Green Scrappy Saturday

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters are working with green scraps this month. I have a lot of green scraps around here just waiting to be sewn into a quilt block.

The sight of fresh green grass and plants reappearing, after the white and grey of such a long winter, is a welcomed sight. The trilliums are growing and although the leaves are not out on the trees yet, there is lots of green appearing outside my window... and inside my sewing room!

I finished sewing a few 1" strips into double 9 patch blocks for my Omigosh quilt. These are so cute! I also finished up a blue block and a purple block from previous challenge months. I counted my finished Omigosh double 9 patches... I have 41 blocks done and I need 110, so only a few more to go! LOL

Here are the renegade blue and purple blocks, plus a couple of Maverick star blocks that are fun to sew and use up 2.5" scraps.

I also cut up batik scraps for more Alamo Star blocks to use as leader/enders this month. Don't they look cute all organized on my sewing machine?
Hop over to SoScrappy and see what other quilters are sewing with their green scraps.

Goose On The Loose Shop Hop

Every year my friend Louise and I attend the Goose on the Loose Shop Hop.  Heaven knows we don't really need anything! We love seeing the new fabrics and quilt patterns, and we enjoy the creative energy of a shop hop.
But mostly we look forward to being together and visiting while driving between stores. Over the years I have realized that the shop hop is really secondary to the visit! We have our shopping lists ready and can't wait until we are on the road to the quilt store!!

D4P blocks

My Disappearing 4 Patch blocks are finally sewn together. It's a fun block to play with and uses up charm squares - the tutorial is here. 
I decided I didn't have enough of any of my potential border fabrics (that I showed in this post and this one) so I need to go shopping to get more. The quilt top needs at least one border to bring it up to a larger lap size. 
I already have the backing, so I'll be ready to finish this quilt soon!
It's so rewarding to see a project move closer to the quilting/finishing pile!

Design Wall Monday

Today I am working on my blocks from the guild class on Saturday. I finished a cross block with the blueish green as the background and am not loving it. It really stands out. I was hoping that all the greens would play nicely together like they do in nature, especially at this time of year.
Do you know that moment when you start to fall out of love with your project?
That moment has arrived.
Yikes! Should I make more blocks with the blueish green background, and hope it grows on me? 
Or should I abandon the blueish greens altogether for this project? You can see my fabrics here.  
Nellie left me a comment on that fabric posting warning me about this, so Nellie you can say "I told you so"!
Advice is always welcome!
To see more design wall postings hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Do you have special tools that you don't use just because they are "special"? While hand stitching the binding on my little Superpower wallhanging, I got out a treasured thimble and decided to use it. 
What am I saving it for? 
So my descendants can gawk at it 100 years from now and wonder what it was for!?! LOL

So I took my beautiful porcelain Meissen thimble out of it's box, admired it, and actually used it!  
What good is a thimble sitting in a fancy box? 
I used it. 
Yes I did.


I don't know how long a porcelain thimble would hold up to the harsh treatment of having pins and needles stuck in it and scraped on it, but I am trying to put my new mantra into practice as often as possible, and find out! 
The experience of using this thimble was lovely, although I would have liked it more if the indentations were a little deeper to catch the needle in a more sturdy way, but it did the job, and I felt extravagant while using it!  

It's Slow Stitching Sunday - take out your beautiful tools and fabrics, and USE them!!
Today is the day to treat yourself to something special! Then link up your blog post below and share what you are hand stitching today.

Great Quilty Day

I had a great time today at a class organized by the past presidents of my quilt guild. They treated us to a relaxing day of sewing, eating, laughing, and being waited on.  
We were sewing variations of a wonky cross block. I sewed my cross blocks on the diagonal, but then decided I wanted to try an asterisk block. I made a lot of asterisk blocks last year when making my Letter Quilt, and forgot how fun they are to sew. 

And then I thought the block would look like a flower if I floated the strips. So cute!  As the day wore on, my blocks became the smaller and smaller, and that was even more fun! 
I wonder what these blocks will become? Will I make more crosses? More asterisks? More floaters? More mini blocks? 
What a great day!

And tomorrow will be a great day too! 

Here at Kathy's Quilts it is Slow Sunday Stitching, but also it is May 4th and you know what that means... it's International Star Wars Day!

"May the fourth be with you"!

Scrappy Saturday

Chantal asked me last week how I organize my scraps and keep so many scrappy projects on the go at the same time, so I thought I'd share about how I work with my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. These are some of the storage bins I use for my small scraps. Some are sorted by theme (ie. dots) but mostly by colour. The batik scraps have their own bin.

**When Angela announces the colour of the month, I dump out that bin and sort  the scraps into lights and darks, or in the case of aqua month, I separated the blue from the aqua scraps.

**I decide if there is enough variety to sew a Palm branch block and if so, I pull those pieces out and set aside. I need 14 different scraps for a Palm block.



**All my 1" strips for Omigosh are always stored in a separate tin, so I check in there to see if there are enough pieces to make some blocks for the colour of the month.

