This and That

Hello Everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by Hurricane Florence. I hope any damage is minimal and that you’ll be back to normal soon. We were planning on camping in Bryson City, NC this week, but decided we better cancel those plans.

Last week I finished quilting Save The Bees BOM by Jacquelynne Steves. I just need to hand sew my binding. This is the first time I’ve finished one the BOM’s way before the last month! It’s a nice feeling. You can still sign up to get these free patterns.

Also, Jacquelynne is opening The Art of Home Club this week if you would like to become a member. The cost is $9.95 a month and you get embroidery, applique and quilt patterns every month centered around a specific theme. You can check out my Art of Home category on the side bar to see some of my projects.

Last week I also made two The Hand Crafter’s Carry-All Baskets for us to use when we camp. I plan on getting pictures using them on our next camping trip. You can find them in my shop here.

In one of my recent posts, I told you I’ve been in a planning mood. Well, I’m still planning and purchased these patterns by Sherri of A Quilting Life and her daughter Chelsi, @Chelsistratton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, Sherri sent me the Endless Summer Mini for participating in last month’s Minis and More Parade (which is this month’s mini), and I bought the other two. The fabrics are from their new collection Walkabout, which will be available next year. I’m waiting for a bundle of their current fabric Clover Hallow, which should be in stores now unless you are here in Atlanta. No one local carries these beautiful fabrics and I’m not sure why.

Another new pattern I got is County Fair by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree and Co.

I’ve had my eye on this pattern for a long time. The fabrics on the right are Christmas Figs that I purchased earlier this summer. I thought I might do the Christmas Figs BOM with these, but decided not too. I think these will be perfect for County Fair. I may need to get a little more of one of the reds to use in the sashing and that’s it. This will probably be a project for next year.

In a few weeks, I’m going to my first overnight quilt retreat. I’m looking forward to it, but I need to get some projects prepped before I go.

I’m going to cut out this layer cake and use it with my own design. I made this same quilt 9 or 10 years ago as a wall hanging.

This will be nice and simple and will sew up fast. You can tell that I hadn’t done much free motion quilting at the time. I’m sure the new one will have lots more quilting on it!

I’m sure I will also be continuing to work on the Cheddar and Indigo quilt, too.

I’ve got my first group of blocks ready to sew together. Because of all the trimming required for the half square triangles and geese units, I’m breaking the sewing up into groups of 10 blocks. Hopefully I can keep them organized that way, too, and not sew the wrong piece to the wrong block.

For the retreat, we need to bring a little something for everyone. I’ve always wanted to make the Petit Four Basket byAnnie. I used this video tutorial from Fat Quarter Shop to get started.

I used leftover layer cake squares for the baskets.

I’ve got them in piles so I don’t forget which lining goes with each basket.

I have one mostly finished just to see what they are going to be like. Aren’t they cute. They are working up pretty quickly, too. I still need to sew the lining up and stitch around the edge and it will be done, then 20 more to go!

Lots going on here, but I like the variety! I hope you have a great week and thanks for stopping by.

August Progress Update

Hello Everyone! It’s time for the August progress update. I didn’t get too many things done on my list, but I added a couple of things during the month that weren’t on it.

I did a lot of pattern revisions for the Needles projects for Jacquelynne Steves Art of Home Club.

I also wrote the mini pattern revisions for the Save the Bees free BOM by Jacquelynne.

Save the Bees, Block 1 and 2

So, I spent a lot of time at the computer in August.

I did make the Trip Around the World Mini…

and this quilt for my friend Lydia for her birthday and new house…

I’ll have a whole post on this one soon. I still need to get pictures of it. Lydia saw it half quilted, but I had to take it back to finish it!

I also did some slow stitching in August and finished these embroidery pieces. The Sewing Circle and “B” are Jenny of Elefantz designs and the Happy Camper is a Sherri K. Falls design. The only one I know what I’m doing with for sure is the Happy Camper, it’s going on the outside pocket of another Hand Crafter’s Carry-All Basket I’m making to carry clothes when we camp.

This is my September list. I have some quilting to do this month. I’ve started the Save The Bees quilting and am about half finished. I really want to finish the Moda Blockheads quilting, too. I also have a good start on the Cheddar and Indigo quilt,

and am looking forward to making this month’s mini,

Endless Summer Mini by Sherri McConnell.

We are also going camping for a week in Bryson City, NC later this month assuming hurricanes don’t get in the way. I’ll need to get some hand work prepared to take with me for that.

So another month’s worth of fun projects to look forward to working on. I do like to keep things fresh by working on “several” things at a time!

