Mystery Clue 5 + A Christmas Finish

Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, clue 5 came out on Friday, December 23rd. More purple!!! Plus neutrals. She had us make 64 purple and neutral half square triangles. Here are 63 of mine:



Now, here are the neutrals I picked out this time around. I especially love the shoes print, given to me by a Japanese quilt friend. A few good sewing themed neutrals in there, also.



Here are the purples I pulled out to work with. The Vikings fabric is leftover from a bandana I made for our grand-dog:



Pressing the garland of HSTs:







And clues 1 through 5 in my storage box:



As soon as I finished clue 5, I worked on finishing my "By the Seashore" quilt. I made the blocks at a recent staff quilt retreat for Quilt Cove, at The Getaway.  I quilted it a week ago, so just had the binding left to do.



This pattern is the cover quilt from the book "Striking Strip Quilts" by Kate Henderson. It's kind of surprising that it's a jelly roll quilt--at first glance, it doesn't seem to be. The jelly roll is batiks. The fabric line is Latitude, by Kate Spain for Moda. The white background is Grunge in vanilla.



I quilted it using a design I really like, called "Harbour Wave". For the backing, I used a dark colonial blue queen size velour blanket from Costco. It was $19.99--less expensive than Minkee. BUT, quilting it is not for the faint of heart! It's quite a bit thicker, and one has to move the machine slower. But it worked out great in the end:



And here is my finished quilt top. I made 5 more blocks than the pattern called for, in an effort to use up all 40 strips from the jelly roll. Plus, we're all tall in my family, so we like our quilts longer.



Linking up to Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Monday Link-up,
Crazy Mom Quilts

Grace and peace!

Mystery Clue 4 + A Little Christmas!

Instructions for clue 4 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, En Provence, were revealed last Friday, and we are having too much fun! This week our job is to make 80 units like these 2:

A lot of cutting and trimming going on:

And of course, a lot of pressing. I love my new Oliso iron, and how it saves on my wrist. Here's a podcast with an interview of the inventor of the Oliso iron:  Sit & Sew Radio. Start listening from minute 33. He talks about why he invented an iron that doesn't have to be propped up.

Here's an assortment of my units from clue 4:

And all my units from clues 1 through 4:

With Christmas coming up in a week, here are a few of our decorating traditions. The Christmas stocking that DD1 made for our family, when she was in 6th grade, her own design:

Our Christmas village, which has 2 churches, and more trees than buildings!

And our Christmas tree, with all the home made decorations and memories:

Linking up to Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Monday Link-up,
Confessions of a Fabric Addict,
Crazy Mom Quilts,
Busy Hands Quilts.

Grace and peace!

Purple Fun!!!

Friday, December 9th, 2016, was the day that Bonnie Hunter's 3rd clue was revealed for her current mystery quilt, En Provence.  It involves light and dark purples--as many as one can stir up!



For this clue, we made 168 4-patches. I found the Bloc-Loc Strip Set Ruler very helpful for this clue.



Here's a photo of the whole ruler. It can be used turned either way, depending on the width of your strip sets.



Part of the assembly line:



Chain piecing at my sewing machine:



And all 3 clues together, with paint chips in the colors of the quilt, in a project box:



I'm including the Best 9 of 2016 from my Instagram account, which is also Graceandpeacequilting:



They are, top to bottom, left to right: 1. No y-seam feathered star, made by me, 2. Star Crossed, made by Sue, my quilting cousin, and quilted by me, 3. Tula Pink 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, made by me and quilted by Angela Walters, 4. Vintage Cotton Reel mini quilt, made by me, 5. 15 Degree Ruler quilt, made by me, 6. 84 teddy bears for Mother Bear Project, made by DD2, Susanna, and me, 7. American Honey mini quilt, made by me, 8. Candy quilt made by Mary, quilted by me, 9. My Plus mini quilt made from 2 1/2" fabric squares.

Linking up to Bonnie Hunter's blog--Quiltville Link-up Party,
 Crazy Mom Quilts,
Confessions of a Fabric Addict,
and TGIFF.

Grace and peace!

A Scrapbaggers Christmas

I'm in a very active small quilt group called The Scrapbaggers. Every year we think up a new Christmas gift exchange idea. This year we decided to make a winter themed quilt that we frame, "Fit To Be Framed", we called it. We decided the theme would be "winter", not Christmas, so we can hang them for several more months.

Here's the adorable framed patchwork snowmen I received, made by Tracy! It's hanging at our front entryway.



This is a group photo of all the "Fit To Be Framed" items made by our group of eleven. They were each wrapped, and had a number put on them. Then we drew numbers for gifts.



I made this Feathered Star. The pattern is paper pieced and is available free from here: No Y Seam Feathered Star, by Jess at Threaded Quilting Studio. You can see many versions of this pattern on Instagram.

The pattern comes in 8", 12" and 16". I made the 12" block and downsized it to 11", since the frame said 12" X 12", but the outside part is actually 11 1/2" X 11 1/2"!  Annemarie of Quilts Remembered was the recipient.



