Happy December

 Can you believe in 23 days it will be a new year! Wow. I know it is cliche' but this year sure went by fast. Almost as fast as the last month. I was looking at my camera to see what I've been working on or finished and there wasn't much, even though I feel like I've been doing a lot.

I spent a lot of time quilting this quilt that was donated to Q4K.

I did a lot of ruler work and different background fillers. Such a cute quilt. I wish I had the pattern.

I quilted two not so cute quilts for my guild. Not even close to cute. 

Again, so ugly I didn't take pictures of the finished quilts. I think it is just the luck of the draw as I have seen some very cute quilts made and donated by guild members.

Another quilt donated to Q4K:

Flannel top, pieced flannel back.

I've been doing some sewing also. I only have three more Aunt Daisy blocks left to make. 

I have the worst memory. I have a partially made star quilt, it has all the fabric / charm packs needed to finish it. I don't remember where it came from.

Three stars were made, two were partially made, and three others were so off in their size due to trimming and piecing that I took them apart, trimmed them to a consistent size and remade the blocks - smaller. I was going to make more stars but decided today to sash the five blocks that are made and finish it similar to the blue and tan quilt I made (and still haven't quilted) last February.

I've also been working on a table topper for my niece. This was the original plan.

But I like Plan B better.

Except I have to buy more of the background fabric.

So, as you can see, I've been busy but I don't have much to show for it.

I do have to show off the Christmas banner Angela made me.

So cute! 
 

Happy Birthday Mom!

 My mom turned 90 yesterday! The past two weeks have been filled with family visiting - that's my excuse for not doing much sewing. ;o)

I finished the little black cat.

I'd like to add a little more quilting, but I couldn't think of what...maybe a couple of bats?

I also quilted my crumb wall hanging.

I couldn't think of anything for the background fabric so left it unquilted...it will probably stay that way.

Here is the quilting from the back.

As you can tell, neither quilt has the binding sewn down. I'll work on that this week while I listen to an audio book.

This start is made up of broken dishes blocks I've be sewing as leader-enders.

I think I'm going to add to it round robin style. So far it is made from just scraps. I have no idea what I'm going to make for the next round - I need to decide soon as I need a new leader-ender project.

 I'm going to post early (9 p.m. versus midnight), otherwise if I start sewing again tonight I might forget.

I finished quilting the birdhouse quilt.

This is another quilt top that was donated to our Quilts 4 Kids group. I used one of my favorite pantographs. It has already been donated back to the group.

I quilted another quilt that came from my quilt guild. Sorry, not sorry, no picture. That quilt was ugly! Yes, dark brown, green and tan go together but not if the dark brown is the scariest sheep/shepherd pasture scenes ever made, with a solid green, and the tan was a Christmas print with carousel horses. I quilted it, put binding on it and will return it to the guild next Monday with the hope of never seeing it again.

Not much sewing occurred until last Saturday. It was another sew day. I finally finished the last pouch / purse I was working on. 

I think it turned out cute except that even after double checking it, I still managed to twist the handle.

Angela's Brightly top is done.

Maybe not...I think I'm going to add a small border. What do you think?

While not much sewing has occurred, I have been playing with EQ8

First up, Four Patch Stars. The inspiration for this little quilt was the Moda Blockheads 6 block 21 by Vanessa Geortzen. Jacob's Ladder is one of my favorite blocks.  I made the blocks bigger and plan on using just three fabrics.

Not the most original design but creating it in the software gave me all the dimensions I needed and yardage. These are the two primary fabrics.

The background will be a white tone-on-tone.

The second quilt I designed is Four Patch Stripe (my titles are so very boring). 

Good ole Microsoft Photos elongated the picture. The inspiration for it was a Keepsake Quilt kit / pattern. Their's had a vertical strip going down the length of the quilt that I did not like, plus I resized the blocks. Those are the fabrics I plan on using.

I'm trying really really really hard to finish a bunch of stuff before I start working on these. But I really really really want to make them NOW.

Hi! It's me again.

 Today was a sew day. I haven't done much lately but I made some good progress.

First I cleaned up the sewing room a bit. Then I lined everything up. Not shown above are the two projected I focused on.

I made the back for the birdhouse quilt. Loaded the quilt and got about a third of it quilted

I also finished making the Brightly blocks. This is the final layout on the design bed. Looking at the picture I should probably move a few blocks around but I'm not going to do it. It's fine.

In the past couple of weeks I loaded, quilted and bound a few other quilt tops.

The above top came from one of Angela's estate sales. I think the back was with it. Soft homespun.

Remember this fabric? I tried to use it for one of the Project Quilting challenges and didn't like the direction it was going. The 4-patches are still a little strong for the print but I like it much better. I love the soft flannel on the back. I bought 3 yards of the wide back flannel, I wish I had more. I think I have enough for one more small quilt. 

