Pineapple Quilt Finish (last year)

The Scrappy Pineapple Quilt is one of the few quilts I finished last year (June 2024)

It all began during the Covid lock-down (March 2020) and no I-net. 

The blocks (42) are paper pieced and made entirely from my strips 'collection'. 

Each block has 53 pieces. The strips finish at 3/4" / approximately 2 cm. 

2226 small pieces pieced together.

The quilt top was finished in May 2021,  and  thread basted January 2023. 

I couldn't come up with a way to quilt it and it was set aside. 

I was searching I-net for ideas and came across this design and knew that is what it has to be! More about that (my frustration!) here. 

The quilting is easier to see on the back.

Just admit you've noticed the puckering! I ensure you they are from folding the quilt and not from the quilting! LOL 

For the back I've used a floral piece I've had for a while. It has red/pink/cream flowers on teal. The outer border is mottled brown. I did not get the right color on this photo, the brown shows warmer than it actually is. The photo below shows the colors better.

Closeup of the back.

Size: 77-1/2 x 66-1/2 inches / 1.97 x 1.69 meters

Fabrics (front and back): All from my stash

Batting: Frankenbatting  (from my stash)

First block: Covid lock-down (March 2020)

All blocks / Flimsy: May 2021

Thread basted: January 2023

Finished: June 2024

Pineapple Quilt under the Needle and Other UFO updates

My 2024 goal is to finish some UFOs.

Beginning January, my UFO list looked like this! Not very uplifting, right?!

There has been other funnier things to work on and that famous squirrel has popped in off and on too! 

No more pink RSC for me (here and here)! Except a small update to be posted Saturday. That means I can concentrate on other pending things. 

Yesterday I pulled out the scrappy pineapple quilt. It was already thread basted (last year), and set aside because I wasn't sure how to quilt it. I didn't feel for doing the easy meandering or loopy swirls quilting, it needed to be something else. 

Then I came across Mary Huey's blogpost where she shows how she has quilted a pineapple quilt. Her quilt is beautiful, isn't it?!

I tried to follow her diagram, first the 'green line'. Poop! Mathematics and such have never been my thing, I could not figure out how it was done! Worst brain fart ever!!! 

Well, I did start eventually, the light areas, where I've quilted 'diamonds'. I've done the short side and two rows on the long side. So far I like it. At least I was able to do it (short side) from one side to the other in one go. It's here I messed up, so for the long side I have to quilt one 'diamond' at a time (more threads to bury! Sigh!). 

I have to figure out how I want to do the dark areas. On my domestic 'dear Nina', I'm not going to attempt the 'twist and turn' red lines as you can see in Huey's diagram! That would be too much wrestling! 

Here's an update of finished UFOs: 

#23 - Norwegian Flag Table Runner - finished January 9, 2024

#10 - Blue & White Irish Chain Quilt - finished January 2024

#24 - Small Gnome Quilt - finished May 2024

#20 - Bases Loaded Purple Quilt - finished May 13, 2024

I was going to take photos today, but the weather does not cooperate; rain showers and gusts up to 31 mph. 

...and this is 'Miss Sophie', checking out my sewing extension table and ruler! She's a rescue, feral Cat-Mama left her in our garden. I believe she's born middle January, still a crazy loving kitty! 

 

Progress on UFO's - AGAIN!

UFO's! UFO's! UFO's! That's what has been going on since my previous post! I have not started anything new, even if that has been very tempting a few times. I'm determined to finish as many UFO's as possible this year and so far so good! The PSQ #1 and the Scrappy Christmas Quilt - here - are both FINISHED! No photos yet. 

The last couple of weeks, I've been working on PSQ #2 and the Pineapple Quilt. For the PSQ #2, the blocks were done last year, but not pieced together. As you can see here, 3 blocks were missing (still not found!). New blocks were made and a flimsy was born! 

Does it happen you add pieces of batting together? I do, I zigzag the pieces together. I'm running out of batting and for this quilt I have pieced five pieces together to make it big enough.

A sneak peek of the pieced backing. I always pin and thread baste the 3 layers together before quilting. I've had my share of puckers when using pins only and don't want a repeat of wasted time ripping seams! I was wondering why the cat was so quiet and to where he had disappeared... HA! Under the table, on the quilt! Cats always find the best place to keep warm.

