July UFO is finished

This quilt was not the one drawn for July, but I made the switch because I knew I was going to be at my mom's house until mid-August, and there is no sewing machine there. This was the only remaining UFO on my list that just needed hand quilting. I partially quilted this quilt and put the binding on it so it could be in a quilt show in March 2002.
       Most of the hand quilting on this quilt is "in the ditch," one of my favorite hand quilting techniques. I love the way the fabric speaks for itself, the way the quilt flattens out and the way the lines straighten up when I stitch along the seam lines.
       The left side panel consists of four large blocks. From top to bottom, they are some kind of basket, a Penrose tiling, a state capital block called "Sitka" (the old capital of Alaska), and an eccentric star.
       The right side panel consists of four blocks. From top to bottom, they are a reversed squares block using a quick method I invented, a hidden wells block, a larger Penrose tiling, and a broken dishes block.
       The top and bottom rows of the center panel are double pinwheels. Cathy chose the fabrics for these. Along the left side of the center are six smaller blocks. Four are extra blocks from baby quilts I made for my kids, and the lower two are blocks made from leftover scraps of other quilts.
       The large block at the top center was a color study I made when I was taking classes from the late Kathleen Weinheimer. The center block is another state capital block, though I don't remember which state. The bottom center consists of four blocks - a nine-patch designed by Cathy, the one that says "Cathy," and two Cambodian applique blocks that I bought at a quilt show.
       Along the right side of the center panel is a Christmas mouse that I bought at Keepsake Quilting at my first visit there in the early 1990s. I made a Christmas wall hanging for my aunt, who loved mice, from the other mice in that pattern. The other blocks are another nine-patch designed by Cathy, some batik butterflies, another Cambodian block, and a sunshine and shadow block also designed by Cathy.

Quilty knitting

I finished a baby blanket for Project Linus last week at family camp. They wanted more blankets that were suitable for boys, and I thought the magenta and earth tone variegated yarn that they had donated to our knitting group might work. The pattern I chose needed more yarn than there was of the variegated yarn, so I used a compatible solid for the center of the blanket.

This is a close-up of the test patch for the next blanket, which will use up odds and ends of yarn. It's a seed stitch with each square 15 stitches x 24 rows, which comes out more or less square.

Cindy's Tote

I have to admit I cling to stuff - but thankfully, my kids don't. Cindy cleaned out her tote bag today and found an old pop tart at the bottom of it, among other things. In this picture you can see the brightly colored straw has worn off as well. So I found her a new tote and asked her with feigned casualness whether she wanted to throw it out. "Sure," she said. Well I have been all over the world with Cindy and her tote bag, and I had to take a picture of it before wistfully placing it in the laundry room trash can.

Eccentric Stars

I've always liked this block. I found out last month that it's called Eccentric Star. I had a couple of piles of solid squares put together with a diagonal line marked on the back of the lighter square and stored in a box labeled "cut projects to piece" for many years. After I saw the leaders and enders book, I started sewing them together at the start and end of other things I was piecing. I had enough to make these two new tops, each about 28 inches square. I wrote about this in a previous post.

I made this Eccentric Star block, 6 1/2" square, for a baby boy who is about to be born.