Thanks for stopping by,

 

September Minis and More

Hello Everyone! Today is Minis and More Parade Day. Be sure to visit Michele and Sherri to see the rest of the parade. If you are looking for Block 2 of Save the Bees, scroll to the bottom of this post or go here to find Block 2. For the Block 2 giveaway, make sure you leave your comment on that post, not this one.

I had lots of fun playing with fabrics from my stash to make this Trip Around the World Mini. Samantha, from Aqua Paisley Studio, wrote this tutorial for making the mini using Bonnie Hunter’s tube technique. Her directions called for using fat quarters or fat eighths (21″ length). I really wanted to use the black and white fabrics from 10″ squares I had from Bonnie and Camille’s Handmade. The orange and white flower fabric is also a Bonnie and Camille from a 10″ square. So I had to do some rethinking and math.

To get started with the Trip Around the World, a set of strips need to be sewn together. After they are sewn together, the strip sets need to be recut into 32 – 1 1/2″ strips plus some additional 1 1/2″ squares. I determined that if I cut the 10″ square like the diagram above, I could get the strips sets I needed. This meant cutting the other fabric to the same lengths. too. So instead of having 4 strip sets, I had 6. Then, I cut the total amount needed, 32 strips.

So what’s the point of all this? If you want to use a fabric, but it’s not the same cut as the pattern calls for, spend a few minutes to see if you can use it anyway.

I quilted this just like Samantha did hers. Just a simple cross-hatch through the center of the squares. I used my walking foot and eyeballed it. No marking! The squares are only 1″ so not too hard to sew straight. I did use my open toe foot to make viewing easier.

I used this cream and black dot from my stash for the backing. I had half a yard of it so I had to piece it a little to make it fit.

All the fabrics are from my stash and the theme I was going for is “modern vintage Halloween”, vintage block with modern black, orange, and white fabric with the gray thrown in for Halloween.

It will look great on my table with Halloween decorations…

or fall decorations…

or everyday decorations!

This was a fun mini to work on and it was challenging for me to pull the fabrics and place them in a pleasing manner, but I love the final result. Thanks to Sherri and Michele for choosing this project because I may never have made a Trip Around the World quilt.

The mini for this upcoming month is going to be one of Sherri’s new patterns, Endless Summer Mini. You can find it in her shop here.

Why don’t you think about joining in this month?

Thanks for stopping by!

Save The Bees, Block 2

Hello Everyone! It’s time for Block 2 of Save the Bees (STB) free BOM by Jacquleynne Steves. Be sure to visit Jacquelynne for additional information and tips for this block. Our sponsors this month are EvaPaige Quilt Designs and New Leaf Stitches. All the information for winning this month’s Giveaway is at the bottom of this post.

This month’s block is another cute flower and bee combination.

Remember I am making a mini version of STB, so my unfinished block size is 5 1/2″ x 9 1/2″. I am excited that some of you will be making the mini version, too. You can find the revised directions for this month on my Save The Bees Mini Revisions page. Just a few reminders:

• Transfer the revised numbers onto the original pattern. These directions only have the size conversions for this block, you must have Jacquelynne’s original directions to make the block. (It’s not too late to sign up for this BOM. Once you do, you will receive Blocks 1 and 2 by email, then receive the next blocks on the first Monday of the month).
• Print the applique pages at 50% scale. The pattern is on two pages so you will need to tape them together. The scale line should be 1/2 inch. (Picture shown is block 1).

• Starch the fabric for the pieced units (not the applique background) before cutting your pieces. This helps get nice accurate results.

I needle turned the applique using Aurifil 50 wt Mako Cotton thread in matching colors. The thread is so nice to use in applique. It’s strong and thin and disappears beautifully into the applique. Aurifil will be sponsoring a giveaway soon, too. I added a few embroidery touches on the leaves and embroidered my bee because of the size. The thread shown in the picture is Aurifloss, which I used for the embroidery stitches in STB.

Did you notice the piecing in this block is made with Half Rectangle Units and not Half Square Units.  Jacquleynne has a very good tutorial on making Half Rectangle Units. Make sure you read through the tutorial and view the video before making them if you haven’t made them before.

Here are blocks 1 and 2 together. I like my quilts to have a controlled scrappy look so I use different fabrics in the same color. To keep it cohesive though, I used the same applique and pieced background.

Now for the giveaway:

In the comments below, tell me if you have a favorite fall activity. For us, we like to camp in our RV once the weather cools a little bit. We have two trips already planned and hope to get a quick trip in in November, too.

To enter a comment, find the Leave a Reply box.  You must keep scrolling to the bottom of all the comments on the page to find the box. If the comments are not shown below the post (which will happen if you are scrolling from or linking from a different post) find “Comments” in the Tags line at the bottom of the post. Click on “Comments” and that will open the comments, then scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Leave a Reply box. I hope this helps.

