Quilt Camp Accomplishments

It took several retreats, but I finally finished my Devil's Claw blocks--yay!
These will go together to make the cover quilt from Civil War Remembered by the Country Threads ladies. The pattern in the book calls for 30 blocks, but I wanted mine to be a bit larger, so I made 42 blocks. This project will probably have wait to be put together until April when I will be at quilt camp again.

It took almost the entire retreat to finish those Devil's Claw blocks, but on the last day I was able to work on some Fractured blocks. These were very fun to make-- a lot less labor intensive than a Devil's Claw block, for sure and a much better stash burner! 

You probably knew that I couldn't resist putting all of the flowers on my Flower Garden Crazy mat! 

I won't be doing the stitching on it for a while, though.

 I am still doing my Slow Stitching on How Does Your Garden Grow, but I'm sure everyone is tired of seeing what little progress I've made on that project!

Linking with Slow Sunday Stitching HERE

 

First 2016 UFO Complete!

I finished my January UFO before I left for quilt camp, but didn't get any photos taken until today.

ThimbleCreek 2015 Mystery Sew Along quilt.
Officially checked off the 2016 Finish-A-Long list!
There was a little peek of sunshine this afternoon, so I ventured out onto our ice covered porch to get some quick pictures. I could have spent a little more time arranging the quilt but I had to be quick since I was too lazy to put on my coat and gloves.

Somehow there was a big pile of leftover hourglass units, so I used them to frame my label.
How 'bout those blue bats on the backing?!?
I ordered the backing online (at a great price) and was very surprised to see the bats were black and blue and not all black when the fabric arrived in the mail. It took a while to warm up to them, but I'm okay with them now---I think. 

I wimped out on the edge to edge quilting and ended up doing a lot of ditch quilting. It shows off all the piecing nicely, so I'm glad I changed my mind about that.

I need 239 one inch half square triangle to sash my Buttermilk Basin BOM blocks. I printed up the papers from my Triangulations CD and spent the morning fitting them to the scraps of background fabric I had leftover from the blocks. Of course I ran out of the background fabric, but I think I found a pretty good make-do fabric from my stash to make all the HST's.

 I'm really looking forward to removing all those papers--not!

Linking with One Monthly Goal (OMG)  
and 2016 Finish-A-Long HERE

Stress!

The bad thing about procrastinating, is the stress you feel when your deadlines draw near. I always tell myself that I will get things done well in advance, but you already know that I'm easily distracted!

I should be packing for a retreat that starts on Sunday, but I don't want to fall behind on the 365 Block Challenge just yet--only 344 more blocks to go!!

I have finished quilting and binding my UFO for January (I'll share photos when I get back from retreat), so to reward myself I did the embellishments on the first Let It Snow block from Buttermilk Basin. I know I am going to love this Sew Along! 

My friend Sandi and I are doing our own Sew Along. At a sew-in on Tuesday we set up the backgrounds for our Primitive Gatherings Crazy Table Mats. She is doing Summer Crazy and I am doing Flower Garden Crazy. When we finish, we plan to swap patterns--fun!

I am sooooo itching to fuse a few flowers onto the mat and so some stitching, but I know I better finish my retreat  packing or my stress level will be sky high! 

Well, maybe just one flower first....

Slow Stitching Decisions

Cross Stitch used to be my go to "craft" until my eyesight got a little sketchy. Still, I was very tempted to get out my flosses when I saw this sew along (there's those words again!) on Facebook. 

A crow on a fox--too cute!!
This Sew Along is called Joyful World. Find out more HERE.
 I used to be all about hand embroidery. but these days most of my embroidery is done on wool. Still, I am saving the cute vintage embroidery designs that Sentimental Stitches will be posting this year. Check it out HERE and then click on Free Patterns, scroll down to Vintage Blooms, and click on Fabric Requirements Blocks One and Two just beneath the setting diagram (there are a lot of ads to navigate through--I hope you get there okay!) 

There was no way I could resist the new Buttermilk Basin BOM--it's snowmen on letters that will spell out "Let It Snow"--so cute! I decided to live on the edge and use a dark background--I hope it works out! You can find the pattern link HERE.
 I'll be stitching up my block today and enjoying some Slow Sunday Stitching!
Linking with Kathy's Quilts HERE

Finish-A-Long 2016

I haven't joined the Finish-A-Long before, but maybe it will encourage me to finish some of my older projects--we'll see! 

The idea is to choose projects that you want to finish in the first quarter of 2016--three months of sewing fun!!

The finishing instructions for the Buttermilk Basin 2015 BOM were posted on Friday. I do like the long banner Stacy created, so I will probably follow her instructions faithfully! 

My second group of Green Lake Retreat swap blocks are waiting for me to come up with a setting idea--I would like to get these made up and out of the way soon! 

I had completely forgotten about my little boats! I finished these at a retreat in October, and just found them when I started packing for the retreat at the end of this month. I have to get this one finished ASAP!

