First finish of the year!!

    

 ast year I didn’t have the time to do the Challenge Quilt that jump starts the Project Quilting Year.  But this year, stuck at home with Covid, it provided the perfect distraction. 

One of the biggest challenges I am giving myself is to use up my scraps.  To use up the excesses of my fabric collections that I know I can make just one more quilt out of.  Well this challenge fit perfect with that goal.  

Several years ago I used this same Jason Yenter Collection in a Project Quilting Challenge Quilt. If I remember right it was called something like, “My favorite favorite collection”.  Well,  I still love the fabric and I am actually using some in my EPP challenge quilt. 

Not sure what I want to do with this quilt,  maybe use it as a wall hanger for a few.  Or give it to a niece as a doll quilt.  

I added a double border to it that added another 6 inches to its size. The backing was hard, I didn’t want to use the collection,  I finally found a random piece in my fabric cabinet I was willing to spare. Then used it as a FMQ sampler and literally just played on it.  Doing these little ones like this, kinda feels good.  I love playing with FMQ! 

Finish...

So this year,  I am choosing a word for the year.  For me.  The word will be “Finish”.  Finish all my undone things from the past,  finish the projects I start.

Yep,  one of my biggest issues is that I get started with sooo many things and never have time to finish.  This is with things around the house, crafting and quilting and even with work.  So,  as not to make a resolution but to pick a word and theme of the year. Maybe with that I will keep it.  Today,  my goal before midnight is to finish one undone thing.  I’ve done well the last few weeks with this and hope to continue on! 

Some of The Quilts of 2020

I lost a lot of photos when my last phone took the dump during Covid and realized it never uploaded to cloud for I think months.  And of course with the busy year and the hundreds of masks, I didn’t finish as many quilts this year as I would have loved too. But again,  truly the year of the nurse. 

Here are some of the quilts I Finished from May til December and a little about them each. I just decided I need to try and record some since I feel I haven’t done well with this for a few years. 

 

Frogs and Arrows.  Kinda came up with this design on my own and sewed as I went along alternating the direction of the flying geese. This was a shower gift for my friend Ed and Kristen. 

Another one that I didn’t follow a formal pattern, just took off and createdz. Still not sure about the background color,  but my little sewing group picked it.  So I went with it! This was given as a prayer quilt to a friend going thru chemo. 

Here’s another quilt long in the making.  One of my first ever quilts was made from the Amy butler prints.  It was the first fat quarter collection that I bought. I thought it was the perfect fabric for my new niece.  Well,  she turned 2 in March and I finished it in May.  But it’s done.  Another part of that clean out I wanted to do in 2020 and did not have time. 

This is a big block Batik quilt. I bought the fabric because you could see bassets in it.  You know I love my basset hounds. This was given to a coworkers wife. 

Now this quilt was the longest in the making for me and maybe my all time favorite.  It’s a Nancy McNally class I took probably 4 years ago.  In true me fashion,I altered and increased the size of her pattern to make it bigger.  

Well, it sat pinned for several years because I just did not know how I wanted to quilt it. Well last year I started a free motion class to update my skills and decided the quilt would work as an awesome sampler.  Not at all perfect, but done.

A big learning curve and boy have I grown on my quilting in the last few years.  I decided to hang it in the drooping sunflowers.  I love my photos.  I love this quilt still more!  I think it’s the one that made me fall in love with Batiks.  Frankie picked it out to give to a friend. Her husband makes all kinds of things, and touches us so much! 

Another top finished I think in 2019 as part of a quilt along.  Hadn’t decided how I wanted it quilted,  so it sat.  I love how it went with the harvest feel,  so I went to the edge of my friend Jenny and Kirby’s field and hung it amongst the corn!! 

Did a lot of detailed quilting on here. Yep,  these tops are helping me grow. 

My coworker lost his young daughter at 27 this year with 3 young kids.  Here is to the first of a few tshirt quilts. Still hard fit me to feel the sunflowers with it, but I think it worked out!! 

The quilt group I lead did the Jelly Roll Snowflake sew along this year.  With normal me fashion,  I did it bright and cheerful.  Then of course played with the quilting.  Given to the pharmacist who took over Frankies dads store for his new baby. 

The Barrister block scrap quilt that I posted about in my last blog.  Hoping to give to a friend who retired last year that we never gave a party too. 

This top isn’t finished in this photo.  Actually going to sew the binding on today while I am stuck at home. But I couldn’t pass up the field.  Sooo many scraps of cotton from a field like this!! Photo in the St. Matthews area. 

And then the scrap HST runner.  A retreat mate from a retreat last year gave me her cut off corner scraps from her quilt.  I used them later for a demo for my sewing class.  I actually by chance had the same Essex linen she used and made myself  this table runner.  Yep,  I think I am gonna keep.  That’s about all I had time for in the Crazy 2020, until my Covid sew in that I shall post tomorrow!! I hope!! 

Barrister’s Block Batik Scrap Quilt

 So it’s been a while since I posted. I wish I would find some time to be better about this. But maybe the challenges that will require it will help me do just that! 

