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!

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!

My, my, it's been a LONG time since I've Posted!!!

It is funny how life works that way. As usual, life keeps me out of the studio more than I want it to. I did manage to make four charity quilts and six charity pillowcases. I've been doing a little applique work at night and am slowly making progress on the My Tweets borders. I have about one and a half borders left to go on that one.

Today I finished the third border of the U is for Unicorn! I'm always thinking of YOU, Jaye, when I work on this quilt.

I am kinda liking this one. Now for the super labor intensive forth border. Oh my, it is a doozy!

I have the appliqued block 7 done for the Jingle Belle Quilt:

 And the pieced blocks six and seven as well:

Directions for the eighth (and last set) of appliqued blocks and pieced blocks just came out this weekend. It won't be too long and this one will be ready to assemble. THEN the scary part...quilting it!
That's it for today! Hope you are having a wonderful autumn! This is MY favorite time of year! Happy Sewing!

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!

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!