Feathers In The Wind

A couple of weeks ago I shared a picture of some paper pieced feather blocks I had made.  I finished the quilt really fast but its been at work (show-n-tell and to be photographed) so I haven't been able to share a picture....till now.   

The pattern is called "Feathers In The Wind" by The Sometimes Crafter.  I used Essex Yarn Dyed Linen (denim color) for my background and just scraps for the feathers.  I've never used linen for a quilt so am hoping it holds up to many washings.  I've heard mixed things.   All that's left is the quilting.  I'm just gonna straight line quilt it. Keep with the easy theme.  :)

Linking to Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts.

Design Wall Monday - Hexies

I finally have something new on my design wall!  

I love hexies and when I saw this tutorial on Crafty Fox blog I knew I wanted to make the quilt.  No y-seams since you add the pieces on the corners to make a square block.  And I love the zig zag that is created.   I bought a pre-cut pack of hexies to eliminate cutting hexies.   It is requiring a bit more pinning than I thought I'd have to do and that's slowing me down.  But I do love how its turning out.  

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday on Judy's blog.  Head over to check out what others are working on!

Suburbs Quilt

For many years now I have gone on vacation with my best gal pals!  Its one of the highlights of my year. 

I go with great intentions of finishing lots of quilts but never accomplish all I think I will!  This year I finished two.  I already showed the Round and Round quilt on this post.  Easy with loads of negative space.

Next up is Suburbs (pattern on sale here) by Cluck Cluck Sew.

This was a fun quilt to sew.  I cut into my stash of Denyse Schmidt fabrics for the houses.  

I used some Botanics Stem Ash by Carolyn Friedlander for my background.  I didn't pay attention to it being a directional print when I bought it so I did have to spend extra time cutting it out so all the trees would be upright!  Totally would have bugged me if they went every which way.

I'm thinking of doing this quilt again but having each house have a solid door so I can embroider little surprises in some....like a cat or flower,etc.

I'm linking up over at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social.
And WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Feathers

I worked on some paper pieced feathers tonight. I only need 4 for my quilt project but they were fun to do so I'm gonna make more then choose my favorites. 

I'm using a pattern by The Sometimes Crafter called Feathers in the Wind.  Its another one with lots of negative space.   I love how fast they are to make!!!  

Round and Round baby quilt

Just got back from my annual vacation with my best girlfriends.  Totally a blast!!!!   

I got two quilts made while away.  One I'll show today.  

One of the things I love about many modern quilts is their simplicity.  I'm drawn to the negative space and the statement that a simple design can make.  I've always wanted to make a quilt with a single block in it and loads of negative space............and I finally did! 

I made a single Round and Round block (like I wrote about here) and then just added background fabric.  So easy.  

Now the thing about quilts like this is that the quilting is what really makes it sing. You can see good examples of what I mean here,  here,  here, and here.

All of those quilt designs look easy enough that even I could do them!   

Silent but still sewing

I can't believe I haven't written a blog post since January.  Good grief!   I have been sewing but it sure doesn't look like it.  When I went looking for pictures of what I've been doing I barely found any.  My head just hasn't been in the documentation part of my sewing. 

Here are some of the things I did take pics of: 

I made this pincushion for a swap and a matching needle book as an extra.  My partners mosaic of favorite things included squirrels and oranges (among other things).  I used them as my inspiration.

I made myself another Mail Sack bag.  This time I did some "quilt as you go" to make a panel rather than a single fabric.  I also added a magnetic snap to help hold bag together.  

And I got my Penny Sampler back from the long arm quilter.  Shelly did a fantastic job, as usual.  This swirl design is my favorite all over.  I have the binding sewn on one side but still needs to be finished.  I am so in love with this quilt.  :)

That's it. I shall try to get back to taking pictures. 

Happy sewing!

Playing with Pink

I just had a long weekend with nothing on the calendar to take me from home.  That meant lots of time to sew!  I decided I wanted to work on something mindless and easy.  Something that I didn't have to pay attention to details and could just enjoy the rhythm of the machine.  I had just the project in mind.

I started by pulling a bunch of pinks from my stash.

  

I just love the pile of trimmings you get after squaring blocks down. 

And here is the final quilt!  

 I saw this project tutorial on the Dear Stella blog.    Its super fast to put together.   And if you used a layer cake, it'd be even quicker.  I think it will make a fun baby girl quilt...with the baby's name and birth date embroidered on the heart.  :)

Linking up at Sew Fresh Quilts: Let's Bee Social.

Wake Up to Kona

I've joined another blog hop and today is my day.  When Madame Samm announced the theme of Kona Solids I knew I had to sign up.  I've had a pattern and the fabrics for a quilt for over a year and this hop was the PUSH I needed to get it done!   :)

This is the bundle of Kona's I had purchased.  My favorite color palette to work with.  Love. LOVE.

And this is the quilt top I made:

The pattern is called "Circular Reasoning" by Carolina Patchworks.  I bought it here.

It is fused and raw edge appliqued.  I used a blanket stitch.  It went pretty fast.

 The pattern makes a 75 inch square quilt but I wanted it smaller to give as a baby quilt.  I reduced the pattern to 75% of its original and made it a 54 inch square.  

As you can see its not quilted yet.  I can NOT figure out how to quilt it!!!  I love how its quilted on the pattern with pebble quilting around all the letters and a secondary circle formed in the negative space.  My free motion quilting skills are sorely lacking so first time pebble quilting is not gonna happen on this one.  And I don't want to do any quilting over the letters.  

Any suggestions?  

This ended up being my favorite pic of all I took.  :)

Thanks to all involved in such a wonderful hop - Madame Samm, Carol and all us hoppers!

Be sure to visit the others sharing today:

January 15

Thimblemouse & Spouse

Daisy Days - You are here!

My Addiction to Quilting

Mountain Mist Designs

Hill Valley Quilter

Malini’s Quilts

 

And thank you for stopping by.

Secret Santa Pouches

I never did share here a fun project we did at work for Christmas.  We had a Secret Santa type pouch exchange. It was so much fun!  

This is a great pic of our wonderful Pink Chalk Team!   Kathy Mack, the fabulous owner of Pink Chalk, is on the right hand side in the green sweater. 

Here are all the pouches that were made:

I made the one in the back with the embroidered girl on it.  

The pouch pattern is "The Essential Wristlet" by Dog Under My Desk.  It was pretty easy to make. Lots of pictures for those of us who love them!   :)

 I got the girl design from the book "Embroidery pour la Maison" by Sylvie Blondeau.   Such a cute little book.  I stitched her on Essex Linen White with regular DMC embroidery floss.

And I added some big stitch quilting in the circles with Perle Cotton. Love doing that.

A peek at the inside.  

I sure do love my job!  

Grocery Bags

I can't believe that Christmas day came and went and nary a picture was taken!   Sigh.

I made this Grocery Bag for my daughter to take presents home. Took a quick picture before Christmas to post to Instagram with the intent to take more of the inside, etc.   Got sidetracked making 3 more bags since I had finished with all my Christmas prep and wanted to keep busy. 

   Like I said no pictures!  

This is a really easy bag to make.  And fast.  Uses a half yard for the exterior, half yard for the interior and scraps for the handles (or more of exterior or interior is you want them to match). 

Oh and its a downloadable pattern so you can just start sewing!  Love that.

Christmas Tree mug rugs

I made these super quick mug rugs for Christmas.  Used this tutorial over at Stitching and Bacon.  They are a good way to use up scraps!   

Penny Sampler top done!

My Penny Sampler top is done!  Woo hoo!!!  I love it so much.  I have taken 3 classes from Rachel and this one was my favorite.  I loved the anticipation of logging in on Mondays to see what blocks we were making that week.  I never got bored.  And I had fun working with a softer color palette than I've been using in the last several years. 

 I decided to piece the back with leftover fabrics that don't work in my stash.

I even pieced in the selvage from the inspiration fabric that I pulled the colors from.  I plan to have it machine quilted professionally so that it can actually get completely done and used. 

Penny Sampler Assembly

I have all the blocks made for my Penny Sampler and three of the borders done.  Its so pretty!  I started assembly and have a little sneak peek to show you.

This is the top third of the middle of the quilt.  

Look at that fun fox block I added on the top left hand side. Its from the book Scandinavian Stitches.  It wasn't in the original quilt design....that space had the second Dala Horse.  But since I didn't want two horses I had to think up something different.  I think the fox is the perfect addition to my sampler.

International Quilt Festival

Going to Houston for the International Quilt Festival has been a dream of mine - and my best friend, Rhonda - for many years and this was the year to go!   

I thought I'd share a few of the many photo's I took over several blog posts.

