Latest Schnibbles is Taking Shape

This is the Schnibbles pattern chosen for this month’s Parade of Schnibbles, hosted by Sherri and Sinta, a design called Lincoln. While I love the red, cream and blue and it is appropriate for July, I had a cute packet of fabrics brought to me by a friend while I was convalescing and it just pushed its way to the front and demanded to be used.  So I did, sewing and ironing with my foot up (it’s quite a feet feat).

Think this real estate is getting crowded?  I didn’t want to take down the quilt on the left, so just folded it over while I put my quilt up on the wall.  In looking at it, I knew the name: Citrus.  What else to call a quilt with lime, lemon and bold orange in it?

Sewn top.  I cropped it so you wouldn’t have to see my messy pin wall.  But I’ve put a tea towel on the back of every Schnibbles so far, and what to put on this one?  I thought about going by the Citrus Historical Park, where I thought they may have something. Then I looked on the towel rack in my kitchen (the oven door) and there it was–a citrus-themed tea towel!

My sister brought it to me because my kitchen is yellow, and maybe because we carried a sack of oranges up to her in the snowy mountain west last February, a ray of sunshine from our home town’s harvest.  But I hope she won’t mind that I put it into service here. I whipped it off the rack, washed up up and bordered it with fabrics from the front.

One beauty of making small quilts is that I get to piece my scraps of batting hanging out in my closet and use them in the quilt.  I lay the scraps side-by-side on my  cutting mat, overlapping the sides I want to seam.  Then I take my rotary cutter and make a wavy cut in them–a long, slow wavy cut.  I butt those seams side by side, and using a stitched-zig-zag in a 9.0 width, I zig-zag the seams closed.  It makes a nearly invisible join with no ridges.

Citrus is all pinned up.  I’m actually getting some projects ready for our little quilt group (The Good Heart Quilters) is getting together for a retreat this weekend.  I have learned that it’s too busy to do intensive thinking, so it’s better to go prepared with projects I can sew while chatting away.

This coming January, our quilt group will have been going strong for about 15 years.  We generally meet about 7 or 8 times a year, always on the first Friday of every month just after 7 p.m.  When we were all younger, we stayed until 2 and 3 in the morning, but now we’re all packed up and gone by 10:30 p.m.  Here’s some photos from June’s get together:

We met at Leisa’s house this time; we rotate where’s we’ll meet.

What I tried to work on–this is when I remembered it’s best not to have too brain-draining of a project to stitch/cut!

Bridget is a new quilter, but look what she turned out!

Laurel finished the quilt she started last fall–a combination of piecing and appliqué.

JoDy showed us her cool round tablecloth, made with a wedge ruler. . .

. . .then flipped it over and showed us the back!

She also finished a reversible table runner.

Caitlyn (L) recently ran a half-marathon with Lisa (R) who is a marathoner.  Lisa showed off their medal. ( That’s a pair of scissors on a magnetized disk on Lisa’s shoulder, not a fancy broach or something!)  Our retreat will be at Lisa’s house–she did one last year and we had such fun, we’re doing it again.

Of course, we have to have food!

Deneese is coming along on her Chevron quilt.

Lisa showed off a newly completed UFO–it was one of the early quilt block exchanges we did, in patriotic colors.

Lisa G. finished her quilt top–I love that spoon/fork fabric.

Looking forward to this weekend’s retreat!

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Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.