Now On To Placemats

 

A new packet was available on the Community Giving table at Saturday's BAMQ meeting. It was a kit to make a Self-Binding Placemat. Placemats are a new addition to the Community Giving projects, they get donated to a local Meals on Wheels project which is pretty cool imo.

It came in the kit already partially pieced, I just had to sew on the two long rectangles. The batting and backing were included. I did a wavy-line embroidery stitch for the quilting.

After the quilting, the excess batting gets trimmed off and then the extra backing fabric is trimmed to size for the Self-Binding.

Some ironing, folding and stitching, and it's all done! Pretty cute, I think, and very easy to finish.

Demonstration Flags & Demo Lecture

 

Another couple of hours posted up on the sidewalk with my family in our little mountain town for another fun No Kings demonstration. There were so many people out with signs encouraging people to VOTE! We had a lot of music and dancing again, people and dogs in costumes. My favorite was a brand-new baby strapped to the front of her papa who was holding a sign that said "No Kings, No Naps!"

If you haven't already:  Make A Plan To Vote.

We had mini-flags this time (from Flags for Good) as well as signs.This is because I have now become a person who has a seasonal mini-flag planted in front of her house. It all started out with an SF Giants flag. DH is holding a No Kings flag, I had a VOTE flag. DS is holding one of our signs. They worked together to figure out how to temporarily rig them up with wire and dowels just for the day.

Then it was over the hill for the BAMQ meeting at the San Mateo Library. There was a great turnout, lots to cover, and an excellent speaker coming to us on Zoom, Jane Hauprich. Her instagram is here with lots of great pictures of her quilting. She's an excellent free motion quilting teacher, and gave an engaging and informative talk. At the end, using pictures of un-quilted quilts from our members, She demonstrated her thinking process about how to establish a quilting design for a particular quilt. She uses a tablet to draw right on top of a picture of a quilt (seen there in neon green). I am definitely going to try that out the next time I'm dithering on quilt designs!

Community Giving Binding #2

 

I picked up another Community Giving quilt that needed binding at this month's Sew Day, and since our BAMQ meeting is tomorrow, I wanted to get it done so I can turn it in.

Tah-dah! Isn't this a cute panel quilt? I love the quilt blocks and the print. It's kind of Christmas-y, but not too in your face, so if the recipient is a horse lover, it'll work all year for them. The backing fabric had just enough excess fabric so that I could make the binding out of it. It's always nice when that works out. 

Postcards, Seeds, Spiders, Color Study

 

No quilting happened today, instead I used my energy up writing a whole lot of Postcards to Voters and actually getting them into the mail. I had planned and ahead and last week I bought a new roll of fall leafy postcard stamps and blank postcards with a printed message on one side that says: 

BE A VOTER 

Your Voice Matters  

🌟---Really---🌟

My goal is to write and send out all 100 postcards for the upcoming mid-term election.

I also harvested some Day Lily seeds from my garden that I'm going to attempt to sprout and grow. Usually you buy them as small bare roots with crowns. I was pulling out the dry flower stalks with the dried pods and heard the seeds rattling. I looked it up right then and there on my phone to see if the seeds were worth planting or not before I tossed the stalks into the composter. It sounded to me like it's definitely worth a try. The more Day Lilies the better, right? I'll be sure and report back here in spring to let you know if it worked or not.

We also have finished off our Halloween decorating. I really liked how this picture turned out. One of our couch-side lamps temporarily has a purple LED bulb, and the other one has a red bulb. Both have BIG hairy spiders, and it's rather SpoOoOooky just as intended.

Oh, and I signed myself up for another Alison Glass quilt along, Color Study. I think it's a really interesting looking quilt.

Spinning Wheel or Pinwheel or Flying Kite

 

Time for me to make the very last BAMQ BOM block. This one has a lot of names:  Flying Kite or Spinning Wheel or Pinwheel. It's a lot of triangles and a strip with a 45° angle on one end. 

I will be honest, I had a hard time laying it out, maybe if I'd used all different fabric for the "blades" it would have been easier for me?

I'm liking how it's looking at this point, and I'm also glad that I chose to make the 12" version.

There it is, all done! Now to start figuring out a good layout for all the blocks I've made so far.

Stars+Alternates

Here's the whole stack of to-be-sewn together "twenty alternate blocks" for the Lupine Mystery quilt.And here's the final block assembled right after ironing.

Well, here they all are together, the Lupine Stars and the "alternate blocks". This us not an intentional arrangement, I just slapped them up as they were pressed.

woohoooooo.

Now to play around with the arrangement until I like what I see.

All The Stars

 

The last five Lupine Stars are now done.

Here's one of my favorites.

And another one.

Twenty-five Lupine Stars all together. This would make a nice quilt, I like that secondary pattern a lot.

