UFOs: These quilts are happening!

My UFOs have been coming along! 

Here's the short version: 

Finished Quilt Top: Hopscotch Butterscotch. This turned out big (75" x 88"), since I used mostly 2½" cut pieces, instead of the 2" in Bonnie Hunter's pattern. I love the organized randomness! I REALLY love the fancy piano-key border.

Still in the works: the quilting on my great-great grandmother's Dresden Plate. Haven't worked on it since last week; more details about this one in last week's post.

Up for border & quilting soon: the 1008 checkerboard.

Got a few stitches in this week: My modern Double Wedding Ring. I've almost got the 5-circles by 7-circles main section done. I last mentioned this quilt top in my initial UFO "goals" post here. Before that, it had been a while since I worked on it. Actually, I started this gorgeous thing about 3 years ago (2013: see this post and also this one), but then I didn't blog about it for another year (2014: see here). For whatever reason, I blogged about it one time a year ago (2015: see this post.) Who knows ... maybe this will be the year this one gets done! I'm not pressuring myself, but it does feel great to get these projects worked on!

Finished & Given away: Baby Happily Scrappily Irish. I blogged about it last Friday.

Got their portrait painted: A couple of quilts ... Two of my quilts served as inspiration for a friend's beautiful painting! See that post here.

 

I'm linking this post to this week's UFO Challenge update at Jo's Country Junction ... lots of other quilters are working on their "Un-Finished Objects", and a weekly link party helps remind us to keep up the good work.

Little Happily Scrappily Irish

This week, I finished up this little quilt for my newest nephew, who's due to arrive any day now.

It's a small version of Bonnie Hunter's Happily Scrappily Irish, from the book Adventures with Leaders and Enders. Basically, it's a scrappy double Irish Chain quilt.

I was pleased to be able to make this entirely with fabric I already had ... even the backing fabric had been stashed away for an opportune time!

I had fun working with smaller-than-usual pieces: the little squares finish 1½ inches -- usually my smallest squares finish at 2 inches. So these were fun and tiny.

I did an all-over quilting meander, with variegated blue thread.

In the outer border, I quilted overlapping wavy lines, with the same variegated blue thread.

The quilt measures about 42" x 42".

I'm linking this post to today's Finish It Up Friday at CrazyMomQuilts.

A little progress

This week, I put some borders on my little Happily Scrappily Irish baby quilt top.

I also pin-basted it, and only just in time: this is a gift for my newest nephew, and I've got a baby shower date to aim for.

Hopscotch Butterscotch was back to leader-and-ender status this week: I got a few of the piano key border pieces stitched and pressed.

I also cut the (green) sashings for Hopscotch Butterscotch, so that should be the last of the cutting!

Since I'm working on some long-time Un-Finished Objects here (Hopscotch Butterscotch, particularly), and since both of these quilts are Bonnie Hunter designs, I'm linking this post to Jo's UFO Challenge update. It's a fun weekly check-in for projects like these.

The little scrappy Irish Chain

I'm still making headway on this one. I posted last week about starting it.

I've got a much smaller layout than the pattern, so I just had 25 blocks to make.

Since these squares are cut at 2" x 2", they're smaller than my usual. So the patchwork has been fun - and tiny!

There were over 350 little squares! Since I've got a red/white/blue/light-blue color scheme, a lot of my patriotic fabric scraps went into this one. A few plaids and random scraps worked well, too.

I've got the Irish Chain part of the quilt top put together. I'd like add a couple of borders, but so far, this (baby-size) quilt top measures about 35" x 35".

Starting a Scrappy Irish Chain

This is a new start on a little quilt ... Baby-size, for a gift.

It's a small version of "Happily Scrappily Irish" from Bonnie Hunter's Adventures with Leaders & Enders.

I've got all the pieces cut out ... scrappy red, white, and blue ... on a light blue background.

It's always fun to make things from fabric I have, and it's especially great to make beautiful things out of scraps!

