My Design Wall

My design wall is still pretty much the same.  It's the same picture as last week too! 

I do have some charms up there now; I'm making a 2nd  Charm party tote from a packet of charm squares, but only have the front and back panels (12 charms each) sewn together.

(no pictures)  I made this one first and as per usual, why make one when your can make two?

It was gifted to the "prez" of my Bunco group.  I had delusions of finding the perfect dice fabric and appliqueing "bunco beauties" (which we call ourselves--to hoots of laughter).  But the best laid plans I forgot about wanting to make it about 2 days after our last month's bunco and didn't remember until last week...bunco was on Saturday, the last one for the summer.  I did find dice buttons and I think it's quite sophisticated looking. 

More importantly the prez loved it. 

*****

I finished the Batik Sampler quilt. 

I do like it.  (she says hesitantly), no I really do, kinda

. 

 It's a fine example of feather over load. 

Ya know how I've said while I'm quilting something I'm scared how it will look as I can only see a small area of it? Well, the entire time I was quilting this I LOVED it.  (that will hopefully be a warning in the future). And couldn't wait to see it.

Ready.....

This picture doesn't quite do the OH MY GOSH THOSE FEATHERS ARE  SMACKING ME IN THE FACE!

So let's try this one....(hello Annie, you ham-dog!)

just click on the picture and DANG GIRL! ~~~ you'll see what I mean!

(Did you say "whoa"? I do every time I click on it...'whoa'.)

Hellllloooo feathers!

 Not the look I was going for.

I'm disappointed.  

But hey it's a learning process.  And (this is so typical of me) as soon as I unloaded it and got the WAMMO effect; I remembered practically word for word Kimmy Brunner's admonishment in her "Whirly Twirly Feathers video" to be careful how your use your feathers or you'll overwhelm the piecing..... :) ~~hee, hee, blush.

as my 6 year old nephew says and I quote:

 "Fun times, fun times...Life if Good."

(my sister, seriously, has no idea where he picked this up...)

   

******

The weekend was beautiful --Saturday was a 5 1/2 hour bike ride in the country, Amish country...where we saw horse and buggies and all kinds of farm critters and I forgot my camera.--Always forget something.  We got lost in Amish country too....that was fun!  

At one point Paul said to me loudly over his shoulder, "I'm getting a GPS holder for the bike!"

Good idea! 

we forgot the GPS too....

We got a 2 1/2 hour ride in on Sunday.

It's raining again today.

 fun times, fun times.....:)

Design Wall Monday May 16, 2011

Here is my wall.

I'm going to see how long it can stay here like this. I want to use a light grey CW fabric and I don't have enough on hand. 

I have so much other stuff to get done, caught up on, enjoy this week.

 It will be a test of wills to see if I can leave this alone.

***

I have started the quilting on my Batik Sampler; will try to post a picture of quilting later.  I'm doing an all over feather with a bright variegated thread.  I'm doing regular feathers not the hooked ones I just did on the last  2 quilts.  The thread on the black batik shows every bobble and I'm going extra slow and still frogging a "too wobbly" one every now and then. 

Edit: here are a couple pictures, sorry about the glare.

Lotsa stuff going on and pictures too

My batik stars quilt is loaded, I've picked the bright variegated threads I want to use, but I haven't started. I know once I take a few minutes and start the first stitches the quilt will be half way done before I know it! 

(this picture is from last July-before the outer borders added-I don't seem to have a picture after this)

On Thursday Libby and I went to the Quilt Co.  If you spend $100 in the month of May, you get a Summer Shopping Pass which entitles you to 20% off your purchases in June/July/August.  Libby had a list a mile long; she's always very organized like that.

I spent the days before "thinking" about what I needed/wanted but sadly didn't write a list out (weird because I LUV to make lists).

I knew I needed a blue fabric for  the LeMoyne star border.  I also forgot to take the quilt top with me, so I bought 2 fabrics that I thought might work.  The Morris Tapestry fabric was perfect so that's what I used.

a flimsy

Now at some point last week I got out my box of Block-a-day blocks and was just looking at them, no plans to start ANOTHER quilt but I did pull out these 3 blocks.

The block on the left will be a "porch pillow", the maple leaf block will be a pillow as well and the block on the right I'm just going to make into a little table topper/candle mat quilt. I pieced leftover batting scraps together for them. 

When I got the plastic bins out that I keep these blocks in, I noticed another container. I forgot that I had last years Shop Hop blocks in it.  I pieced those as block-a-day substitutes when I didn't like a particular block in the Block-a-Day calendar. 

I had stopped working on these because I ran out of the black batik I was using. (the same batik in my Batik Stars sampler quilt) I did find a sorta maybe not really match and just lost interest in this one.

Since Shop Hop 2011 is in June I thought I should get this thing finished.

So I got it out and put it up on the wall. Before Libby and I left, I cut a snippet of the original batik and stuck it in my purse.  I was thrilled, amazed very happy to find a very close match, much better than the one I settled for earlier.  Since the rows were already together finishing this only took an hour or 2 (I lose track of time in my sewing room).



