Design Wall Wednesday

Wednesday finds me in the sewing room unexpectedly. You know those days when you're too tired to work, but not too tired to sew??!?  That's me today! I have been watching too many  olympic events and not getting enough sleep. That's okay... it only happens every 4 years!

I have been enjoying the free Star of Wonder mystery quilt sew along by the Fat Quarter Shop.

I ordered the fabric kit mid June and it took the slow boat on a trip around the world, and was MIA for a while. And then the Fat Quarter Shop sent me a second kit mid July to replace the original MIA kit, which then randomly arrived in my mailbox  shortly thereafter! 

Of course it did! 

That meant I had 2 mystery kits in hand, what was I to do? You can hear all about it, see my July projects, and enter a draw the win the bonus fabric kit on my Youtube channel. 

The fabrics are from the "Once Upon a Christmas" by Sweetfire Road Design by Moda line. They are gorgeous with the mistletoe, snowflakes and doves.

I have almost all the blocks sewn for the first 4 steps and hope to sew step #5 today.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

A Finished Wallhanging

At quilt retreat earlier this month I finished the 2023 Fat Quarter Shop's Christmas quilt along called Evergreen. It was such a fun mystery to sew last year. 

I really enjoyed sewing my project from the kit offered by Fat Quarter Shop featuring the Favorite Things fabric line by Sherri and Chelsi. I don't usually buy fabric kits, but I really liked the slight variation on the Christmas colours they used.

The machine quilting was fast and easy. I quilted curvy lines to look like hanging garland across the tree, simple stippling in the background, and individualized designs on the presents and the star. It is so fun to think of a different design for each part of a quilt. As long as a project is quilted evenly in terms of the denseness of the designs, it's all good!

It's a fun brain snack for me to figure out things like how to do the curved corner-to-corner design on red pieces of this star block with the fewest starts/stops.

Another brain snack was thinking of a different quilting design for each present under the tree. 

The binding was completed during a late night chin wag with my dear retreat friends. It was accompanied by a nightcap of my new favourite Canadian drink by Cabot Trail maple and blueberry cream liqueur. It tastes like blueberry pancakes and syrup - yum!

Finished size: 31" x 37"

Here is the Evergreen Wallhanging with my other retreat finish - Spring Stamp SAL.

Linking up to Alycia's Finished (or not) Friday.

Christmas Wallhanging

The Fat Quarter shop offered a free Christmas mystery in July and I have been sewing along behind the scenes of other projects. 

I ordered the kit for this mystery since I liked the idea of using a non Christmas line called "Favorite Things" for a Christmas project. There is not a single snowman, Santa, ornament, or reindeer to be found on these fabrics. But the colours are red and green and have a Christmasy feel to them.

This is a row quilt pattern with many pieces to cut and organize. Here is row #2 cut out and ready to sew. As always, the instructions were impeccable and easy to follow.  

Here it is on the design wall. 

It has a plain white border around it now and is ready for quilting.

Four rows, four clues. So fun!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Evergreen on the Design Wall

In July, the Fat Quarter Shop has been hosting a free Christmas stitchalong called Evergreen, sharing both a cross stitch pattern AND quilt pattern. I'm still SLOW stitching my spring cross stitch, so I thought I'd dive into the quilt  mystery and not start a new cross stitch.

I really enjoyed their Christmastime mystery from last year so was eager to start their new one. Because the Fat Quarter Shop gives so much to me/all of us for free, I wanted to support their shop by buying the kit for this project. I just  love these pretty fabrics that are Christmasy looking but don't scream "Christmas"! 

I started cutting as soon as I received the kit in the mail. Of course I use the Alphabitties to keep all the pieces organized when I cut complex blocks.  I enjoyed cutting the fabrics while I watched the tutorial, then paused the lesson while I sewed my sections together.

**Such cute little presents and very easy to construct.

This mystery is a row project, which means instead of sewing blocks or sections, we are sewing rows. 

Here is my design wall today. The Evergreen mystery row #1 is in the middle. The house block was made from a kit from one of the few stores I had time to visit for the July Shop Hop this year. The store (Heart 'n Home) had precut the block for us, so I couldn't resist sewing it!

And on the bottom right corner is a block for my local guild mystery. So many fun things going on, and not enough time to make much progress on anything. But the long weekend in August will bring lots of relaxation and stitching time for me.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

A Christmas Finish on the Design Wall!

The Fat Quarter Shop provided a free Christmastime mystery quilt pattern last fall. I really enjoyed sewing the 4 blocks - Christmas cards, a mug, candies, and presents. (There was also a mystery cross stitch pattern that was adorable but I didn't stitch that.)

My quilt was made totally from stash fabrics and the quilt top was finished in October. The machine quilting is very simple stitch-in-the-ditch (or in close proximity to the ditch!) straight lines. Nothing fancy, but finished!

I love having little projects like this around the house during the holidays. I sewed a hanging sleeve so this could be a wallhanging. Or it could be an outdoor decoration. 

The cardinals backing fabric piece that I found in my stash was just the perfect size for this project! You can see the split hanging sleeve that I sewed into the binding.

Finished size: 23" x 27"

I don't know why I was so interested in finishing this Christmas quilt in February when my OMG was to work on a Valentine's quilt ?!? 

There is no logic to creativity! 

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Ho-Ho-Halloween!

 It's a seasonal crossover on the design wall today!

The Fat Quarter Shop Christmastime mystery quilt top is done and ready for quilting. It was a fun little project made completely from scraps. I have the backing and binding fabric ready and now it will go in the pile of projects to be worked on in December.

But today is halloween and I want to sew pumpkins, ghosts and spiderwebs. Here is the full view of the design wall with the seasonal mix. 

