Iowa

This week's block for the Road Trip Quilt Along is Iowa. Its completely paper pieced. Paper piecing is fun, but I'm still learning!



This is the paper pieced pattern I used. You have to make four of these.



I'm enjoying learning new quilting skills and making unusual blocks with the Road Trip Quilt Along.

Friday Night Sew In Results

I have been concentrating on the hand quilting of the vintage "Grandma" quilt top that I've been working on for ages. I really want to finish it so I've put it at the top of my current project to do list.

For Friday Night Sew In I continued on hand quilting the Baptist Fans. The fabric in the quilt top is unpredictable as far as how easy or hard it is to quilt. Some of the fabrics have such a tight weave that its almost impossible to get the needle through it which means doing one stitch at a time. Other fabrics have a loose weave and are easy to stack several stitches on the needle. It doesn't make sense to me because the very same printed fabrics will act differently. I suppose it is because the fabrics may have come from many sources such as feed sacks, flour sacks, clothing, sheets or scraps and so the fabrics are different even though they have the same print?

Almost every day this week after getting home from work and having supper I settled in to hand quilting while the rains came. One night we got 3 inches of rain, so the outside looked like this. Good quilting weather!



This post is linked to Friday Night Sew In at Handmade by Heidi HERE.

Illinois

This week's block for the Road Trip Quilt Along is Illinois, the Land of Lincoln. I Have relatives in this state too.

I like this block. If you can make Flying Geese and half square triangles, this block is for you.



Its hard to believe six weeks have already gone by!



Next week: The Iowa Star! It will be paper pieced. I haven't done much paper piecing, so I am excited to learn more.

Orphan Block No More

One good use for the odd blocks we all accumulate are mug rugs!



I made a few of these scrappy blocks but wasn't in the moood to make a whole quilt from them. Maybe some day. So for now I'm going to turn them into mug rugs and maybe even some potholders.

Jungle Babies Three

I finished the quilting and the binding for Jungle Babies Three this morning. Then I washed and dried it, which gives it that old fashioned krinkly feel.



Question: Do you wash and dry your quilts before giving them away or selling them? I have washed and dried the last couple of quilts and have mixed feelings about it. I feel like the quilt loses its "newness" once its washed. But washing the quilt does have its pros. 1. It gives it that krinkly feel; 2. You can be sure that it launders well with no color runs, etc.

Indiana Wants Me....

Lord I can't go back there (song by Taylor Dean) Every time I look at this quilt block that song keeps going through my head.

This is the Indiana Puzzle quilt block for this week's Road Trip Quilt Along.



I've never been to Indiana, but have some relatives that live there.

5 weeks already! Can't believe how fast the summer is going by and am happy about that!


But I just can't go there...

WIP Wednesday

The current projects I'm working on are:

1. Jungle Babies Three. Who could resist this little face? This is the third Jungle Babies Quilt I've made. You can see the other two HERE and HERE.



Getting ready to pin baste:



Free motion quilting in progress at bedtime last night:



2. This is block ten in the Bloggers Block of the Month quilt along I am doing, which has a winter/Christmas theme.



3. These are the 4 blocks I've done so far in the Road Trip Quilt Along I am doing, which have an Americana theme:



This post is linked to Freshly Pieced's WIP WEDNESDAY.