Prep work...........................

I pressed the huge pile of flannel chunks and started cutting.  This pile is 31 three inch tumblers.  They are joining the 84 that were cut last year.  I need to cut a couple hundred more for a small quilt, or use them in a quilt with lots of different shapes.

I needed a few more dark 2" finished triangles, but in the end I cut lots of both dark and light.

I paired the darks and lights and have enough ready to sew 58 little blocks.  

I could use them to make 8" star blocks, or 4" hourglass blocks.  I also could sew them together into a panel to use in the center of a medallion style quilt.  I have lots more scraps the right size to die cut these triangles.

As soon as the tree across the street loses all of its leaves, this tree 2 houses north turns color.  The shape of both trees is similar but they must be two different varieties.

I had a favorite pale pink cactus and a piece broke off when I bumped into it one day.  I had that piece in a little glass on the kitchen window sill for at least 3 years.  It even bloomed there.  Last year I finally planted it and it seems very happy,  The mother plant was repotted last year too and half of it has died. I'm so happy it's offspring is doing so well.

I got the white with pink edging cactus a couple years ago.  I knew there were several small plants in the pot so I pulled them apart and I have two of them and I shared the others with friends.  

 

Miscellany.....................

This is the group removed from the blue batik shelf that are getting moved to the miscellaneous batik shelf.

Yesterday morning I renewed my driver's license.  I didn't have to drive this time. They finally changed the age from 75 to 87 where you have to drive as part of the test.  We are the ONLY state that has this funny business.  I had to drive the last 3 times to get my license since we only get a 2 year license after 80.  The bottom line, I still have my independence.

Last night I finished one long side of binding on the fall color 9 patch.  I'm not in a hurry to finish this one so maybe it will be done next week.

I remembered to get a daylight photo of the cactus that is blooming.  I the background is a bud on a red one.

Farther down on the same table are these 3 almost ready to bloom.  One is white with pink, one champagne, and one pale pink.

I went through another big bin of flannel and found some interesting things.  The triangles on the left can be cut down into half square triangles, and the one on the right have the grain on the long edge so they will be cut into quarter square triangles.  The other option is to sew them together first and then trim them down to the largest size that I can.

I found a small bag with these 2" finished blocks.  It looks like I ran out of dark triangles so I will cut some more.

I also found more strips in that bin so they are going in the bag of random size strips.

We are expecting a frost 2 nights in a row (Fri. & Sat.) so the last 2 days I have been picking tomatoes.  They range from ping pong ball size to a little larger than a golf ball.  Last year I ate my final ripened tomato the first week of December.  Some of these are starting to turn color already.  There are 4th of July, Early Girl and Rutgers plus the mismarked one that I think is an heirloom tomato. There are lots more of even smaller tomatoes on the plants but I doubt I will pick them.

My day in order of events...........

Yesterday I started with trying to get a photo of my Maple tree.  It turned color all in one day and now day 3 it is already dropping its leaves. It's hard to get a good photo of it because there is a Redbud tree directly in front of it.  I used to go into the neighbor's yard to get a photo from the other side but now there is a fence.

I chose the binding fabric for the fall color 9 patch and cut the 7 strips.

Next I took the big bin of flannel pieces and sorted them.  This is the pile of chunks that are going to be cut into a small tumbler shape.

I ended up with a pile of larger pieces in bright colors and kid print flannels and also a pile of muted colors.  I'll cut 6.5" squares from a lot of them.

This pile is all flannel strips, short ones, long ones, etc.  They are irregular widths and I'm waffling on keeping them or throwing them.  Since I have so much flannel yardage, it seems pretty senseless to work with these.

I sewed the binding strips together and sewed them on the quilt last night.

I started the hand stitching on the binding.  It was a productive day, maybe not exciting, but productive.

Busy day...................

Grocery shopping and bill paying was the morning yesterday.  In the afternoon I went out to clean up the tomato plants.  There were lots of dead leaves to trim to give more air flow to the living parts of the plants.  Now I'm waiting for these to ripen.  This is the last 4 days pickings.

I finished hand stitching the binding on this table runner.  It is 12.25" x 35.5".

I sewed 6 of these blocks together for a long table runner for my daughter-in-law.  She wants it as long as her table.  I'll be looking for batting and backing today but I won't finish it this month.

I checked out my boxes of cut pieces of flannel.  There are 3", 4" and 6" tumbler shapes with the most being 4".  I'll start pressing my flannel scraps and do more cutting this week.

 

Binding started..............

Since a table runner can be used with either side up, and people at the table would have a close view of the binding, I decided I needed to hand finish it.  I'm about 2/3 done.

I think the green looks nice with the back too.

I decided I needed a collage of the rest of the flannel quilts I have made since 2007.  This group is 2017 - 2026.  At least 7 of them are baby quilts.  I wanted both collages in the same post so below is the same collage I showed yesterday and it is flannel quilts from 2007 - 2016.

Binding chosen and cut.....................

I had so many household things to take care of yesterday that I only got the binding chosen and cut for this table runner.  I did work on finding a group of fabric that my granddaughter wants but no photo on that.

I was looking back at some flannel quilts I have made since 2007, hoping to decide on some patterns for this year.  This collage is missing all of the ones I have made with the tumbler block.  That is usually my default shape when I need to cut up a lot of scraps.

It was 47 yesterday morning but it got up to 70 with sunshine part of the day.  Tomatoes are ripening a little slower with several days in the 60s but there are lots of green ones left on the plants.  I hope we make it to the end of October before we get a heavy frost or freeze.

