Sunday, June 15, 2025

MINI WALL HANGING AND NEW YORK BEAUTY BLOCKS

I finished all the blocks for my Rosemary & Thyme quilt.  Now just to get all of them up on the design wall and sewn together.  Now that is finished I can get a few mini projects handled and out of the way.

When I first saw a picture of the Rosemary and Thyme pattern on Facebook I thought I could master it by myself.  That did not work very well and I realized that after wasting a lot of fabric trying to figuring it out I would just buy the pattern and get over it.  But this block was my attempt and I didn't want to toss it.  So I took some time this week to make it a little wall hanging and put it up on the brick wall in our kitchen.
I have been working on these New York Beauty blocks.  Dee Christopher does a class every Saturday on the internet.  I get her classes by going to Alex Anderson's site but they are also offered  free on The Quilt Show site under Learn.  These little babies are paper pieced and I have had a wonderful time making them.  I have a lot of Tim Holtz Elements fabrics which I really love.  Not sure how I will finish it but I do have one more block to make, the blocks are 9.5" and I am sure I will do a border around them so maybe in the end 24" to 30" square.


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Sunday, June 8, 2025

THREE GIFTS

 My oldest daughter is back in town from Colorado helping getting her husband's brother to Stanford Medical Center here in California for some medical appointments.  She always brings at least a couple of finished quilts and sometimes even a fun project to work on while she is here.  

This quit is a gift for a childhood friend's mother for her birthday coming up this week, I believe she said that Millie will be 96.
My daughter's quilter is really good, they selected this light background and it really shows off the red quilting so nicely.  
Our neighbors across the street gave my daughter some fabric when she was here in December visiting us.  She made this quilt as a gift for her.  It is really pretty long, great for someone tall.
Again her quilter did an amazing job with some really lovely quilting on it. 
The last item she brought was a 36 by 40 inch quilt top from left overs of the red quilt above.  It will be gifted to my charity group along with a binding we prepared for it of black and white dots fabric.

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Sunday, June 1, 2025

ROSEMARY AND THYME

Summer has arrived it was 99 here yesterday and this morning 79 at 7am.  Wonderful weather to stay in and sew.   That is just what I have been doing.  I have been on to the second one of my sewing projects I have laid out for myself to accomplish during the next few months.  I tend to get bored after working on any project after a week or more so always have at least 2 or 3 going at any one time. 

Off and on I have been working on my Rosemary & Thyme pattern by CottonStreetCommons.com I purchased earlier in May.  I have blocks 1 and 2 competed.  These have just a bit of appliqué which I love doing.

This is the first of block 3 completed.  I have four more of this block to make and then on to make 4 of block number 4.  Just about ready to set them aside for a week or so and move on to yet another one of my other 2 projects I have lined up.  

But I really do finish projects.  The is my finished curved piecing blocks.  All six blocks completed and cut  at 8.5" and joined together to make a table runner of 16" by 24".  It is off to the quilters now.  



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Sunday, May 25, 2025

FREE FORM CURVED BLOCKS

My Wisteria Wall is completely done, all the quilt show boutique items are finished.  I now can play with anything I want in the sewing room and do some fun things just because I want to.  My quilt guild offers classes several times a year.  Some are with professional quilters which we pay $40 to take, and twice a year two classes are offered free for guild members.  These are usually taught by a guild member and are always great fun and good classes.  I took one of them last week and by far one of the best ones I have ever taken.

The block pattern you make is all free form, on a 18" square of freezer paper you draw four circles starting from the middle and out, then you  cut the 18"square into four 9"squares.  Cut out each quarter circles pattern, iron them onto fabric and zig zag down onto stabilizer.
Then bias strips are made and sewn down to cover the zig zag.
I have three complete, two that need bias strips, and one more to
make a complete  table runner at 16" by 24".  Fun class and every one got one or two done.
This is a sample quilt that was shown to us of things one could do with the blocks.