These leftover blocks from my Paper Dolls quilt were going to be made into a wall hanging and donated to our guild small quilt auction last summer. Surprise! It never happened. It's time to get these gals off the design wall! 

It's way past time to get my little cake stand quilt finished and framed.
I have the perfect spot for it and I'm excited to get it done! 

It wouldn't take much to finish up this small flag quilt, but here it hangs, unfinished, month after month--gotta get this one done soon. 

Ryokan has been pressed and hung on the design wall  waiting patiently to be quilted--since last June, I think.
 I really want to get this one finished--it's been years since I made the top. 

You can't tell from this photo, but these are such pretty blocks. Memory Bouquet was one of our first Stitch Therapy projects and this is the year to finally make it a quilt. 

And lastly, since it's already on the quilting machine--the ThimbleCreek Halloween mystery just has to be finished!!

Linking with the 2016 Finish-A-Long at Clover and Violet HERE

A Little of This and That....

Yesterday I visited the Aitkin Quilt Guild with the new owner of Colorz Quilt Shop, Denise. The guild  had several shops from around the state do some vending and I demonstrated the Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star ruler for Colorz. 

These are some of the early shoppers.
It was fun to meet up with so many retreat buddies that I will be sewing with in less than two weeks. I better start planning what I will be bringing along!

I think I mentioned last week that I was refreshing my memory on the steps to use the Rapid Fire ruler. I decided to put together all of my partially made stars from other demos and classes that I have done and over the weekend I made this little piece using the 3" stars. It's so cute hanging on my design wall--I think I need to at least double it for a small throw. 

A lot of the stars are make-do, using stray cuts from the ends of my strip sets--I couldn't bear to toss anything. 

I know it would probably drive most quilter's crazy to put the non-matching parts together, but it doesn't bother me at all--it's kind of what patchwork is all about, isn't it?

The second week of the 365 Challenge is complete--only 50 more weeks left--lol! 

No quilting is being done on my Halloween Mystery quilt loaded on the other side of this table--my bad! Now that I have a couple of the Mrs. Billings borders laid out, they will have to be pieced before I can do any quilting--see how I always shoot myself in the foot when it comes to staying on track!?

Linking with Scraptastic Tuesday HERE

Way Off Track...

Somehow I have let myself get off track (again!) and haven't touched my January UFO yet. 

Well, I did do a little practicing on my white board, but you can see I need to do a lot more practicing!

Mr. Moosebay doesn't think these look anything like spider webs--maybe he's right??!!

Another thing that side-tracked me was using up my microwavable batting. I wanted to make a few microwavable  bowls as gifts, and while I was at it, I finally made myself a potato bag. Years ago, I had planned to make a bunch of these to sell at our guild quilt show--never happened. And never will. Now I have a couple yards of potato fabric to add to my "to be sold" pile.
Yeesh.

In the bag with the batting, was a pattern for a tortilla warmer and I had just enough batting left over to make myself one of those too.
I haven't tried it out yet--hope it works! 

The first week of blocks for the 365 Challenge.
One week down--51 to go!!

I'm still working on embellishing my How Does Your Garden Grow leaves--then I will force myself to do the sunflower seeds--I've been avoiding them!

Linking with Slow Sunday Stitching HERE and Podunk Pickin's HERE

UFO Goal for January

Since my ThimbleCreek Halloween Mystery quilt is already loaded on the machine (and has been for quite a while!), I've chosen it as my first UFO to complete in 2016.

I'm planning to do an edge to edge design since the top is so busy and the pieces so small. I found a fun spider web that I think will be easy to free hand--I'll have to practice it on a white board for a while before I try it out on the quilt top.

I still need to choose a thread color--gray, green, orange, black???
 Not sure yet!

I'm making slow progress on the double diamond border for Mrs. Billings--I may actually be about half way--yay!! Doing it a little at a time has been pretty painless.

More Lemoyne Stars--I'm practicing in anticipation of a demo I will do next week. 

The gals behind A Lovely Year of Finishes have decided to take a well deserved break, but there is a new link up stepping in: 

One Monthly Goal (OMG)

Slow Sunflower Stitching

So far, it has been pretty easy to keep up with the 365 Challenge blocks--the blocks have been very simple--except for the bonus block in the center. One day, when I don't feel like making the daily block, this one will be waiting in the wings. Eventually, I think I will collect the patterns for a week and stitch up all seven in one day.  

The 2016 ThimbleCreek mystery also started on New Year's Day. Sign up for their Gazette so you can get the clues. These blocks were a challenge for me, since I'm a huge Square in a Square hater--and they hate me. I was going to sit this sew-along out, but of course I caved--no willpower whatsoever. I'm going to use my Kim Diehl scraps and some of my Zen  Chic Paper backgrounds.

I've made a lot of progress on my Slow Stitching--just a few sunflowers to stitch around on How Does Your Garden Grow. Then there's that pile of little circles that go in the sunflower centers and a few blue butterflies, as well as lots of detail stitching in the leaves and banner. It should keep me busy for a month of Sunday's, at least! 

Linking with Slow Sunday Stitching HERE