I just finished sewing a runner made from Illuminations fabrics–the same fabrics I used for my Awesome Sky quilt and Randolph & Rudy (not yet blogged about). I used tree foundation paper piecing patterns from Quiet Play. The runner measures 20″ x 60″. I’m waiting for some cute Illuminations polar bear fabric for the back of the runner.

Many of you have entered the giveaway that I shared about last week (a paper copy of Elizabeth Hartman’s Randolph & Rudy quilt pattern). The giveaway closes midnight MST on Sunday, October 27th. If you haven’t already entered and are interested in possibly being the giveaway winner, see my Ten Years of Quilting post here.

I normally only link up to one or two linky parties when I write a post, but I’d like to give a lot of quilters the opportunity to enter my giveaway, so I contacted Rebecca Grace to ask her if I could copy her linky party list, and she generously gave me permission to do so.

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

On 10/25/24, I’m going to link up to the Monthly Favorite Finish linky party hosted by Quilting Jetgirl.

I was bitten by the quilting bug ten years ago. Five years ago, I wrote a post about my first five years of quilting. If anyone is interested, I have linked it here. I also shared about my quilting mentors in the Quilty Inspiration post I wrote in 2019. Sometime, hopefully before the end of the year, I’d like to write a More Quilty Inspiration post.

I’ve decided to share a number of my favorite projects over the years, sometimes with rather creative titles, and they are not in any particular order. This is definitely one of my longer posts, and quite frankly, not everyone will want to read it from start to finish. But I am going to have to have a give-away, so feel free to scroll to the end of this post to see if you are interested in entering the random drawing.

Newest FPP Projects

I’m going to start with my favorite finishes of October: my Eiffel Tower “spookified” with two bats made from Sarah Ruiz’ Batty Block free this month by commenting on her post here). Read a little about my trip to Paris and London here.

Quilt I Most Want to Remake

I really like the color gradient Ranges quilt I made for my great nephew, John, and I’m sure none of my friends and blog readers will be surprised if I end up making a version of this quilt to keep. See details about John’s quilt here.

The Only Quilt I’ve Entered into a Quilt Show (Spoiler: it wasn’t accepted)

My Mid Century Modern quilt is one that I’m very proud of and was thrilled to give it to my friend, James, for his 50th birthday. It looks amazing hanging on his wall above the loveseat with those modern looking pillows. Read about this labor of love here .

Temperature Quilts

I made three temperature quilts in 2022. This is hands-down the quilting project that required the most persistence. Read about it here.

Favorite Donation Quilt

For the past several years, I have donated at least one quilt yearly to a worthy cause. I’ve made three “Mercyful” quilts for patients in the hospice program at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento, California. Read about my most recent donation here.

Favorite Halloween Project

My favorite Halloween project is the Rotation Halloween quilt that I made last year, but I’m also quite partial to the Sugar Skull pillow I made this year. Read about both of these projects here and here.

Favorite Quilt with Curved Piecing

I made this quilt for my friend, Karla, when she achieved her long-time goal of getting a doctorate degree. She may have even celebrated with a drink from the bar next to her in the photo below showing her holding her quilt! Read more about the quilt here .

Favorite Comfort Quilt

This was the most heart-breaking quilt I’ve ever made. Read about it here.

Favorite Baby Quilt

Thankfully we quilters often have the opportunity to celebrate life. Below is a recent baby quilt I made. See the post about it here.

Favorite Paper-Pieced Mini

I am very fond of this paper-pieced Fairy Wren. Read about it here.

Favorite Large Scale FPP quilt

About three years ago, I started the large-scale paper piecing of Violet Craft’s Wolf Pattern. I made this quilt for my friend, Laura, pictured below with her cat and dog. I just love Laura’s smile in this photo! Read more about this quilt here.

Favorite QuiltCon Purchase

I absolutely love to talk about my Rainbow Cheetah below, but first I want to mention the photo of the sticker at the top of this post that was included in the give-away bag at QuiltCon 2023 in Raleigh, NC. The words, “Practice Makes Progress” totally resonate with me. The stickers were provided by HollyAnne of String & Story. Someday I’d like to take her online FMQ Quilting Rockstar class. Now back to my Rainbow Cheetah quilt. I bought the pattern directly from Violet when I had the opportunity to attend QuiltCon 2023. I fell HARD for the pattern when I saw the quilt hanging in her booth. Read about it here.

Favorite Placemats

I’ve made many sets of placemats over the past ten years. Before I made the placemats for my niece pictured below, the Reel Time Placemats I made in 2017  for my sister (my niece’s mom) were my favorite. But I think the herringbone placemats that I made for Mary Frances have taken over that place of honor, LOL. Read about them here.

