Sequoia Quilt

This quilt was made especially for our girl. Today's her birthday and she had requested a new quilt for her bed. I love that the kids both appreciate handmade gifts and that they especially love their Mama's quilts. :) I told our girl that I wanted her to have some input on this and I made her scroll through my Quilting Inspiration Pinterest board. She loved everything about the Sequoia quilt so I ordered the book (that cover quilt is on my list too!)

I fretted over fabrics. The original quilt is only  56 x 70 so I enlarged my blocks to 6", but she loved the color of the original so I went in search of something similar. I stayed with a solid black and gray, but chose textured fabrics for the lagoon and white:

 This is such a simple quilt, yet the design is striking. Simple HST's...lots of them, 176 to be exact, but I love their versatility. Simple masking tape marked the rows:

                          

I marked off each one on a copy from the book in order to keep from turning anything around and it worked like a charm:

                                   

I made them over the course of a week and I took the time to sliver trim each one:

                                 

I was stumped as to what to use for a backing, but we settled on this wide gray

 and I bound it in the lagoon.

                             
                             
 A Sarah Plain and Tall marathon was on TV as I worked on the binding. The scene I captured is when Jacob falls to the ground as it finally begins to rain, bringing an end to a prolonged drought. That's exactly what it'll be like when we finally get a good rain here:

                                        

After a run through the washer, the quilt spent some time on the line, soaking up as much of the New Mexico sunshine as it could hold for our girl:

                             

See how dry we are. Not even a weed. I especially love the quilting pattern that Jackie chose:

                             

It gives the quilt great movement and an additional southwestern design element to the graphic piecing:

When it came time to photograph it, I was stumped. My usual chicken yard fence location wasn't quite tall enough:

Although the wind was blowing quite nicely and it held up that big ol' quilt without nary a clip. Honestly, I just climbed up the ladder, laid it close to the fence, and the wind just sucked it up against the fence. It finishes at 90 x 110 so it's a pretty good size. There wasn't a spot on the hay stack that worked either, but the side of the barn turned out to be perfect:

Guess it's soaking up some of the New Mexico wind to send to our girl too:

                                             

Heck, I think it was trying to get to her without being sent in a box. Air mail...or wind mail:

                                   

I love everything about this quilt from the first stitch to the last,

                         

but the thing I love the most about it is that it was made for this pretty incredible kid:

Happy Birthday, Sprout! Love, Mama and Daddy

                                             

Under the Needle

As busy as things are around here right now, I've managed to move a few projects forward in my sewing room these past 2 weeks. On Ringo Lake is pieced and now officially a top:

I love the brown scrappy border. It'll be a while before I get it quilted, but our little peach bush (yes, it is just a bush - the tree died, but it is coming up in another spot ) is in bloom and I wanted to catch a photo of it before the winds strip it of it's pretty flowers:

The wasps were out in full force

After the winds get done, there won't be any blooms left and once again we will be left peachless.

I also made all 168 HSTs for Sequoia and trimmed them up

Making a copy of the photo in the book was incredibly helpful in keeping things in order and it kept me from turning blocks around. I didn't have to bring the stitch ripper out even one time with this method:

                                              

As I pieced the blocks into rows

                           

and then into a top

                                          

I am looking for something for the back.

I also needed a baby quilt and bought this fabric (the dot is from my stash) when I made my trip to Texas a few weeks ago:

                                   

This pattern, called Petal Power, caught my eye

                        

It didn't take long to piece the blocks

                                         

I hope to get it to Jackie today, but I neglected to get a shot of the full top before heading out this morning.

 And the binding on this little quilt ought to be finished this week

Under the Needle - March

I made a trip to spend some time with my mom so that explains my lack of posts lately. Plus, the days are just moving much faster than I am these days.

I worked on getting a binding on while I was there, but I've still got one side to go. I actually started binding this when the Olympics began, but it's a big quilt and I didn't get as much time to to watch as I had planned:

I've been making some progress in my mystery sewing for On Ringo Lake. I managed to get all the blocks made

as well as the sashing, but I wasn't crazy about it. Then this variation popped up in my Pinterest feed one day:

I loved it. There is only a photo. It doesn't lead anywhere and I cannot find the original source. It only mentions that it was pieced by Forest Jacobsen. This seems to be an EQ variation so I tried to discern what changes were made. I knew I needed 6 extra 9-patches so I made those and I pieced the original sashing pieces into blocks for the borders - which required I spend some quality time with my stitch ripper since I already had them pieced to use as sashing. These run along the top and bottom:

And these are for the side borders:

Then I figured out what shape I needed in order to complete the setting triangles and I cut and pieced those. I'm sure there was a simpler way to go about this, but this was what worked for me:

                                  

The top is the original setting triangle and the bottom is the new setting triangle

Then I finally settled on a scrappy brown border because I had a pile of 3 1/2" strips left. I added to these and cur them for a 5" border:

                             

And  I pulled this blue from my stash for the backing. I bought the rest of the bolt years ago for $3 a yard and it finally found where it belongs. Plus, there was just enough!

                                        

There was no sewing last week, but I'm close to finishing this one:

I really wanted to get started on the quilt for our girl, but I knew if I didn't get this top together, it would linger in some forgotten corner and I was hoping to avoid that.

I worked on Monday, fed the crew breakfast and dinner on Tuesday and tended to a big pile of mail and paperwork, but today I can focus on getting blocks pieced for the Sequoia quilt: