The Friday before Christmas!

I seem to be in the middle of a few projects here which is kind of different for me. But it has made celebrating the Season a bit more fun....especially as I've avoided cleaning the house so far ;-)
Straits of Mackinac took the forefront for awhile.  I have four more blocks to sew together. 

The flowers for Autumn Bouquet are languishing a bit.  I have seven more to stitch together.

Temecula's Tiny Tree is what got most of the attention.  I had fun sewing the finished size 2 1/4" blocks into the tree.  The background pieces gave me some fits and I had to re-do them using my second choice of fabric.  The problem may have been that my seam to sew the blocks together was too small and thus the blocks too big ...rendering the background measurements too small.  I may test this out and see if I can get it right using the pieces I originally cut for it....or I'll just cut them bigger and try to keep all those points for the finish.  It was a lot of fun sewing those little blocks each day.

This also needs a bit more quilting on it. But it's a Tree!

Another project popped up on Quilt Doodles blog.  She designs a lot of cute applique designs that she sells on Etsy and showcased one with a red mixer...just like my sister's!
Had to make this for her :-)

I'm linking here to Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop it up Fridays. Hop over there for some great inspiration!  
And Merry Christmas to you all!  I pray that God's Gift of His Son, Jesus is in your hearts as you celebrate! 

2019 December

Happy December to you all! It's beautiful here today in between rain storms.  We are blessed with rain this year and that is a big deal here in drought ridden California. And it makes for some nice stitching weather :-)

So for the applique project...I was not liking the machine stitched look so I switched to doing it by hand.  This is going pretty well and I'm just enjoying it, not rushing it. 

And this let me get back to my machine...I finished up sewing the triangle in a square units and am really enjoying sewing all the units together into the 12" blocks.  I had removed the tan/browner background pieces and am much happier with the white based neutrals. I'm enjoying some of the fun neutrals I found to include...especially, of course, those crabs!  There are 36 blocks to sew and I'm almost half way this morning.  After that will be the all important sashing that will give the look of curves in this Storm at Sea variation.  This has been a great way to enjoy Janet Clare's  More Hearty Good Wishes fabric with whales and birds and ships.

Inspired by Temecula Quilt Co, I'm joining with a sew along to make a cute Tiny Tree quilt. These blocks look greener in person but it was funny that I noticed after I posted the picture on Instagram...that the center of the friendship star is the wrong fabric. Not sure if I'll change it or not. I will see how the blocks look as we sew along. These are 2 3/4" blocks so they are pretty quick to sew.

Hoping to get more blocks sewn together today on Straits and the Tiny Tree as well.  I'm linking here to Confessions of a Fabric Addict...who sewed a really cute penguin quilt you might want to check out :-)  

bogged down in the flowers

Life has been busy and I'm finding prepping flowers for my table runner to be a bit of a challenge.  I've only done a bit of applique and the prep is always what slows me down.  Sharon has a different technique for using freezer paper where she places the freezer paper shiny side up on the wrong side of the fabric. The edge of the fabric is then pulled over and ironed to stick to the freezer paper. So I'm not so hot at this. LOL  I tried a couple of different techniques that I've used before...hmmm, still not too good and went back to trying the way Sharon does them.  I have lots more to prep so hopefully I will improve :-)

On a different note...I read a really good book!  If you are fans of Jennifer Chiaverini,  she has a new book out in her Quilter's series that I really enjoyed. 

The Christmas Boutique brings her Elm Creek Quilters helping out at the last minute for a charity boutique to raise money for needs in their community. Jennifer's stories have been very fun reads for me and this one did not disappoint. I bought mine on Amazon.
I'm linking here to Confessions of A Fabric Addict. For inspiration, go check out the other posts. And I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with safe travel and good people to share your gratitude with. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Win and a little progress

Last month I told you all about the Autumn Jubilee going on over at From My Carolina Home.  I hope you had a chance to go check out all the inspiration. And the prizes even just for visiting!  I think it was last year when I won some LED lights for my sewing machine...that I liked so much that I bought an additional set for my longarm which work wonderfully.  This year I was kind of blown out the water again....with a gift card to Fat Quarter Shop!  Fat Quarter Shop is rather generous as I see them as sponsors to many endeavors. I'm sure many winners of their gifts have as much fun as I did! When the day came for me to do some online shopping, I felt a bit like a kid in a candy store with money to spend :-) 
My choices were some notions that I had been thinking about.  I started with the Diagonal Seam Tape by Cluck Cluck Sew.  Useful for lining up the stitching line and I may not have to draw lines for HST's. I've tried a couple other versions of these notions but they seem difficult to get out of the way of my feeddogs or stick to the presser foot and dislodge. This tape just sits in the front of the presser foot and doesn't get in the way of anything. So far so good!
 The Slotted Trimmer finally seemed useful because I started pressing triangle seams open and this is a great pre-pressing way to square them up.
Then I picked out a new seam ripper and the navy blue Splash rotary cutter...well, just because it was a fun new color :-)
And then a gift...not pictured and some fabric.  So a big Thank You! to Carole for hosting such a fun and inspirational Autumn Jubilee and to Fat Quarter Shop for their generosity and awesome product line up! This was quite a treat!


