Favorite Ombré Quilt

I absolutely love ombré fabric, and this Ombré Lotus pattern perfectly showcased Ombré Bloom fabric by V and Co. for Moda. Read more about this favorite project here.

Favorite Color Gradient Project

Erica with Kitchen Table Quilting is a very talented quilt designer. I am particularly partial to her color gradient/rainbow versions of her patterns (and I plan to make more of her quilts next year). Erica generously provided the color guide for her Sunrise version of her Katie quilt. See two posts I wrote about this project here and here.

Favorite Sew-Along

In 2021, I did a Blakely family sew-along with my Aunt Lois, her daughter Sally, and her granddaughter, McKenzie, and McKenzie’s son, Vincent, who was 11 at the time. Read more about this sew-along here and here. The first photo below shows me with McKenzie and Sally when with our Blakely quilts when I visited in June 2023. The second photo shows from left to right: Vincent, McKenzie, Sally, and Aunt Lois.

Favorite Sashiko Project

I’ve made a number of Sashiko projects over the past few years, but I absolutely love the pouch below. Read more about it here.

Favorite Round Robin-Inspired Quilt

I have enjoyed participating in the Stay at Home Round Robins (SAHRR) for the past few years, and I really liked how the quilt turned out that I made for my stepson, Drew, which featured his Boston Terrier dog, Sushi. Read this post here for more details.

Favorite Hometown Hero

I made a donation quilt in 2021, through Hands2Help, and I opted to give the quilt I made to my hometown hero, Kathy. Two years ago she moved back to Oklahoma, and I had a lovely visit with her earlier this month. If you’ve never been to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, I highly recommend a visit there. Kathy hung the quilt I gave her three years ago in her living room, and I love how it looks above her television. For more info about this quilt and Hands2Help, please see this post here.

Favorite Christmas Project

I love my sister-in-law, Sharon’s smile below as she is holding the North Christmas quilt I made for her and my brother, Bill. The Christmas fabrics are subtle enough that they keep it out year-round. Read more about it here. On a side note, Sharon is having major health issues, and I will be going to California to help her and Bill who will be having another hip replacement surgery the latter part of this month/early November. I share this to encourage you all to treasure your loved ones and to make them a priority because things can change quickly.

Favorite Camping Quilt

I’ve made several camping quilts over the last few years because some of my favorite adventures with my family have been during camping trips. Last year I finally made one for me. The pic below was taken outside of Arches National Park last year in October. Read more about this project here.

Favorite Quilt Apparel

I’ve wanted to add a quilt block to a sweatshirt for awhile, and in April I appliqued this lovely hummingbird, pattern from Liza Taylor, now available in her newly published book, Wonderful World of Paper-Pieced Quilt Blocks

Favorite Challenge Quilt

I just started participating in Project Quilting challenges this year, and they were so much fun. Read about this hourglass mini here.

Favorite Collaboration with a Long-Arm Quilter

Rebecca Grace did the long-arm quilting for me for many of my quilts over the past few years. She is super talented, and she is now using her skills and knowledge at a local quilt shop where she can leave the projects behind and go home and actually have a personal life. I absolutely love the Celestial Spark Clam quilting she did on the Lumen quilt I made in 2022. Read more info about this project here and here.

Looking Ahead

There are several projects that have peaked my interest. I probably won’t work on any of them until 2025. Not in any particular order, they are listed below:

• Aurora by Bryan House Quilts
• Seaglass and Fussy T-Shirt quilts by Exhausted Octopus
• Signal Trace by Quilting Jetgirl
• Cleo and Modern Postage Stamp quilts by Kitchen Table Quilting
• Luminary by Craft a Dream
• Star Shower (modified) by Mashe Modern and Maeberry Square
• Butterfly Effect EPP Eclipse by Lillyella (scroll down to see the Eclipse version with the black background–I purchased this kit three years ago).
• Halloween 2025 BOM by Hunter Design Studio, Leila Gardunia, and Quiet Play
• Ombre Tree Time by V and Co.
• Online FPP Design class with Quilt All the Things

Give-Away

I’m going to be giving away a paper copy of Elizabeth Hartman’s Randolph & Rudy pattern because I accidentally bought the paper pattern along with the PDF, and I’m hoping one of you might want to make this adorable quilt. I made the small quilt that includes three deer and three bears that I will share in a future post. If you are interested in being entered into this random drawing, please leave a comment that includes your first name and make sure you’ve entered your email address when you leave a comment. This give away will be open through midnight MST on 10/27/24. That will give me a chance to link up to several quilting linky parties. International entries are welcome!

