HIDDEN TREASURES UPDATE

This past week I finally have the last border appliqués on my Hidden Treasures spool quilt.  The appliqués are fused and the bias vines pinned and ready to sew.

At the beginning of last week I laid the top out on the floor and realized I had finally made it all around to the very last border to get appliqués on.  This has been a challenge as I did not have the pattern for the quilt any longer and I was on my own with the placement of the appliqué pieces.  That is what happens when you stash away a project for years, and years, and years, only to one day discover it buried in the closet.

So I pinned the bias vines on and finished off this last border.  Off to the machine to blanket stitch the appliqués and vines down. 

This is the left over leaves and flowers.  Obviously the original pattern had way more appliqués that should be put on.  At this point once I finish the last border appliqués I plan to go back over the borders and add more leaves and possibly those last two flowers as well.  So I guess I am not as near done as I thought.  But I think it will be easier to pop some additional leaves in here and there and at least utilize some of these leaves and fill in some more of the empty spaces.  As I look at the quilt laid out on the floor I can see a number of areas that can use another leaf or two. 

Design Wall Monday

Mid Week Makers

Confessions of a Fabric Addict 

TREES, DOLPHINS & ELVES

This past week has been spent finishing up a bit of old projects and newer ones.

I finished up my tree quilt.  Colorful is certainly the statement for it.  60 different background fabrics for those blocks.  Lots of digging around in the stash.  

A bit of a closer look, such happy colors.  

How is this for the back of it?  When our Beverly's Fabrics store closed I purchase LOTS of fabric at wonderful prices.  Many were 4 yard cuts for future quilt backs.  Sometimes that works out well, and sometimes you wait years for the perfect pre-purchased back.  This one is perfect.

At least 3 or 4 years ago I made a runner like this for my grandson Ben's dresser.  He was into everything in the sea.  I started this second one just to finish off the panel blocks.  I got a bit tired of seeing it hanging on the closet door so decided to finish it off.  He no longer is into this decor so it will go to my guild's boutique booth at our next quilt show.  

One of my daughters, I have three, teaches 5th grade at a local elementary school.  She is a little tiny thing not much bigger than her 5th graders.  Every year the staff have her dressed up as the Elf on the Shelf and she is photographed in all sorts of naughty activities in the principal's office.  The photos are plastered all over the school to the delight of all the students.

The best to the end of the week.  By grandson #33 and his high school team just won the state football championship in their division.  Lots to celebrate.   

Design Wall Monday

Mid Week Makers

Confessions of a Fabric Addict 

CURB APPEAL

After making a small house and tree wall hanging a month or two ago I found myself looking for a larger project on that idea.  My January American Quilter magazine arrived with the perfect project.  Curb Appeal  by Wendy Sheppard. Another perfect place as well to use some of my Tilda fabrics.  I belong  to a monthly shipment of them from The Intrepid Thread.

I have learned that when working on projects with a lot of piecing especially with smaller pieces that starch is a must.  I mean heavy duty starch!

This beginnings of a tree is pretty stiff with starch.  I do really love this new turntable too.

So first off I completed one of the fourteen tree blocks.  I think they are really cute.  I am using Moda Grunge Paper White for the background.  

Next finished up were two of the smaller houses. 

Then a larger house completed along with more trees and houses of course in different fabric choses.  

So I am off to a good start.  

It appears that the Christmas season is off to a good start at my daughter's home.  The hope is the tree survives.  

 Her dogs behave a good deal better.  The appliquéd stockings are two out of four I made for each of her children when they were babies.  

Design Wall Monday

Mid Week Makers

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS

I spent a couple days this past week working on making a couple of Christmas Stockings for my granddaughter and her boyfriend.  I ran across a free pattern provided by Bernina's We All Sew.  It actually gives patterns for three different stockings designs.  

The first one had you do a strip set of 7" by 16".  Then cut out these various shapes.

The first decoration was easily made.  The directions are so easy.  

Before I knew it I had them all put together and the stocking front was done.  

And in no time at all, just an afternoon for a couple hours a fully lined, quilted stocking was completed for my granddaughter.  

I decided to try the second stocking in a different pattern with some more manly fabric ideas.  The strip set was 17" by 20" and I had fun putting in some strips with some wording on them.  

The backing like the first one I made is just a cut from a single fabric.  However, I found this backing fabric that I used as one of the strips on the front worked really well.  It is just plain cute.  

I did discover that using invisible tape to hold the pattern on the fabric works so well.  No pinning to ruin the pattern and the tape comes right off the fabric with not problem.  On top of that the tape stays on the paper pattern and provides a nice strength for the pattern edges for future use.  

Both stockings were quilted with a diagonal straight stitch.  I used a Frixon pen to draw lines one inch apart, then the markings iron right off.  The lining is completely separate, so you quilt right on the fabric and batting.  I use thin cotton batting, and there didn't seem to be any problem with the feed dogs on the machine handling the batting against them.  

And stocking number two is done.  Actually the second one went faster than the first as I did not have to do the ornaments.  I think they are both so cute.  They have become somewhat addictive.  Wish I could find someone to make another for.  

For those chicken fans.  Here is Orbey.  The contractors came a couple weeks ago to construct a new chicken yard for him and his family of 26.  It seems he felt it necessary to supervise the construction site.  