The Straits of Mackinac quilt is still on the sidelines as I work on this table runner in the sew along with Sharon Keightley.
The quilt top with the string border is complete.

I have prepped all the 48 leaves along with the bias vines. The four little pots are cut out but the flowers are only cut out as far as cutting out the freezer paper templates and piling up some scrap choices. So hopefully I will get those prepped this week and can start the machine applique process. This part gets scarier! LOL

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict for more inspiration!

Autumn Bouquet progess

Here are the ShooFly blocks for my table runner.

And here is Elinor helping me with how to lay them out.

And this is as far as I've gotten with a 3" (finished size) string border.

I have made some bias strip vines to applique on the borders and today I'm picking out fabrics to use for leaves to go with them. The bias vines were fun to make as I used a Clover bias tape maker which I'd never used though I bought it about 25 years ago :-)  Better late than never.  It worked well though I think the fusible tape that I used with it may be too old to provide any adhesive when I go to apply it to the borders. 
Happy Stitching!
Linking to Confessions of Fabric Addict and Alycia Quilts go see some great inspiration there!

a break from lots of small pieces

to even smaller pieces...

I'm joining in on a sew along with Sharon Keightley, making a table runner from her book Autumn Bouquet.

The group is on Facebook if your interested at Sharon Keightley Quilts.
Linking to Confessions of Fabric Addict Fridays and to Em's Scrapbag :-)

short distraction

Sewing up the HST's into four patches this week

but I got distracted...
because I saw video by Stephanie from Quilt Addicts Anonymous on how to KonMari Your Stash. Two videos actually... here are the  YouTube links.
The first video...

and the second video

I had trouble getting these links right so if you have any problems with it, try searching YouTube for Quilts Addicts Anonymous and you should be able find them.
First, I started with my neutrals

I found  plastic boxes like she mentions in the video and some long thinner ones from Target that fit my drawers better. I was amazed it all fit.



Next I worked on my browns...from golden to dark and found it a little more challenging. 

I need to find a quilt where I can use a ton of brown!
I'm waiting for more boxes to work on other drawers. 
Not sure if I'll change anything up in these bigger cupboards

But it is kind of fun to be able to see what I actually have to work with.
I'm linking this post to Sarah's Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Emily's at Em's Scrapbag. Go check out the  beautiful progress from other quilters this week.

working out the steps

So I've got a good start on my Straits of Mackinac.  I cut out most of the pieces in about 3 days. HA!  Lots of pieces! 

I cut out strips for the HST's (half square triangles) and layered a neutral and a blue one right sides together and then used Bonnie's Essential Triangle Tool to cut out 576 triangles that are all paired and ready to sew together.  And then I cut out about 144 of just blue ones for the square in a square blocks and the squares needed. From strips, I also cut out some triangles using the Tri Recs ruler for triangles in a square block. Lots of cutting!
As I'm cutting, I make stacks of 10 and then gather 10 stacks and put them in labeled baggies to keep track of how much I've cut!

Last week I worked on getting my square in a square blocks more accurate.
I only needed 36 but it still took a bit of time.

This week I'm sewing all those HST's. I'm about done with the sewing.  I've trimmed off the dog ears and pressed more than half so maybe today I'll get these done and start putting them together in those 4 patch settings.

I mentioned back in the post right after my class that a friend ...who I didn't get contact info from! :-(   shared some really cute crab fabric with me.  I searched the Web and found one fat quarter still available.  Yay! So I'm thrilled to have these in my triangles.  Absolutely, my favorite here and they remind of a quilter's kindness.

 I will work on the strings needed for the triangles in a square block after the 4 patch units  :-)  Happy Fall Stitching everyone!

Linking to Sarah's  Confessions of a Fabric Addict  and Em's Scrapbag

Autumn Jubilee 2019

Today begins another fun yearly event of  quilty and seasonal inspiration over at Carole's  From My Carolina Home!  Head over to check out the frequent posts of quilting, stamping, decorating and recipe inspiration all through the month.  There are even prizes for participating from some amazing sponsors!  Here's the link to begin..

 https://frommycarolinahome.com/2019/10/02/autumn-jubilee-2019-begins-today/  It promises to be fun!

Sage and Seaglass

It's a quilt! I was able to do the quilting right away but it took me awhile to get help with the photo documentation.  This is one big quilt!
I used a favorite panto on it called Feathered Curls. I have others that I like as well but the designs seem a little big for the smaller pieces I tend to put in quilts. So here is my Bonnie Hunter, Quiltville Emerald City that I'm calling Sage and Seaglass as most of the fabric in it is from Kim Diehl's fabric line of that name.

This picture shows the colors in the fabrics a bit clearer.

The photos are a little odd from being taken inside the house but we have some limitations for the helpers available for holding it. The backing is completely off color wise.  I backed it with this gorgeous (I think) poison green fabric that I've had for awhile. It was very fun to being able to use it here.

