct link for 2019 information.

In Bee Inspired, Queen Kate asked for a block she designed herself.  You can make two of these blocks from just 2 strips of fabric, 2 1/2" by width of fabric!  How cool is that?

We set up our Queens so that October is the last month, leaving November free for those who need to catch up.  That means these are my last blocks for this bee.  Bee Inspired is currently a closed group, created by some of us who participated in the 2016 New Bloggers Blog Hop.  We have decided not to operate as a bee for next year but we are discussing other activities and projects to keep the group going.  I'm glad, because it's a great group of quilters! 

Birthday Banner

I'm enjoying decorating my front door with various seasonal/holiday quilts.  I've been wanting to add a birthday quilt and with two family birthdays in October, this seemed like a good time of year to do it. I finished it in time to hang on the door for my son's birthday, and we took it to park for his party, too, and hung it at picnic shelter.

The letters were cut with my AccuQuilt alphabet die.  The pattern for the cake came from a magazine, Quiltmaker's All-Time favorites.  The cake was even on the cover!  If you look closely at he picture, you'll see that this is from Fall 2000.  Yup, I've had this pattern 18 years!

I quilted the diagonal grid before adding any of the applique.  I didn't want the lines to go through the cake or the letters, but I didn't think that just the applique would be enough quilting.

the background before adding the applique

For the back, I used some fat quarters and scraps given to me by a friend's mom.  I went to visit my college friend Jen over Labor Day weekend, and when discussing the details before my trip, Jen asked if I'd have extra room in my car.  It was just me and Fire Monkey for 2 nights so we wouldn't have much stuff with us and I didn't understand why I'd need room in the car.  Until she told me she had 2 big boxes of stuff for me from her mom!  Apparently her mom, a life-long crafter, is realizing she won't use all her craft supplies in her lifetime so she's getting rid of stuff that she is likely not to use.  Both Jen and her mom are primarily knitters and her dad is a rug-hooker, so that means that I (as essentially an adopted daughter) got a TON of fabric and other sewing supplies.  A lot were coordinated fat quarter sets and you'll start seeing projects from them soon, I hope.  For this backing, I picked out 2 fat quarters that were unlikely to be used in other projects, as both were mottled almost-solids, plus a feather print that is a civil war reproduction--not my normal style, but I loved the color. 

Those of you who are regular readers know I track the Kona solids that I use.  I used a lot of scraps in this one! The background is Dove.  The cake is Highlight with Citrus on top and Camilla icing, Algeria candles, and Papaya flames.  The letters, in spelling order, are: Tomato, Niagara, Cerise, Leprechaun, Punch, Mediteranean, Parakeet, Torch, Jade Green, Gumdrop, Cabbage, Honeysuckle, and Jamaica.  The binding is Storm.  

I love knowing I can hang this on our door for birthdays!

Rainbow Elephant Parade

2017 was my second year doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by Angela of So Scrappy.  I picked Elephant Parade, a pattern by Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts that she did as a quilt along, and she keeps her quilt along patterns up and available.  For each color, I made 2 adult elephants and 3 baby elephants.

The backing fabric is Kona Fog.  The elephants are from scraps, obviously.  Each month, I alternated the direction I made the elephants.  This means that went put in rainbow order, it ended up much more random, but I'm okay with that.  If you are wondering why there are 4 rows facing left and only two rows facing right, there was originally a pink row as well.  But I felt it made the quilt too long, so I turned the pink elephants into their own project called Elephants in the Garden, finished earlier this year.

This is a baby gift for two of my wonderful friends from college who just had their second baby, a lovely young lady named Cassandra.  The back is a Lucy Cousins print that I bought years ago.  (Lucy Cousins is a children's author & illustrator, she writes the Maisy books.)  I had to piece a bit as I was just a little short.  I am sorry now that I used the drab pale yellow fabric and didn't look for something brighter; that pale bit in the upper corner looks so out of place. I do love the rainbow back for a rainbow quilt!

Since it was a scrappy rainbow, I decided to use scrappy binding.  I love being able to use up spools of binding!  I used eight scraps and seven of those how now been completely used up.  Yay!  I went through my bin of binding leftovers and picked out all the solid colors. Then I picked out a nice bright variety and pieced them together.  This is what my spool looked like before I attached it to the quilt:

This is #4 on my list of Q4 goals for the globally-hosted Finish Along.  It's on also on the list of projects that qualify for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Gail of Quilting Gail.  I'll also be linking up with Tish's Adventures in Wonderland during her next UFO linky party.