Border Block

While working on my next scrap squad quilt and using up leftover Kansas Trouble fabrics, I unearthed a 2 year old UFO I really like. It just needs borders for heavens sake. It makes me so annoyed with myself, but I seem to have a persistent "border block" that I just have to get over.

From Patchwork Times

Sunny Side Up blocks

These lovely blocks on the left want to become the finished layout on the right.






Okay... first I have to do the psychological work....
*I remind myself that I really like this design and want it to be a finished quilt. I make that my goal.
*I remind myself that I have all the skills to get this done. Forget about all the border fiascos from the past. I am an experienced quilter now, and I can do this. 
*I remind myself that I tackled a really challenging seminole border this year, and with a minimum of swearing and crying, it all worked out!

Okay... now I have to do the physical work...

*math calculations (ugh) 

*the cutting (ugh)

*pinning (ugh)

*sewing (ahhhhh)

Easy peasy?

Nope....it's all about hard work and commitment, just like everything else that is worthwhile :)

Cozy Afternoon BOM

Cozy Afternoon Block #1

Did you remember that today is the day for the start of the Cozy Afternoon BOM!! Did you sign up to receive your free patterns? If not, click here to join in. This is a 5 month BOM so you will have time to finish this quilt for a Christmas gift if you want.
Although I was initially unsure of the pale fabrics I picked out for my project, I am very happy with how the pale pieced blocks provide a background which features the special design in the centre block. It helps the embroidery to stand out a little more and not distract from it. My photos don't show the accurate colours of my fabrics, and the yellow fabric is not that dark in real life. But you get the idea right? 



You can make your centre blocks using any technique you prefer - embroidery, applique, or even just a plain piece of fabric. Isn't this just the cutest tea cup full of flowers?
I am making my centre blocks using hand embroidered backstitch, with 3 strands of a pink DMC slightly variegated floss.

Cozy Afternoon Block #2

I also added a bit of embellishment with buttons for the flower centres on block #1, and a button for the top of the tea pot on block #2.




Jacquelynne has organized a blog hop for everyone to visit some of the quilters who have completed these first two blocks. 
May I offer you a cup of pomegranate tea while you visit the sites? You are going to have a great time meeting these quilters and being inspired by their projects:

A Quilt and a Prayer
http://aquiltandaprayer.blogspot.com/
Lily Pad Quilting  
http://lilypadquilting.blogspot.com/
Red Letter Quilts
http://redletterquilts.blogspot.com/
The Crafty Quilter

http://thecraftyquilter.com/

44th Street Fabric
http://44thstreetfabric.blogspot.com/                       
 

And now onto the giveaway :)
Jacquelynne is giving away these digital patterns to one of my blog readers. All you have to do is leave a comment below and tell me what your favourite kind of tea is, if you can even narrow it down to one kind! If you're not a tea drinker, you can tell me what your favourite hot beverage is.
Good luck everyone! The draw will be open until Saturday and the winner's name will be drawn on Sunday.
Enjoy your Cozy Afternoon!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Recently I had a wonderful visit with three long time friends. They are "salt of the earth" type of humans who have enhanced my life for about 20+ years. 


The weather was glorious, and the conversation was inspiring. Add a little slow stitching to that combination, and life could not be better!
I found the perfect block to stitch while we had our visit.
"You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough". 

Life Is Beautiful Block #10

This is block #10 for my Life Is Beautiful quilt and I'll be finishing it up today.
What are you working on?
Link up your hand stitching project below so we can encourage your progress. Every stitch counts!

Scrappy Saturday - Blues

A bit more of the blue stash has been tamed this week. Strips were cut and block pieces were organized for more Alamo Stars. Each star block needs 17 pieces cut from a 1.25" strip using 3 different rulers, so it takes a while to do the prep work.