The Christmas quilt top is already off the design wall and I'm cutting ghosts!

Linking to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

I finished sewing the 4th block of the Christmastime mystery. But for some unknown reason, I didn't like how the red ribbon looked on the bottom present and so I  turned it upside down and liked it much better! I really like how my pile of presents turned out!

Here are all the blocks together on the design wall. This is layout #1.

The candy and presents have to be in the same column and the cards and Santa mug have to be in the same column (due to size).

Here is layout #2. 

Do you think it looks more balanced with the mug on the top and cards on the bottom?

It's time to cut some sashing and border strips, and turn this into a quilt top.

Linking this post to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

 

A bit of progress has been made on the Christmastime Mystery project from the Fat Quarter Shop. Block #3 was a bit of a challenge and it took me a long time to select and cut the fabrics. These days I am still primarily sewing on Elsie my 1951 Featherweight because she's just so darn cute!

Here is my first Christmas card block. It's a unique design trying to give the 3D effect of an open Christmas card. I used up some little green scraps for these cards hoping they would look like trees.

Here are the 4 cards sewn together with sashing. Maybe the background is a little too busy?

The fussy cut star at the top of the right card is a tiny detail that makes me happy! I wish I had more of those scraps to put a gold star in the top of every block, but I only had one.

Here are the first 3 blocks of the mystery so far. The end of the mystery has already been posted, so I have to get going. Block #4 is a pile of presents and will be fun to sew. That is on the agenda for today.

And also I will probably enjoy another leisurely drive to see the fall leaves as they are really at their peak colour this week!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Christmas Already?

 Are you sewing along with the Fat Quarter Shop's Christmas mystery?

Me neither.

It's too early for thoughts of Christmas, right?!? 

But I do love a good mystery, and I wanted to sew block #2 called "hard candy" (click here for the pattern link). It looked quick and so darn cute!  Well it wasn't that quick because I made a few mistakes as you can see on the red blocks. 

I sewed the block on Elsie (a 221 Featherweight born in 1951) and she enjoyed the opportunity to sew again. Her tension is perfect and she is a treat to sew on. 

Once I fixed my mistakes and completed the block I was quite happy with the fabrics I found for these sweet candy blocks.

And here is it with block #1 from last week.

And then block #3 was posted, so I checked it out. It took me a while to "see" the pattern as 4 Christmas cards. I couldn't visually decipher the card block, but once I "saw" it, I didn't understand why it took me so long!

I hope to sew up some fabric Christmas cards on the weekend for block #3. And I suppose I should admit that I have indeed started another mystery quilt! 

Even though it's Wednesday, I'll link up to the Monday Design Wall posts over at Judy's.

October UFO is Finished!

I am so happy to have finished my Bats and Boos mystery quilt! This is a free pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop and is the perfect table topper for Halloween! I didn't add the outside border as it was already large enough for my table.

I posted about quilting the centre block here.

In the pumpkins I quilted curvy lines, and then made wavy lines around them, which look a bit like tendrils in the pumpkin patch.

I quilted curvy lines inside the bat, but because it's black thread on black fabric, you can't really see that quilting.

This is my favourite block - the cat bat! The wavy lines around the bats look like they are in flight and pushing the air forward around them.

The binding is made from 4 leftover strips of black fabric that were used in making the quilt.

Finished size: 32.5" x 32.5"

I'm so happy with this quilt and offer my thanks to the Fat Quarter Shop for this fun mystery adventure!

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

Design Wall Monday

On the design wall today is my unfinished Bats and Boos project. I am still working on the centre star block.

In the meantime, I  have been snooping around blogland and found these Bats and Boos quilts to inspire me to finish mine:

Pretty Piney

The Tattooed Quilter

Pat Sloan (scroll down to see her cool border)

Scrapatches (added ghosts and witch hats)

Sara at My Sewing Room

Buffalo Flatts Quilt Co (made the quilt and the cross stitch!)

Dream Quilt Create (with a cute fussy cut centre square)

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Design Wall Monday Pumpkins

I'm not sure why this mystery quiltalong has captured my interest so much. I'm not a big Halloween fan, but I have really enjoyed sewing this project. 

Well, except when things don't end up where they should be. That's okay, these problems are so easy to fix.

Here are my  pumpkin blocks. 

I super love these! I'm very happy with my orange fabric choices. The pieces went together so well with the great directions in this pattern. 

I'm ready to move on to the next block, which is a complex star block, and the finishing instructions for this project will be posted today.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

I have been working on my version of the Bats and Boos mystery quilt from the Fat Quarter shop. Step #2 is a complex pumpkin block with a star in the middle. These are the 40 pieces needed for one block.

And this is what the pumpkin block looks like. I'm very happy with where the yellow moons ended up in the layout. This perfect Halloween themed fabric was in my stash.

I found 3 more oranges in the stash and have everything cut out for the remaining pumpkins.

The next step is already posted so I have to get a move on! 

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

It's another new mystery!

How can anyone resist a Halloween mystery quiltalong? We all know that I cannot! Fat Quarter Shop's Bats and Boos mystery has started and this is the cutting for the first step. it took me a while since I am not a fast cutter, preferring accuracy to speed. I am using scraps so I have to be careful not to make any cutting mistakes.

The bat block is the first step. I used a black fabric with cat faces, so I call this a "cat bat"!

Click here for the link to the bat block.

Although a fabric bat is very cute, a real bat is not! We had a bat in the house last summer and it was scary. Here is a blurry photo of it hanging on the dining room curtain rod. Yikes!

I much prefer fabric bats!

And here are my 4 bats... hanging upside down of course!

Are you joining in with this mystery?