Dolls quilts and tea time for bears.....

In my quest to finish 15 UFOs this year, I added one more finish to my list. This quilt was started back in 2013 for one of Lori at Humble Quilts QALs. Who knows why it sat awaiting only the last strip of sawtooth border and quilting? I will edit my post later and let you know the size. I am at Cranberry Cottage for a quilter's weekend and forgot to measure it. 

This QAL was all about using on orphan block and creating a quilt around it. This block was left over sample block from my basic patchwork course I taught years ago. You forget over the years that those simple blocks you use to teach quilting are just beautiful blocks. I just love how this little doll quilt turned out! Thanks Lori for encouraging us to grab those orphans and give them a home. 

It prompted even the name for my quilt. 

Wednesday was busy day for Yona. He had a visit from his brother now named Muis (Mouse) who is seated on the right and his teacher Beer (Bear) seated in the middle. 

When Wilma and I finished our bearmaking classes, I invited our teacher Annemieke and Wilma to my home for a Teddy Bear High Tea. Of course, those three bears could not be left out! Yona had fun helping met set the table before our guests arrived and left a naughty mess on the table. He put bear paws (in the form of chocolate brownies) and bear poop (chocolate covered peanuts) all over the table. Silly bear!

I wanted to send Wilma and Annemieke home with a special reminder of our afternoon so I made them each a bear mug rug as a gift. 

That same evening, Beer was back home again with Annemieke and crawled into his bed with his mug rug to use as his very own quilt. Thanks Annemieke once again for sharing your talent for bears with us and for allowing me to share this photo of your own sweet bear. 

Heidi

American Tiles - a rag quilt

Being busy with UFOs means less online time for me. My blog has been neglected while my quilting is having a big boost of progress. I finished two UFOs in February. One was the 50 Hearts Jubilee quilt which I already shared and the second is this rag tile quilt. I used this as a sample project last year with our group group's theme of rag applique but did not get the quilt done. Since I set a goal of finishing 15 projects in 2015, this was at the top of the list. A simple and fun quilt to make...

All you need is one charm pack and a piece of background fabric. I pulled out the squares that I wanted to keep whole and then started cutting some of the charms in half for two rectangles and some in 4 small squares. Start placing them on the quilt background to test your placement starting at the top left corner working across and then down. In the end, I had one rectangle and three small squares left over which I used for the quilt label. Pin each piece in place on a quilt sandwich (background fabric placed on top of a piece of batting and backing fabric) as you will be quilting this by sewing each piece in place. Machine sew each piece in place 1/4 inch from the raw edge of each fabric. 

I have not thrown this in the washing machine and am not sure I will. I might simple keep picking threads here and there to ravel the edges. It would make a great playtime quilt for children using fun fabrics. The biggest job was tucking in all my threads when I was done sewing. 

Heidi