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Sunday, May 18, 2025

THE WISTERIA WALL

I finished a project this past week that I started in July of 2015.  It was something I realized when I got into it that I had no idea what I was doing or the skills to really make it happen.

When I got to this point I realized each and every one of the petals on the blossom had to be quilted.  Not being a free motion quilter, I knew I was in real trouble.  So I stashed it away until 2019 and began to work on it off and on through 2022.  
By that time I had all the blossoms, leaves, stems and vines fused on.  I now had to quilt them down.  


Between 2022 and this past week I picked it up off and on continuing to work on quilting down the blossom petals, leaves, stems, and vines.  Often months between working on them.  It was the hardest thing I have ever tried to do.  

This past week I finally finished quilting down the last blossom on it.  I have a sleeve sewn on the back and I am just finishing off the binding by hand.  It is not perfect, there are a few wrinkles in between some of the pieces.  Once I give it a good pressing I hope to eliminate some of those.  However, I told my husband that brick walls, that the red fabric is supposed to represent are not smooth, and the red batik fabric does have some dark shading and splotches, hopefully will  hide the wrinkles.  This piece has sentimental memories for me.  I just could not give up.

My husband's parents had a wisteria that hung over the top of their garage, which I found just so beautiful.  When we moved into our home we planted this wisteria, which reminded me of theirs.  I had been primarily raised by my grandmother without much of a mother or father in my life.  My husband parents were wonderful people and I loved them very much. They truly became my parents.  When our wisteria got to the point that it was completely tearing the fence down we had to remove it.  It made me very sad as both of my husband's parents had passed away and it was such a remind of them for me.  Thus the labor of love over making the wisteria wall hanging. 


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Sunday, May 11, 2025

JUST COULD NOT RESIST ONE LAST JOANN'S SHOPPING SPREE

 Our JoAnn's is closing for good on the 17th of this month.  I did make a trip early last month when the closure began and purchased a few pieces of fabric.  Last Friday with them advertising 60% to 80% I decided I would make another trip in and see what was left.  Actually a good deal of fabric was still on the shelves.  Did I need more fabric no, but who could resist that sort of savings.

This unit was the real bargain.  Normally $120 at 60% off right out the door with me for $48.  I do have a wonderful sewing room but there never seems to be enough storage.



They did still require 2 yard cuts, but at 60% off it was pretty hard to resist.  I considered most of them pretty much staple colors that one will find useful, and for some reason despite lots of scissors I am constantly searching for one when I need one.  Of course ran into at least one friend with the same idea I had.  Still a little bit thinking I have a few more days, one could still manage to squeeze in one more shopping trip.  


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Sunday, May 4, 2025

A WEEK OF ALL SORTS OF ODDS AND ENDS

 After weeks of working on my guild's quilt show boutique items I am finally back to working on my own projects.

I finished a runner with the Tulip & Vine pattern, now just to hand sew the binding down.

Last week I posted on my blog this finished scrap quilt top.  I just did not like it at all.  After a couple of days I took it off the design wall and cut the blocks into 2.5" squares and strips.

The results are this quilt top with all the rescued 2.5" pieces.  Now I really like this one.  


I had this wonky blocks ruler stashed away in a drawer and decided to try it out and see what would happen.  I am really happy with the results.  

I saw a pattern on line by Cotton Street Commons, but was reluctant to purchase yet another pattern.  I have more patterns and books than anyone should have.  So decided to give it a try on my own.  Not really unhappy with the results, but decided to purchase the pattern after all.  
Going at it on my own looked more complicated than I figured, so waiting for the pattern to arrive and getting to work on it.

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Sunday, April 27, 2025

TULIPS & MULTIPYING SCRAPS

 I spent this past week finishing up the last of my guild's quilt show boutique items that will be sold during the show.  The show is in January, but we do a great deal of early prep and I wanted to get my contributions out of the way.  Now I can get on to some fun projects for myself.