The Latest Guy Quilt: NFL, Quilted with Footballs

This was fun:

Since my oldest son had a birthday recently, and since I hadn't made him a quilt in years, I needed to make a guy quilt.

When I had the idea to do something with NFL fabrics, I decided to check eBay for a deal on some team fabrics. I wasn't sure what I would find, but I figured the selection online would be pretty varied. 

Almost right away, I found a set of NFL fabrics on eBay -- precut 4" squares, two from each of the 32 NFL football teams. Perfect. Easy. (A little overpriced, maybe, but where else would I find all 32 fabrics in one place!?)

Pretty quickly, I decided what to do with 64 squares (+1 extra solid square) -- A basic Single Irish Chain layout. 

Simple. No frills. Guy quilt.

I added a border row above and below, made with shirt-cottons (solids, stripes, plaids) to add some length to make a nice-sized throw quilt. (It's about 55" x 68".)

The fabric combo turned out nice (brown cotton sheet fabric for the top, and something fuzzy-textured-warm for the backing). My favorite thing is how the quilting turned out.

Free-motion meander with FOOTBALLS quilted in! This was so fun, and surprisingly, not too complicated.

Maybe I'll take some more pics and do a picture tutorial on the FMQ footballs sometime. (I was surprised at how little I found online about how to quilt football designs into a quilt! I found a couple of ways that it works.)

Anyway. This was fun. And my son loves it. I'm happy about that.

Hello Kitty Irish Chain

Months ago, I mentioned starting some Irish Chain quilt tops ...

I got the Hearts quilt top done a few weeks after cutting the pieces ... 

Finally, last week, I got out and sewed up the pieces to the Hello Kitty quilt top ...

Here, pieces to the Hello Kitty Irish Chain are stacked up, ready to sew together. (More pictures of my Irish Chain process are in this post and this post, from when I was making the Hearts quilt top.)

The pieces went together nicely into a quilt top that's nearly 50" x 50".

I love the cute pink Hello Kitty fabric!

It's for sale on eBay, so I'm hoping somebody will enjoy quilting it up for their favorite Hello Kitty fan!

And, since I'm incurably on the lookout for my "next" project ... I had to do something with the too-little scraps that were leftover ... 

So, dozens of inch-and-a-half squares went into a container for the beginning of a "real" postage stamp quilt. I've made postage-stamp-style quilts with 2- or 3-inch squares before. Thought I might try the real tiny ones ... We'll see if anything comes of it ...

I'll be linking this post to:

~ this week's Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story

~ this week's Work-In-Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Very Pink Irish Chain quilt top ...

A while back, I mentioned the cutting and sewing processes I'd started for some Irish Chain quilt tops.

Here's a quick look at some more of the quilt-top-making process.

After all the sewing and slicing that happened earlier, there was a lot of this going on ... 

... stitching those units together ... to get this effect ...

... multiplied by about a dozen ...

Along with about a dozen of the mostly-darker-pink blocks ...
all laid out on the carpet ...

 ... and sewn together!

It's a 39" x 58" Quilt Top that's listed on eBay for somebody to have fun quilting some day.

A couple things finished ...

A couple of new things are listed in my eBay auctions today ...

a fun, pink, Irish Chain Quilt Top for somebody to quilt ...

and a cozy, fuzzy, Flannel Rag Quilt  ...

[Update: I blogged in more detail (more pics!) about these items here and here.]

More details are in the eBay Listings ...

Since I'm so pleased to have finished these this week, I'll be linking this post to a couple of my favorite Friday-finish link parties ... 

This week's Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

and 

This week's Sew and Tell Friday at AmyLouWho

Pink Irish Chain progress ...

Recently, I mentioned starting on some (very) pink Irish Chain quilt tops ...

I did a bunch of sewing pieces together ...

 And then a bunch of pressing and cutting ...

Looking forward to getting this looking like an Irish Chain!