It's About Time!

I shouldn't always think I need to apologize for not posting more, but I always do anyway. The biggest reason is because I seem to have a lot of issues with getting pictures uploaded. This morning I made myself load photos though. I hope you enjoy!

You can find projects at every machine in my studio!

By the Pfaff you can find "Building Blocks" by Jackie Berdych of Sew Excited Quilts (& More) blog.

 I know, it isn't very impressive at the moment, but I am just getting started with it.

At the Juki, you'll see the Jingle Belle quilt being quilted.

I have the center medallion done so far.

At the Featherweight you can see the Celtic Solstice blocks.

The quilt is challenging but very doable! There are several folks that are just getting started on this quilt in the group. It isn't too late to join in the fun! All the directions are on Bonnie Hunter's blog until June.

I have a few blocks done and am playing around with layout ideas.

Do you see the circle starting to appear?

I joined a second quilt guild this year. They are doing a block of the month. This will end up being a calendar quilt. The first block is a snowflake. I will be appliqueing this down, turning the edges under as I go, so it won't look quite like this when it is done:

 January has been a strange month. We've been up and down and up and down, over and over again, with crazy temperatures! On the morning of the 9th I took a few pictures of the ice that formed on the trees.

 This is a two foot green baby ceder tree...all decked out for Christmas...except it isn't Christmas any more!
Here are two more photos of ice on the branches of a few other trees around our place:

On January 16th we had the first full moon of the year...the Wolf Moon. I've been enjoying moon-shine for four nights now! NO! That is not right! I meant that I have been enjoying the moon shining in through the patio door. The angle is just right for me to see it from the chair I sit and sew in, in the evenings.

 That's it for my first post of the year! I think I will try to link up to Nina's Off the Wall Friday postings. Hope you are all staying warm and sewing for the joy of sewing! Bye for now.

Happy Halloween! (and Off the Wall Friday)

I swear, if it weren't for how long it takes me to edit photos, I'd post more often! Maybe I should edit photos more often so I get faster at it? Oh well, at least I DO have a few pictures for you today.

First up is block eight of the Jingle Belle BOM:

I have the pieced block done too, but forgot to take a photo of that one! ARGH!!! I am working on the center medallion and really hope to have this top done by December's guild meeting. We are having an emphasis on holiday quilts for that meeting and I would love to show this one off!

Speaking of the guild, we have donated fabrics and supplies that are sold a few times a year to raise funds for the guild. The last time we had such a sale, the organizer gal had some fabric that no one had taken an interest in, for over a year. I offered to take it and make charity items with it. I made 12 pillowcases in pastels. The photo doesn't do them justice though.

The solid peach is fabric I used for the cuffs for most of the cases. They are really lovelier in person. They are very feminine. Ugly fabrics are not always ugly! I hope the recipients like them!

Since I have cats, I keep any live green plants in my studio. I have a few orchids and one pineapple plant in there. Imagine my surprise one day, when this appeared amongst the orchids:

It is some type of fungi. It lived for a few days and then just died off.

This last photo does not begin to do justice to what the meaning is behind it:

Yes, this is the LAST border for the U is for Unicorn quilt! It is done!!! I am ready to assemble the whole top now. I then have a dragon and stork to applique on, before sandwiching it, and (gulp) quilting it!

Jaye, I thought of you the whole time as I soldiered through and worked to finish this quilt. Thanks for the push!

That's it for today. I think I will link up to Nina's "Off the Wall Friday" this week. Happy Halloween! And happy sewing!

Summer winds down

We have had a much milder summer here compared to the past two summers. There has been a lot more rain. This is a good thing! The photo below, was taken outside our house. See the blue sky peeking through the clouds? See those super dark gray clouds coming over the trees? We had a short downpour from this mini-storm. At one point those dark clouds covered the sky and it was as if night had fallen. I am glad the ominous black skies didn't produce hail!

I have had a super busy (and not so pleasant) week. Today I stayed busy in the studio all morning. It really is the most wonderful therapy! I took lots of photos starting last weekend, till now. I hope you enjoy seeing all the projects going on!

Here is a corner of my cutting/layout table:

The directions for Jingle Belle pieced block #5 are there in the upper left. Below that is the center medallion for the Love Entwined BOM. To the right is a photo showing women of all different shapes that all weigh 150 lbs. I will be using that in the "Healthy Eating, Healthy Living" group that I co-teach. And down the center is a new thin-line fabric marking pencil and a water brush. Those last two items were specifically purchased to use on the LE (Love Entwined) project.