Once I have the pieces cut for a block I use the Clover clips to keep them together.
Here is a handful of blocks all ready to go. They will be sewn using the leader/ender system in between sewing other things this week.
To see more blue scrap projects, hop over to SoScrappy.
Bonnie is hosting QuiltCam this afternoon so that's what I'll be doing. You can link up from the Quiltville website starting at 2 pm. Come be part of the "Soul Quilters" as Bonnie says:

We are “Soul Quilters”  The Sisters & Brothers of the cloth –We understand each other’s need to sew as much variety as we can, to sew all the pieces that we can, to make something that says something about who we are and what we love.

Next Scrap Squad Quilt

Two of the six quilts that I will make as part of Quiltmaker's 2015 Scrap Squad are already finished. That means there are four still to come. 
It is my goal to clean out different areas of my stash to make these quilts. The first quilt was made from some bright scraps, the second one was from the blue scrap pile, and the next one is going to be made from my collection of Kansas Troubles fabric. I have all the bits and pieces spread around on the table and am figuring out the amounts I have of each colour and what might work for this next quilt.
The first project I made using these Kansas fabrics was a quilt along with Judy of Patchwork Times in 2013. The pattern was called Sunny Side and I really liked how it was looking. Can you guess when it started heading straight to the UFO closet? That's right - "border time"... there's 5 of them. UGH. One of these days I'm going to have to tackle that.

But until then, I'm going to start a new quilt!
Today I'm finishing 100 gold and green 4 patch blocks. When they are done, I will start some flying geese blocks and some HST's. 
TGIF!

Preparing for Cozy Afternoon

I am getting ready for the big reveal of the first Cozy Afternoon blocks. It is a fun project that starts in the summer, and finishes in the fall. It's a perfect pace for adding in another project that you can actually keep up with!
I like that you can use any technique you prefer or want to experiment with - piecing, applique, or embroidery. Instructions are included for each technique, so you can totally make this your unique quilt.
I am piecing my blocks by machine, and hand stitching the embroidery in the centres. I don't have a light box, so I am hand tracing the stitching pattern on a window. Very low tech! Can you guess what this design will be? 

Cozy Afternoon

Look for the posts to go live on the blog on Monday. I will be showing my first two blocks and there will also be a giveaway from Jacquelynne! This is a free BOM, so I hope you will join us - hop over and sign up.

Tidying up (a.k.a. starting a new project)

One of my biggest challenges of being a quiltaholic is keeping my space "workable". I won't even use the word "clean" because that will never happen! 
When I am working on a project, my cutting table looks like this. And my sewing room has piles of fabric everywhere, pieces voted off the project, pieces waiting to be cut up, block parts in various stages of construction, and maybe even another pile of fabric being auditioned for a completely different project to start after this one!
Everything is a creative mess. I have written blog posts about this before (click here to read one of my faves).
I know this is how I roll. It's how I sew and it's part of my creative process. But once in a while things get totally out of control and something drastic needs to happen.

I really really wish that when a project is finished, the tidy up fairies would come in and re-organize everything for me. They would put the equipment back where it belongs, sort the scraps into a well organized system, run the vacuum around to pick up all the threads, etc. But the fairies never show up. Eventually I get sick of the mess and start to tidy things up. 
But then... I come across a great scrappy treasure. All thoughts of tidying up are conveniently forgotten. I start working on a different project, and make an even bigger mess.
Look what I found while cleaning today? These are baby HST's from Under the Sea. When they are put together like this they form pinwheels. They are so cute and just need pressing and trimming.
What do you think of this layout?

Design Wall Monday

The scrappy braids are on the design wall today. This is my UFO project for June and I'm pretty sure it's doable. I'm joining the next two rows to sew them together. I am pinning every single place where the seams match, because it's very noticeable (to me) when they don't meet exactly. I've already done some unsewing.
Since it's been on the design wall, I have noticed that the bottom of the braids are uneven. I don't know what I'm doing about that yet. But I do know that a blog reader generously offered to send me some fabric to match the blue at the top of the braids - thank you Helen!
To see more design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching - Always Home

It's about time for an update on my hand quilted wallhanging called "Always Home". I am happy to say that it is very close to being finished.