I normally only link up to one or two linky parties when I write a post, but I’d like to give a lot of quilters the opportunity to enter my giveaway, so I contacted Rebecca Grace to ask her if I could copy her linky party list, and she generously gave me permission to do so.

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

At the end of the month, I will be linking up to the Monthly Favorite Finish linky party hosted by Quilting Jetgirl.

I had the wonderful opportunity to go to London and Paris, four nights in each city, in August. Before I even left for my trip, I had the Eiffel Tower pattern by Joe, June, and Mae printed up and ready to sew because I knew making an Eiffel Tower wall hanging would be such a special memento of this trip of a lifetime. The wall hanging is 15″ x 25″, which is something that I would typically quilt myself doing some form of straight line or wavy quilting or possibly stitch-in-the-ditch. But I wanted the quilting to be more intricate, so I decided to send the quilt top off for quilting, and the Diamond Loops quilting done by Cara at Sew Colorado Quilting did not disappoint. I really like how the curved sideways diamonds mimic the cross-hatched diamonds in the tower and how the diagonal lines complement the supports of the tower. The background fabric is Cosmic Grunge, and it looks very sky-like with a few wispy clouds.

I am joining the #2024QuiltingQ3CheckIn hosted by Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl. I’m pleased how many of many goals I was able to get accomplished in July-September. But first I’m going to share the guilty pleasure I’ve recently been enjoying–making Halloween quilted items.

Some of you may remember me falling head first into a rabbit hole making Halloween projects. Well, this year I revisited that rabbit hole!

My favorite Halloween finish is a Sugar Skull pattern by Ingrid Alteneder of Joe, June, and Mae. I really enjoyed reading her post, Top 3 Things to Know about Dia de los Muertos. Below is a photo of the pillow with our cat, Minime, on my Halloween quilt from last year.

I made a small wall hanging from a block by Tiffany of Village Bound Quilts. It’s called Eerie Abode, and the pattern is available here.

A similar size wall hanging (approximately 15″ square) is my Crow, pattern by Kristy Lea of Quiet Play Designs, pattern available here.

I also made some coasters. The two purple ones are by Kristy Lea of Quiet Play Designs. The Heart of Pumpkin is free by commenting on her Instagram post here. The Cat-o-Lantern is available in her shop as part of a Lil Spooky Pattern Bundle. The pumpkins are also a free pattern by Sweet Potato quilts. Comment on her IG post, and Christina Lee will email you the pattern.

Here’s a Breakdown of How I Did with my Third Quarter Goals

• Make a fabric bucket for my friend, Ed, who will turn 50 on July 13th. Done, see post here.

• Finish my Baseball Star quilt. Done. See post here.

• Finish my Ranges quilt. Done. Read post here. I want to make another version of this quilt someday.

• Gift the quilt for Kristen’s baby boy due in August and take pics at her baby shower. Done. See post here.

• Work on a Color Burst mini quilt. No progress.
• Start to work on a Christmas quilt for my best friend, Mary. Done except for a finished photo after binding.
• Re-bind a quilt that my mom made for my niece, Mary Frances, when she was in high school. Done. See post here.

• Write a post about the sawtooth star blocks I received and possible projects where I might use some of them. Done. See post here.
• Possibly work on some Fussy Fuel blocks. This project is officially on hold.
• Possibly make some scrappy color gradient blocks. As is this project.
• Make more progress on a Sashiko Japanese tea mat in different shades of purple. Minimal progress.

My Favorite Unplanned Project

In June I found out that a very special couple are expecting another daughter. Read more about this baby quilt here.

What’s on Deck for the Last Quarter of 2024

I’m deliberately keeping my 4th quarter goals rather vague as I will be helping out family in California in the next month or two with some health-related issues.

• Possibly make another Halloween project or two.
• Finish a memento of my trip to Europe in August.
• Work on some Christmas projects.
• Possibly work on some mini quilts.
• Work on one or more Sashiko projects.
• Make progress with my online Foundation Paper Piecing Design class with Melissa De Leon Mason.
• Write a 10 Years of Quilting post.

 .Linking up to #2024QuiltingQ3CheckIn.

