Waffle Time

This year I have been trying so hard not to join in on a lot of Sew Along's.
I'm still attempting to finish up all of the projects that I started last year, but I can feel myself weakening! 

I've been toying with the idea of starting the Di Ford mystery in Quiltmania--okay, more than toying. I have to confess that I've made all the applique templates but haven't made it any further than that.

If I get started on this, I'll be using fabrics from my stash--probably definitely in brighter colors than these.
The little circle in a square border is part two from the latest issue #100.

I also signed up for a Crazy Quilt class from Kathy Shaw.

 I've always admired crazy quilting, so when she offered a free online class, I jumped on it. It's been fun to work on new stitches and she has some great tips. Luckily for me it's just a small project!

My Crazy Quilt block before adding any stitching or embellishment.
Kathy sent instruction for the block we will practice on--
this is about the size of a sheet of printer paper and basted onto muslin.
This class is closed now, but she will be offering it again later in the year.

Now I'm feeling myself getting sucked into the Triangle Sew Along from the Sassy Quilter--looks like a fun way to use my Grant Park fat quarters!

The fabric requirements call for third yards but fat quarters can also be used.

Check it out HERE

Step one was to starch and press our fabrics.
It takes a lot longer to complete step one than the cutting in step two!

We need 204 triangles for the quilt top.
I used 26 fat quarters and could comfortably cut 8 triangles from each of them. That gave me a few extras to play with.
I stacked 4 fabrics at a time so the cutting went very quickly.
My 60 degree ruler doesn't have a blunt tip, so I had to find a line on my ruler so I had a flat quarter inch at the top of my 6" strips when cutting the triangles.

Ready for Step Three!
This is going to be a fun one.

Stitch Frenzy

This has been a crazy week of hand stitching!

Last weekend, I finished up the embroidery on my practice crazy quilt block. It was fun to try out different stitches that I hadn't used in ages. Many years ago (too many to recount), Avon used to sell crewel embroidery kits. My local Avon Lady hired me to stitch up some of the kits as sales samples. It was a fun little job for a "stay at home" Mom. I learned to do a lot of embroidery stitches to complete those projects and some of those stitches are showing up in the Crazy Quilt class.

Now that the stitching is finished, we will be adding lace, ribbon embroidery and beading.

On Monday the last block of Quilty Fun was posted and it 
 also included a little embroidery.
I just finished up that pincushion too--more fun stitches!

The bee block completed the center of the quilt.
I'm "testing" fabric from my stash for the borders.

One of the adorable Bertie blocks by Bonnie Sullivan of All Through the Night. 

Wednesday afternoon I taught an embroidery class at Colorz for Quilts. We practiced some of the unusual stitches that will be used in the Bertie Through the Year blocks, a program that starts up in April at Colorz.

This is for you, Linda!!

Thursday I realized it was only 7 days away from my next Stitch Society meeting and I hadn't done any of my hexagon designs aside from the one I put on my notebook cover.

Some of these blocks are very labor intensive--luckily there are a few that will be pretty simple too!

Today I am taking a breather from hand stitching and doing some major cleanup in the sewing room!

(the Avon link above goes to my friend Del's page. She is a "stay at home" Mom with lots of little ones. I love to order my favorite Avon products online--with a $35 purchase you get free delivery right to your door! That's not an endorsement--just a happy customer.) 

Another One Bites the Dust!

Yay! My Country Threads 2014 Block of the Month quilt is finished.
 I call her Scrappy Happy since she is definitely scrappy and she makes me happy--happy to have used up some of my stash-haha!
I ended up appliqueing my initials and the year finished in that big hole in the center.
You may have noticed that the outer checkerboard doesn't work out in two of the corners. That's the way it's written in the finishing instructions and at first it really bothered me. I knew if I added a one inch inner border, I could get it to work out "correctly", but later decided to just go with the mismatched corners. I think it adds to the "make-do" feel of the quilt.

I skipped the Breezy Point Sew-In last week so I could get Scrappy Happy  loaded onto my HQ16.
There were a couple hours spent pressing the top and backing.
I removed zillions of threads--those home spun fabrics are ravel-y!
I put a new needle in my machine, oiled her up, and wound multiple bobbins.

The following day, I planned to be up bright and early to get Scrappy Happy quilted.
Oops--hair appointment on the calendar!
 I didn't get started quilting until almost noon,
but the Cinnamon Roll quilting goes really fast (and it's fun!).
Scrappy Happy was ready to bind by dinner time.

My thread choice may have been a little light for some areas,
but I'm trying to use up the massive amount of King Tut "Sands of Time" that I have in my thread stash--more making-do! 

I used up scraps and left over pieced units on the back.
The label is made from a couple of extra half square triangles.
That large plaid was a 2 yard piece I picked up for $4--yeah!!
I guess you can tell I just kind of slapped it all together. I was more worried about it being square rather than how it looked.
Make-do!

Karen from Log Cabin Quilter sent me her latest blocks--she is right on schedule!
She's also working on an awesome basket quilt that I am dying to start--
check out her site for a link!!

Here's a heads up if you haven't heard about the Kansas City Star book program. Every Thursday they have one of their books for sale at 75% off with free shipping. After you purchase 5 books, you will get a book of your choice for free! This week's book (expires B/4 Thursday) is Minick and Simpson's Victory Girls.


I've been eyeing this book for quite a while and this week it's only $6.24!
You must enter the code BOBBINS75 to get the deal.
I advise signing up for their newsletter, so you get an alert every Thursday.
I have 3 books to go before I get to pick my free one....

Challenges!

Since I was finally able to install my Electric Quilt 7 program on my new laptop (learning Windows 8 has been a huge challenge!), it seemed like it would be fun to design something for the Red and White Quilt Challenge  hosted by SewCalGal.

