Flannel Top

Oops, I got the pictures in the reverse order again. Oh well. Here's how the rows ended up for my quilt for the Hope Squared Project. It's big enough now that I had to photograph it on the kitchen floor. Guess I should have removed Reilly's toy first!


Here's a close-up of the bottom half of the quilt:


And the top half:

I'm shooting for a 54" x 72" quilt. I figure that ought to be big enough for an adolescent girl even though it's not bed size. Right now it's wide enough, I just need to add a bit more length.

I finally put out the rest of the Halloween decorations last night. I've just about decided to leave a handful of them out year round because I like them so well. As it is they'll probably be on display through Thanksgiving!

Flannel Rows

In this post I'm going to show you the individual rows I created from the flannel parts and scraps. (I don't think I mentioned previously that I had in mind for this to be a horizontal row quilt right from the beginning.) As of yesterday I have the body of the quilt top assembled but you'll have to wait to see that in another post. (Aren't I cruel?!) I think I have loaded these pictures in the order in which the rows were created. They didn't necessarily end up in the quilt top in this order.

Row one:

Row two:

Row three:

And row four:

You should be able to click on each picture to get a larger image of it and a better look at the blocks.

Today I expect to be creating borders for the top and bottom edges of the quilt to get the length I want it to have. After that it will be a matter of finding something in my stash that will work for backing, looking to see whether I have sufficient batting in my closet or whether someone will have to go out and get some for me, and clearing off the dining table so I can sandwich the layers. The latter is no small feat, let me tell you! It's not a big table but it currently has layers of its' own that I will have to put somewhere else!

Liberated Stars

I'm still working on the flannel quilt for the Hope Squared Project as part of Margaret's Hope Chest. Most recently I've been making liberated stars. This block is great for flannels. Because flannel is bulkier and tends to stretch it's not a good choice for precise piecing. Liberated stars are not precise!


The biggest problem I'm having is getting enough contrast between my colors and prints. My palette is limited and I am determined to use what I have, not buy more. The star below began with one of the Broken Dishes blocks I made from the off-cuts of my heart blocks.


I currently have three rows complete. I also have enough 4 Patch units to make three narrow rows. I still need about 15" to achieve the length I'm shooting for.

And for the first time in the 20 years I've been using rotary cutters I finally managed to cut myself yesterday. Do you like my skull & crossbones band aids? ;- ) (You can also see the remnants of that eczema outbreak I complained of a while back.)

It's not a bad cut. Maybe a little more than a paper cut. It sure didn't want to quit bleeding though! I sort of brushed my finger with the edge of the blade when I didn't cover the blade between trimming bits. I was only functioning on half a brain yesterday, otherwise this probably wouldn't have happened.

Now I have to get busy creating rows for those last 15 inches...

Flannel Parts

While I'm waiting for all my new fabrics for baby quilts to arrive I thought I would do something with the leftovers from my own flannel quilt. Over on Quiltdivajulie's blog I read about the Hope Squared Project sponsored by Margaret's Hope Chest. Hope Squared is an effort to collect 400 newly minted quilts to distribute to homeless children currently enrolled in the Grand Rapids, MI public school system. Having grown up in Michigan, spending summers not far from Grand Rapids, I felt compelled to contribute to the effort.

Yesterday I gathered up the scraps from my quilt and pulled some additional yardage I've had on hand that I thought might work with them. I fussy cut a sampler print into chunks, made some heart blocks, got a couple of odd sized Broken Dishes blocks out of the off-cuts of the hearts, and created three dozen 4 Patch blocks. (Those are some Halloween ribbons I picked up last month tacked to the left side of my design wall. Still haven't figured out what to do with them exactly.)

I feel like I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to put together a quilt of any size. Those patches for 4 Patch blocks sure make great leaders and enders though! (The 4 Patch blocks you see pinned to the wall are actually two stacks of ten and one stack of five.) The hardest part is trying to decide which fabrics to cut up for patches and which ones to leave in longer strips for strata or borders later on.

There's a fairly short deadline for this project: November 15. I think that will help to keep me from stalling out on it. Well, that and the purpose of the project. The trick is to stay focused. My own flannel quilt may not get tied very soon after all!

Stunning News

Here we have my two granddaughters with one of their uncles. You may be able to tell that this was taken very recently. ;- ) Miss M is now four and a half years old and her little sister is just over two.

Their mother, my Darling Daughter, has been suffering through the worst pregnancy she's ever had. We've been thinking the source of her difficulties must be the boy they've been hoping to add to their family.

Tuesday she had her first ultrasound. It's not a boy. It's twin girls. TWINS!! My tiny little bird-boned daughter is trying to carry twins! Eeek!

Needless to say, there's been a flurry of phone calls and emails and a mad scramble to come up with a whole new set of potential names (not that there's any real hurry in that department). They were pretty well settled on a boy's name. DD claimed they were all out of ideas for another girl's name anyway. (You know how it is, having to find names both parents can agree on.) Inbetween researching baby girl names on the internet I've been visiting online fabric retailers. Went a little nuts to be honest. One order has already arrived - turns out that vendor is not far from where we live. Some of what I ordered was intended for preemie quilts - for other people's premature babies - because I have nicely depleted my inventory of flannels for that purpose. Now I will have to make preemie quilts for my own daughter's babies. There's no way her petite little frame will carry two babies to term. I understand twins typically come about 6 weeks early anyway. Yikes!

To further complicate matters, DD and SonInLaw are trying to buy their first house and SIL is scheduled to leave on a 6 month deployment in mid-November. He will not be around for the birth; he'll be somewhere on the other side of the world. Hoo boy.

Before my world was turned upside down by all this news I did manage to get my flannel Lincoln Logs quilt sandwiched and pin basted.

I even slept under it last night, with the batting hanging out all around the edges and everything. What I need to do now is figure out what color and type of thread to tie it with so I can get that finished up for good. And then there's the quilt for little sister's big girl bed and receiving blankets to make and, and, and...