Are you ready for snowmen?

No, no, no I didn't mean for the real thing, I meant the quilted kind!!  Personally the real thing can hold off for many many months:)

These are made from my very own pattern that I have for sale in my Craftsy shop that you can find HERE.

How could you resist these cutie pies, I am in love with them!  This time I used Tsukineko ink to stencil on the snowflakes, then I heat set them so the table runner can be washed. 

I was able to get a batch of these guys all done for the fall craft shows and also I put one on Etsy. So if you don't want to make your own you can find one already to go HERE

They are all backed with the same red and black polka dot.  When I have several runners that can use the same backing, I load my quilting frame with a long piece which saves me some time.

I hope you all have a productive quilty week-I am hoping to as well.

Linking with MCM, Monday Making, Linky Tuesday

2nd QAYG

I actually did this little quilt as you go basket first but forgot to post it.  While on one of our camping vacations this summer I stopped into a cute little quilt shop in Randall, Minnesota called The Old Creamery Quilt Shop.  So much fun stuff to check out in there.  This little basket pattern caught my attention, so it came home with me, and I made this basket using Island Batik 5" sqs. they call stamps.

What fun colors I had to work with, this collection is called  Spoolin' Around.

 I chose to make the bottom of all one fabric instead of making it like the outside of the basket.

 While it is not the usual method of quilt as you go that we think of, it is still a quilt as you go.  You make binding strips, shove batting in it and then stitch the strips together.  I don't want to give away to much of the method, you will just have to get the pattern and give it a whirl!  Not affliated, just saying it was kinda fun to make.  The pattern is Baby Soft Bowl by Aunties Two Patterns.  It comes in 3 sizes.  I think I made the medium one.

Linking with the Friday linky parties listed on my left side bar. 

QAYG with Island Batik

Quilt As You Go(QAYG), for me, is difficult because I am a longarmer and I like fancy stitching! Our Island Batik Ambassador challenge for August is to make something using the QAYG method. After much thought of what I wanted to make, I decided to use my longarm for the whole process, except the binding.  I knew I had a pattern from many many years ago before I began longarming, so after a little rooting around digging through my patterns I found one from Gudrun Erla of GE Designs specifically for QAYG.













First I loaded my backing and batting on my frame.  The pattern says to make registration marks on the batting, which I did.  Ok, I am off to put on my first few pieces.

Looking good don't cha think?

Hey I am kinda liking this-well it is Island Batik after all so of course it's fun!!

Well shoot, I was having so much fun that I didn't realize I had a big boo boo!  Grrrr I had to pretend I was a frog and rip it, rip it, rip it.  See the top arrow-the light pieces are correct.  Now look at the bottom arrow-all the bottom light pieces are way to short-I grabbed the wrong size for them and never noticed till I had this all sewn on :(

 All better and moved on in the right direction.  At this point I put on the small inner gold borders.

And here is how it ended up.  After doing all the QAYG properly, I wanted a bit more quilting to show on top. 

Such wonderful fall colors, I just love their dotted Batiks.

Thank you Island Batik for the gorgeous fabrics we get to play with and thanks for the challenge to push us beyond our normal!!

Here are all of the Island Batik Ambassadors, lots of inspiration to get by checking out their projects each month. 

Nan from Purrfect Spots Designs

Turid from Den Syende Himmel
Stephanie from Quilt’n Party
Pamela from Pamela Quilts
Anna from Ark Angel Creations
Kathy from Kathy’s Kwilts and More
Jessica from Desert Bloom Quilting
Connie from Freemotion by the River
Kate from Seams Like a Dream
Sharon from Yellow Cat Quilt Designs
Tina from Quilting Affection Designs
Jennifer from The Inquiring Quilter
Barb from Bejeweled Quilts
Sally from Sally’s Quilting Corner
Jeanette from Inch Worm Fabrics
Connie from Kauffman Designs
Joan from Moosestash Quilting
Bernadine from Needle and Foot
Bea from Beaquilter
Cheryl from Cheryl Lynch Quilts
Maryellen from Mary Mack’s Blog
Joyce from Hearts Creations
Marlene from Kissed Quilts
Karen from The Quilt Rambler
Marian from Seams to be Sew
Laura from Slice of Pi Quilts
Linda from Inspired Layers
Vicki from Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting  (You are here)
Nancy from Masterpiece Quilting
Carol from FunThreads Designs
Terri from Meanderings Along Lizard Creek
Alison from Little Bunny Quilts
Suzy from Adventurous Applique and Quilting
Jean-Sophie from Sophie Junction
Janet from Whispers of Yore

Linky parties I am joining: Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social

Sewing, camping, fireworks!