Hand stitching is sometimes a little more challenging these days since my bifocals 
were not quite "up to snuff".  I am now finding it necessary to have special quilting glasses. Let's just call it an equipment malfunction, instead of visual deterioration! I will be quilting the bottom border today and am looking forward to getting the binding on and celebrating a finished quilt as soon as next week!
If I wouldn't have been so distracted by my Life is Beautiful embroidery blocks, this would have been finished a long time ago! Maybe you know how that goes?!?!
What are you stitching by hand today? Link up your blog post below and share your project with us.

Scrappy Saturday - Blue

Over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge we are sewing up the blue scraps this month. I have tons of those, especially batiks from Under the Sea. I plan to make many Alamo Star blocks this month, but so far, only 4 have been sewn together.
That's okay... there's lots of month left for the blues!
Hop over to SoScrappy to see more blue projects.

May Binding Blitz

I am happy to join in the May Binding Blitz over at Julie's. I didn't finish a single quilt in April, but in May I finished TWO quilts so I am doing the happy dance!
Earlier in the month I finished the binding on "Under The Sea" which is my second scrap squad quilt. It measured 45" x 47", for a total of 184" of hand stitching. 

And on the last day of May I managed to get the binding stitched onto Scrappy (Carolina) Chains. It measured 53" x 47.5" for a total of 201".
Which brings my 2015 binding total to ....  1,861" of hand stitching!

QuiltCam attempt

The weather here has just been "picture perfect" - warm and sunny, not humid, blue sky. This is my favourite kind of weather for enjoying the outdoors. 
But it is not good quilting weather and I am not getting much accomplished. I missed out on QuiltCam on Tuesday night so I watched it last night while doing some hand stitching on a Life is Beautiful block. Truthfully, I didn't get much done because I fell asleep :) Oh well, I will try again tonight!

June's UFO of the Month

For the month of June I am going to make a concerted effort to finish an old scrappy braid project. This was started years ago when a pattern was published in the guild newsletter. This was back in the days when the newsletter was actually printed on paper and mailed to your house. So you just know this project is O L D!

It also is a project that has never been seen on the blog, so here it is - as it is today.
The first thing to do when unearthing an old UFO from the dungeon is to assess why it ended up there in the first place. With this one, I ran out of the dark blue fabric that goes across the top to finish the braids. What to do? 
Well, the plan of the minute is to just add in other blues and keep going! 
I'm sure there are other partially finished braids around here somewhere...
By the end of the month, these braids are going to be a finished quilt! 
I am behind in my 2015 UFO finishes, so I gotta put a big push on! Hop over to see the "Lovely Year of Finishes" June  link up.

A finished quilt on the design wall!

What a great feeling to finish this UFO on the last day of May! Scrappy (Carolina) Chains is on the design wall, and it is done, done, done!

These quilt blocks were started in 2010 to use up scrap polka dot batiks. The block pattern is by Bonnie Hunter and was in the Quiltmaker magazine. 
The project get stalled by the challenge of making a layout decision.
I'm quite happy with it now that it's all said and done.






And I am quite tickled that the batting, the backing and the binding all were made from leftovers. Nothing was purchased in making this quilt!
It even has a label, which is kind of lame, but it is there!

Hop over to Patchwork Times to see more design wall postings.

Slow Sunday Stitching & Auction Report

Life is Beautiful Block #9

What crazy weather we had yesterday! It was so hot in the morning, I didn't know if I would be able to stay at the quilt auction, and you just know it must be really  bad when I can't stay at a quilt event! I did work on some hand embroidery to distract myself from melting, and finished block #9 of Life Is Beautiful.






My little sewing group's Sunshine Quilt was sold for $450 and we are very happy about that! We have raised over $2,000 for the relief efforts of the MCC.






In February I made a block for the "Canada: What it means to me" quilt. You can see my block to the top left of the centre medallion. You can read more about it here.
This quilt sold for $3,200!!

Photo by Dolores Sedore

The top seller of the day was the "Threads of Africa" quilt (read more about it here). This photo was emailed to me by Dolores and is much better than the photo I took at the auction. It really is a spectacular quilt... 
it sold for $42,000!
For real! It was very exciting to be there, and made the heat exhaustion worthwhile.