This quilt was donated to Quilts 4 Kids (along with the birdhouse quilt above). It needed a few fixes before it could be quilted. The veggie cats are thick and stiff due to layers of Heat-n-bond. I was kinda worried about quilting it but it turned out okay.

I think I've mentioned before that I'm a night owl.

After deciding on the purple, one night about a week ago I started piecing this little wall hanging about 11 p.m. and finished it about 3 a.m. It's in line on the table, so hopefully it will be quilted before Halloween.

Happy Fall!

 Isn't the weather supposed to be cooler now? The nights may be a tad cooler the days are still hot. Guess I have to wait for December 21's Winter Solstice.

Last week was fun and busy. Donna from Idaho visited for a week. There was lots of sewing, shopping and gabbing!

I haven't been able to show a sewing session picture in a long time. Donna brought up kits to make Emmaline Retreat Bags. This is Donna's bag. Tula Pink fabric. The inside is a matching lime green.

So cute. They are actually very easy to make and a nice large size.

Here's mine.

Please notice the straight evenness of the directional fabric...outside and inside.

All by accident. If I'd tried to do that intentionally it would have looked like a drunk person made it with the design going from the bottom left to the top right. 

We also took a class at one of the local quilt shops. The pattern is called Thready Bear's Quilter's Coat. We made ours with kantha quilts (we couldn't bear the thought of cutting up an actual quilt, although two people did). This is the front of mine.

The kantha quilts are made from three layers of old sarees. Some had holes and stains, which is why I appliqued a flower design on the front of mine. Here's the back of mine.

Here's the back of Donna's. I forgot to take a picture of the front.

Here's the back. They were very easy to make.

Before Donna's visit I quilted two small quilts.

The second one doesn't have the binding sewn on yet, I'll show it when it's finished.

Two more pouches.

Another Aunt Daisy block and a few more Bright blocks.

I'm getting ready to load this quilt...

It has a few issues the need to be repaired first...so I'm procrastinating, which means nothing is getting done.

Bella also enjoyed Donna's visit and the box she brought up with wonderful canned tomatoes, salsa and peaches. 

I haven't decided if I'm off my break yet or not. We'll see how much procrastinating occurs this week.

Still on a Break

 With a few exceptions everything I've been doing sewing / quilting has been pretty routine or downright boring. I received a bunch of fabric from the Quilts 4 Kids free table and from my guild free table. Lots of ironing and folding - boring.

Then I had to try to find someplace to put them...lots of sorting, consolidating and labeling of tote boxes - boring.

Part of that was grouping my 5 and 2.5 inch strips by color / type.

Boring.

Finished framing my string blocks.

Still need to make another 25 or so but bored with it so I put it back in a project box. I'll work on it again next year.

Cut out two scrappy quilts from 2 inch and 2.5 inch scraps. Put them in project boxes. Who knows when I'll get back to them.

Made one test block...I like it, okay, not boring.

Made another Aunt Daisy block - I have made half the blocks.

You can see it in the background of the above picture.

Not so boring, although starting to get boring, are the five pouches I cut out and am currently making.

Above are the two I've finished. I only had little bits of these border fabrics and thought they would look good as pouches. Three more to go.

I want to make this.

Sorry for the bad picture. I'm trying to decide on the background fabric.

It's paper pieced, made up of 14 small sections. It probably won't be boring but there may be a lot of bad words said.

Got to babysit this little cutie.

Tilly is smaller than Bella (they totally ignored each other). She was so sweet. I tried to steal her from my niece, but she wouldn't give her up. Definitely not boring.

Back to my blogging break.

Nothing New or Different

 Here is the finished Wind Drifter quilt hanging at my guild meeting this morning.

And the back.

Made from the leftover fat quarters.

It is my new favorite quilt. I love how it turned out.

Another finish...

Donna gave me all the nine patches years ago. The runner is long - 53 inches - she has a large dining room table that will really show the colors off, so I plan on gifting the runner to her when she visits next month.

Bella is not allowed outside - ever. But she is allowed in the garage. While there she likes to hunt / wait for lizards to appear under the garage door, catch the lizard and bring it into the house. She caught her second one this summer. Normally, I'm able to rescue them (usually without a tail). The newest lizard hid in the rails of the glass slider. I threw Bella in my bedroom and rescue the poor lizard still alive.

She sat there ALL day and half the night, waiting for it to show up again.

Mama finally showed up with her babies.

They are so cute!

I think I'm going to take a few weeks off from blogging. I don't have anything loaded on the frame. I'm not starting anything new or finishing anything. The pieces and parts I may work on are the same pieces and parts I've been working on for months and if I'm bored of looking at them, I'm sure you are too. So it seems like a good time to take a break. See you in a few.