The prize this month is a copy of the Carpenter’s Apprentice pattern courtesy of EvaPaige Quilt Designs and Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmers courtesy of New Leaf Stitches.

• The giveaway is open to everyone, US and International readers.
• There is ONE prize per person per month.
• Make sure that you leave your email so I can contact you if you win.
• You have until the end of day on Sunday, September 9 to leave your comment.
• Once I contact the winner for your information, you have 72 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

Be sure you visit the other bloggers for 7 more chances to win and to see how everyone finished their Block 2.

• The Crafty Quilter
• Podunk Pretties
• The Quilting Nook
• The Sewing Loft
• Flamingo Toes
• Kathy’s Quilts
• Freemotion by the River
• A Quilting Life

Post your finished blocks on social media using:

#SaveTheBeesQuilt and #SaveTheBeesBOM

You can also post pictures on the Sew Quilty Friends FB group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/SewQuiltyFriends.JacquelynneSteves/.

Before you go, I want to remind you that my Scattered Leaves and Pumpkins Pillow and Mini Quilt pattern is on sale through the end of Labor Day (Monday, Sept 3).

Scattered Leaves and Pumpkins

Thanks for stopping by and have fun making Save the Bees, Block 2!

Fall Project for Weekend Sewing

Hello Everyone! Are you ready for fall? I’m getting there. August has been hot and humid in the southeast (like always) and I’m looking forward to cooler temperatures, college football (Go Hokies!) and RV camping.

In my last post, I told you I was looking for a pattern to use with this fabric, Cheddar and Indigo. After playing around in EQ8, I decided to go with my own design. I’ve created 4 different color layouts from the same block. I just need to decide which one I like best and start cutting this weekend.

Do you have something for fall you want to work on this long Labor Day Weekend? If you are looking for a fun fall project, how about my Scattered Leaves and Pumpkins Pillow or Mini Quilt?

Scattered Leaves and Pumpkins

I designed and made this pillow late last fall, and added the pattern to my Craftsy shop as a PDF download. This year, I’m also adding a paper pattern for anyone who prefers that.

With a half yard of background fabric and your fall fabric scraps, you can have this made in a few days.

The pattern also has instructions for making a mini quilt or table topper if you prefer.

I’ve got both the PDF and paper pattern on sale for $5.75 through the end of Monday, September 3. Visit my shop for the links to get your copy today and enjoy a little fall sewing.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

In a Creative Mood

Hello Everyone! I hope you are enjoying your weekend. Have you had a group or piece of fabric that you really liked, but didn’t know exactly what you wanted to make with it? That’s been me the latter part of this week. I have things that need to be quilted and backings to be made, but most of my major projects are near completion so I have been looking for something new, something fall!

I picked this Cheddar and Indigo fat quarter bundle up last year at one of my LQS. It’s designed by Nancy Gere for Windom Fabrics.

Scattered Leaves and Pumkins

Last year I used two of the low volume prints to make the mini quilt and pillow. The mini quilt is by Cluck Cluck Sew and the Pillow pattern is my design and you can find the pattern in my shop.

These are a few of the patterns I’ve been contemplating, but this fabric is really only three colors. A few of the low volume prints have both the indigo and cheddar in them, but otherwise, the fabrics are the same color. After I finish with this post, I think I’m going to play around in EQ8 a little to see what I can come up with. I also have a stack of magazines and books to look through. If you have any ideas, let me know.

These are my blocks for the mini Trip Around the World for the Minis and More Parade this month. I pulled some orange and black fabric for a little Halloween mini (it finishes about 17″ x 17″). If you want to join in, you can find the free tutorial by Samantha at Aqua Paisley Studio. I have the top finished now, and I’m really happy with it, but you’ll have to wait for the parade in September to see it.

This week I also got my first Sew Sampler Box from Fat Quarter Shop. The fabric is by Elizabeth Hartman and the colors are not really my style but I knew when I set up the subscription that I probably wouldn’t always like the fabrics. I did get a new Splash Olfa rotary cutter, a spool of Aurifil thread and a handy little ruler, all of which I will use.

As I was looking for patterns for the Cheddar and Indigo, I saw this pattern in American Patchwork and Quilting (August 2018) that I thought the fabrics would be great for. I’m thinking this will eventually become a charity quilt. I have made some smaller items for our quilt guild’s charities, but not a quilt, so this might be the one. I’ll have to reduce the size of the blocks a little, but I think it will work.

I did a little shopping this week, too. I’ve seen a lot of projects made from the Swell fabric by Urban Chiks for Moda. It’s very retro looking. I picked up a little Moda Grunge and Moda Bella to go with it. Maybe that Cindy Lou Who pattern would be good for this. I’ve had that pattern since 2007 or so, it’s time to use it.

