Ruh Roh!

My Primitive Gatherings "freebie" top Summer Blooms is all together and ready to layer and quilt. 

This was such a fun little project--I'm a little sad that it is over. 

I moved a few things around on the outer border so they would fit in a little better.
Summer Blooms is now available for purchase HERE if you missed out this summer.

I also embroidered a chain stitch inside the green wool that surrounds the red background fabric.
I needed to do that to cover a boo-boo that occurred while I was cutting out those scallops.
Don't you hate when that happens?

I was feeling like I could squeeze in a new project while waiting for Bonnie Hunter's new mystery to start at the end of November, so I cut fabrics for a quilt from The Blue and the Gray.

I'm excited to get started on this one--Blue and Gray aka The Red Cross Quilt.

So.....

I was all ready to start sewing when I got the blog update from Temecula Quilt Co. 

Oh oh--you know I can't resist those sew-alongs...

A sneak peek of the sew along starting Nov. 1st.

Yep....I'm in!
Click HERE for cutting instructions if you also have no willpower!

The Big Finish

Pie in the Sky is officially no longer a UFO--yay!!

The beauty shot: quilted and bound!

I got my top quilted in time to take it along to our machine quilting group (still needs a label though!).

I am linking it to Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival--in the scrappy category, naturally. 

There are lots of fun projects to check out and voting starts soon--check it out! 

I used Signature thread in the Mother Goose color.

The Kim Diehl Cinnamon Rolls quilting is fast and fun!

The dark taupe thread color works with all the colors pretty nicely IMHO. 

So, so happy to have this one checked off my list!!

People Get Ready!

Earlier this week, Bonnie Hunter announced her next mystery, Celtic Solstice. I've been trying to decide whether I should follow her color scheme this year or go off on my own again. 

Bonnie's inspiration--Ireland!

You may remember my disaster last year when I chose my own color scheme and ended up with low contrast on the important star points (revisit that adventure here). 

This is from Bonnie's site-she is using the colors across the bottoms of the paint chip cards.

I like Bonnie's choice of colors, but I have no brights in my stash. Well, maybe a few, but not enough to meet Bonnie's suggested fabric requirements. 

My retro fabrics may work out for Celtic Solstice--I guess I will start pulling fabrics and see how I like the way they play together. 

In the meantime, more retreat photos!

These are some of the projects that were in progress:

Pretty in Pink!

Awesome design from Primitive Quilts magazine.

It was fun watching this come together. 

Gorgeous Primitive Gatherings block of the week. 

Sharyn picked this kit up at Colorz in the Cherrywood Shop. 

Love this scrappy one! 

This is my cousin Barb's fabulous Mrs. Billings done with Kaffe Fassett fabrics. 

I had to show a closeup of the hexi flowers that will go on Mrs. Billings' next round. 

Aren't they awesome???

These are so cute--Art to Heart designs, I believe. 

Another Art to Heart design!

My birthday happened to take place during the retreat.
I woke up to find my sewing machine having a party!
It was a fun surprise.

Coming soon....retreat show and tell! 

Mail Box Fun!

I got a couple of fun things in the mail this week--

one that I was not expecting for at least a couple more weeks! 

This is the finishing kit for Words To Live By.
 I think it weighs about 10 pounds--lots of fabric.
There are four more wool applique blocks for each corner and then there are all those half square triangles.
I have been leisurely working on the big center block thinking that the finishing kit wouldn't show up until well into November. Surprise! 

I also got one of my packages of swap blocks--the 6 inch blocks. This package came all the way to my local post office where they decided it looked suspicious and sent it back to Virginia. Fortunately they decided to  deliver it to me the second time it was mailed out. 

I was pretty worried it would end up in some post office purgatory. 

I've been having so much fun looking through my blocks. I can't show you all 50-some of them, but here are a few I have to share:

Of course I had to show you Kathy's block--she's the group Mom!
I love that blue floral. 

Sue was the swap hostess and made sure I got my blocks.
Thanks again, Sue! 

It's fun see little embellishments on some of the signatures.

One from our Northern neighbor.

