Panel #9

My blog has been quiet because we were away.  We escaped winter to beautiful Mexico for 10 days.  What a delightful and relaxing holiday!  I finished up panel #9 of my Susan McCord trailing vine quilt stitching by the pool and on the plane.  I am still thrilled to sew on each finished panel.  Only 4 more to go :0)

 Still lov'in this project!!

 We've been home for a few days and more of these blocks have been made.  I'm still having fun with them but perhaps I'll stop at 16.

 Then I made this Panda bear block to contribute to my guild's Zoo quilt that we are assembling tonight.  It went together fairly easily but then the face had to be done by hand.

 The eyes were no problem but the mouth and nose had to be embroidered - yikes!  It didn't go very well and now I'm even more worried about the future of my Bird of Paradise blocks.  I want them to have embroidery but I don't like doing it and I'm not very good at it.  I may have to sew them together and keep going with the borders without embroidery.  At least then I will get to a finished quilt.

The kids wanted to paint pottery at the resort where we stayed in Mexico so I did a piece too.  It's so bright and happy :0)  We painted it as we wanted and then a resort staff person "fixed" it up to look like Mexican pottery.  I should have asked him if he did embroidery...

Happy Quilting!!

not something new

I haven't yet decided what new project to start.  I did however, want to play with my scraps and sew something.  I had watched the Barrister's Block sewalong last year and loved some of the blocks.  I had printed out the instructions for a few of them and they had been hanging around tempting me for months :0)

 Last week I had a few minutes to play and so grabbed some scraps out of my ziplock bag of extra 2 inch squares and made this first block.  Now technically its not a new project because the fabric was already cut!  It was fun to make the block and I enjoyed looking at it in all its small scrappiness.  Now I also have ziplock bags with extra 1 1/2 inch squares, and 2 1/2 inch squares... etc.  Can you guess where this is going?

 3 more blocks appeared over the weekend.  There are endless possibilities for these little 6 inch blocks.  I am not going to start a Nearly Insane or Farmer's Wife sampler quilt - I am not even going to make all the Barrister's Block blocks.  I have no intentions of starting a big project like that.

I  have no idea how many I will make.  They practically make themselves so there could be quite a few before I get this out of my system... and then I'll start a new project - lol! 

Happy Quilting!!

 

Antique quilts - an informal show

A friend of mine from my guild has a lovely collection of old and antique quilts.  She brought a couple of laundry baskets full to our last guild meeting to show them to us.  What a night!! I just loved them and it was marvelous to see them up close and hands on :0)



 This one is just gorgeous!  Red and green applique with cheddar accents - my favorite! It was soft, faded, well loved and beautifully quilted!

 So there is a little mystery here.  What has happened to the fabric dye in these centre block squares? Any ideas??

 This next one is faded and soft too.  I love the fan quilting and the alternate flowers with no stems :0)

 There were lovely blue prints in this one.

 Love, love the cheddar in this one.  I also really liked the quilting design in the open spaces.

 I hadn't seen this quilting design before.

 The next quilt was SO interesting.  When my friend bought it it was tied with black yarn and she was sure there was another quilt inside.

 I was at her house and helped her cut the ties and this T quilt emerged from in between the above top and the backing. I love this humble, well worn,old quilt.  I like the rows of T's with the random ones thrown in. I really like the row of quarter square triangles on one edge that I didn't manage to get a good picture of.  If this quilt could talk...

 I also love this one T print.  This quilt was very worn but someone knew you could stay warm under it if it just got resurfaced :0)

 The next quilt was a birthday gift I think. I should have taken a picture of the embroidery in the upper left block - the label so to speak.

 I thought the embroidered names were so interesting.  So many old fashioned names and some done with exuberant flamboyance.  Gertrude's was my favorite (probably helps that her handleless basket is red :0)  The one in the center made her name the basket handle.  There were a number of names that were embroidered Mrs followed by the husband's name.  It reminded me of my grandma :0)  What a birthday gift!

 This next one has large blocks.  I like how the star backgrounds are playfully arranged.

 This one was very bright!  You would have a cheerful room with this on the bed.

 This quilt was very finely quilted with tiny stitches.

 Such a classic pattern in a classic color combination.

 This last one is my friend's favorite.  The quilting on it is exquisite.

Of course some close ups are necessary. 



 I love the triple lines of quilting.  I wish I had the patience to quilt this densely. 

I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did.  My friend says she has more and we'll do it again in the fall - Yipee!!
Happy Quilting!!

2 more circle blocks

I made two more circle blocks from the Circle Game quilt pattern by Jen Kingwell.  I was worried this first one would be really hard but it was not too bad.  

 The second one, we found the pattern templates in the pattern were not perfect diamonds. Unfortunately we discovered this after I pieced my block so it has issues around the edges ...  I'm not afraid of a little fudging however so I will leave it for now.

Learning, learning, always learning!
Happy Quilting!!

cheddar posies top finished!

With the start of a new year I have been itching to start something new. My sewing table is piled with sketches, magazines and pulled fabrics but since I am having troubles with indecision it seemed like a good time to finish something already in the works.

This quilt I have been calling Cheddar Posies.  It is for  DD#1 so the colors and pattern were her choice. The pattern is called RosyPosies from the May/June 2011 Quiltmaker magazine. 



The blocks were all made and the center 18 blocks were together already so really just the borders needed to go together.  My quilts often get stuck at this point.  It took a surprisingly long time to finish it up.



Of course now it is ready to be basted for machine quilting.  Also not my favorite part... DD#1 is eager to be sleeping under this so she will keep me moving on it :0)
Now maybe I can start piecing something new!
Happy Quilting!!

another block

I've been working away on all the usual projects so I don't have much new to share.  I did get together with my friend to work on our circle blocks. This block was interesting to put together.  I still have to applique the circle in the center but I'm going to wait until the outer edge gets sewn into a square so I don't stretch it as there is so much bias and I'm afraid to handle it too much.  

 I also received an exciting little package in the mail all the way from Australia!!  I won a giveaway over on Meredithe's blog Pomegranate and Chintz. 

 

I haven't done much hand piecing before. I think it will be fun to try out these templates and make some flying geese.  There are templates for 2 sizes.  I should probably try making some larger ones first? 

Happy Stitching!!

Something new for a New Year



After a title like that you are probably looking for an exciting new project  :0)  So far I haven't started anything new but I've sure been thinking about it!

What's new is a new kind of leaf on Panel #9 of the Susan McCord Vine quilt.  I was a bit surprised to see this - I wasn't expecting anything new in panel 9 but here is a pieced leaf with a pre-seamed strip in the middle of it.



 As you can see my first attempt at making it did not go very well.  It reminded me of when I used to do more paper piecing and once in a while I would find a pre-seamed piece had to be made.  I always thought it was bit like trying to do something upsidedown and backwards at the same time.  This wasn't quite that bad  :0)

 That Susan McCord sure wanted to make use of every tiny bit of fabric she could! I made good progress on this panel over Christmas as there is always lots of visiting and driving time when I can pull it out and work on it.

When we got home from all our travels this little star quilt was waiting for some attention.  It is based on the Temecula Quilt Co. Countdown to Christmas quilt. I had decided to not make the full quilt so I had to figure out what to do with the pieces I made. 

This is the result so far.  It isn't a very well thought out layout but my stars turned out a bit wonky and I just wanted it done. I will add a small plain border and machine quilt it up.  If this hits the ufo bin it may never emerge...  I still like those tiny little stars so I want to finish it even if it is wonky.

I hope your 2014 is filled with many hours of happy stitching!
Happy Quilting!!