My favorite September finish was re-binding the Dusty Rose quilt that my mother, Cleo Ringer, made for my niece, Mary Frances, in the 1980s. The quilt measures 48″ x 63″, and I believe the quilt block used is the Antique Monkey Wrench rotated on point. It looks to me like it was hand- quilted, though I have no memory of my mother doing any hand-quilting. I do, however, have a memory of her sending her quilts in the 1990s to the Philippines for quilting! Like mother, like daughter, though thankfully I don’t have to send mine out of the US for long arm quilting! When I visited my niece in Michigan in March, she showed me the quilt, and the edges were quite frayed. I told her that I would re-bind it for her and took it back home with me to New Mexico. I looked in my mother’s fabric stash and found two different fabrics that I could combine to make a new binding for the quilt. I put those fabrics away in a “safe” place, and to this day, I have NO idea where I put them, but they can seen in this post along with the frayed edge of the quilt. I cut about a half inch off the perimeter of the quilt and put a small swatch of the fabric in my wallet, so when I went to Liberty of London, I was able to find a fabric that would work well for the binding. See a close-up of the fabric in this post.

I finished re-binding the quilt mid-September and sent it off to my niece, and then remembered that I had not taken any pictures of it when I was finished! I blame it on post-COVID brain fog! Mary Frances was nice enough to take several photos in her home built in the 1930s. This quilt looks like it was made for her home. Below are several more photos that she sent to me:

As an aside, I made the indigo pillow on the bed for Mary Frances several years ago from other fabrics from my mom’s fabric stash:

My mom never included any quilt labels on her quilts, but I thought it was important to add one:

I did not have my act together in time, so I was unable to link up to Quilting Jetgirl’s September 2024 Favorite Finish, but I hope to do better with my October Favorite Finish!

Hi everybody! I’m writing my August recap post when we’re already one third through September. But I have a good reason for being so delayed. I went to London and Paris from Aug 18th-27th and had a wonderful time! Unfortunately, I came home with an unplanned souvenir–my first case of COVID. The last couple days of my trip, I had minor cold symptoms, but as soon as I reached American soil, I knew that I didn’t just have a cold, which I confirmed as soon as I got home. Thankfully, since I’m retired, I was able to take the time to rest and recuperate, and I’m feeling much better these days, though my energy levels are still lagging.

I really wanted to soak up all the history and gorgeous architecture of both London and Paris and didn’t spend much time thinking about quilting, but I did prioritize going to Liberty of London which was a couple miles from our hotel. I bought a meter each of the three fabrics below. I don’t have any plans for either of the animal prints, but they were both so unique that I couldn’t resist. I’m going to use the bottom maroon print to re-bind the quilt that my mom made for my niece, Mary Frances, in the 1980s.

Prior to my trip to Europe, I finished and gifted three quilts:

• Baseball Star quilt
• Ranges quilt
• Elephants quilt

I also finished the Awesome Sky Christmas quilt for my friend, Mary. Below is a photo that Cara with Sew Colorado Quilting took before she sent it back to me:

I also finished my Christmas Tell Me A Story blocks and sent them off to my swap-mates, but I didn’t take a photo. I’ve been getting some happy mail and will share a photo of the two blocks I made and the ones I’ve received in next month’s recap post.

September Goals

1. I’ve been working on a memento of my trip to Europe and may have it finished by the end of the month.
2. Finish another Merrily quilt top.
3. Re-bind the quilt my mom made for my niece.
4. Maybe work on a Halloween project or two.
5. Start organizing and ordering necessary fabric for a few small Christmas gifts.

Linking up to Quilt Schmilt: To-Do Tuesday.

My favorite finish in August is a baby quilt I made for some special people who are expecting another daughter. They are not comfortable with being named on this blog nor having any information shared on social media. I found some 12″ adorable elephant blocks on JoeJuneandMae’s Etsy site and combined them with some simple grey 12″ nine-patch blocks, added a 2.5″ outer border, and the quilt finished at 40″ square.

My great-nephew, John, has had a very eventful 2024. He got married in June, his master’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell in July, and moved to California to start his new job as a software engineer at Intel in August. The whole family is so very proud of him. I know my sister, Jackie, who has been gone for seven years, would be bursting at the seams with pride. I’m pretty sure she is well aware of John’s accomplishments. Sometime in June, I was awakened at 1:00 a.m., and it seemed like Jackie whispered to me, “You need to make a quilt for John.” I tossed and turned for awhile and started thinking about what quilt would be good for John. I knew I wanted it to have clean lines and a modern aesthetic. I decided to make Modern Handcraft’s Ranges quilt pattern in sunset gradient colors, and I knew I wanted the quilting to be wavy to reinforce the mountain vibe. Cara at Sew Colorado Quilting suggested the Modern Waves–Gentle quilting pattern, which I think works perfectly for this 64″ x 78″ throw-size quilt, and the thread she used is called Desert Sunset. The Kona fabrics used for the quilt front were School Bus, Kumquat, Flame, Red, Watermelon, Sangria, and Bordeaux.