I know it is long past the 4th of July but we saw fireworks, a whole lot of fireworks, this past week. Every year the Pyrotechnic Guild International(PGI) puts on a week long display of fireworks, seminars etc.  This year it was in Fargo, North Dakota, so off we went with our camper, kayaks, and Terra Trikes.

DH wanted to join the guild this year so he could take some seminars during the week, not to mention if you are a member you can be on the grounds the whole week and watch competitions on nights there were no public displays. The public displays were Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights.  Wednesday night it got rained out and they moved  it to Thursday night.  You also get better parking if you are a member, easy in and easy out.

So, while DH went to his desired seminars a few afternoons, I got to have a sewing day in the camper with the doors open(no bugs!) and my view was this...Ahhhh so relaxing!!

 Here is my sewing area... it worked perfectly sewing on the dining table and then my mini iron on a portable table from Walmart(which doubles as a dish drying area!).

And what did I sew you ask... I pieced these 2 table runners.

They really need a good pressing, which I will get to before I quilt them.

And then, I moved onto starting a coral, gray and white quilt, I have been collecting the corals and been just waiting for a chance to get a start on it.  I have all nine big blocks pieced and one row put together.  There was a bit more time to sew, and I would have, I thought I had cut enough pieces before leaving home, but I couldn't find them in the camper.  Well wouldn't cha know, the very next day here they lay over on the couch with our jackets-bummer!  DH didn't take any more classes, so no more sewing time either!  We spent the day doing fun things.

                                        

While sitting there sewing one afternoon, here comes this beautiful horse drawn carriage.  There was some big picnic event and they were giving rides to that group. 

We also had some time to do fun things like biking the wonderful trail along the Red River.

The Lindenwood park was just gorgeous with it's fountain, tons of pretty posies in bloom, and the big trees.

  If you like the smell of petunia's this was heavenly!

As we were biking along the trail there were a few times you actually biked by a neighborhood and we came upon this little library-how cute are these!

We also had a couple of kayak trips up and down the Red River which ran right past our camper!

 There was, however, a very sad event that happened in the river along the park-one young man lost his life.  I saw the rescue trucks, police etc come through the park and put their boats in and went searching. We didn't know for sure until we looked it up online what happened.  He told his buddies he was going swimming while they fished.  Makes you look at the river a bit differently for sure.They say the river looks calm but it has under currents.  It sure did look calm to us.

I never was able to capture a good still shot of the fireworks but I did take some movies. However, we are not sure it is OK for me to post them, so just imagine watching a couple hours(or more) of fireworks each night for 5 nights, WOW, KABOOM and all that jazz, the biggest best ones you have ever seen.  It was just wonderful!!  We have attended several of their shows over the years.  Next year it is in Mason City, Iowa.  There are several different big companies that put on the shows during the week. This time my favorite was Vortex out of Salt Lake City, Utah.

The PGI convention has fallen during our Anniversary many years, this year it was over before our Anniversary.  Thirty five years today!!!  Woohoo, where has all the time gone!

Back to normal life this week and catching up on lots of piecing, binding and quilting!  Soon I will have my Island Batik project done for August so watch for that in a few days.

Linking with MCM and Linky Tuesday.

Friday Finish-A panel

This week I have accomplished quite a bit again.  I quilted up several runners, got them trimmed, and now they are awaiting their turn at getting bound.  I also pieced a few more table runners.

However, this post is about a panel that has been finished and just waiting for the right time to get a picture.  It was overcast yesterday, but, there was a bit of wind so it didn't lay flat against the garage door.  See I used my big bar magnet again to hold it up.

The center part with the pumpkins is a panel from Timeless Treasures.  If you have followed me for a while, you know that I love working with panels. A lot of people buy them and let them sit in their stash. Now is the time to get them out and use them!  Don't be afraid of them.  Here is what the original looks like.

I look for a panel that can be cut up, I love to add interesting borders.  This panel was a bit wonky but not too bad. A little water, steam, starch and an iron made it behave much better.  I trimmed the panel along side the leaves and added a 1.5" green border all around. Now comes the creative part of adding different pieced borders. Sometimes I scour Pinterest for quilt border ideas, sometimes I just do my own thing.  The top and bottom row of little blocks in the panel will become something else some day.

The orange/beige checkerboard on one side and the top only, compliments the gold/black half square triangles.  In the panel the black fabric behind the leaves has a gold metallic dot, so in my stash I happened to have some black with metallic gold dots. Perfect for the HST's!  Also added was a little black metallic border on the top and left side to even things out to the right measurement for the size of HST's I used. 

