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.
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.
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.
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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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.
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.Linky Parties on the Side Bar
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.
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 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.Linky Parties on the Side Bar
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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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.
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.