Rhonda and I.  :)

The convention hall in Houston is HUGE.  I've been to the show in Paducah before but this is much bigger. 

 We started with the quilts in the main show on the first day, then did the special exhibit quilts on the next day. So much beauty and inspiration.  

This is the Best in Show winner.

"Chihuly's Gondola" by Melissa Sobotka.

Such an amazing quilt.  My photo does not do it justice.  All that shading, etc, was done in fabric.  No digital photo's on fabric or painting. 

This was my favorite of the ones that just delight me and make me smile.

"You are what you eat" by Kathy York. Honorable Mention in the Art - Whimsical category.

Here's some examples of detail and texture that is achieved with fabric.

"Cock of the Walk" by David Taylor.  Third place in Art- Pictorial category.

"Did You Wash Your Beak?" by David Taylor.  Judges Choice award.

The machine quilting was phenomenal.  I didn't get too many great pics of it but here's one that shows up.

Close up of "Zen Magpies" by Helen Godden. Honorable Mention in Art - Painted Surface category.

And the only pics of hand quilting that I have were from quilts in the special exhibit.  I'll share some of those in future blog posts.

You can see all the winning quilts here.  Go look.  They are amazing.

Dala Horse and Flower Pot

Two more paper pieced blocks for the Penny Sampler done and checked off the list.

This is the Flower Pot block. Measures 12x18 inches.  I altered this one quite a bit as I've gotten tired of paper piecing and wanted to eliminate as much as I could.  The pot had lovely diamonds as part of the design.  I left them out and just used a single piece of fabric.  That fun text print was perfect for it.  The stems were also to be paper pieced....I thread sketched instead. The two border pieces are different sizes than Rachel used. 

The Dala Horse has probably been the most anticipated block in the quilt.  It's 12x12.  He is so cute.  There are suppose to be two but I only made one.  I'll fill in with some other block that's not paper pieced.   :)

I have some diamonds to paper piece and then will be DONE with those pesky papers.  After that a couple of pieced blocks and assembly.  The end is in sight. 

More Paper Piecing

I'm getting closer to catching up on my Penny Sampler blocks. 

 Here is the teapot. It was suppose to be bigger with some borders and corner triangles but I preferred it like this.  Turned out really nice.

And this is the top border.  Pieced diamonds with some of the Penny Candy blocks sewn below. 

 Onward my sewing goes!   :)

Apple Cider

We have several apple trees and usually end up giving most of them away.  There are only so many apples two people can eat!    This year we bought an apple press and decided to make cider.  We had the grand kids over, the weather was perfect and boy was it fun!

First up - picking....  

....and carrying them back to Papa in the garage.

Even their dog, Rusty, got in on it....though he was more about fetching and eating!  :)

Back in the garage grinding and pressing.  We ended up with 8 gallons.  Hubs and I pressed another 4 gallons on a different day.

Sent several gallons home with the kids.   Reduced a half gallon down to 1/2 cup and made apple cider caramels with it - soooooo good!  And the rest went in the freezer. 

Oh and a week ago a mama black bear and two cubs came and ate all the apples that had fallen on the ground!  Got to actually watch them do it...such a treat.

Tea Cups

Its been a busy month and I keep forgetting to blog! The Penny Sampler is almost over and I'm behind!  We got into the paper pieced blocks part.  I'm not a fan of paper piecing (I do it when I have to) so procrastinated to the point of being weeks behind.  Ugh!  

 I finished two tea cups and the top border diamonds but only took a pic of one of the cups.  I was able to fussy cut one of the sayings....fun!

I'm hoping to catch up but with the holidays fast approaching I'm not sure I can stay disciplined.   Here's to trying!    :)

Whirl and Framed

I know I keep saying it but I LOVE this Penny Sampler quilt!!!!

Here are the latest two blocks.

Whirl is a 6 inch block.  I did more fussy cutting.   :)    

Framed is also a 6 inch block.  And surprise...more fussy cutting.

What will next week bring?   :)

Crossroads and Boxed In

Penny Sampler time again! :) I made two new blocks yesterday.  There are two more for this week but I decided to post them separately.     

This one is called Crossroads and is 6 inches.  I love when the block allows fun fussy cuts.  

Another 6 inch block called Boxed In.  And more fussy cutting. 

Both blocks were fast to make. Choosing the fabrics took longer than cutting and sewing!  Which is what I need to do now for the next two blocks!