Springing into late Summer

Guild challenge quilt:

This quilt really makes me think of spring time. I suppose it is the colors that makes me think of Easter egg dyes. I am ready to sandwich it and quilt it, but am not sure when that will exactly happen. I have so many things on my mind these days!
That's it for today though. Happy Sewing Y'all!

Sew, Sew, Sew, Yourself, Gently Down the Stream!

School is in full swing here and I have the house to myself again! I miss my son, but I am enjoying more studio time too!

Today I finished the 30th block for my guild challenge quilt. I will square them up tomorrow and start sewing rows together. I love, love, love this pattern! It is SO forgiving! I am not worried about matching seams and the quilting will be a breeze!

I am anxiously awaiting word from the person I sent this too:

It is a dog kerchief for her poodle.

It is reversible too. There is a dog print on one side and dog bones on the other. I hope it fits her dog!

I have the triangles all sewn on my LE quilt:

Next will be 20 circles, in between each triangle. On the original pattern, these would be flowers with stems. Since I am doing a celestial theme, I am going to use my version of planets. I am auditioning several fabrics for this. I think I will be going with the one that is to the far right in the photo above.

I finished the 6th appliqué block for the Jingle Belle BOM:

Here is a shot of the table that is in the center of my studio:

Here are my orchid plants and two pineapple plants...also in my studio:

That's the latest from my corner of the world! I hope you are having a super creative day! Happy sewing!

Love Is In The Air

Actually it is more of a love-hate relationship. Ok, hate is a bit strong. I am struggling with the "Love Entwined" BOM. I have made progress though! I have the center compass finished. I am now working on the ring around it.

My design wall shows the background fabric and compass. I am going for a celestial theme. Above the LE (LE=Love Entwined) project is block #5 for Jingle Belle and a mockup of the block I will use for the guild challenge quilt.

Below here, is a closeup of the compass. I folded back the background fabric of the compass to see how it was looking next to the starry fabric.

Here is the first center of the compass that I decided to not use because it was a metallic and looked to cheesy!

Around the compass will be a ring with 32 teeny tiny dots. I used a hole-punch to make templates on wash-away stabilizer. The dots are 1/4" each. Did I mention there are 32 of them?!?!?!

Here is a closeup of the center face that I did use:

More on making those dots:
I used a paper-punch and scraps of the special stabilizer. Since the stabilizer is a bit on the expensive side, and because I am so cheap thrifty, I used scrap leftovers to make the dot templates. The hole punch I used has a tray that catches the punched out dots. This actually made it quite easy to use!

Here is my ever faithful Altoids tin, holding my bounty of dots:

Applique block #5 for the Jingle Belle BOM is now done:

 Just for fun:

What is that, you ask? It happens to be my son. He's almost 13, but still has a lot of child left in him. He took the box that my dress form came in, put it over his head and walked around with it on. I don't know why he did this. No pictures were knocked off the wall. Silly boy! (I hope he always keeps a little bit of silliness in his spirit)

That's it for today! I will be linking this up to "Off the Wall Friday". Don't forget to comment for a chance to win a prize in honor of my 555th posting, which was the posting before this one. You HAVE to comment on the 555th posting though. I will enjoy comments here, but they will not count as entries. The deadline is August 1st.

Happy Sewing Everyone!

555 - Off the Wall Friday

I am combining my Off the Wall Friday posting with a milestone of posting #555! I should have a give-a-way or something to celebrate, but I am too disorganized to do that. Perhaps when I reach #567 or #600? I should have done it when I hit #500 but I didn't even notice that posting.

No, on second thought, I think I WILL have a prize. If you comment on this posting, I will do a random number generator pick and send someone a prize. I think I will put the deadline as August 1st. One comment per person gets you one entry. Let me know what you think would be a nice little prize idea in your comments! (fabric? a book? a notion? a pattern? one of my art quilts? a sketchbook?)
I will send internationally too, so this is open to the world. (well, only planet Earth..sorry extraterrestrials, you can comment but I can't send you a prize)
Feel free to share this blog with others who might want to win a prize too!

WEDNESDAY: What a day! Yoga class, followed by Healthy Living class (that I co-teach), followed by an unplanned trip to the garage to drop off the van for a problem. I got a ride home, made lunch and hit the studio running.
     Five hours later I had several thousand pieces of fabric cut into squares and rectangles for my quilt guild challenge quilt. (see photos later in today's posting)
I have the second border strip appliquéd for the My Tweets quilt.
I have started appliquéing the fifth block for the Jingle Belle quilt.
I have spent time trying to decide on some fabric for a possible future major appliqué project.
I got the bad news about the van repair costs, made supper, vacuumed the house, got the trash ready for tomorrow, and am about to call it quits for the night!

FRIDAY: I am puzzling out a pattern for a cover for my husband's traveling harp. Those wedges will be pockets...I think!

Even the U is for Unicorn quilt was on the design wall. 

I am over halfway done with the borders!

Here are progress photos for the challenge quilt. 

I picked these colors to compliment the greenish one at the right that is 

the challenge fabric our guild chose:

Here is just the start of cutting out the white fabric:

And here is almost all the fabric cut and awaiting assembly:

I am using a pattern I stole found on the Quilter in the Gap blog. It is called the Circle of Squares and a tutorial is found on ToeFeather's blog.

Something else that has caught my eye is a block of the month that is just getting underway. It is called Love Entwined. This is a very complex quilt based on a 1790 quilt that the pattern maker is bringing to the web through her blog and yahoo group.

I've been stymied from the get-go. I can't decide on which fabrics to use and the first step is making a compass. I tried making one once a long time ago. They intimidate me!

I've been going back and forth and back and forth on fabrics and ideas. So far nothing has gelled in my poor brain. I don't want to buy more fabric. I really don't! (I need to pay for those van repairs)

I will be pondering this group of fabrics, for the compass, over the weekend:

That's all for today. Don't forget to leave a comment to win a prize! I have several ideas and I think you'll love the chance to win a nice little package of good stuff!

Happy Sewing Y'all!