Poor 'Dear Nina'! This is how the bobbin case looked like after less than half of the quilt was quilted!

 It's all done and I hope to get the scrappy binding on by the weekend. 

42 blocks! Phyllis over at Jambearies suggested I add an additional row on one side and one at the bottom and call it quit, to make it a good size throw. ...and so I did!...so far! I'm not going to make more of these blocks, at least not for awhile! LOL. Elzaan over at Huisvlyt suggests a piano key border! ... which means the quilt would keep growing! I think that would look nice, but really, am I willing to add more work to it? I have to decide on backing too. Any suggestion? Scrappy? I may have some 'ugly' fabric that can be used. 

Removing the paper from each block took F-O-R-E-V-E-R! 

At one point, while making the pineapple blocks, it didn't look like it made any dent in the amount of strips at all! But now, after sorting strips - again - the amount is reduced from two to one box! Yippie!!!

HAPPY QUILTING!!!

Scrappy Pineapple Blocks and Lockdown

Good Monday morning!

I hope your week has been a good one and that you have been busy in your sewing room. We are on partly lockdown until April 30, 2021. I'm not going to say much about it except that we are allowed shopping etc twice a week only, on alphabetical orders. It works fine with us, one just have to adapt. Of course I miss my daily (almost daily) walk. Yep, we are not even allowed to go for a walk or take our dog for a walk! It has been raining almost daily for the last week, too wet for yard work, which is long overdue. Due to the lockdown restrictions, we also missed our sweetest girl's 5th birthday! Same happened last year! After watching the photos her Mom sent, I know she had a fabulous birthday. Hopefully next year we will be able to celebrate her birthday together.  

Thank goodness I have fabric and thread to keep me busy! Thanks to all of you who commented on my previous post. I did listen! 

The scrappy pineapple quilt has grown from 16 (previous post) to 30 blocks! If I stop here, it will measure about 55 x 66 inches / 140 x 167 cm, lap quilt size. I'm tempted to make it into a twin size quilt! What do you think? It has made a small dent in the scrap (strips) boxes, and there's enough for more blocks. 

 I love the 'circles' and 'waves'. Squint a bit and you'll see it more clearly. 

I'm taking some days break from pineapple blocks. They are fun, but a bit tedious to make. Actually it takes me 1.5 hours to make one (paper piecing), 53 pieces per block. I think I deserve a break! 

Today I'm going to start quilting a UFO! It is made of 2.5' squares from swaps and some of my own cut squares. I'm not sure I like the backing.... almond/pastel colors, but I thought the back would be fun with geometric fabric. It's a wide backing (108'). It was so skewed and I had a hard time straightening it. It's not new to me how to do it and with help from hubby and lots of tape, I think we managed pretty well. Time will tell how straight it is when it's trimmed and the binding has to be attached.  

Time for another cuppa before I remove everything (strips!) from the table to make space for quilting this large quilt. 

HAPPY QUILTING! 

Scrap-Happy Pineapples; continue, or not?

 Good Saturday morning! 

I hope it's a good morning for you? Not so good for me; I had one of those rare nights when I woke up just after 02:00 a.m. and no chance getting back to sleep again. After about one hour twisting and turning, listening to the rain and thunder rolling in the distance (I think it was the distant thunder that woke me up) and looking at the clock umpteen times, I gave up and got up! Even the cat was surprised to see me that early! Usually it's him who wakes me up when it's 'food o'clock', but today I woke him up! HA! Revenge for all the early mornings he has terrorized me to get out of bed to feed him! I've made myself a strong, big cuppa. The coffee should kick in soon and make me feel more awake, but I definitely see a nap coming later today. 

UFO finishing goes very slow so far this year. During the lockdown last year, I finished several UFO's because I was so determined to finish as many as possible. This year I've been a slug; we are into month #4 and I have finished the UFO for January only. 

Yesterday, after I finished quilting and thread basted the binding on a table topper, I pulled out one of my UFO's; scrappy pineapple blocks.

I have 16 blocks (I made one yesterday). Each block has 53 strips and measures 11.50" square (before sewn into quilt). 

I've been debating with myself either to stop it here (wall quilt) or continue making it into a bed quilt

My conclusion; with all those strips left, I'll continue making blocks and turn it into a bed size quilt. What do you think? My goal is to make one block a day, until I have enough blacks for a bed quilt. Time will show if I stick to my goal! :)