Third finish for June 2026....................

I think this is one of my favorite flannel quilts.  It wasn't planned, it just used blocks I had made previously and rectangles that were resting in a project box.  I don't think I'll ever get tired of making 16 patch blocks.

I bought the leaf print flannel on sale recently and added a piece left over from another back to make it wide enough.  This quilt is 47' x 71".  I used Hobbs 80/20 batting and it was longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.

Yesterday I spent several hours in the basement and one of the things accomplished was cutting the backing and batting for the floral stars quilt.  

I found the lid to one of my large plastic bins.  I mentioned a while back that one of my goals is finding all of the lids and matching boxes and reuniting them.  A lot of times I used a lid as a tray to carry cut pieces and then I never returned it to its box.  I'm making headway but I still have lids to a lot of the small boxes to match up.

Trimming, cutting binding..................

I got this flannel quilt trimmed yesterday and then looked for a binding fabric.

I started looking in a box of flannel fabrics where I knew there were bright ones but didn't think I would find anything to use on this quilt.  Surprise!  This brown one was in there and it looks great with the quilt.  I got the strips cut and started sewing on it last night.

The Geranium is in full bloom with even more buds to bloom later.  The new self watering pots are working out great.

I spent over an hour yesterday trying to get a better photo of the floral star quilt, trying to catch the intensity of the floral fabrics.  Also I was trying to get one that wasn't so crooked.  About 20 tries later I finally got one that satisfied me and I replaced the bad photo in this post. 

Everything else................

I had lots of everything else before I got to cutting backing pieces for this flannel quilt.  The fabric on the right will be the wide piece on the back and the one on the left is the narrow piece.

I started the day yesterday meeting with my longarm quilter and passing the parts for 2 quilts to her.  We also had to catch up on happenings in the last month since I hadn't seen her for several weeks.

About an hour after she left my 5th grade through high school friend called and we talked for over an hour.  A little later I was doing laundry.  The large table that I cut batting and backings on was empty so I am preparing the next 2 quilts to send out.  I use the table for sorting and cutting fabric so I need to do the large cutting before the table is cluttered again.

I didn't get to planting pots but put all of the plants out in the fresh air for a couple hours and also watered everything.  I hope to get back to sewing soon, hopefully later today.

First quilt finish for March 2026.................

Photographing flannel is a little tricky.  It looks blurry but actually is just soft.  The top was made 2 years ago and finally it is a finished quilt.  It is 53" x 70".  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and it was longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.

The backing is a flannel I found on sale.  It is a little heavier than most flannels and it is a yarn dyed woven design, not a print.  One long panel has the stripe running vertical and the remainder was cut into two crosswise strips and sewn end to end to make it wide enough, thus the stripe is running horizonal on that edge.  The binding is a yarn dyed woven flannel stripe.

I had one more quilt needing binding so I chose that yesterday and cut the strips.

Last  night I sewed on the binding and finished it by machine.  I'll do its photo shoot today.

 

Binding finished................

I found a flannel stripe for the binding on this flannel quilt.  I didn't get the binding done until 9:30 last night so I'll do photos today.  I made the quilt top in 2024 but didn't have anything I liked for the back.  I found a good match for it on sale last year and now it is finished this year.

I'm so happy for each and every one of the cacti blooms since there are so few of them in this second blooming time.

This white with pink edging looks mostly pink in the low light in the morning by the west window.

We ended up with another quarter inch of rain so there was 1" total.  We need a lot more than that and there is some more in this week's forecast, but first we will have 2 warm days in the 60s, sunshine predicted.

 

Trimming and ditch quilting..................

This quilt came home from the longarmer yesterday and I got it trimmed last night.  I'll choose binding today.

I chose the thread to quilt the Hunter Star table runner.  All of the fabrics in the runner are from one fabric, an ombre print by Nancy Crow.

With two TV shows to watch last night, I finished the ditch quilting on the table runner.  I'll trim it today and choose its binding.

Rain expected today in 2 waves.  I hope we get more than we got 2 days ago which was only a few hundredths of an inch in the rain gauge.

First quilt top for March 2026..................

I love it when I can take a bunch of parts laying around and make a quilt top.  For this one I just needed to make 2 more flannel 16 patch blocks.  There was a box of squares and rectangles that make up the scrappy border.  It is 47" x 71.5", close to the 50" x 70" size I like for throw quilts.  Most of these flannels are from the 1990s when the browns were very popular.

I decided to put these blocks and sewn panels up on the design wall.  The last time I had them out was 6 1/2 years ago.  I have totally lost interest in making these into a quilt.  My daughter-in-law wants a table runner the length of her table and I need to measure it to see if a column of this quilt will work.  I can see making placemats out of the loose blocks, 3 to a placemat.  They would end up about 14" x 20".

This is a picture of the pattern.  It was fun making the blocks in 2013 but once the assembly started, I lost interest in it.  I have other things planned, fun things, so I want to salvage these blocks in other projects and move on.

I pulled out a ball of cotton yarn a few days ago and started this dishcloth.  I couldn't tell from looking at the ball what the colors were.  It is a very subtle change between the 4 colors.  This was a newer ball of yarn, and I had been reading the reviews online by previous buyers.  Several of them mentioned the yarn wasn't soft any more.  I had to agree with them on this one, but in reality, a little stiffer yarn is perfect for washing dishes.