More Quilt Fabric For A Cause

A few weeks ago my daughter, my former sister-in-law, and I took a day trip over to Panama City, Florida.  We live about 2 hours away.  We took the scenic route on Highway 98 and saw a lot of the destruction from Hurricane Michael that passed through this area last October.  It was very sad, but we wanted to show our support for the community so we went over to spend some money on lunch and souvenirs.

We always stop at Quilting By The Bay, a beautiful local quilt shop, and this trip was no exception.  I did not expect to find anything I needed because I really have more than enough fabric and projects to keep me busy for a while.  My daughter bought some supplies to make a jelly roll rug and I, of course, found these two lovely layer cake rolls.  One is batik jewel fabrics and the other is Twilight By One Canoe Two for Moda.

After shopping, we stopped at Sharky's Beachfront Restaurant on Front Beach Road for lunch.  The fried grouper sandwich was really good.  After lunch we took a walk on the City Pier just down the street from the restaurant.  It's a long pier and it was a beautiful sunny cool day for strolling over the water while watching the swimmer, surfers, and folks fishing from the pier.  Then we took the same scenic route along the coast back home.

The point of this story is that I have to add these layer cake rolls to my project to do list and make notes about what I want to do with them.  I'm going to alternate the batik squares with neutral batik squares and make a nice top with them.  I haven't decided what to do with the other layer cake but I do have to add it to the list.

Happy Birthday Cake

     I made my daughter's birthday cake a little early this year.  I like to get this done on the weekend.  Her birthday is tomorrow, but she got her cake yesterday.  It's a Bacardi Rum Cake, a recipe from the The Cake Mix Doctor book.  It's the only cake I make from that book because it's always so good.  I have been making this for DD's birthday for a few years now.  She loves it.

All The Colors

   I started another colorful crochet blanket this past week.  It's a ripple afghan.  This is a super simple pattern I got from a Mary Maxim Booklet called The Best of Mary Maxim Ripple Afghan Book.  I found that pattern booklet on Amazon.  The booklet has about 10 beginner to intermediate ripple afghan patterns in it.  I chose the classic ripple pattern.  I love the sharp peaks and valleys.  It's made with single crochet and I'm using tons of color in it.  Each row takes me about 25 minutes.  I'm adding whatever color wherever and however many rows I want.  I will be keeping track of the colors I use and in which order and I'll publish that list when I finish the entire afghan, just in case someone is interested.  This afghan will be made with all Knitpicks Acrylic Brava Worsted.  This is the beginning.

    Consulting my project list, I see it's time to start birthday sewing.  DD's birthday is in November and I want to make her a couple of things.  I will start those this next weekend.  I'm planning two projects, one will take a couple of hours to make and the second one will take about double that time.  I don't mind making things for DD, she is completely worthy of any homemade items.  She uses whatever I make for her and always takes time to tell everyone that it is handmade by her Mom.   So no photos of these projects until they are gifted.

      I'm also planning to make to make DD a birthday cake this year.  I stated a tradition several years ago and I would make a rum cake for her birthday each year.  She loves the cake and it is so easy to make.  I skipped last year because I didn't feel up to it, but I'm making one this year and I even bought the rum already.  I had to get the rum first because it's usually that last ingredient I think of and I end up having to make a special trip to the liquor store because I only go into the liquor store to get rum for this cake every couple of  years.

   After secret sewing is done I will get started on my souvenir fabric tote bag projects using the fabrics I purchased in Hawaii.  Here is a picture of the pieces all cut out.  Yeah.  I don't know why it took me so long to start these.  I can't wait to use them.   I'm using Crafty Gemini's Must Have Tote Bag Pattern with the only difference being I'm using two fabrics for the tote bag instead of one.  This tote bag pattern is the best.  I have been using it for years.  It costs three dollars and you get a picture tutorial and a link to a video tutorial.  Thank you, Vanessa.

   

Under Hurricane Watch Making A Quilt Top

    My home is in the path of Tropical Storm Hermine which might turn into a Category 1 hurricane by the time is makes landfall late tonight/early tomorrow morning.

   I spent the day sewing up my shabby chic flowery 10" squares into a quilt top.  I bought these squares from an Ebay seller a couple of weeks ago.  The set came with 48 squares (2 each of 24 different fabrics) and I wanted 49 squares.  I found the exact fabrics at Marshall's Dry Goods and I bought a yard of one of the fabrics so I could add one more square to the group for a total of 49.  I think 10" squares in a 7 block, 7 row configuration make a good size quilt top.  It comes out to be about 66.5" square.  I'm putting this top away to finish later in the year.

   Here it is:

   Close-up:

Incoming Fabric

    As usual, while I'm working on quilt tops I get the itch to plan for future quilt tops.  Today I went shopping and I couldn't resist buying some pre-cuts.  I bought a layer cake of assorted floral shabby chic fabrics from an ebay seller and a jelly roll of Lizzie's Legacy fabrics from Green Fairy Quilts.

   This layer cake will have 48 - 10" floral squares in it and I will add one more 10" square of one of my stash fabrics so I can make a 7 block x 7 row quilt top.

   Here's a picture of the fabrics:

   The jelly roll is a collection of 40 - 2.5" x 44" strips from the Lizzie's Legacy collection by Betsy Chutchian for Moda Fabrics.  I love the soft colors and the old fashioned prints in this collection.  I will be making a jelly roll race quilt with this.  I plan on adding a solid square in between each strip to give the top some interest.

   Time to get back to my scrappy string quilt blocks.

Hanging Dishtowels, The Finish

      Yeah, I know, you are probably completely bored with the hanging dishtowel project, but I had to show the last of the towels sewn up.  The shorter towels are the remains of the one towel I cut in half.
      One more sewing note, my template for the fabric top that was drawn from tracing around my iron is the perfect size to get the two fabric pieces cut from a 10" square (think layer cake).  

     These were so much fun to make and really cheap.  I wish I had some more dishtowels.

Fabric Shopping For A Christmas Quilt

         

       I don't have a Christmas quilt.  I decided the day after Christmas that I need a Christmas quilt.  To make a Christmas quilt, I need Christmas fabric, so I went fabric shopping.  I was hoping that the Christmas fabric would be on sale, but I didn't find a lot that I liked and it wasn't on sale.  I finally found fabric I loved that had a great price.  I bought a 42 piece 10" layer cake from an etsy seller for $29.95.  The line is called "Rejoice" and look at the birds.  So pretty.  

 

     For the back I'm going to use some leftover charm squares from the Blitzen line.  This is the only Christmas fabric I have in my stash.  I'll sew these 36 charm squares into four patches and that will give me 9 four patches.  I know this will not be enough to complete the back, so I had to go fabric shopping one more time.  I went to my favorite on line store, Connecting Threads, and decided on the Mirage in silver lining colorway, which will go great with the Blitzen charm squares.  I'll alternate the four patches with the silver fabric to make the back.  

Blitzen

     Once I get the top and back finished, I'll  have to decide on my binding fabric.  I thought I was going to  use the silver/grey, but I really think I need a red for the binding and in that case, I can do some more fabric shopping when I'm ready to work on the binding.

    This new project throws my crafting to-do list all out of wack.  I hope to get back to my list once I get the Pretty in Pink quilt finished in a couple of weeks.  My batting for the pink quilt should be arriving today or tomorrow.  Yeah.