Read about and see other quilt designs HERE

I wanted to design something that would use my newest Accuquilt die, the Drunkard's Path (I was forced compelled to add it to my cart so I would qualify for free shipping).

 This is what I came up with:

I call it Moon Phase! 

The finished size will be 58" x 65" (16 by 18 3.5" blocks for a total of 288). It looks like I will need 3 5/8 yards of white fabric and 1 7/8 yards of red. That will be perfect since I have a yummy 2 yard pack of Cherrywood Scarlet that I have been saving for a red and white quilt! I'm going to have to measure up some of my white pieces--hopefully I can work from my stash!

Visit Insights from SewCalGal to keep up with the Red and White happenings!

Simply Red March Recap

Spring 2014: Day 2
This was the view from my sewing room this morning.

And this is a shot of my lilacs as I was leaving home this morning--
I'm pretty sure there are lots of broken branches under all that snow. 

We had a wide variety of Simply Red blocks on Monday. 

It's fun to see so many interpretations of the same pattern. The group was a little larger this month due to better road conditions--by next month we should have a full house! 

fused with straight stitched edges

fused Minick and Simpson wool

more fused blocks

and another house block....

bright orange with gray

If you are following the Stitch Therapy schedule, continue working on piecing the half square triangles and do the stitching on the pages 6 and 7 blocks:

Spring!

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring...not that it looks like it will actually be happening here any time soon. My lilacs are still under at least 3 feet of snow and there are a few flakes floating around in the air today. Yeesh...

So even though we are still wearing these..
(Quilty Fun Mitten block)

I'd rather see these popping up in my gardens!
(Quilty Fun Flower block)

And it seems I will never get to wear these!!
(my new Bokos in fun SPRING colors)

Stitch Society

The first Stitch Society meeting last week was a lot of fun! 

Theresa is our leader and she gave us a lot of tips on needles and doing wool applique.

Over the next year, we will get patterns for 180 appliques that fit on a hexagon shape.  

We also get a project pattern each month.Our first project was a notebook cover to keep all our fun stuff safe.
This is the version that Theresa made-so cute! She recommended we use the paisley motif as it's seasonally neutral--great idea! There were a few kits available, but I opted to use my own fabrics.

This is my notebook cover.
I used fabrics that I had purchased a couple years ago in a remnants bag from a local quilt shop.
The Plexiglas templates are what we will be using to cut our hexagons for various projects. 

I had the wool pieces in my "woolly" stash and was finally able to use a pretty variegated Cosmo thread that I have had for ages.
Theresa also recommended we not surround the hexagon with beads as shown in the project pattern because of the wear and tear our notebook will get over the year. I think that was a good call too. 

I added pockets to my cover--not sure why that wasn't in the pattern--gotta have pockets!!

We also get these stitch instructions every month. These will be cut out using our large template and put into a book.
There's also a monthly recipe!
 Theresa's sister, who runs Gruber's Cafe will be making them up each month for us to taste test. The pumpkin bread was awesome!

This is our project for next month in process--the book for our stitch instructions.
Theresa is attaching beads all the way around.
I think it's going to be a fun year!

Incoming!

Mr. Mail Carrier has been very busy this past week!

I was one of the very lucky winners during the Moda Spell it with Fabric blog hop. I won a fat quarter bundle of Kathy Schmitz's latest line of fabrics, Piecemaker's.

Love, love, love the blues and browns!
Kathy included a sweet card and bookmark too.
The bundle also included a half yard of the large motif panel--so beautiful!

I have to confess that I really love this line of fabric--so much so,  that I had already purchased a baby bundle (eighths) of it--now I will have even more fun!! 

Take a look at this awesome package that came from Miss Rosie!
My name was randomly chosen from the Another Year of Schnibbles parade at The Quilting Life--how lucky was that??? There are so many cool stripes, checks and dots in these layer cakes--they will make some fun summer quilts. Carrie also included a couple Candy Bar packs and a little tin of piecing pins--so sweet! 

Before I knew I had WON a bunch of fabric, I had been doing some browsing shopping.
Oops...You know I can't resist a bargain!!
I had been telling myself I didn't need the latest from Minick and Simpson (Grant Park), but when you find a bundle of fat quarters for $70 off, how can you not press that tempting Purchase Now button?!?
Somehow the Jo Morton fat quarters and French General mini-charms ended up in the cart too.
I really like the Jan Patek Front Porch dessert roll--very pretty fabrics!

At least I have these blocks going OUT.
I was able to use up a few yards of fabric for these QOV blocks that will be mailed to Kevin the Quilter later today. I didn't have a lot of the appropriate fabrics, but managed to come up with 15 of the 12" blocks. You can see that they are super easy and fast--very fun to make! 

Happenings!

I'm pretty excited this week! 

Way back in 2013 (okay, it was December, so not that long ago actually) I signed up for the Stitching Society group at Gruber's Quilt Shop.

Wool hexagons embroidered with adorable designs!

This Thursday is the first meeting and it will continue into 2015. I'm praying for good driving weather since it's a 90 minute drive for me. 

To see a little more of what it's about, click HERE. I happen to know that it's not too late to join in the fun, so give Grubers a call! 

 I think I'm behind on posting my Quilty Fun blocks:

Not sure if I showed the houses yet--if so, here they are again!

The left side is sewn!

The butterflies.

This weeks block: the spools.

I've been working diligently getting all those half square triangle filler blocks made and finally  have my Country Threads 2013 BOM top together. I moved a couple things around, but not too much. I love how scrappy it is, but that big hole in the center (huge churn dash block) is begging for a little doctoring. I have a couple ideas for a cure--still mulling it over though--any thoughts?