It's so nice out

A beautiful day here in the 'burgh, 78 degrees and sunny.  I hadn't listened to the weather forecast so it was a lovely surprise!  
I actually fused the first 6 blocks for A Tisket, a Tasket BOM today and sat on the porch and cut them all out! I have a nice divet in my thumb from the scissors for my effort! 

I fused them and am real happy with my color/fabric choices. 

If you click on the picture and look at the bunny in the top far right block--I did not fussy cut that, but after I fused it, I thought it looked like an eye, right where his little eye should be!

I also got another FFF ready to stitch.  It's the April one, Stitching Annie.

The Pens are on tonight, so I will stitch while watching the game.

Also this morning before I did the baskets, I sewed 10 more OBW hexi's together, I only have 30 more to do.  woo-hoo!

Block a days 5/6 through 5/11 (I am loving these civil war repro. fabrics)

And finally, a few weeks ago I noticed a pair of Mourning Doves trying to nest in my Clematis vine that is growing up the side of the deck.

I tried to "discourage" them, for they're own good, 2 dogs roaming around right under that vine is not a good thing for fledgling baby birds, especially when the one dog, Annie is a bird dog. sigh.
They were tenacious and I kept forgetting to go shoo them away every 10 minutes. So yesterday when I went out on the deck and looked over to see what Mr. Otis was up too, one of the doves flushed and scared the heck out of me. 

And look what I saw....

Oh my gosh, I'm gonna be a gramma!!

I've spent so much time worrying over these dang little things- it's nuts.  I just read that mourning doves pair for life and will have 6 clutches of 2 eggs in a season! (good Lord, if Annie could read this she'd be drooling all over the place in birdie anticipation).  AND they will commonly return to the same spot to nest each year...oh dear--that can't be good.

Block-a-days

I have the Bl-a-D done up to May 5th.  The 8" block 2nd row far right is called "autograph star". I am going to use this for the label on one of the future quilts.  

The bottom 3 blocks are using a new set of civil war fabrics.

 I was tired of the color way I had been using (blues&golds).  I have twelve (12" blocks) in those colors so now  it's time to change it up a bit.  

In between I'm sewing leader/enders:  9-patches and snowball scrap blocks together, since the 9-patches are all dark 2.5" squares and random they stitch up so fast, cuz I ain't thinking about anything but a dark value. The snowball blocks could be a bit brighter (lighter) but I like the subtle look so far.  I need to cut some more HST for the snowball blocks.

I think technically I should just be sewing 2 patches together for "leader-enders" but I like to just keep them off to the side of my pressing board on the right of my sewing machine and put a block together as I go.  It doesn't seem to slow me down too much and I like the almost instant gratification of seeing completed blocks.

Jelly Roll Block #5 and ETC...

I made it yesterday.  I also sewed together 20 hexi's for the OBW.

2 more piles of 20 and I'll be ready for the fun part of arranging them!  Last night I bought OBW Encore.  I do want to try and put a few cubes in this quilt.  

Last week after I posted about my swirly feathers on Libby's quilt I got some very nice compliments, and I thank you all kindly.   Mary emailed me that the quilting looked like something her sister did but she quilted it way smaller as a background fill.  I had a Pat Sloan Tall and Skinny wall quilt called Daisy Baskets.  The pattern was in Amer. Patchwork & quilting June 2005 issue.  I quilted it with 1" wide sort of echo's using my dsm, which was all I had at the time and never liked the quilting, but loved the wall hanging and it was finished. So on Friday I unsewed it and re-did it. Quilting this design teeny takes A LONG time, sheesh! but I really like it now.  Here are a few pictures while I was working on it:

And here is a picture I literally just took (because I forgot to take an "after" shot when I finished it).

LUV it!!

Design Wall Monday (week 17)

Empty again!  I had the crumb blocks on the wall almost all week and did make a few more but took it down to put up this one:

This is the Many Thanks top (59 x 59) with its borders.  It is going to be loaded today and quilted this week.

I had no plans to work on this I want it done by November for Thanksgiving. (I had the blocks all put together. It just needed the borders.) But that's how I get off track...

I was putting something away in the closet and spied it hanging there.  I pieced the scrappy inner border Friday night.

Block-a-days and some quilting

Here are this week's blocks + one. 

I have 2 more blocks cut out and ready to sew (want to get a week or more ahead, anticipating vacation in June). 

Libby gave me a small wall quilt to do for her.   I saw these swirly feathers on Feathered Fibers the blog is Carla Barrett's. Her quilting is amazing, and when I saw this design I thought it was something I could do.

I practiced these, mine remind me more of a flowery-feather, on my dry-erase board. 

and then quilted it. 

 The pattern is called Sphere of Influence using the Crazy curves templates.

Pineapples

Yesterday I finished the binding on the pineapples wall quilt.  The entire time I was making it, and even after I bought the pattern kit I wondered why I did. Batiks don't go in my decorating sceme, even tho' I love them. Which is why I couldn't resist the kit in the first place!

I hung it up in a little corner by the deck door and just loved it.
 And then I did a double take.

The willow tree figurine on the table is holding a pineapple! 

My stenciled border at the top of the wall are pineapples too! 

It's a good thing my subconscious decorator was on the ball. 

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