Something Winter Blues Blog Hop Project

Tuesday is our stop on the Winter Blues blog hop, hosted and organized this week by Carla at Creatin’ in the Sticks.  There are a lot of participates in this first hop for 2020, and I’ve listed them all below.  I hope you have a chance to visit many of their websites as I’m sure you will find amazing inspiration.

Something for Winter Blues

We were accidentally a bit late signing up for this hop but Carla graciously made room for us and allowed us to play along.  Thank you, Carla!  I told Sue that we needed to make a blue-hued item for this hop, and she asked what?  We didn’t immediately have an idea so it was added to “The Master List” as “Something” blue.  That name stuck and we are sharing the details here for our project.

Something Blue for Carol

Whenever I think of the color blue, I always think of my sister, Carol.  She adores all things blue – her house is sort of a blue explosion!  The first-floor carpeting is blue, the walls are painted a light shade, her dining room table has a blue runner from years ago, and even her kitchen sink is blue. 

Carol and I with the Regatta quilt

However, she has a gorgeous butter-colored couch that looks so pretty with the walls and carpet and it is comfy, too.  This Something project is for a large coffee table which measures 26″ x 42″.  My niece measured it for me on the sly – she used her phone which worked well.  Plus, she learned a new trick as she didn’t know her phone could be used for that.

We started making oodles of half-square triangles (HSTs).  Sew, cut, press, trim and then repeat.

We had a pretty blue and white charm pack in our stash, although I forgot to note the name (I’m sorry).  As usual, the charm squares were not a standard 5″ size.  Rather than worry or get annoyed about the ability to achieve a uniform square size at 4.5″ I trimmed all 66 squares to 4.25″.  That ensured that the quilt went together quickly once we found a pleasing layout.

Something Blue In Progress

We thought the herringbone would be a pleasing layout, and we hadn’t made a quilt using that same design since the summer of 2018 with the Tea Flowers quilt in pretty red.  Using the design wall was a necessity or I would have certainly mixed up the pattern.  For fun, we checked the saturation with a black and white photo.  Not too bad but we did move a few squares around, of course.

Something All Layered

In no time, we had the squares all settled and sewing began.  Layering was upon us but first, we needed to pick the perfect backing for this runner.  Hmm, she has a butter-yellow couch – the backing HAS to be yellow.  Not only did we have the perfect color but the piece was EXACTLY the right size.  A sign for sure, don’t you think??

Layering ensued and it wasn’t too long before the quilting was complete.  What stitch did I choose to use, you ask?  Why a wavy pre-programmed stitch that I really enjoy using.

At Long Last, Something

Thanks for sticking with the story this long!  For all of your efforts, here is our finished piece.

A nice solid navy binding wrapped this piece with love and finished off the edges just perfectly, we think!

We’ll be delivering it to my sister shortly, along with some butter pecan fudge.  She’s going to give me some photos of my parents from long before I was a twinkle in my dad’s eye.  Now check out these links from our friends who are joining in!

Winter Blues Hop Participants:

Monday, January 20th

Tuesday, January 21st

Wednesday, January 22nd

Thursday, January 23rd

Friday, January 24th

We had one more pretty Winter Blues-worthy quilt to share earlier this month.  A sweet baby girl just turned one-year-old and we made her an Olaf quilt.

Happy Winter Blues blog hop to you!

Join us each Tuesday for our hosted linky party called To-Do Tuesday.  Our other Linky Parties can be found by clicking the link above or along the sidebar on our website for more quilting fun – check out what our friends are up to.  Like/follow us on our Facebook page and you can share your photos of what you’re working on.  We would love to see them!