**Mostly I enjoy cutting and sewing scraps for spool blocks. I need 1.5" strips for those, and always have a pile ready to use for leader/ender blocks throughout the month. 



**If there are enough 2.5" squares, I will sew a Carrie Nation block or two, or more. 






**Then I look to see if there are enough  larger scraps for pumpkin seeds (I need 4 different ones to make a block) and cut those with my Leaves Galore ruler.

Here are the pumpkin seed blocks I have sewn so far. I made 3 purple blocks last month, and can't wait to get started on the green blocks... this quilt definitely needs some green don't you think?!?



My ultimate goal is to keep my scraps organized as I create them. But until then, each month I cut them into useable sizes and have them ready to sew whenever I have time throughout the month. 
To see what other quilters are making with their scraps, hop over to SoScrappy.

Kate Plus Kaffe!

TGIF!
I am getting organized for a guild class tomorrow and can hardly wait!
I hope my fabrics will "work", but if they don't, that's okay. I love them, so sewing with them will be fun no matter how it all turns out.
The light greens I won in a blog draw from Kate Spain on St. Patrick's Day. Surely that must mean that the luck of the Irish will be with me!?! The greens will be my "background" fabrics. I might not include that yellowy green at the top since it kind of shouts at me in this picture.

And the brights are Kaffe Fassett fabrics from Hyggeligt Fabrics. 
They will be my "focus" fabrics.

What do you think?
Too loud?
Too bright?
Just right?!?

May UFO Project

The UFO I decided to work on this month is a small quilt made from a John Flynn laser cut kit.  I really enjoyed sewing these little blocks  together (click here to see how small they are).I finished sewing the quilt top together 3 years ago, and then stopped at the border decision stage. Ugh!

So my first step will be to purchase border fabrics. 
Oh too bad ... I have to go shopping now!
My goal is to border, quilt and bind this before the end of May. To see more May goals, hop over to A Lovely Year of Finishes link up.

May For Me 2014

Are you signing up for the "May For Me" celebration?  I have participated in previous years and had a wonderful time. Last year we played Bingo during May For Me and we made our own cards! 
At quilt camp this past winter we also played fabric Bingo. Just look at all the creative ideas the players used instead of bingo chips!

 

We used chocolate kisses, buttons, and bobbins! It was so fun!

Will you be joining in the May For Me celebrations? All you have to do is make time for yourself!  Thanks to Marcia for all the fun and for hosting again this year. Who knows what fun activities will go on in the month of May!?!?

And there is more quilty fun going on over at the Quiltmaker blog this week. Another issue of 100 blocks magazine is being released, and you can see some of the new blocks and win a copy of the magazine (and lots of other great prizes) by participating in the blog hop.
**Warning** ... blog hops can be hazardous to your schedule! Be prepare to lose a lot of time in blogland!! LOL

Finished the Countdown!

"Countdown to Christmas" is officially finished! This was a free pattern offered by Temecula Quilts back in December.

This is the UFO I wanted to finish this month and I am proud that I accomplished it even before the deadline at the end of the month - that's a first for me!








The machine quilting is very simple but effective -  just diagonal lines following the patterns in the quilt top and quilted with the walking foot. Simple. Really, anyone can do this! Here is the view of the back.

And it has even survived the photo shoot with the cute
Granddog Max. He was not
supposed to be included. I was trying to capture the sunlight streaming through the window to highlight the lines of quilting, but Max loves quilts and this is the perfect cuddle size for him (32" x 40"). Here he is showing the hanging sleeve on the back of the quilt... thanks Max, now GET OFF the quilt!

No quilt is truly "finished" without it's label.

To see more finishes, hop over to A Lovely Year of Finishes.

Design Wall Monday - D4P

I finished sewing the remaining blocks for my Disappearing 4 Patch quilt. Now I am playing with layouts and auditioning border fabrics. Every time I walk by, I change the blocks around again! I wonder how long this will go on??!!
Hop on over to Patchwork Times to see more design wall postings... such great inspiration on a Monday morning!

Slow Stitching and Watching

What do you do while you hand stitch? Sometimes I just sit quietly, or visit with family or friends. But if I don't need the silence or social interaction, this is a list of my favorite hand stitching entertainments:
** I love to listen to CBC radio, which has a wide variety of podcasts to enjoy.
** Did you know there is a weekly Canadian quilt talk show available on podcast?!  How did I not know about this?!?! Brandy Lynn Designs from BC has 40+ podcasts to enjoy while you are quilting.  Click here to start listening while you do your hand stitching (click on live podcasts). 
** Of course I like to listen to Bonnie's Quiltcam episodes which are archived, so if you can't watch it live, you can watch the podcast anytime - click here.
** If I am binding and don't need to focus on the task and can spare a glance here and there, I watch a TV show on my laptop while stitching.

One of my favorite shows is "Call The Midwife". Season 3 has started and you might be able to catch some episodes on PBS - click here. I watched episode #1 while stitching down the binding on my UFO of the month, and saw Chummy (one of my favorite characters) using a hand crank sewing machine. That is definitely on my list of machines to find because no electricity is required which means it would be a perfect camping sewing machine! (You know you're an addict when...)
What do you like to do when hand stitching? Link up your hand stitching blog post below and if you have ideas for shows you enjoy while stitching, please share!

