New quilt

On Saturday I celebrated Worldwide Quilting Day by sewing all day with my quilt guild friends. You can read more about it here. 
I enjoyed using my 1964 white featherweight Singer 221K sewing machine that I call "Sweet Baby Jayne". So tiny, stitches perfectly and looks so adorable!
I'm using all Tula Pink Zuma fabrics for this project, with the light/background fabric being "glitter litter glowfish".

Here are the first 12 blocks on the design wall. I have 8 more blocks to sew. I'm not sure I like the big white spaces that appear with this layout. 



Let's try another one... I think I like this layout better. And I have some quilting ideas popping into my head already, so now I'm motivated to sew the rest of the blocks!
Linking up to Small Quilts design wall Monday part.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Happy St Patrick's Day! Since it falls on a Sunday this year, do you think we should probably do some hand stitching using some green thread or fabric or wool?!? 

This week I finished another little Gail Pan embroidery design, but can't find the photo on my computer so I will show you what I plan to be stitching today... a snowman. 

It won't be green!


Are you seeing any green where you live? Any signs of spring at all? Are you celebrating with the Irish today?
Link up your hand stitching project below and share what you are working on.

   

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Happy Worldwide Quilting Day!

How are you celebrating Worldwide Quilting Day today? I think the best way to celebrate is to be with lots of enthusiastic quilting friends, so I attended a mystery quilt class hosted by the past presidents of my local quilt guild. 

Nancy, Susan, Marj, Jackie, Joanne, and Barb

These lovely women organize a sewing day, pick a pattern for quiltmaking, serve us a delicious lunch, and treat us to a wonderful day at the "quilt spa". They also help out with unsewing and pressing blocks as needed. They are such wonderful women and I love each one. They have given so much of their time and energy to promote quilting in our community, providing leadership, inspiration, and friendship. They just make the world a better place to live!

It was very exciting to have our youngest future quilter ever (5 months old) attending this class. Is this not the most adorable photo of fabric petting that you have ever seen?!? And this was the sweetest, most well behaved baby with about 30 eager women willing to help out with baby care! So fun!

I brought strips of Tula Pink Zuma fabrics to sew today, and brought my Sweet Baby Jayne sewing machine to do all the hard work for me. Even though she is 55 years old, she still sews like a dream!

There was a bit of precutting to do for the class so that when we arrived, we could start sewing right away. These fabrics are a frenetic riot of bright and happy colours guaranteed to brighten up a dull, dreary, endless winter. 


Here is the block we sewed. I'm not sure what to call it... would you call it a pineapple variation block?
I'll share more blocks and some layout ideas on my Monday Design Wall post. For now, I need to rest after such an exhausting day of sewing, and visiting. 
How are you spending Worldwide Quilting Day?!?

Hand Piecing Quiltalong

Florence Block #6

I can't believe it's Friday already and all I have accomplished this week in the sewing room is one 6" hand pieced block! 
Block # 8 has already been posted for the Hand Piecing Quiltalong so I'm still behind, but I am delighted with how this block #6 turned out.

Although it is cute, this block was a struggle since twice I sewed together sections that did not belong together. 
Here's a photo of the first problem. 

Instead of sewing the pinwheel sections together for the centre, I sewed them side by side to be the second row. WRONG! I have no idea why this block seemed so hard, but sometimes life is just like that.
Linking up to Elm Street Quilts. 

Scrap Dance Minuet Mystery

Are you sewing along with Carole's new mystery quilt project called Scrap Dance Minuet? 
The second step was just posted so it's early in the mystery and you can easily join in. The steps are posted monthly, so there is no rush/stress. I also like that many sizes of the project can be made depending on your scraps and your preferred quilt size. 

I'm making the throw size version and it's going to be a total stash buster using old floral fabrics that I dislike and would otherwise never use. I did a deep dive into the stash and pulled out all the florals I could find.

Look at these things! They are old and many are ugly. 
All the fabrics across the top of the photo were voted off the island/this project as well as some of the charm squares in the pile on the bottom left of the photo.
Although most of these fabrics are really not appealing to me, en mass they do seem to have a certain charm about them. I'm hoping that Carole will be able to transform these ugly duckings into a swan!


Step #2 is 4 patch blocks. They were quick and very relaxing to sew. Easy Peasy.

Step #3 will be posted the second Friday of April. It feels great to be "caught up and ready", and I feel quite virtuous using up this old stash!

Blockheads Update

Some progress has been made on my Blockheads II project.
I skipped ahead from block # 25 to block #45 called Twelve Crowns because it looked like so much fun. 
It wasn't! LOL 
It turned out to be quite a labour intensive 18" block with 136 pieces. I sewed it on Lucy my Singer 301.

I am happy with how the points turned out, but the fabric choices are a wee bit too busy, with not enough contrast for my liking. But I have had this same thought several times in working with this fabric collection. I know I will like the overall quilt, so I push though the temporary stage of intense dislike, with confidence that the love for the project will return :)
Here are all the blocks on the design wall.

Yes... I do love it again! I have bought some white yardage from the Harmony fabric line that I will use for sashing to put these busy blocks together into a quilt. I only have 20 some blocks to sew to catch up to the block pattern postings.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Small Quilts.

Slow Sunday Stitching - A Finished Middling

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching link up!
Today I'm a little sleep deprived because Daylight Savings Time started last night and that means 1 hour less sleep in the night, and I'm looking forward to an afternoon nap today.

This week I finished up my 70273 project which has a lot of hand stitching in it, so I thought I'd share it in my Sunday blog post. 

pieced and embroidered X's

I was inspired to participate in this project 2 years ago (read about the inspiration here) and had sent in some blocks for the project (you can read more about it here). 
But I couldn't let it go after that. I made a little quilt that Jeanne calls a "Middling". More details about what a middling is can be found here.

hand quilted 1/4" around each pieced X

To create the quilt I pieced some improv X blocks and added sashing and borders until it came to the required size of 18" x 22". I hand quilted around each of the large X blocks and it was tough going because that "white on white" fabric was stiff and thick. I've never hand quilted that kind of fabric before... and won't again!

hand embroidered rows of XX

I didn't plan out where I would hand embroider the double X's, I just started stitching in the open areas and stitched wherever I felt inspired to do so.







Here is my finished Middling which has 5 large double XX blocks and 48 hand embroidered double XX's.
I'll be sending this away in the mail this week to become part of the 70273 Project. 

What are you hand stitching this week?  Link up your blog post and share your project with us.

   

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