Slow Sunday Stitching - Little John Deere Girl

This post is linked to "Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts" HERE.

I haven't done any hand quilting in a very long time!  This is one of the baby quilts I am working on for Victoria, my granddaughter who is expected to make her appearance around the Fourth of July.

Its a "whole cloth" quilt, which sounds better than saying its made from "cheater" fabric.  The reason I decided to hand quilt it is that there are already little dotted quilting lines printed on the fabric.  If  I had machine quilted this quilt, I could have probably finished it in a weekend.  But I am hand quilting it anyway and putting some grandma love into each stitch!

I couldn't resist the little tractors and flowers.  Victoria will be living on a farm out in the country with a John Deere tractor in the barn.

It'll be easy to quilt.  I'll just make long continuous straight lines from one side to the other.  I even found some quilting thread to match the color of the lines.

I intend to make a couple of more quilts for Victoria that have pieced tops, but I bet this one will be the favorite.  

In case anyone is interested, this quilting frame is one I've had for many years.  The brand is "The Ulmer Quilter".  We bought this one at a quilt shop in the North Carolina mountains, but they are still available and can be ordered at this website.  http://www.ulmerquilter.com/

Scrappy Rainbow Irish Chain - Green

Yesterday I worked on the "color of the month" quilt that I have had in progress for a while.  Sometimes I have worked on this quilt in leaders and enders fashion.  Yesterday it was the only quilt I worked on, and not as a leaders and enders project.  But soon I'll be working on some baby girl quilts for my expected granddaughter, so it will become a leader and enders project again. 

See the SO SCRAPPY blog HERE.  The color for the month for March is green. 

Here are my stacks of 2 1/2 inch squares of green.  You know you love SCRAP quilting when you are digging through totes, and drawers and when you see the color of fabric you need, you get all excited!  "Oooh, there's a grreen I forgot all about."

I really enjoyed working on my favorite kind of quilts, the kind that use everything you have and each block is different. 

The two blocks needed are simple.  The first one has four 4 patches of the color of fabric you are working on, four 2 patches made up of one white and one colored fabric and one center colored square. The second block is made up of a center rectangle, and two strips on each side made up of a white strip and a colored square on each end.  I will give you the measurements of each piece at the end of this post, in case anyone is interested.

The finished quilt is supposed to look like this quilt found in the book called, "Adventures with Leaders & Enders" by Bonnie Hunter.  The measurements of my quilt are different though, in that I am using my 2 1/2 inch strips and squares and the one in the book is made of 2 inch squares.  I had to figure out the measurements needed to make it work, since I wasn't really following Bonnie's measurements.

Here are some of the blocks I have finished, just laid out on a bed on top of a white blanket.  Its starting to come together, but the pattern hasn't really emerged yet.  Once I add the second block to this layout the chain design will form.

Here are the measurements of the pieces:

Block one:
Finished block is 10 1/2 inches
Four patches and two patches are made up of 2 1/2 inch squares.
If you do strip piecing, the strips should be 2 1/2 inch wide.
You could also just piece the 2 1/2 inch squares into rows, with 5 rows.  Just place the white squares in the center of each outside row.

Block two:
Finished block is 10 1/2 inches
The center white rectangle is 10 1/2 inches by 6 1/2 inches
The white strips are 2 1/2 inches by 6 1/2 inches.
The squares on each end of the strips are 2 1/2 inches.

Happy quilting!