Kim was pretty brave with this fancy signature. 

This one had pretty stamping in the corners--and beautiful handwriting! 

It's really fun to get blocks from Down Under. 

This one too!

And a couple from Europe--these fabrics even look Danish!

 Jo Moron fabrics really get around! 

I have to find some of that blue fabric in the flying goose--maybe a Judy Rothermel?

Bronwen in England took ill but still send signatures embellished with flower drawings.
I plan to put it into the center of one of my leftover blocks. 

Now to decide how to set my blocks...I'm pretty sure I will use Kathy's pattern from The Civil War Sewing Circle book--that's what the signature block was taken from and I really like the setting, but you never know...... 

I have a busy day tomorrow with our Long Arm Quilting group meeting in the morning. 

I'm teaching an embroidery class in the afternoon at Colorz--I've been preparing all day--hope I didn't forget anything! 

Lazy Days...

I've been missing in action for the last week--not because I have been that busy--just very lazy.

The skies have been overcast and it's been pretty cool outside (even snow on Sunday--ack!), so I think I am going into hibernation mode! 

I forced myself to get my Pie in the Sky blocks put together.
This quilt is a riot of color and really fun to put together!

The best thing about Pie in the Sky is that it burns up 48 fat quarters--love that!!
The other best thing is that I won't be taking it to another retreat--yee-haw!
Pie in the Sky is the cover quilt on Kim Diehl's book Simple Graces.

I finally got this months Dixie Diary blocks completed--Shooting Stars.

On our way to quilt camp earlier this month, Sandi and I stopped at the St. Cloud Heritage Quilter's Running with Scissors quilt show.  Most of the photos I took were  inspirational close-ups of machine quilting I plan to "borrow", but the following pics are a few of the highlights for me:

This was a fabulous quilt!

They had very cool handmade ribbons.

I wish I had a closeup of this one--so many pieces and perfect!

There were several One Block Wonder quilts--this one was especially pretty.
I've been on a quest to find my copy of the One Block Wonder book--I know it's here somewhere!

This one was so elegant--you would never dream it was made with a corn print fabric! She had a piece of it pinned on the upper left corner. I wanted to make a One Block Wonder years ago, but never could find a fabric that I thought would work. After seeing this one, I am inspired to try to find the perfect fabric. 

The tiny prairie point edging was a fun finish for this quilt. 

This star was hung up pretty high so it was hard to get a good photo, but you can see it's stunning!

Lazy Sunday

I've been back from quilt camp for a few days and have a lot of quilty photos to share! 

I'm not sure where to begin, so I think I will work backwards......

Last night Sandi and I attended the Kaffe Fassett lecture at Grubers. 
He was very charming and funny!
The lecture was on color and he showed tons of gorgeous photos that he uses as inspiration.

Notice he is wearing a shirt made from his fabric. The collar and cuffs were lined with his paperweight fabric. He had red pants on that matched the stripe--a stylin' guy!
After the lecture he answered questions and did a book signing.
He is on a US tour, so if you get a chance to see Kaffe's Color Lecture, GO!!

The very first thing I did when I got home from retreat was to start pulling fabrics for my next quilt--you can probably guess from the blues and grays what it will be????

After I got that out of my system, I finished putting this top together. I got most of it done at camp, and I'm SO glad I won't have to take along again. This project has been in my retreat tub for about 2 years.
The pattern is Ring of Stars from the J/F 2011 issue of McCalls Quilting.
Can you see the rings? Squint a little...
It used up a lot of red scraps and I think it will be a nice Christmas quilt--if I get it quilted in time!

After I finished getting Ring of Stars together, I actually pieced a back and the binding for it AND put the borders on my Quiet Time top AND made a back and the binding for that--whew!
Now I can have some fun with these Pie in the Sky blocks that I also managed to finish at camp--sooooo happy to have these done!

You can see from the cover of the book above that the sashings and borders are all made from these squares.
I guess it will be a few days before I get to dig into that pile of fabrics I pulled out for my newest endeavor! 

More to come soon!

It's looks like a clear sunny day, so no sewing today--work to do in the garden.