So a week ago, my daughter was home for a little while and we had a couple of fun adventures.

The two of us went to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to see the Winnie-the-Pooh exhibit. The drawings of E.H. Sheppard’s were displayed with notes and excerpts from A. A. Milne. It made me want to find our copy of Winnie-the-Pooh and read it again. One of my thoughts as we were looking at the drawings is that Disney did a good job of keeping the original likenesses of the characters.

Our second outing, with my husband, too, was to Blue Ridge then back to Ellijay, GA where we had lunch and did a little shopping. On our way home, we went over the mountain to Chatsworth and stopped at one of our favorite overlook places in the Cohutta Wilderness. We were getting a few peaks of sun, but the clouds were pretty hanging just above the mountains. This picture is looking towards the northeast where the highest mountains in Georgia are.

Well, I think I’m going to go start creating now. Thanks for stopping by.

The Needles Projects for the Art of Home Club

Hello Everyone! Welcome to the Art of Home Club members who may be new here, too. Today I can finally share my project designs for the “The Needles Collection” for Jacquelynne Steves The Art of Home Club.The embroidery, applique and Pin Cushion designs are by Jacquelynne and the table topper, wall hanging and pillow were designed by me.

Note: All Art of Home Club photos used by permission from Jacquelynne Steves

I was very honored when Jaquelynne asked if I would like to design projects for the club. I agreed that if she would design the applique and embroidery designs, I would design the projects to go with them. This has been a very fun and learning experience for me. The patterns are only available to club members, but you can sign up here to be notified when the club is open for new members again.

I started these projects in April with the table topper. I wanted the projects to be more modern with a slight southwest theme.

The mint, peach and navy fabrics with some sprinkles of gold and hot pink in the embroidery were just what I was looking for. The fabrics are Bayberry and Lullaby by Kate and Birdie for Moda and the background fabric is Contempo’s Colorweave for Bernartex. I used Sue Spargo perle cotton # 8 variegated floss, Aurifloss by Aurifil and DMC for the embroidery.

I have a square table and so many things are designed for long table runners.  I wanted something that would fit my table. I also wanted each design to be facing a chair so I set the embroidery design on point in the square background.

I used this square viewing/tracing template I made from heavy cardboard to center the designs. When making the table topper, you can also set the designs up and down to make a wall hanging instead. They will fit both ways.

I also needed to make 16 Half Square Triangles (HSTs) and only had a layer cake (10″ square) of the Bayberry fabric that I really wanted to use. After researching different methods, I came up with a technique that I could use to get 18 HSTs from two 10″ squares. You can find my tutorial on making those here.

I like to quilt my embroidery pieces if using them in a quilt. I usually do simple echo lines next to the embroidery and then 1/8″ to 1/4″ away. I like to quilt a filler in the background to make the design pop. I free motion quilt on my Pfaff 4.0 Quilt Expression which is a domestic machine. Recently, I’ve been printing out pictures of the finished quilt top and trying out designs on that.

You can see I tried several different filler and block quilting designs. I also used my Westalee ruler foot for all the straight line quilting.

The table topper fits very nicely on my table and I love the nice modern look of it.

Jacquelynne’s designs can be used for applique or embroidery. For the applique version, I decided to design a wall hanging using three of the designs and a pillow.

The fabrics in the wall hanging and the pillow are all from various collections of Sherri and Chelsi fabrics for Moda except for some of the applique pieces.

I used two of the designs from the table topper in the wall hanging, then two other designs from the collection.

I do like to add embroidery accents to my applique. After I appliqued the pieces, I drew the embroidery lines onto the applique using a light box.

On the darker fabrics, I drew the lines on the best I could since the drawing didn’t show through my light box.

For the round pot applique, I used a single piece of fabric (Sherri and Chelsi’s Bright Sun) with a design on it.  I machine appliqued the pieces with a very small zigzag stitch and matching thread. For this design, I did a backstitch on a couple of the leaves to indicate an individual leaf in a couple of places.

 

I used my same method of making multiple HSTs in the wall hanging to make 20 HSTs from two fat eighths of fabric. I love the backing fabric, too. I’ve had it for several years intending to make a tote bag with it. It’s also from Bright Sun by Sherri and Chelsi.

The pillow block is the same as the wall hanging blocks. It looks so different with a different fabric placement. I fussy cut the print for the pot, too. There are so many fun ways to play with fabric and appliques.

I made an envelope back for my pillow so I can swap pillow fronts when I want a change.

I also wanted to show you this fun cactus pin cushion that Jacquelynne made. I think I’m going to have to make this!

For those in the club, I hope you have fun making these “needle” projects. They were a lot of fun to applique and embroider. Thanks for stopping by!