In the afternoon there was a huge downpour, and the temperature became more bearable. When it was time to leave, we had to swim to our cars! Just look at all that rain. The gardens needed the rain, but so much rain fell so quickly that the ground couldn't absorb it.

Don't little boys love to play in puddles? And this was a very big puddle for them to enjoy. I watched these guys have fun for quite a while.
I think they enjoyed the puddle as much as I enjoyed the quilt auction!


And while I waited to leave, it continued to rain, and I continued to stitch. The stitches are a little wobbly so don't biggy size the photo. The traffic was at a stand still, and look how much I got stitched on my next block! I will be putting more stitches in today.

What are you hand stitching? Link up your blog post below and share a photo of where you do your hand stitching. In a car, at the park, in the waiting room, on the patio... any place is a great stitching place!

Scrappy Saturday

All the green pumpkin seeds that I cut last weekend were appliqued this week. I had some fun with them on the design wall, which lead to lots of border ideas for this quilt using leftover blocks.
To see the last green scrappy posting for the month, hop over to SoScrappy. I am looking forward to getting out the blue scraps for June's adventures.

As has been my tradition for many years, today I will be attending the annual Mennonite Quilt Auction, which raises money for international relief efforts. Over 200 quilts will be auctioned, and my little group's quilt is #134 in the catalogue. If you are there, come say hi to me... just look for the person in the crowd who is hand stitching!

TGIF

Major progress happened yesterday on May's UFO. It definitely was not the quilting fairies that showed up to do the work... just ask my sore back!

The quilt was pin basted.

Bobbins were wound.
I always begin quilting a project by winding 3 bobbins to give me a running start. This quilt is getting blue thread in the bobbin and taupe thread on top to blend with the variety of colours in the quilt. Of course I am using Aurifil... my sewing machine's favourite thread!

And then the quilting started. I decided to quilt all straight lines - between the block vertically and horizontally, and then diagonally through the chains. It's a bit boring, but the quilt didn't want an allover design... so straight lines it is!



Less than 3 days days until the end of May, and the end is in sight!

TGIF!

Working on the May UFO

During today's sewing time I finally got the outside border on. It really didn't take long to do since I just wanted a narrow float border. 

Then I did completed the  very glamorous job of hand stitching three pieces of scrap batting together. 
I also started piecing a backing from the quilt leftovers, so hopefully the pin basting will take place tomorrow and the machine quilting can start.

Scrap Batting - Dog Beds

In January I wrote a blog post about how to use leftover batting scraps - click here to read it. One of the ideas was to make a dog bed. Most people throw small batting scraps, block trimmings, and scraps into the trash. 
But I save everything, and yes I have a "problem" (actually more than one!) Only fabric scraps that are less than 1" go into little dog beds (everything that is 1" goes to the Omigosh tin and everything larger than 1" goes into scrap bins). Batting scraps are only saved if they are larger than 6". Any smaller batting scraps go into a dog bed.

For example, you know when you are trimming a quilt to put the binding on? What do you do with the extra batting that you cut off?
I cut the batting into smaller hunks and stuff it into either an old pillowcase, or a bag that I have stitched with old fabric.

Full dog bed on the left & new bag being filled on the right.

Eventually you end up with a bag full of soft filling that makes a comfy little bed for an animal at the humane society shelter. These are used temporarily as they are hard to wash and dry, but they do give some comfort to a homeless furry creature for a period of time. And it gives my quilting garbage one more job to do before it hits the landfill.

Cozy Afternoon Beading - Silk Thread

I am preparing some blocks for the reveal of the free Cozy Afternoon Block of the Month.  The first patterns will be available on June 15th. Have you signed up yet? Click here to join in.

Playing with wooden beads

I had fun playing in the bead box and picking just the right beads for these flowers.
When attaching the beads, I tried out the new silk thread I bought last week. 

Kimono Silk Thread

It is a finer thread than Nymo, which is my usual beading thread. And it didn't seem to split as much on the ends so threading the needle was easier. I must say after my first experience that I really like this thread and look forward to using it more.