I pushed myself and made five of the "alternate blocks", to add to the one I'd done before, just to see how it would change....And wow! What a difference that alternate block makes in the took of the quilt. Twenty more of those to assemble. This is going to be fun to play around with the final layout.

Ten More Lupine Stars

 

Ten more Lupine Stars are done and up on the wall.

They're hanging out with the first ten that I made and the one lonely "alternate" block.

Only five more to assemble!

Alternate Lupine Block

I had all the ingredients out, so I made one of the "alternate" blocks (ie not a Lupine Star) for the Lupine Mystery quilt. Just to see how one of them looked. I like it a lot, it's very different than the star block.

 Here's how it will look with all the Lupine Stars. It's a very cool secondary pattern. 

I even went through the Ohio Stars and the Kitty Ears and HSTs to match them up so that none of the fabrics are repeated in each block. And to make sure the colors and prints worked together in each block. It's quite a stack, isn't it?

Now they're all ready to sew once I'm done with the Lupine Stars which are also all laid out. Okay, back to all the block assembly sewing left to do.

Final Lupine Border

 The joined-up Flying Geese are now further joined together into the four final borders for the Lupine Mystery quilt. It took a lot of counting to make sure I had the correct number sewn together. 

I think it'll be a really nice-looking final border, especially once I make the four corner blocks. It's kind of funny to have the final border done before I've gotten the main part of the quilt put together.

Joined Geese

 

Sew Day was great yesterday, there was an excellent turnout, and many fun conversations. I also managed to get a lot of sewing done. 

I sewed together all of the many many Flying Geese units I had previously made for the Lupine Mystery. 

I also got to assist Kathy with sewing the embroidered labels that she makes for our guild to use for Community Giving quilts. I sewed these short seams in-between the block units.

I followed the great pressing instructions, half of the units pressed toward the pink goose, half towards the white goose.

And then I had quite a time (see the bottom row), trying to work out why the pressing didn't work out. Probably due to not reading the instructions well and also having conversations at the same time. Sigh. So, I got many of the sewn together pairs of geese sewn to another. These will make up the outer border of the quilt top, so. I have to join up the correct number of these units. Back to re-reading the instructions!

Community Quilt Binding

 

Just in time quilt binding for this Community Giving quilt (there on the right)  that I am turning in at Sew Day today.

First up stay stitching the quilt edge, then a trim of the excess batting and backing fabric.

Speaking of backing fabric, this selvedge made me go awwwww, Joann Fabrics RIP.. There was enough excess so that I was able to make most of the binding out of it along with some navy blue solid interspersed.

One of our members makes these amazing quilt labels on her embroidery machine to use on the Community Quilts.

There we go, ready to turn in.

October To-Do

 

Here's how my design wall is looking on the first day of October. Patchwork Palooza (still awaiting border decisions) and my finished Kawandii are still pinned up on the left. The finished Lupine Stars are arranged, the rest are next to my sewing machine ready to be sewn together. On the right is a Community Giving quilt that I'm working on getting a binding done so I can turn it in on Sew Day tomorrow.

 Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's on the 2026 UFO Finishes challenge list of six projects that I committed to finishing at the beginning of the year (more on that list later). Note, this is not the same list as the UFO Challenge for BAMQ, that UFO will have this next to it on the list:🌀🌐  

QUILTS

Design & Begin

Pantone Project - work on an overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt - keep making blocks following the clue instructions, assemble into a top

BAMQ BOM - assemble finished blocks into a quilt top.

Continue Assembly

Patchwork Palooza - Decide on borders, make backing & binding

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - make a backing & binding, decide on whether to have it quilted

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the final group of fussy-cut stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Continue the piecing of Selvedge Candy (maybe the name) quilt originally designed for the 2025 MQG challenge.

🥏👽 Sew the last 6 columns and sashing together of the 2023  Temperature Quilt together to make the quilt top.

🌀🌐 David Owen Hastings class piece, assemble into quilt top, quilt, finish🥏👽 

                                      

Quilting

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife - Finish quilting it🌀🌐 

Final Steps 

🥏👽 Bending the Calendar - Cut up? Re-arrange? Embellish?🌀🌐 

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Make a Charlie's Aunt wool purse for myself, first felt the wool from Pendleton Mill.

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - now that I have the appropriately sized grey background felt, arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching -  🌀🌐

Body Pillow-knit cotton pillowcase - 🌀🌐 

Hey! This Is All Finished!

Quilted Dog Jacket for Meg - 🌀🌐  

Continuing on with the sixth month in a row with some actual finishing happening. 

Yes, this was a teeny tiny project, relative to the others, but that it actually got done is the main thing. 

Taking the finishing energy on into October.