The LE group had a posting about using a water brush to soften up areas where fabric glue may have gotten too thick. Some appliquérs (myself included) might use glue to temporarily hold fabrics in place before they are sewn down. The trouble is that it can make it difficult to hand-sew through. If you dampen it a little, it softens up. I have been using this tool for several evenings now and absolutely love it!

Closeup of the center face of the medallion:

Progress on the outer dots (taken last weekend):

Done!

Jingle Belle Pieced block #5:

Altoid tin Re-do begins:

Beaded and Painted:

Inside, a pincushion:

Outside, a flamingo:

I know there is a chance the recipient of this pincushion will see this before she gets it. I really wanted to share the process a bit though, so I couldn't wait. I hope she likes it!

New fabric arrived:

Only five more dots to go!

Morning glories in front of my studio window:

I've been a little under the weather for a few days and plan to take it easy till I feel better. Thankfully, taking it easy means I will sit and work on one of three appliqué projects I have going! Since I have so much going on I think I will link this up to Off the Wall Friday.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sew-On!

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!

Lots of Friday Stuff

I had a fantastic day in the studio! So many projects and so little time! The day just flashed by in an instant. Next Friday seems a long ways away. Since I have so much to share I thought I would also post this as an "Off the Wall Friday" posting.

In no particular order, here are some of the things I did today:

Appliqued block #4 is out for the Jingle Belle quilt. I sewed the stems onto the background square and will be working on the individual pieces next.

Jaye (Artquiltmaker) must be thinking about me again. Every time she does, I work on the border strips. I got all the white flowers done for the top border today. Those flowers are each just a little larger than a quarter. I satin stitch around each one as well as stitching in the centers of each.

Those red parts are strawberries...or at least they will be when I am done with them!

On the design wall I have some fabric cut out and ready to sew together for a charity quilt I will be making. I was gifted the fabric and I think it will make an adorable quilt for a boy.

I put together an apron for the holidays. It has two pockets on it. It was in a pile of fabric given to me. The apron was cut out, as well as the two pockets. There were two strips that I made into the apron strings. I had to wing it for the rest of it. I ended up putting some binding tape around the whole thing to finish the edges. I also backed the pockets before sewing them on. It turned out pretty cute!

All week I've been working on the second border of the My Tweets quilt. You can see my progress from the top part of the picture, where I started at down to the bottom part where I left off at last night.

I have been neglecting my creative prompts. I actually had this one done several months ago. Posting photos is an ordeal for me, so I often procrastinate and don't post as often as I could.

This is CPP #156 - Rose and #158 - Bird

I don't know why there are three jets or a hot sun or the odd bug. I often look back on drawings and can't recall why I drew what I did.  Sometimes I see how much work I put into a particular drawing and marvel at how much work or effort I must have put into it! Other times I get aggravated because I can't make a picture look like it looks in my brain. I still keep on doing them though. 

So that's the latest from here. 

Happy Sewing!

My First "Off the Wall Friday" posting

I always mean to post but taking photos, resizing them, tweaking them, takes me an awful long time, so then I don't post a dang thing! Since I have had a very productive week though, I thought I should participate just once this year for the Off the Wall Friday theme that Nina hosts.

In no particular order I have finished the last block for My Tweets...a 2011 block of the month from Erin Russek's blog, One Piece at a Time:

 

Now I have to make a gazillion leaves and a few more birds and flowers for the appliqued border. Here are just some of the templates, ready to cut out:

 Here is the block on the design wall along with some of the border fabric strips and another block done in a different colorway:

 I need to figure out how I am going to do the colors for the two styles of birds that I did for this project. Do I put one teal bird with one purple bird or do I put two pairs of teal birds on the sides and the other two pairs of purple birds on the top and bottom of the borders? Decisions, decisions!!!

I signed up for the Skill Builder BOM but after seeing that one of the blocks is a hexagon block, I am having second thoughts! I mean, I DO have enough projects on my plate as it is. If I don't get to the first blocks by the time the second ones come out, I might scrap that idea. (hehehe, I said scrap...that is a pun! hehehe)

Something else that is eating up some time is my new Featherweight! She needs a lot of cleaning and a few parts but I already am hoping she will be a useful part of the 'family' here. As of now she is not named though.

Last but not least is a shot of the mess on my table. There are bits and pieces of both the My Tweets border as well as the 2013 BOM called Jingle Belle. In fact, just today the first block is up on Erin's web site. It is a free BOM. There is a center medallion called Miss Kringle that you can buy from Erin for $10 to use in the quilt center, but you don't have to do that if you don't want to.

ACK! It has been two hours since I got on this computer and I have nothing to show for it except this blog posting! It is cold and damp outside so I think this will end up being a very productive day in the studio too. Heaven knows, I have lots of different projects to choose from!

Till next time...Happy Sewing!!!