The last two runner and the fabric was fun.  Could not resist the tomatoes and strawberries fabric.  These last two compete my contributions to the show.  Yes, 72 table runners, 16 table toppers, and 40 zipper pouches.  

Last week I started working with my Tulip & Vine pattern by Sherri McConnell and a fun fat quarters set.  A second fat quarter set in greens finally arrived and I was able to finish off these two 8.5 by 17.5 blocks. These are fun to make.  Not sure if I am going to just do a table runner or a full quilt yet with them.

I also pulled out some left over scraps and I am playing with using them up and moving them out of the scrap bin and on to the charity group with a quilt top and bindings.  I had hoped to rid myself of them, but find that even after getting these 25 blocks finished up I still have an awful lot of fabric still left.  Back to the drawing with this idea I guess.  I am convinced scraps multiple at night when you turn out the lights and leave the sewing room.  


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Sunday, April 20, 2025

SPRING PROJECTS

We finally have spring here, lovely weather in the 80's.  Now can leave the front door open with just the screen door.  Zoey are little yorkie can now get back to work being Neighborhood Watch.  No one is allowed on her street and if they have a dog with them she makes sure she barks at them vigorously to move them along out of site. 

 
I purchased a really large fat quarter set of Americana from Connecting Threads, plus some yardage of green recently.  I have been working on a good deal of items for my guild's quilt show boutique and I am finally finished with that chore and plan to make something for myself.  

I have these two patterns but have not decided which one I will use.  The Tulip & Vine quilt and maybe the runner with the Flower Shoppe pattern.  I might even dig around in some of my old patterns and books and see what happens.  

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Sunday, April 13, 2025

WONKY HEARTS

A crazy week again. Lots of fussing with the dishwasher.  It kept coming up with an error E15  which means it is leaking.  Service man out twice can't find the problem, but will not wash the dishes either without flooding the house.  It is only 5 years old and go figure the purchased plan ran out in February.  So yes, had to purchase a new one.  Needless to say I did not get a lot done, other than washing dishes by hand.  

I am still making a few table runners for my guild's January quilt show boutique.  This runner was fabric that was in a scrap bin I was given to sort through.  It is 13 by 28 inches.  I found the wiggly pattern of the fabric interesting.  And the fabric is cut on the straight of grain, the fabric lines are wonky.

I have lots of rulers, in fact I am an admitted tools hoarder.  This little beauty has been in a drawer for years, never used it until I decided to quilt that heart runner.

I am not a free motion quilter, just have never been able to get it.  I use the serpentine stitch for small items on my sewing machine with variegated thread.  Normally I will do straight lines but the wonky lines on this runner just did not seem to look like it would work well at all.  So I figured just to try out that ruler.

The result really looks great.  I plan to remember this trick.


These last two quilts on my agenda are ready to do the handwork on the bindings for my charity group.  This process is that last step for completing them.  They were pieced by someone, quilted by another person and then handed out to others like myself to finish the binding.  The perfect evening TV watching chore.



      

  





   

Sunday, April 6, 2025

THE ELEMENTS QUILT AND ROCK GARDENS

 I have been back into the sewing room a bit this week.  We are still doing a major overhaul of the garden.  I have been cutting donated yardage into 1/4 up to 3 and 4 yards of fabric and pricing it for the guild's quilt show as well.  My quilter finished my elements quilt so I want to get the binding on it.  

I love the elements fabric in this quilt, lots of different fabrics went into it.

The back with typewriter keys seemed perfect for it.  



The major part of the backyard garden overhaul is finished.  We carted 2,800 pounds of rock into the planter areas and now the tomatoes, bell peppers, and spinach are in planters with a drip watering system.  We live in a drought area of California and many of us have converted from lawns to rock gardens.  We are only allowed two days a week watering in the fall and winter and three in the summer months.  Neighbors with lawns water bills can easily mount up to $600 a month and higher in summer months as our temperatures often get into the 100's and last summer often up to 110 and one day 115.  Looking forward to lots of fun veggies this summer.  

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