     Kim Lapacek over at Persimon Dreams is hosting a block of the month scrap challenge this year.  My intent before COVID was to try to finish every block into a scrap quilt this year.  I successfully finished one and a top before COVID turned my life hectic.  Well instead of using up scraps, COVID mask making created more. Well now I am finally pushing that to the side and I am sewing up all the scraps I can find. But there still are more and more....

     February block was called the Barrister block.  I actually enjoyed to read the history behind the block, because the name was so odd. The block actually was created and named for a women’s right to practice law.  Sometimes known as the lawyer’s puzzle block. Some say the spikes represent the curls in the woman’s hair or actually wig.  

The block though is completed by all 4 big sections with either side opposing the other. Each smaller section measuring 8 inches to make a 16 inch block. 

This quilt top is 100% scrap. I actually did almost all of it back in March before my nurse work life went crazy.  It sadly barely touched my bin of batiks. 

I quilted the quilt with loops and lines. 

I finished it at the first retreat of 2020 for me since everything else was canceled in October at Lutheridge.  Then yep,  I am just sitting down to make this post.  On my bucket list of stuff to finish up in 2020. 

So here it is.  

Out of my Crayola box!

   

When I first saw this weeks Project Quilting theme, I was blank.  I didn’t know what to do.  As I scanned my sewing cabinet I realized I didn’t have very much bold fabric. I found an ombré Batik and pulled it out.  But it just wasn’t giving me the feeling that it was right.  Suddenly I remembered another Ombré fabric I bought last year.  Due to the way it was folded, you could tell what it was! Bingo!! Hard to believe the entire quilt is made of just 2 different fabrics. .

     I then pulled a 2 yard piece of black material out.  I wasn’t sure if a plan yet, but had a few ideas. I cut the fabric into 8.5 inch blocks.  Then I used the 4 at a time HST method.  Squared them up into 5.5 inch blocks.

As usual I googled several social media platforms for inspirations and found this stick on tile idea.  I separated the colors into yellow, green, aqua, blue and purple. There were some in between pieces that worked well for the middles.   I changed the star up in the centers bit and worked my way around from yellow to purple!

     I then quilted it using black thread.  You can barely see the swirls, but I finallly feel I perfected the pointy swirls with this quilt.  I didn’t like the plain colors so I tried to do just a bump in each.  I totally don’t like it, but it was a learning experience.

Bound it in the leftover black and my last challenge is done!! Measuring out at 50x60z. All of my Project Quilting quilts this season are full size!

    This weeks challenge is right up my alley.  People always ask me what I do with all my quilts.  They look funny when I say, “I give them all away”.  I do, I rarely keep anything, when I decide to keep something, someone usually says something that leads me to give it to them.

     This challenge of “Give It Away”, is the meaning behind the name of my blog.  Quilts and handmade blankets have always made me feel better.  I spent a bit of my life in Foster Care and It makes me feel good to make something and give it away.  The mix of the 2 developed the name Fostering Others.  I keep myself out of depression and honestly destress by crafting! So this theme fits my crafting life!

     My coworkers wife had a major cardiac event about 2 weeks ago.  She needs something to pick up her spirts.  So I went in my sewing room and knew what fabric would be perfect.  I know she loves her dogs!! A few months ago I bought some sale batik fabric from one of my favorite fabric stores with dogs and paw prints imprinted all over the fabric.

     I knew I wouldn’t have much sewing time this week, so I decided to do a big block quilt.  Just 2 colors of fabric to make a dramatic impact.   I made 12 churn dash blocks that were 18 inches each.  I originally planned 16 and decided that the quilt may be to big for hospital use.


   

Papas Overalls

 

We all have the special person in our life that makes the difference.  The one you can always depend on, who is always there and leads you in the right direction. For my husband and my boys, it was their Grandaddy Robert Lee Humbert, AKA “little papa”.  He passed away a few years.  My husbands cousin asked me to make a quilt from his clothes. So we went and collected a bunch.

     Fast forward a few years and I made her quilt and just sat on the rest.  Last year,  as I was cleaning out my craft room, I decided to make a jean quilt with his overalls and jeans. I am oddly one of those that goes with my heart and mind. I rarely use a pattern and invent my own.

     I cut a bunch of his jeans up into strips.  The largest square that could be cut to was 12.5 inches. So I cut out enough pieces of all sizes.  I then decided to add random pieces of fabric and shirts until each made a 12.5 inch square. All of the fabric used was fabric that also looked like shirting material.

     I decided to lay the quilt out corner to corner from the smallest original square to the largest. To kinda appear like it grew or a sunrise.

     For the backing I used a handkerchief replicating fabric.  Granddaddy always had one in his pocket.  When I saw it, I knew it was perfect!

I put it together last year and pinned it.  I just couldn’t decide how to quilt it. So I let it sit for about 6 months.  Frankie started talking about his Grandaddy everyday around the anniversary of his death.  I picked it up and knew just what to do.  I used a 12.5 inch quilting ruler to start randomly quilting each block with straight lines a little different.

     The binding is a jean material.

The photos are taken at lake Moultrie.  You can barely see the power plant in the background.  He worked at another up the road a bit.  His grandsons followed and 2 work at that plant and now his great grandson is also working in the power industry.