The tree so far

I've added the tree to my wall hanging, and embroidered it, but there is much more to do, as I plan to embroider a saying on the bottom, and add borders. Meanwhile, I've gathered together left over bits of strings and blocks and made a border on the fungly quilt. I hope to pin baste it later today, maybe. It will no doubt be a "museum piece" when finished. And I have so many projects going at once--knitting a vest for my librarian daughter--surprises for my granddaughters--crocheting a sweater for myself--making a table runner--the list goes on! Meanwhile, a new crochet book arrived.

The fungly quilt, so far

This is so much fun! I'm really enjoying myself. Some of these fabrics were remnants from the dime store (when dime stores did sell fabrics!). And some of them were cut-offs that I got at rummage sales. In those years, when I was raising three kids, money didn't grow on trees, and there were no fancy quilt stores. The yard goods store was where I bought fabric to make summer dresses and blouses. The left-over bits went into my quilts. I made a few of these blocks especially for the fungly quilt, and the rest were just sample blocks and failed projects. I started thinking, "Is my quilt fungly enough?" Then I realized that that's not the "fungly way" to think! I'm also enjoying visiting other people's blogs to see their fungly masterpieces. I'm going to add a fungly border---to be continued--

Fungly sampler quilt

This is what my fungly quilt is looking like on my "design bed." I'm calling it a sampler quilt. Remember years ago, people made sampler quilts in shades of brown calico? I made strips of the blocks and I have to join them together. I wanted to get them to be approximately the same width. But this is not the final order of the blocks yet. I happen to have a very big piece of that strange brownish solid color. So I'm using that for the sashes. I once was fascinated by the quilt block called "Practical Orchard." But I had a hard time figuring out how to make all the bits of the block fit together, and how to set the quilt. There's my two failed attempts at the quilt block in the fungly. A good place for them. I have lots of stuff for the border of the quilt, and I'm having so much fun so far.

fungly fungly

I'm sure that most people have read an old English novel--you know the kind--the sweet young thing is seduced into eloping with the evil, rakish fellow, and she is "ruined." Tonya--these fungly quilt blocks have ruined me. I now can take a pile of scraps, and with little forethought, whip out a rather crooked quilt block in about 20 or so minutes! And it's so much fun, I may never make a fussy, exacting, quilt police quilt again! I didn't even know what kind of pattern this was going to be when I began. Between these blocks, and the mess of odd blocks and parts of blocks that I found it an old box of mine--I don't know how fungly I will achieve!

Fun fun fungly

This is a fun idea of Tonya's (Lazy Girl)--to make fungly quilts. (Although some of my quilts are fungly to begin with, I guess.) Here's some of my blocks. The blocks are going to be a lot of different sizes and patterns. So I think I'll have problems joining them all together. I was thinking that I will sort them out by size and just join them in rows, not worrying about how everything matches up at all. Suggestions are welcome. I have several old blocks that I made at various times, and did not use for obvious reasons! Also I have strings that were left over from borders. I plan to add these in and I'll end up with a large quilt, I guess (there's that many of these old blocks). Looking off into the future, if I ever finish this thing, I will no doubt tie the quilt instead of quilting it. Got to join some more of these triangles and squares together. To be continued...

My quilt is finished

Here's my quilt, all finished and someone was visiting me who was kind enough to hold it up for it's photo. This quilt was a great way to use up some really old scraps. And as my daughter has told me numerous times, "Mom you can't have too much turquoise."
Speaking of old scraps--Lazy Girl (Tonya) on her blog has challenged folks to make "fungly" quilts, using up some really old, ugly, fabrics, with some very questionable seams. I have been looking through my baskets, and I think I have a real head start on this! I have some of the worst sample blocks and bits of fabric. I guess that other people would have tossed them out long ago. Actually, I did have to toss out two bags of scraps that I have finally pronounced as totally useless--not even good enough for a quilt such as the above.

Time to do a little happy dance--my baby toes plant has bloomed! I don't know why, but the little flower is a big deal to me!

A quilted gas station

Dear friends, You must check out http://www.internationalfibercollaborative.com/pages/documentation_of_installation.html
to see the Quilted Gas Station!

Meander quilting hints

Here's some of my hints for meander quilting. My machine has a button that lowers the feed dogs. I have a darning foot for it. I set the machine to sew the smallest stitch--I don't know if that really works, but I think it does. I have those little rubber finger covers. I put the quilt edge under the needle, and press the needle-down button on the machine. I remove some of the safety pins from the pin basting. Hold the quilt under the needle as flat as you can. What I do is sew across the quilt towards me, in a kind of squiggly line, slowly moving the fabric, while pressing down on the foot pedal as if I'm going 100 miles an hour. I just make squiggles. And I'm not too fussy, either. Lately I've not been quilting as closely together as I used to, leaving an inch or two space between the quilting squiggles. I use a polyester batt, the thin kind. I haven't used a cotton batt in many years. Sometimes I try writing on the quilt, names, or "love" or something. It's fun for the recipients of the quilt to find their names written in the quilting.

My latest projects

I'm meander quilting my quilt at the present time. This is the second section, I have the first half quilted already. My amigurumi panda bear is supervising. Yep, that's my cassette tape collection in the corner of the photo. I have quite a few, since years ago, when my children grew up and moved out and left me their old tapes, plus the ones I bought before we had a CD player. Imagine that, in our pre-computer days.

I have to boast about my green thumb. I love to grow cheery flowers on my patio. This plant is three years old now, but still hanging on. It likes to get plant food on a regular basis.

The sky and water fabrics were difficult for me to find. I've been wanting to make an applique wall hanging for ages. A big tree goes in the middle. I have to make a sketch for it. Then, I'll probably try some paper cut-outs to decide on the size.

This is how it looks today, I'm getting it ready to quilt. And to the people who wrote to me that aren't my family members--well you're free to copy the "pattern," such as it is. The centers are 5 1/2 inches by 8 1/2 and the strips were cut 2 inches wide.

Good news about my quilting today, I've finished the quilt top. And I'm going to look through my fabrics for something for the backing today. I want to get it quilted right away. This quilt is sort of an orphan, as I don't have anyone special in mind to receive it. So this is a hint to my family members who read my blog, you have a chance to get your dibs in.