I really enjoyed making this.  I was so happy that I was able to learn in a class setting as the book instructions seem very different than the more 'Bonnie like' way steps that she taught.  I have launched into making my quilt from my second class of Straits of Mackinac and have found the same difference to the book instructions. It's helpful that she shares so much about how she does things in her blog posts so I can approach the book instructions with that in mind.
I'm linking this post to Sarah's at Confessions of A Fabric Addict and Em's Scrapbag :-)

It's a quilt top!

Just yesterday, I finished adding sashings and cornerstones and sewed all the rows together!  Two full months of sewing and it was wonderful. 
This is just a peek and a quick snapshot but I hope to get going on preparing the backing and get it quilted...hopefully this week.

Linking to Sarah's Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

August progress

Progress on my Emerald City shows that I completed making the HST's

 and started sewing them onto the strip pieced blocks

and now I can finally start sewing these unit blocks together. 

Four of these units will make one quarter of a block.

And four of those units makes a block.

Onward I go :-) from small pieces to huge blocks!
Happy Wednesday! and now it's Friday...linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict Whoop Whoop Fridays.

New wool mat

I like to read Jo's blog at Jo's Country Junction where she sometimes reviews products and books. The post I've linked here is about a new wool mat she tried out for someone. She liked the mat and there was a link to Amazon and even a coupon good for the next few days. As it was a pretty good deal I splurged and got one too. :-)

Years ago I had purchased a mat at PIQF that was made of the same fabric used in firemen's coats. It does have a good heat reflective character that helps the pressing on both sides of the block I'm pressing...but it also seems to stay a bit hot and burn my fingers. The fabric also slips around a bit. 


Hence...as I'm sewing all these triangles onto the strippy squares,

I'm having a better time at it with my new wool mat set up next to my sewing machine. 

The cats will likely love this one as much as the one on my ironing board so I will need to keep it covered up when not in use :-)  
Check out Jo's blog and take advantage of the coupon if your'e interested. These mats are nice for pressing. 
Linking to Confessions of a Fabric for Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Fridays.

July ...but some June finishes

In June I made this fun little quilt for my friend's birthday.  It's called Star Spangled Picnic by Karen Walker at Laugh Yourself Into Stitches.  Hope to make one for myself too.

And a wee bit late to the party...like 3 years!...I made this Paws Patrol quilt and pillowcase for my grand nephew, Kellen.  Fun piecing with a Moda Bake Shop free pattern. 

Keeping me busy now is working on the 1000 half square triangles left needed for this Emerald City quilt that I started last month in the class with Bonnie. I'm nearing the finish of this step.  I feel I have really 'upped my game' with the use of her Essential Triangles ruler and with some pressing tips that I heard from Donna on Jordan Fabrics videos....mainly pressing with the grain of fabric to prevent distortion.  I use a Bloc Loc ruler to trim down usually but have found that I haven't needed to with these HST's and just clip the 'dog ear' off most of the time. It has kind of amazed me.

Another event in June was to take Luke for his Rattlesnake Avoidance refresher class.  Luke likes to run crazy over the ranch hills where we walk and stick his head in holes and piles of dead wood.  As far as I know, he has not encountered a rattlesnake but this is an added bit of protection.  In class he's rewarded for making a wide arc around the sight, sound or smell of a rattlesnake.  It doesn't work necessarily for all snakes but definitely for rattlers. Ma and Pa Kennels does the training and I appreciate their knowledge and gentle ways of teaching.

I'm off to sew the HST's.  I hope you have a happy summer Saturday.
Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Head over to check out links of inspiration :-)

Another Bonnie Hunter class in June!

So last Friday was the day for Straits of Mackinac!  The anticipation was rewarded with yet another wonderful day!  A second class added only a comfort level and did not disappoint. I would love to sew in a Bonnie class for a 5 day class at Asilomar which I think is already filled up.  Maybe another year...

I had purchased a fat quarter bundle of Janet Clare's fabric called More Hearty Good Wishes and was looking for a Storm at Sea pattern to use for it.  Fortunately, I remembered Bonnie had done something like that and oh my! It's in her new book!  Well, yay and she's teaching this class when she comes for the Seven Sisters quilt show. That couldn't have gotten any better!
It's amazing to see her quilts in person and to be able to check out the individual fabrics that she used.

See that fun crabby fabric?  Someone in class....I think it was Lisa from Atascadero?  I really wished I'd written this day down! With or without fabric, Lisa was fun to share class with.  I hope I see her again at quilty meets soon.
Any who...The crab fabric owner encouraged me to cut off a piece to use. I love it!  Thank you!

We ended the day with laying out our collective blocks for a group picture.

Some had finished some sashing pieces and you can start to see the circle effect forming.  Mine's the darkish one in the middle.

I didn't actually use much of my Janet Clare fabric in this first one but will start when I continue. My square in a square needs some work but I love that this block also has some shared pieces from my table partner, (Thank you!) Rori. Hopefully, I will see improvement as I sew on.

So...I have some finishes to share but will do that in another post.  I'm back to sewing on my Emerald City and hope to celebrate the 4th with my machine :-) 
Have a wonderful time however you spend it. Happy Independence Day!
Linking to Confessions of Fabric Addict Fridays. Check out the inspiration!