Here's a close-up of the adorable piece I received from Tracy. She was inspired by something she saw on Pinterest and made it up from there. I love it!!!



Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts,
Confessions of a Fabric Addict,
Busy Hands Quilts

Grace and peace!

Mystery Clue #2

The Bonnie Hunter En Provence mystery quilt is in full swing now, and us quilters are having a blast! Clue #2 came out on Friday, December 2nd, and here are my results--100 pyramid-like 3 1/2" squares, made from scraps!



Here's a view of me working away in our sewing studio, while watching Bonnie's quilt cam.



This clue uses the Tri Recs rulers:



I learned this tip from Bonnie's quilt cam--sew two pairs at a time, the engine and the caboose. That kept everything in neat, tidy order.



And here's clue #1 and #2 sitting side-by-side in a Costco project box. Clue #3 comes out on Friday, December 9th.



Linking up to Quiltville Link-up Party. I am #144.

Grace and peace!!!

Bonnie Hunter Mystery 2016 Kick-Off!!!

That amazing scrap quilter/blogger, Bonnie Hunter, runs a free mystery quilt every year between Black Friday and New Years. This year the quilt is called "En Provence". It is inspired by a trip she made to France this year, 2016, especially the fields of lavender she saw there.



This is my first time to sew along with Bonnie and thousands of quilters, via her blog. Here are the paint chip colors for the mystery quilt. It's done as a scrap quilt, so raid one's stash for these colors, and the more variety of fabrics, the better!



The clues come out every Friday. The first clue has been a simple, albeit time consuming one: sew 221 neutral colored 4-patches.



Check out the back, how the seam allowances "spin".



The next clue comes out on Friday, December 2!

Linking up to: Bonnie's blog, for the Link-up Party. I'm #124.
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Crazy Mom Quilts

Grace and peace!!!

Mini Quilt Finishes!

I've been working on a few miniature quilts for my stairway quilt gallery recently. I have 3 finishes to share.

This first is a giant spool of thread, made from 120 different fabrics! The squares finish at 1". The pattern is Vintage Cotton Reel Mini Quilt by Tied With a Ribbon.



I quilted it with matchstick quilting. The backing is a bit of extra-wide backing I have left over from a previous project. It lists the names of colors from the Crayola Crayon box. I bought the original piece from Massdrop. Check out the Quilting Community on Massdrop for some unusual items at great prices.



My next quilt was put together with glue! I cut out the circles, arranged them, glued them down with fabric glue, then pressed them dry with the iron, to set them.



The quilting needs to be heavy in this case, to hold the fabrics in place. I did one of my favorite edge-to-edge freehand motifs on my longarm.



I had a bit more of the Crayola Crayon color names fabric for the backing. That was my last smidgen.



And mini quilt #3 is this Sunburst quilt, done in miniature. The blocks finish at 6". It's made from Liberty of London fabrics, also from Massdrop--a Christmas present from my son!



Binding and backing is this Moda sateen finish fabric, bought from the 200 yen bin at Yuzawaya in Tokyo, Japan. Quilting is a freehand leaf motif.



And here are photos of the stairway quilt gallery so far! The modern wall:



And here's the Japanese & traditional wall:



Linking up to: Crazy Mom Quilts--Finish It Up Friday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict--Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?!
Busy Hands Quilts--Finished Or Not Friday

Grace and peace!

Batiks, Bears & Boxes

Here's a quilt I quilted recently for Wendy.  Many of Wendy's quilts are made from batik fabrics. She made this one for her son's bed.



It has a definite modern look to it. The batting is wool, so the quilting shows up great, and it is light, fluffy and warm! I quilted it with an edge-to-edge called "Modernish 3".



The backing is also batik. I changed thread colors three times on this quilt--from light grey to medium grey to dark grey.



Two of my Mother Bears have made it safely to children in Africa!



 It is so much fun to get the photos of the children with one's very own bear in their arms!



This is Operation Christmas Child shoebox collection week! We have been working on them all year and have 50 boxes to turn in. We are taking them to 5 different collection locations, just so they get mixed up a bit and will maybe go to several different countries then.



We have volunteered at the Operation Christmas Child Processing Center in the Twin Cities the last two years. While there, we noticed the fewest boxes were for boys, ages 10 - 14.



We made 25 boxes for that category this year, each including a soccer ball & pump, plus a t-shirt.

Here's a video DD2 put on YouTube--What to pack in a boy's 10-14 year old shoebox.



The next most needed category is for girls, ages 10 - 14. We made 25 boxes for that category, also, each including a knit shirt made by DD2 and a stuffed animal.

And here's her video--What to pack in a girl's 10-14 year old shoebox.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts--Finish It Up Friday
and Confessions of a Fabric Addict--Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?!
Busy Hands Quilts--Finished Or Not Friday

Grace and Peace!!!