Scrappy Saturday - Last Purple Post

It's the last Saturday of April, which means the last week of working with purple scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

I am pleased with my blocks this month and did make a good dent in the purple scrap bin. I sewed some Stars - both Alamo and Maverick stars, and some spool and Carrie Nation blocks.  This week I finished up some cute little double 9 patch blocks for the never-ending Omigosh quilt. Each 5" block has 49 pieces, for a total of 196 scrap pieces used in these 4 blocks! WOW!

My last scrappy blocks to finish up this month are purple pumpkin seeds. I have sewn a few while watching QuiltCam, and am happy to be adding blocks to that collection. The finished blocks and an updated photo of the pumpkin seeds will be posted next Saturday.

To see more purple projects being sewn, hop over to visit SoScrappy. I wonder what colour we will be working on for the month of May?!?

Disappearing 4 Patch

Another UFO closet treasure was re-discovered last weekend! I demonstrated how to sew a disappearing 4 patch (D4P) block for my quilt guild a few years ago, and forgot that several blocks were sewn that day. 

I first saw the tutorial here and have had a lot of fun with this block over the years. 
I guess I must really like it, since this is my third D4P quilt! You can see the first quilt here and the second one here. 

These blocks started with 5" charm squares from the Fresh Flowers fabric line. 
This week I sewed the remaining squares from the charm pack into the D4P blocks. 
I think I will make a layout 4 blocks x 6 blocks, so I need to find a couple more fabrics in the stash to make up 2 more blocks.
It's a very fresh and spring-like project to work on. On the top right is a possible border fabric. I hope to get these blocks sewn into a quilt top before they go missing again!

A Mini Finish

I finished this little miniature quilt, which I am calling "Civil (War) Kisses"! Once I decided that scrappy sashings wouldn't work (read more here) the quilt came together really quickly. Because I was using up scraps, the options were limited for the sashing, but I really like this fabric with the little hearts. It was perfect to sash the kiss blocks! The little sashing pieces were cut 1" x 2" - very tiny to work with. I like how the touch of red before the binding brightens it up a bit. The finished quilt size is 8" square.

I love this photo taken in the maple tree in my backyard. You can see that the buds are just starting to grow and soon we will have leaves again!

Treadle Trouble

Sometimes you learn the hard way how NOT to do something.

I wanted to take my treadle machine in for servicing and was unsure of how to remove it from the cabinet.
It seemed to me that the only way was to remove these two contraptions at the back of the machine.
This is not how to do it!  
I should have asked for advice first!

Apparently these screws do not have to be removed, taking the wood with them! There is a little hidden screw at the end which attaches to the sewing machine. Now I know. But how do I repair this wood? Any ideas?
I am missing my treadling already :(

Design Wall - Mini Magic

Sometimes you're just in the mood for a little mini magic and a quick finish. I found a little baggie of partially made blocks in a junk pile storage box ,and just felt like playing with them. The scraps are Civil War reproductions leftover from my Freeze Frame quilt finished in 2010, so they really needed to get sewn up into something!

These are little connecting corner blocks from a workshop I taught many years ago. The background light squares are cut 1.25" and the connecting corner dark squares are cut 7/8". When you sew four of them together they make a 2" block and you can arrange them as either a kiss (X) or a hug (O). To see a Valentine mini quilt I made using this block click here.
I had a little trouble with figuring out the setting for this quilt. I thought it needed some sashing to separate the blocks, but going totally scrappy just looks too frenetic to me. Hmmm... go with only 1 fabric sashing, or a light fabric, or no sashing?
Don't you just love playing in the quilting room?!? There are no life altering decisions to make, no wrong answers - just fun to be had! 
Did I mention that these blocks are 1"?  Yep - this is how big they are! This is not a quilt you would be able to sleep under!
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Stitching Sunday - Cross Stitching

When searching for my DMC floss for my Superpower wallhanging, I came across a box of old cross stitching UFO's. 

These are really old... as in more than 20 years old! And some of the projects were so close to being finished. I was happy to find these little baby bibs that I could easily finish up for gifts. I got totally absorbed in stitching them, and just need to finish outlining the balloon with the teddy bears. So cute! Sure you can easily buy little bibs, but isn't it so much more fun to have hand stitched ones?!?

I haven't done a lot of cross stitching since I became addicted to quilting, and now that I have started working on it again, I remember why I don't cross stitch much anymore...
I just don't have the eye sight for it! These charts and stitches are teeny, tiny, small! 





For the month of May, I am going to stitch up these loose ends and try to finish up some of these treasures, such as this one. This is part of a pattern by Tedd Arnold and I've always loved it. My stitches are so pretty and just wait until you see the finished masterpiece!

From It's a Small WWW

I am wishing all of my slow stitching friends the blessings of Easter and sending you thoughts of healing love and creative renewal. 
What treasures are you creating with your hands today? Link up your blog post below and share with us!