Finish Line

Today I went to both my quilt guilds. One is in the morning and one is at night. I am exhausted! It was so fun though, to share several finishes. The first one is Jingle Belle:

The second is U is for Unicorn:

Yes, this almost 12 year quilt in the making is finally done!!! Or IS it??? There is a huge glaring error in this quilt. Can I fix it? SHOULD I attempt to fix it?  Can you see what it is?

Last is the Building Blocks quilt. I won the pattern from Jackie of Sew Excited Quilts:

I am too tired to say much more about the day. It was good. It involved sewing. Any day with sewing is better than any day without sewing!!!

Ice Day Sew In

We are all home today due to a little icy weather. What a winter this has been! 

I have lots of projects to work on. Even if the power goes out, I have binding to sew because I finished the Jingle Belle Quilt!

I might go back and do a little more quilting on a few of the blocks that I am not quite sure of. I want this to be one of my better efforts. I took my time. My stitches are better than many I've done, but they are still sloppy in some spaces. I ripped out several areas already, and redid them. I won't take the time to rip out any more though. Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to be 'good enough' and let go!

I am still working on Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice quilt.

  I have a lot of blocks left to assemble.

 

 I made a little more progress on the Building Blocks quilt:

 That pink and blue around the left and top are for the Celtic Solstice quilt. I have more yellow sashing to add to the Building Blocks next.

And I took out the U is for Unicorn quilt again. I still am not sure how to proceed with this one.

There isn't any batting inside it, as it is already quite heavy. I am not sure if I need more sewing on the layers though, to stabilize it more. This will take more study time.

With the icy weather today, I can choose from any of these, or go crochet, or applique one or two other works in progress. Decisions, decisions!!!

Hope you are all warm and safe and well, and sewing happily along!

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.

I don't call all this stuff, WORK!!!

A week ago schools were closed because of the ice and snow we had. Today it is over 60°. Since last week was so cold and yucky, I stayed indoors and sang "Let it SEW, let it SEW, let it SEW!" I also got a lot of stuff done.

The little black dog is my Bitsy (a Rat Terrier) and the cat, hogging the air vent, is Maddie. No wonder it gets cold in my studio sometimes. They've blocked the air vents!

I've been working on Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery quilt. It has been challenging for me, as I hate working with diagonal anything, in quilting. I've been getting lots of hints and ideas though, from the wonderful group that is working on this quilt too. I feel like I am getting a free class on techniques!

 The humble beginning of step one:

A pile on the ironing board:

Half the ironing done:

All the neutrals and all the colors are now made into their little 3 1/2" blocks

Next: step two...chevrons! 

 They will look something like this:

In my spare time, I am starting a quilt from the pattern called "Building Blocks"
The pattern is by Jackie of Sew Excited Quilts.

 These are some of the strips I will be using in it:

Jingle Belle is pin-basted and ready for quilting:

I had intentions of making mug-rugs for friends this year. 

I might get them done in time for gift giving... next year.

I did get one ornament made and might gift this to someone…if I can find where I put it!

Do you think I need new slippers?

What does a quilter do when her slippers wear out? Why... she experiments with putting new soles on the bottom!!! (Good luck with that!) I hope Santa has a pair on his list from me…just in case!

Today I told The Mister that I was going to the quilt shop tomorrow to get a couple fat quarters for the scrappy mystery quilt. I only had a little of one shade of yellow for the next step. If I use just that one color-way of yellow, the quilt won't be as scrappy. He said, "Don't you find it odd that you need to buy MORE fabric to make the quilt scrappier?"
Silly man.

Happy Sewing Everyone!