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.

Sewing and garden.....................

I made the third block (not pressed) and added it to the other two for a table runner top.

I changed to 60 weight 2 ply thread and put the single hole plate on my machine to make a couple of the tiny bowties.  I didn't turn on the iron yesterday.

I will need to cut some more pieces to make some more blocks.  I was happy they really came out to the right size.  Sometimes with tiny pieces the blocks come out a bit smaller than they are supposed to.

After 3 days near or above 80, everything is growing fast.  This is the Columbine in the back garden.  I have 2 in the front garden that are good sized also.

There are a lot of Lungwort plants here and there all over the back garden.

Three days ago I didn't see any Hosta plants when looking out my kitchen window.  Now they are about 5" tall.

The three Lenten Rose plants have grown a lot in the last few days too.  All of those other plants are the invasive Bellflowers.  Between them and the million Lily of the Valley, they are choking out a lot of other plants.

The Redbud trees might bloom quicker than normal too because we have a couple more warm days coming up.  I'm still getting used to the white fence backdrop to my nature photos.

 

March 2026 monthly recap....................

Three quilts were finished in March.  On the left a flannel quilt, the top made 2 years ago.  It is 53" x 70".  In the center is Kaffe Strippy 2, the top was finished last December.  It is 47.5" x 71".  On the right is Floral Hourglasses, made with mostly 1990s floral fabrics in December 2024.  It is 53" x 64.5".  They were all quilted by Robin Diaz.

I worked on several quilt tops but only two made it to the finish line by the end of the month.  The top on the left is all Marcia Derse fabrics, 70 different prints.  It is the "other 16 patch" made with rectangles rather than squares.  It is 63.5" x 80".  On the right is a flannel quilt top.  Most of the 16 patch blocks were made over a year ago and the rectangles were all cut and in a project box.  It was a fast and easy top to make.  It is 47" x 71.5".

I made the top of this table runner many years ago and it hung on a hanger all those years waiting for me to finish it.  As usual it only took a couple hours for the finish.  It is 12" x 35.5".

Finished last night, table runner with Marcia Derse fabric.  I hand finished the binding, finishing at 10 p.m.  It is 13" x 42".

The back is one of Marcia Derse's large prints that accompany her lines most years. 

The table runner...............

I knew there were several rust color Nancy Crow fabrics that might work for the binding and this one is the winner.

It took over 2 hours to hand finish the binding last night.  I pieced the Hunter Star blocks in October 2014 and sewed them end to end for this table runner.  I have had the batting cut for it for several years.  Some things just don't take priority and this was one of them.  It is 12" x 35.5".

The backing is the remainder of a fabric I used for a quilt back many years ago.

I mentioned earlier that the pieces were all cut from one Nancy Crow ombre fabric.  Here is a piece in another color range so you can see what I was working with.

We got a little over 3/4" of rain in the daylight hours yesterday.  More rain was supposed to come overnight so I'll check the rain gauge this morning.

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.

Play day on the first day of the month.................

I usually don't get started working on anything the first day of the new month, but yesterday I got busy.  First I found a backing for this table runner which I pieced several years ago.  I think it is the first project I made when I got the Hunter Star cutting die.

I decided to have a little fun looking through a collection of fabrics that I bought several years ago.  It is all Kathy Doughty fabric.  I have a couple of Kathy's books and have made a few quilts from one of them and one quilt from another one.

But...that wasn't all of them.  Here are a few more pieces that will work with the large bird prints.

And there are more......

Last night I decided to take the flannel 16 patches and put them on the design wall.  I have 38 blocks so there are 3 more on my table.  I need to make 2 more for another row.  My plan is to use the rectangles and squares as a border.  I think I'm going to remove the very darkest ones and use only the medium tones.

Table runner and black and white...........................

 The hand stitched binding was finished last night on this table runner.  It is all Marcia Derse fabrics.  The back is the same fabric as the binding.  It is 14.75" x 40".

You might find the rest of this post boring, but since it is my diary/journal I use it to document some things.  Today I am documenting the batik black and white fabrics.

Yesterday I sorted them by more than a quarter yard, quarter yard or less but full width, and chunks/small pieces narrower than full width.

I would estimate that 85% of them are Bali brand batiks.  They aren't as silky of a batik and some of them were only 40 inches wide.

The largest percentage of my Bali batiks were purchased 1991 - 2000.  Batiks were new to the quilt shops in the early 1990s and Bali was one of the first brands available.

Hoffman batiks were more mid 1990s in the area I live in.  They might have been available in other areas sooner.

Hoffman only had a few black and white batiks in the beginning, more being added in the last decade.

I mentioned yesterday that I had a lot more variety than what was shown in those 2 photos.  You can probably believe me now.

This is the end of the crisp black and white batiks in my collection.  I'm happy I'll have these photos to refer back to.

This group has a lot of gray tone or off white in them so I'll probably keep them separate now.

I think I may have shown this one when I purchased it.  I don't know how I will use it but I thought it was so interesting.  It is a true white in it.

This is the pile of the chunks, narrower than full width.

I have a lot of regular fabric prints in black and white too.  I posted this photo of them last year.  I had just rearranged some of my stash so it looks nice and neat.

Machine quilting................

The table runner made with Marcia Derse fabric has been nagging me to get finished.  Finally last night I chose this Invisafil thread and changed my bobbin thread and got busy.

I chose the easiest block to ditch quilt first.  Can't see the quilting?  That's the point with ditch quilting.  Of course you can find a couple places where I wandered a little out of the ditch.

The last block was the hardest to find a continuous line of stitching.  I had to do a few stops and tie offs to get the whole block finished.  I have the binding already cut, so all I need to do now is trim the piece.

The day yesterday started with grocery shopping and PT in the afternoon.  I also updated my finishing journal.  Usually I have 3 pages, one page for each size group.  This year, since I only had 19 tops to carry over into 2026, and the fact that I'm not making as many large quilts (81" or longer on the longest side), I was able to put the medium size and large size on the same page.  I would like to get down to 10 or less tops as carryovers for next year.