You have been also getting some close up shots of how I quilted it. Hook swirl is quick, easy and effective for the center. Then a little custom for the borders consisting of straight lines in the green one, continuous curve in the HST's, and the checkerboard received some cross hatching.

Not so hard, right?  Fellow quilters dig out a panel and get creative!!  I'd love to see what you come up with.  

I also want to welcome aboard all my new followers I gain during the 12 Days of Christmas in July blog hop!  I read every comment and try to respond to them all.  However there were a lot of No-Reply bloggers, so if you don't hear from me check your status as I would love to chat with you!!!

Linking with Sarah and Myra today.

Oooh la la- Island Batik shipment #2

We, Island Batik Ambassadors, knew we had shipment #2 on the way. However, I thought mine would not arrive until mid week.  BUT lookie what I found by my door yesterday morning...

Excitement., excitement, excitement!!  Want to see what is in the box-me too!!!

 Bubble wrap!

OK so I was teasing a bit-naughty me, hehe.

 I had to contain my excitement all day long as we were watching the 2 little Grandsons and it was getting dark by the time they left for home.  So no pictures last night, but, I couldn't stand the suspense I had to open it and take a little peek.  Was I happy with what I saw?  Of course I was!!

This morning the lighting was perfect on my deck to give you a true color look at the gorgeous fabrics I get to work with for some up coming challenges for Island Batik.

Some 5" strip roll packs for stash building.

 Some yardage bonus fabric-love the colors for my fall projects.

Did you know that Island Batik has Rayon fabrics too!  This is a very pretty 2 yd print. But as a red head I can't wear this color:(    I was so looking forward to making myself a new shirt and this was just the right amount of yardage for it. 

And last but not least some secret fabric that will be released at Fall Market in October-so I can not show you a close up of them, but can you say-YUMMY!  I am so excited about new fabric for some upcoming fun projects.  So I hope you all will come back and see what I am up to!

Here are my 2017 Island Batik challenge projects so far. 

This afternoon was so much fun also. Our daughter, our 2  Grandsons, her boyfriend and his little girl came boating with us.  The kids were a little hesitant of the life jackets/lake at first, but the oldest one soon got comfortable enough to let go of something or someone and float on his own.  So fun to see them experience something different. 

And I made a new friend :)   This little guy kept coming to sit on my arm and he was tickling, so I let him creep onto my finger and he just hung around for a while.

While the weekend was a really good one, I am hoping to get a whole lot of quilting done this week.  My 'to be quilted' pile of runners and wall hangings have been growing.

I'll be linking with my regular Monday and Tuesday linky parties listed on my left side bar. 

Custom Order

Last week a lady contacted me about a purse in my Etsy shop.  She was hoping for a different color and a longer strap.  We had several convo's and I dug in my stash for colors that might work and she liked this purple plaid, black with gold metallic dots and a solid black for the outside of the purse. The lining is the purple plaid with gold pockets. It turned out beautiful.

Yesterday I finished it up, sent her a pic and she loves it!  

 

In between the convo's I picked out fabrics to make 5 more purses to stock my craft show boxes.

They too are all done, I have had a productive week. 

 

The inside with 8 pockets.

 The back.

The front which has a center pocket and 2 side pockets.  Plenty of room for organization.  Each has a magnetic closure and a covered foam core in the bottom for stability.  If you take out the board you can wash it.   This is a pattern I made up and is only in my head for now!  I might write the pattern one day, who knows. 

Linking with Myra, Amanda and Sarah

Oh Baby

Island Batik had sent me a Dotalicious 'Wind' pack of 10" squares in this years first shipment box to use for our Ambassador monthly challenges.  These are super fun brights, perfect for a crib quilt.  I used the freebie pattern from Amy Smart.  I did change up the borders a bit to get the size for the challenge. My quilt ended up 40" x 48".

Here is a peek at the cute Dotalicious line, see all the fun bring colors in the packet on the bottom. The lavender on top is what I used for my background.  The dark purple I used for the binding. 

Aurifil lavender was my choice of thread for the piecing and the bobbin while longarm quilting it.  The freehand quilting is a swirl flower type of design.  And you get a closeup of some of the squares. 

What a fun project!  








































And because the quilt is purple, here is what is blooming in my yard that is purple.

Linking with Main Crush Monday, Monday Making, Linky Tuesday, Midweek Makers

Don't forget there is still time to visit all the blogs on the 12 Days of Christmas blog hop, today is day 11.  You can find my day HERE.  Sarah has all the blogs listed on her post today HERE.  There is lots of great inspiration for you to get crafting your Christmas gifts right away!  Also Sarah has had to postpone the announcement of the winners of the hop until Aug. 4th as she has had a family matter to attend to.