Close up I couldn't see the subtle difference in the fabric-they are that close to a match-but the camera shows it and I love the effect! Just have the outer border to sew on.  I was thinking about making 4 little star blocks for cornerstone blocks but have decided to leave it plain. 

 Meg came down to my room last night (Paul was out with 'the guys'). My camera was sitting there so she took this. 

Say cheese!

And finally a Leader/Ender saga.  I was planning on posting earlier in the week but blogger was having issues-hence all this 'catch-up'.

Not too long ago I started sewing  little 9-patch blocks together (with repro fabric of course),  I made tons of them and then put them away. They finish 4" I think.  So I wanted to just make another little doll quilt.  I don't quite understand this doll quilt fixation I have but I love making them.

First I put up just the 12 blocks on the right for the doll quilt and then I "just for fun" put the rest of the blocks up. As is my luck, I was 3 short.  So I made 3 more. I played with sashing ideas for about 2 minutes and decided I didn't have enough of any one fabric I liked and that would turn it into too much of a big project.

So I moved them all together.

Now in the meantime I am working on the LeMoyne stars and looking at the wall with these blocks  and at some point I thought 'what if I turned them on point?'

Now I missed taking a picture in here because when I turned them on point I was 4 blocks short AGAIN!  But I liked the look.  So I cut out some more pieces and miscounted and made 6 so now I still have leftover blocks....gees-Louise!

While I was pieced these extra blocks, I sewed the little doll quilt ones together

 and added the borders.

oops! it's sideways.



Hooked Feathers

Last week while blog surfing I happened upon a new to me blog. Jennys Doodling Needle.

I was scrolling through the beautiful pictures of her quilting and lo and behold she had a tutorial on  all- over hooked feathers.  Now I have the book by Sally Terry "Hooked on Feathers" and have quilted them, in fact they were the first feathers I tried.  So I took a good look her pictures and instructions and started practicing on paper.  I had already loaded a quilt for Libby but it was just sitting there since I hurt my back digging in my flowers...

I finally decided it was time to try the feathers 'for real'. 

My last practice page I pinned up on the wall across from HQ.

I always find it a little scary stitching out an all-over and only being able to see the area that I'm working on. It's not until I finish and unroll it that I can say whew!  That's good. For me a lot of my concern is keeping the feathers (or whatever the motif is) a consistent size. 

I was pretty excited when I finished this one.

So I loaded my Schnibbles Lincoln top and quilted it too. 

oh doo-doo, now I have to bind it!

gag.

******

The weather here is beautiful. 

Paul and I are going out on the bike for a nice long ride and dinner somewhere.

We went out last night too-just for a ride tho', we had dinner at home on the deck w/ Meghan;
Grilled Cajun chicken salad and baked potatoes.
Delish.

Design Wall Monday 5/9/11

On my design wall are the blocks, eight done-one to go, for my LeMoyne star quilt.  The pattern is in Kathleen Tracy's book, Remembering Adelia .  I was attracted to the blues the first time I saw it.

I finished my little 9-Patch Doll quilt (also a Kathleen Tracy design)!

I machine quilted it on my DSMachine. 

I'm seriously smitten with this little sweetie.

And although it seems just about everybody has already made a Schnibbles quilt, I finally have my first one together.  I pieced it as a Leader/Ender, which was easier to do with the rail fence blocks.  The star blocks I pretty much pieced each one at a time.

The pattern is Lincoln and I used "American Primer" charm packs from Minnick & Simpson.

The backing is pieced, binding made and just waiting for it's turn on HQ.

Check out other design walls over at Patchwork Times and have a great week!

taking everyone's advice

from my last post and NOT doing laundry.  Amazingly, (snicker) if I maintain excellent posture it doesn't bother my back to sew. 

I had the pattern from Kathleen Tracy's website for this sweet little quilt.

(14 x 18)

I cut all the pieces out yesterday, while I was working on the Lemoyne Star blocks. I figured I might as well, since all my fabrics were out and a big mess anyway.

I've also pieced 2 of the star blocks and another star block for the Lincoln schnibbles.  So I'm basically L/Endering 3 tops at one time.  It worked just fine.  Now that I'm so accustomed to piecing more than one thing at a time, it feels like a waste of time not too.



Design wall

 I found that I can rotary cut without it hurting my back. 

I can also do laundry but that's not near as much fun!

*wink*

This is a quilt from Remembering Adelia.  I wanted to use Thangles to make it but wasn't thinking (naturally). Thangles gives me 2 identical HST units.  I only want one since every blocks wants to be it's scrappiest! 

So after trying a sample block with thangles I just cut all the rest of the hst's using my Easy Angle ruler and my stash of 3.5" strips.

By the end of the afternoon my back was starting to hurt but I seriously think it was the laundry that did me in.

My other design wall  has my first Schnibbles on it.

Lincoln I sewed the rail fence blocks as L/E.

  I thought I was Soooooo clever using it for a L/E. You know kill 2 birds with one stone (yuk) and all that.  However, it took no time at all to get the rail blocks together.  The charm pack I'm using is from Minick &Simpson  American Primer collection.

Today I am going to try to quilt.

The house needs cleaned but I really doubt my poor back is ready for that-why risk it!