I used Kona Berry for the binding and the back of the quilt along with a strip of all the fabrics used on the front.

I love it when recipients of my quilts send me pics of them with their quilt. Here is one of John after he received my package with a photo bomb by their dog, Jack, named after my sister and also my father, Jack Ringer.

I wanted to include a photo of John and his beautiful bride, Bekah, and John sent me this lovely photo:

John and Bekah live about 20 minutes from where I grew up in Sacramento, CA. I definitely hope to see them soon, hopefully on my next visit to California.

I have known my friend, Peter, since we both moved to New Mexico for grad school in 1994. He is from St. Louis, Missouri, and I moved to NM from northern California. We both started following baseball teams from the states where we lived when we were young–Peter being a die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan and me being a dedicated San Francisco Giants fan. Awhile ago I decided to make a quilt for Pete celebrating our 30 years of friendship, and when I saw the Baseball Star Pattern by Heather of My Sew Quilty Life, I knew it would be the perfect quilt for Peter, and his 11-year-old daughter, Aila, who shares his devotion to the Cardinals. For the front of this 60″ x 60″ throw-size quilt, I used the same colors as the pattern cover as those are the colors of the St. Louis Cardinals.

I found a Cardinals fabric on Etsy that was perfect for the back.

The close-up below shows the wonderful Play Baseball quilting pattern used by Cara at Sew Colorado Quilting. It also shows the quilt label which should have 11 years of friendship with Aila instead of 10. Somehow I lost a year!

Both Pete and Aila were thrilled with the quilt. It was really fun to be able to give it to them in person. Both of our teams are still in the race to be Wildcard teams for the playoffs that start in October. It would be fun if both the Giants and the Cardinals make it.

My cousin, McKenzie, has made two versions of the Baseball Star quilt. The first one was for her grandmother (and my aunt Lois) whose husband loved the Seattle Mariners. The pic below shows McKenzie and Lois with that quilt.

The second one was for McKenzie’s husband, Jeremy, who follows the Giants (as does McKenzie). We had the Giants’ game on behind McKenzie when I took the photo.

I just might have to make my own Baseball Star quilt in San Francisco Giants colors!

I worked on several different projects during the month of July. For my friend, Ed’s 50th birthday, I made him a bucket with a paper-pieced carrots using Leila Garduno’s free pattern. The second photo below shows a gardener’s hand shovel, pattern by Liza at Liza Taylor Handmade. The bucket pattern is available through Liza’s Paper Piecers membership.

I finished a Baseball Star quilt for my friend, Peter, and his daughter, Aila, who are die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fans. My quilt looks just like the pattern cover because it featured St. Louis Cardinals’ colors. The back has actual St. Louis Cardinals’ fabric. I will be giving it to them tomorrow and hope to take some photos of them with the quilt. I plan to write a post about this finish in the next week or so and will share photos of it in this post.

I also finished a quilt top for my great-nephew, John, and his new wife, Bekah. I used Modern Handcraft’s Ranges quilt pattern in sunset gradient colors.

I joined in on Kristy Lea’s of Quiet Play Designs free teacup challenge in July on Instagram. The pattern is now available at her FPP Pattern shop on her website. I used some Liberty of London fabric to make a teacup mug rug for my friend, David. He used to be my boss 30 years ago before I moved to New Mexico for grad school. We reconnected in June when I visited Monterey, California, and spent a good portion of our visit talking about quilts as David has been collecting antique quilts.

My friend, Mary, asked me to make a Christmas quilt for her to put on her bed during the upcoming holiday season. She found a quilt kit on Etsy and bought it. I pieced the quilt top in July. The traditionally pieced teeny-tiny half-square triangles just about made me lose my mind!

In July, I found out that some special people are expecting another daughter. They are not comfortable with being named on this blog or having any information shared on social media. I found some adorable elephants on JoeJuneandMae’s Etsy site and put together this 40″ square quilt top below:

For anyone who hasn’t seen the T-Rex quilt I made for my friend, Kristen’s baby boy due later this month, below is a pic and see a link to the blog post here.

Lastly, I signed up for a Tell Me A Story Holiday Block Swap. I have been making some blocks in traditional Christmas colors that I will share in my August recap post later this month.

 That’s about it. For August, I’ll be focusing on finishing up Ranges, Awesome Sky, and Elephants quilts and writing posts about them as well as finishing my blocks for the Holiday Block Swap.