My daughter's peacock Fred could care less, he was just too busy showing off.  

 Design Wall Monday

Mid Week Makers

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

  

GIFTS

I'm not sure why I wait until the last month before Christmas to begin working on some gifts.  Earlier in the year I did complete two, but here I am this past week deciding I need two more.  

My guild has a Christmas dinner the second Tuesday in December. The exchange gift is a $10 item.  Well a gift certificate for JoAnn's seems rather plain and boring, so I made this little Christmas card holder to put it in.  all the fabric was in my stash, so there was no extra cost there.  I got the pattern on the internet for free.  It is so cute I should make one for myself.

The second gift I decided I wanted to work with some of my newer fall fabric stash.  I found a pattern that originally was done in Oriental fabric, but though this might work as well.

I still have the circles to appliqué and the other three sides to add their pieced borders than quilt it with some sort of leaf design and bind.  I like it and think it will finish up nicely.

My daughter's Africian tortious believes her chickens are getting much too much attention on my blog lately.  Her name is Morty, a rather masculine name for a lady.  No one knew she was a girl until my daughter took her to the vet for a check up.  However, the name stuck.  She weighs about 70 or 80 pounds now, and is an excellent lawn mower.  However, she has gotten into the vegetable garden now and again and cucumbers and squashes were on her menu. 

Design Wall Monday

Mid Week Makers

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

DANDELION WISHES

I have been on a bit of a mission to finish up some of my really old UFO's.  This particular quilt is a product of April 2008.   However, there is an interesting story of what has become such a long involved quilt finish.  
The piecing on this quilt was accomplished very quickly.  It was quilted and bound and should have been done.  But the pattern has appliqués on it which I had left off until the entire quilt was done.  My idea was to not have it quilted over the appliqués, so I choose to do them last and by hand.  

Here is one of the hand appliquéd flowers on it.  There are a total of 8 of them.  I quickly got the appliqué pieces ready to go back in 2008, but that is when things began to slow down a lot.
I have off and on picked this quilt up and worked on a flower here and there and it wasn't until this year I decided it was time to finish it up.  After all 11 years is really silly.  

This is flower number 9.  Just two more to go.

And this is the leaves and stem for number 10.  Just about ready to add the flower petals and then the center.  

That means there is only one more to go.  Yes, it will definitely be done this year.  

And for my blog followers that are fans of my daughter's chickens, here is Orbie and his ladies soaking up some of the winter sun.  My daughter purchased this patio set to sit out in the sunny morning and have her coffee.  Orbie and his crew seem to think that it was purchased for them.  

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Mid Week Makers

Wednesday's Quilting and Learning Combo

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

CHILD'S QUILT, COLOR BLOCKS, AND THANKSGIVING

Busy this past week working on a new quilt for a little boy.  It is always fun to find fabric in my stash to quickly make a quilt.

So I cut the panel prints apart and started putting them back together with some borders.

And in no time at all it is ready to quilt and add the red binding.

Do you remember these color blocks.  Well I made 9 different color ways with 9 blocks each in them and finished the quilt top off this week.  

And the top is finished at 60 by 60 inches.  It will go to the charity division of my quilt guild in December with its prepped binding.

Time to pull out my Thanksgiving wall hanging.  This one is my favorite wall hanging for this time of year.  I made it several years ago and we enjoy it so much during the fall holiday.  

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Mid Week Makers
Wednesday Quilting and Learning Combo
Confessions of a Fabric Addict

FINISH AND STARTS

I actually finished a piece and in relatively very quick time.  Considering some takes years this was an accomplishment.  

This was my first attempt at a completely done hand appliqué project.  My husband had knee joint placement and I knew I would be spending a good part of a couple days at the hospital so I decided to prepare this project to do while idling away hours and hours at the hospital.  

I also finished 36 of these 10.5 inch blocks to put together in a quilt for my guild's Warm Wrappings charity division.  I have had the Alison Glass fabric for a couple years now and have just not ever been crazy about them.  They are similar to Batiks.  I still had tons left over after I finished these blocks and have tucked them into a bag to give to my friend Michelle.  Now it is her turn to do something with them.  She makes quilts for Hospice so they will also go to a good cause.   

After starting my Flower Pot wall hanging and finding not only did I purchase a great deal of Kaffe Fassett fabrics I discovered I actually have some pretty wild fabrics in my stash as well.  So I got busy starting a new project with them.

This was just an experiment with these wild colored fabrics so I tried a couple blocks that end up 6.5 by 9.5 and I think they will be fun to fool around with.  

Oh, these are fun.  So I should have a good time mixing and matching these over the next few months and see how that goes.  

For my chicken fans out there when talking about wild colors here my daughter's chicken Patrick.

My daughter rescued him off the highway on the way home one day.  He wasn't very old and sense he was so pretty she named him Patricia thinking he was a hen.  Well Patricia turned out to be Patrick.  Here he is with some of his hens that he has adopted from the FFA project chicks that were part of my oldest grandson school project.  There are actually 9 hens for him to keep herd on.  That keeps him pretty busy.  

 Design Wall Monday

Mid Week Makers

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Quilting and Learning Combo